China is a sick place

[OGTEleven]

Yeah, like the freedom to shop at places like Walmart and buy cheap Chinese goods that helps support the Chinese gov't and costs Americans their jobs, and the freedom for our gov't to continue deficit spending and borrow from the Chinese.  China doesn't have to attack the U.S. to gain power and influence, we're giving it to them.

527172[/snapback]

This is something I don't get.

 

I'm being serious, not sarcastic. Over the years, your posts seem to indicate an affinity for government control of economies, industries, etc.

 

Shouldn't all of this stuff with China make you happy? Is it really so bad that WalMart has to make some short term profits while we'll all merrily on our way to a much more enlightened system such as China's?

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

Governments all over the world are a sham anyway.

 

Multinational corporations have been and always will be the true power in this world.

[Alexander Hamilton]

Governments all over the world are a sham anyway.

 

Multinational corporations have been and always will be the true power in this world.

530064[/snapback]

 

W

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[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Governments all over the world are a sham anyway.

 

Multinational corporations have been and always will be the true power in this world.

530064[/snapback]

 

"Don't blame me, I voted for Wal-Mart"

[X. Benedict]

"Don't blame me, I voted for Wal-Mart"

530253[/snapback]

I voted for K-mart. I don't really trust a corporation until they have been through a

bankruptcy so they can relate to their constituents better.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

I voted for K-mart. I don't really trust a corporation until they have been through a

bankruptcy so they can relate to their constituents better.

530260[/snapback]

 

But Wal-Mart had a plan.

 

Of course, I think that plan was "Vote for me, I'm not K-Mart! K-Mart bad!"

[blzrul]

I've already put it on my calendar.

527317[/snapback]

You shouldn't confuse defense with agreement with his position. He may be so full of crap he has extra to throw around , but I mislike incivility of such an extreme nature as you well know.

 

There may be times when we agree, hopefully in such areas as Tom Donoho-ho-ho needs to be given the boot. Now THAT you can mark on your calendar too.

 

And to think I selected this coming weekend to go to Buffalo to freeze my butt off on a Saturday night watching the Bills get killed by Denver. ah well.

[Taro T]

You shouldn't confuse defense with agreement with his position.  He may be so full of crap he has extra to throw around  ,  but I mislike incivility of such an extreme nature as you well know.

 

There may be times when we agree, hopefully in such areas as Tom Donoho-ho-ho needs to be given the boot.  Now THAT you can mark on your calendar too.

 

And to think I selected this coming weekend to go to Buffalo to freeze my butt off on a Saturday night watching the Bills get killed by Denver.  ah well.

530398[/snapback]

Well, if you don't have Bills tickets yet or even if you do, the Sabres are playing the Pens in the Mmarena that evening. So you can actually come into town and (hopefully/likely) see the home time play well. I doubt the game is sold out yet, but it very likely will be, especially if the Sabres win Wednesday and/or Friday. Game time was moved up to 5:00PM to reduce the conflict w/ the Bills game.

[Simon]

Even the Soviets, being a power house were weak militarily,

 

You can't be serious. At any time during the cold war, if they would have chosen to cross their borders the Soviet/Warsaw pact would have rolled right over NATO. Regardless of our deep-strike doctrine or our techological superiority, the Soviets could have had central Europe in their back pocket any time they wanted it. And as much damage as we could have initially affected, in the long run there was not anything we could have done to stop them.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

You can't be serious. At any time during the cold war, if they would have chosen to cross their borders the Soviet/Warsaw pact would have rolled right over NATO. Regardless of our deep-strike doctrine or our techological superiority, the Soviets could have had central Europe in their back pocket any time they wanted it. And as much damage as we could have initially affected, in the long run there was not anything we could have done to stop them.

530494[/snapback]

 

He is serious.

 

But you've got to remember: he's an idiot. This is the same clown that asked if sound travels faster than light in space.

[Chilly]

All that means is that they opened a New York branch, which is nothing new for China.  They've been opening front companies in the US to acquire technology that can't be sold abroad and channel it back

527236[/snapback]

 

Yeah, I've heard about those two, but the person that told me about the Lenovo thing made it seem to be different then that. Oh well.

[Ghost of BiB]

He is serious.

 

But you've got to remember: he's an idiot.  This is the same clown that asked if sound travels faster than light in space. 

530507[/snapback]

 

I prefer to think he's joking. Would have been a mess, but we would have won. they knew it too.

[Simon]

Would have been a mess, but we would have won. they knew it too.

I'd be interested to hear your definition of "win".

We might ahve eventually liberated much of central Europe because that's just too much turf to hold. But the Soviets would've exacted a steep price from us just to get back to square one. I don't think there's any chance we could have done much more than play to an incomprehensibly bloody stalemate. And we'd have probably lost a lot more assets as well as spending a lot more chits than the Sovs(I suppose I should start calling them Russians one of these days, eh?-) having to operate so far from home.

Over a long long long long period, superior US industry may have eventually enabled us to hold our ground, but envisioning any more than that strikes me as a sort of homerism.

Cya

[GG]

You can't be serious. At any time during the cold war, if they would have chosen to cross their borders the Soviet/Warsaw pact would have rolled right over NATO. Regardless of our deep-strike doctrine or our techological superiority, the Soviets could have had central Europe in their back pocket any time they wanted it. And as much damage as we could have initially affected, in the long run there was not anything we could have done to stop them.

530494[/snapback]

 

I don't know if I buy that. I think that the timing is very important. The further you got away from the '50s, the less effective the USSR military had become.

[Simon]

The further you got away from the '50s, the less effective the USSR military had become.

I think you could fairly say the same for us. People who know far more than I do on the subject have claimed that in the 60's,and then even more so in the '70's and '80's that the US military was in a state of total disarray. Morale and effectiveness were possibly at an all-time low and I shudder to think what would have happened if the Bickering Bills of US military history were forced into a large reponse.

[sweet baboo]

The number of protests in China's vast, poverty-stricken countryside — home to about 800 million people — has risen in recent months as anger comes to a head over land seizures, corruption and a yawning wealth gap that experts say now threatens social stability.

 

The government says about 70,000 such confrontations between officials and rural residents occurred last year, although many more are believed to go unreported. The clashes also have become increasingly violent, with injuries sustained on both sides and huge amounts of damage done to property.

could get interesting if this gets out of hand...china will be too busy dealing with internal problems to worry about taking over taiwan

[Ghost of BiB]

I'd be interested to hear your definition of "win".

We might ahve eventually liberated much of central Europe because that's just too much turf to hold. But the Soviets would've exacted a steep price from us just to get back to square one. I don't think there's any chance we could have done much more than play to an incomprehensibly bloody stalemate. And we'd have probably lost a lot more assets as well as spending a lot more chits than the Sovs(I suppose I should start calling them Russians one of these days, eh?-) having to operate so far from home.

Over a long long long long period, superior US industry may have eventually enabled us to hold our ground, but envisioning any more than that strikes me as a sort of homerism.

Cya

530581[/snapback]

 

It's not homerism, it's tactics, training, weaponry and strategy. During the late 70's and early 80's I was involved in V Corps warplanning for the Fulda Gap. It would have been bloody on a tremendous scale, but we would have won. The biggest problem we had was the concept of a forward defense, rather than a defense in depth back to the Rheine because of the German's insistence, but that also would have worked in some ways to our advantage. The Soviets relied on massed, stacked formations along a broad front, at the onset - no way they could mobilize that in a hurry, which would allow Reforger to reinforce the heavy divisions NATO already had in place. It would also have allowed for the demolition of every critical transportation node, bridge, and mountain pass along the border. 30,000 tanks and APC's don't do a lot of good parked because there is nowhere for them to go but into a kill zone.

 

The most critical part would not have been holding the ground, it would have been protecting the sea lanes in the Atlantic.

 

Soviet power in that part of the world would be reduced to a shell of it's former self, and they would have little choice but to either surrender meaningful to us (but not neccessarily that meaningful to them) concessions, or going global.

 

None of it was ever likely to happen anyway, without some tripwire in another part of the world, or a strange combination of events that would have pushed them over the top. The whole thing started, because they were afraid of another German invasion down the road anyway.

[Simon]

It's not homerism, it's tactics, training, weaponry and strategy. During the late 70's and early 80's I was involved in V Corps warplanning for the Fulda Gap. It would have been bloody on a tremendous scale, but we would have won. The biggest problem we had was the concept of a forward defense, rather than a defense in depth back to the Rheine because of the German's insistence, but that also would have worked in some ways to our advantage. The Soviets relied on massed, stacked formations along a broad front, at the onset - no way they could mobilize that in a hurry, which would allow Reforger to reinforce the heavy divisions NATO already had in place. It would also have allowed for the demolition of every critical transportation node, bridge, and mountain pass along the border. 30,000 tanks and APC's don't do a lot of good parked because there is nowhere for them to go but into a kill zone.

 

The most critical part would not have been holding the ground, it would have been protecting the sea lanes in the Atlantic.

 

Soviet power in that part of the world would be reduced to a shell of it's former self, and they would have little choice but to either surrender meaningful to us (but not neccessarily that meaningful to them) concessions, or going global.

 

None of it was ever likely to happen anyway, without some tripwire in another part of the world, or a strange combination of events that would have pushed them over the top. The whole thing started, because they were afraid of another German invasion down the road anyway.

530632[/snapback]

 

 

Damn that must hve been some fascinating work. I had always assumed the extended battlefield doctrine came about due to a combination of our relative lack of assets in teh area and our skills with regards to strategic bombing. The idea that NATO believed it had enough strength in the area to actually hold forward positions against so much Soviet armor kind of amazes (or confuses) me.

What made the Atlantic so problematic? Would NATO have abandoned Norway if really pressed?

 

Damn, I miss the cold war and the comparatively straightforward strategy of engaging a bunch of godless bolshies who were happy to all be in one place at the same time.

[tennesseeboy]

Damn that must hve been some fascinating work. I had always assumed the extended battlefield doctrine came about due to a combination of our relative lack of assets in teh area and our skills with regards to strategic bombing. The idea that NATO believed it had enough strength in the area to actually hold forward positions against so much Soviet armor kind of amazes (or confuses) me.

What made the Atlantic so problematic? Would NATO have abandoned Norway if really pressed?

 

Damn, I miss the cold war and the comparatively straightforward strategy of engaging a bunch of godless bolshies who were happy to all be in one place at the same time.

530728[/snapback]

I suspect that if there had been an attack by the Soviet Union all bets would have been off. They would have taken a great deal of Central Europe, our containment plan (more of a political sop to Germany than anything even our military expected to hold) would have collapsed and we would have had an old fashioned reinvasion of Europe, or possibly would have been on the verge of going nuclear as the Soviets threatened Italy or France. Negotiated peace with an expansion of Soviet interests in Europe.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

I suspect that if there had been an attack by the Soviet Union all bets would have been off.  They would have taken a great deal of Central Europe, our containment plan (more of a political sop to Germany than anything even our military expected to hold) would have collapsed and we would have had an old fashioned reinvasion of Europe, or possibly would have been on the verge of going nuclear as the Soviets threatened Italy or France.  Negotiated peace with an expansion of Soviet interests in Europe.

530739[/snapback]

 

Why am I not suprised that you hold this viewpoint?

 

Never mind that tactically, technologically and strategically our military was vastly superior to the Soviet Union's. Never mind that war would have likely seen us with air superiority. Yeah, just because they had numbers, they wouldn've overran us.

 

 

Take a look at the Chinese in Korea. They outnumbered us, what? 10 to 1?

 

Best they could do was a stalemate, because their communist centralized tactics were completely over-matched by the US general staff.