I think I've seen this movie before.

The page link goes to "whoops!"

The last time I kissed my arse goodbye was 2 years ago, it was premature. Mr. Grady Means' is posturing his paranoia prematurely. 

Mutually Assured Destruction equals Mutually Assured Deterrence and my holy bodily fluids are doing just fine.

'The return to safe global strategic balance will require America regaining the world's respect, and our enemies' fear.'

And how, pray tell, is a world living in terror 'safe?'

You understand the concept of a self-negating premise, do you not?

Don't ask me. I didn't write the damned article. I just posted the opinion.

Say what, you don't grow into what you seed? ; - )

LOL nope

The last six months have shown that is far beyond the abilities if Joe Biden.

Says the man living in a country that instills fear and paranoia in both it's enemies and allies. 

Really?  How?  I didn't think China was the world's policeman that goes and fights wars in other countries.  In fact, China provides more soldiers for the UN Peacekeeping Forces than any other nation. 

And you talk about CHINA instilling fear and paranoia....Here is how China looks at it....

US uses politics of fear to target China

chinadaily.cn

The CCP did give the US diplomats (Biden's group) a good spanking at the Alaska meeting!

"Mr Yang said human rights in the US were at a low point, with black Americans being "slaughtered".

bbc

Translating betwen Chinese and English is somewhat difficutl.  I would have used the word "murdered" instead of "slaughtered".

Either way, I think you could agree that Mr Yang put them in their place?

IMO huge benefits would be mutually enjoyed by both America and China and in fact the whole world if the accusations and bashing would stop and the countries started to cooperate.  However, I know damn well that the Republicans would jump all over Biden if he were to try to normalize relations with China.

the Republicans would jump all over Biden if he were to try to normalize relations with China.

Recognize Taiwan?

Today you were “Too clever by half”.   All you had to do was agree with me.

Gotta find SOMEWHERE to sell the arms, or where would the American economy be?  Keep stirring the pot, it's good for business.

'...where would the American economy be?'

That's the thing. When your economy is based on the military industrial complex, world peace would be devastating.

When your economy is based on the military industrial complex

Is it?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe arms exports average around a quarter of all American export income.  That's quite a bite. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe arms exports average around a quarter of all American export income.  That's quite a bite. 

I dunno, which is why I'm asking.

It certainly seems like we stopped being the military industrial complex a long time ago and started being the healthcare industrial complex. 

Our healthcare spending is about 6 times the defense budget.

Maybe if the CCCP government would actually allow you to get news outside of their propaganda machine once in a while.

nbcnews

China is trying to wear down its neighbors with relentless pressure tactics designed to push its territorial claims, employing military aircraft, militia boats and sand dredgers to dominate access to disputed areas, U.S. government officials and regional experts say.

The confrontations fall short of outright military action without shots being fired, but Beijing's aggressive moves are gradually altering the status quo, laying the foundation for China to potentially exert control over contested territory across vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean, the officials and experts say.

Since June, Chinese military planes, sometimes including fighter jets and bombers, have regularly flown into Taiwan's air defense identification zone, forcing Taipei to scramble fighter jets.

Taiwan's much smaller air force has struggled to keep up with the incursions, which occur on a near daily basis, and Taiwanese officials have acknowledged the strain that the Chinese flights put on its armed forces. Two Taiwanese fighter jets crashed last month, the third aviation accident for Taiwan's military since October.

Last month, Taiwan's deputy defense minister, Chang Che-ping, told parliament the military would no longer scramble jets every time the Chinese encroached the air defense zone, and instead would track the incoming planes with land-based missile defense systems.

“We are considering the war of attrition issue,” Chang said.

Although Taiwan has a well-trained, modern air force, officials concluded that the odds were stacked against them, said Gregory Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. China has more aircraft and more pilots than Taiwan, and the strain on the crews and the wear and tear on the airplanes would only grow over time.

“If it's a numbers game, China is going to win ,” Poling said.

A similar scenario has played out across the South China Sea and the East China Sea, with Taiwan, the Philippines and other governments struggling to fend off China's numerous maritime militia boats, coast guard vessels and naval ships venturing into disputed territory.

The Chinese are “trying to grind them down,” said a senior U.S. Defense official.

To the south off the coast of the Philippines, a flotilla of Chinese maritime militia have been stationed around Whitsun Reef in the Spratly Islands for months, refusing repeated demands from Manila to leave the area.

At one point last month, up to 200 Chinese vessels, which Beijing insists are merely fishing boats but which the Philippines and U.S. officials say are part of a maritime militia, were anchored around the reef. By refusing to budge, the large group of boats is effectively controlling access to a wider area that lies inside the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

The Philippine foreign ministry has accused China of infringing on its sovereignty and said that the boats' “swarming and threatening presence creates an atmosphere of instability.”

China has refused to withdraw the boats and argued Whitsun Reef is part of Chinese territory, accusing the Philippines of trying to deny China access to traditional fishing grounds.

“We hope the Philippines will look at this objectively and correctly, immediately stop wanton hype … and avoid casting negative influence on bilateral relations and the overall peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a recent press briefing.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Whitsun Reef is a key location for China as it lies at the northern end of Union Banks, a large atoll, and Beijing already dominates the southern and middle end of the atoll with artificial islands it created over the past decade, according to Jay Batongbacal, director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines.

“Control of Whitsun Reef enables them to control the entire Union Banks,” Batongbacal said.

The area is also near military bases built by Vietnam, which has rival territorial claims in the South China Sea. The large Chinese presence has made it “painfully clear to the Vietnamese that it's China who controls Vietnam's access to its own bases,” Poling said.

The Philippines has a miniscule military compared to China, and its navy is outmatched just by China's large coast guard ships. But Manila has tried to rally international support against Beijing's presence and reminded China that it has a defense treaty with the United States. The Biden administration has explicitly cited its obligations to the Philippines in more than one sharply worded statement, condemning China's actions at the reef.

“As we have stated before, an armed attack against the Philippines armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea, will trigger our obligations under the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.

The tough words from the administration have been accompanied by a show of naval force in the Pacific, with the Navy announcing the presence of a Virginia-class submarine in the region, the USS Illinois, along with an amphibious assault ship, the USS Makin Island, operating with the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier group.

China has not threatened to open fire on Philippine naval ships or military aircraft. In past encounters, China has avoided combat, and relied on what analysts call “gray zone tactics” that fall below the threshold of warfare but nevertheless incrementally shift conditions in their favor over time.

The stand-off at the reef is a perfect example of China's “playbook” to extend its control and influence, Batongbacal said, relying on civilian activity initially such as fishing, that is soon backed up with shows of strength from coast guard ships or naval vessels, overwhelming numbers and bold territorial assertions.

A similar strategy played out around another disputed area over the past two decades, Mischief Reef, according to Batongbacal. In that case, China initially built small huts in the 1990s that it said were for fishing. By 2015, it became a major military outpost with missile batteries, bolstering China's power in the South China Sea.

Mischief Reef is one of a network of bases with hangars, runways and deep ports that China has steadily expanded in the South China Sea, putting other countries with competing territorial claims at a disadvantage.

“They are quietly and incrementally developing the capabilities of their island bases to control the South China Sea,” Batongbacal said.

“Through this strategy, they have turned the southern part of the South China into an area where they currently dominate in military and civilian terms, a far cry from where they were in the early 2000s when they were basically at parity with the other Southeast Asian states.”

In a separate confrontation with Taiwan, China has deployed a massive array of sand dredgers near the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands, forcing Taipei to deploy coast guard ships to escort them out of the area.

The Chinese tactics have thrust a difficult choice on Taiwan. If it ignores the intrusions, Taipei would send a signal that Beijing has de facto control over the area. But if it tries to confront the sand dredgers, the Taiwan Coast Guard could find itself stretched to the breaking point, Poling said.

“China's never presenting any overt military threat with this, but it's clearly steadily eating away at Taiwan's military readiness, and affecting the balance of power.”

It's a similar pattern across the region, with China pushing the boundaries without ever crossing a red line, Poling said.

“Beijing never really presents you with a clear deadline with a reason to use force. You just find yourselves worn down and slowly pushed back,” he said.

Poor little picked on China. They remind of the high school bully that tormented me, who finally found out it was me that turned him into the police; and then acted shocked, simply shocked, that I could betray him that way! Said he would "Never trust another of his victims again!" That is the CCCP in a nutshell. They go around threatening everyone in the neighborhood; knowing that none of them can stand up against China- even combined (like that ever would happen). And then acts offended when the US shows up to and forces it to back down just a little.

[ deleted ]

'...if the accusations and bashing would stop and the countries started to cooperate.'

Agreed! That things are where they are attests to the terminal corruption of our political system.

"Maybe if the CCCP government would actually allow you to get news outside of their propaganda machine once in a while."

I guess the many times I've said this seems to have been ignored.  Every day I watch and read the CTV Canada Television News, USA Today, BING news, The MSN conglomerate of multiple news sites for American news and the MSN conglomerate of multiple news sites for World news, and yes I do read the China Daily because unlike most, if not all, NT members I like to know BOTH sides of stories before I comment, and believe it or not I can open FOX News here, when I could use a laugh.  And I have no VIP or special way to abridge censorship, but use a normal internet service same as most Chinese people. 

The US is the largest arms exporter in the world by a long way. 

statista

The US is the largest arms exporter in the world by a long way. 

No doubt.  But that doesn't mean we're a "military-industrial complex".  

We exported about $175 billion of arms in 2020.  We spent over 20 times that on healthcare.

The defense budget was $714 billion, which dwarfs every other country in the world.  We still spent well over 5 times that on healthcare.

So it appears that the "military-industrial complex" may be a somewhat antiquated idea.

So it appears that the "military-industrial complex" may be a somewhat antiquated idea.

Whether one believes there is or isn't a military-industrial complex this article is well worth reading and gives a different insight into the ''complex''

stacker

That article is quite an education.  The scary thing is how important it is for the economy of the USA to keep producing weapons, and then looking for where to use them in order to make their production worthwhile.  The 20-year war was a godsend.  Now the fact that America is turning its eyes to China makes me somewhat uncomfortable. 

That article is quite an education.  The scary thing is how important it is for the economy of the USA to keep producing weapons, and then looking for where to use them in order to make their production worthwhile.  The 20-year war was a godsend.  Now the fact that America is turning its eyes to China makes me somewhat uncomfortable. 

Defense is one of those things like insurance.  You're convinced you're spending far too much on it until all of a sudden you need it and then you wish you had better stuff than you do.

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?"  (Andrea del Sarto - Robert Browning)

Could become the motto of the USA.

Biden brings the World closer to nuclear war?  Really?  How?

Besides, conservatism is dead.  It's ideology is even more dead.  All it tries to sell is fear, ignorance and the hollowness of the MAGA.

Funny how all these morons get on here "Biden's not brining the world closer to nuclear war" then provide absolutely NOTHING to back up their claims.  Even propaganda like CNN are smart enough to provide at least ONE link, story or comment to substantiate their opinion.  

"Funny how all these morons get on here "Biden's not brining the world closer to nuclear war" then provide absolutely NOTHING to back up their claims"

You require backup for a denial of a claim for which there is no valid backup?  LOL

Over the past six months, the world has edged closer to nuclear war than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Doomsday Clock is ticking toward midnight.

The Doomsday Clock is an actual thing, managed by a group of atomic scientists who move the clock closer to midnight when the world is deemed to be in increasing peril. It HAS NOT been moved forward since Joe Biden became president. 

It was moved forward three times during Trump's presidency though. 

The hysteria in the seed has nothing to do with the Doomsday Clock. 

'The hysteria in the seed...'

The saying 'desperate times call for desperate measures' applies here. Extremists want desperate measures. So continually they must peddle desperate times.' This is a tactic used with intentional malice to destabilize the state and drive it in the direction their narrative favors.

Good analysis.