(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Just Where is the Emerging Threat from China? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-02 In all the recent mayhem of AR-15 murder and killer climate crisis tornadoes it was easy to miss another element of American insanity in the news, our burn pit Pentagon requested an annual budget of $840 billion, an increase of $40 billion, the stated rationale for the increase “emerging threats from China.” America spends half its available cash on the military while other human problems of screaming importance are so blithely ignored, it’s unbelievable we have regressed to an $800 billion Pentagon budget, now they want even more? For the sake of the truth and our hungry kids this ridiculous and disgusting proposal will be rebutted here, faith in Congress or the journalism corps extremely low in doing so. The ultimate nightmare of nation states is what we have in Ukraine, the failed authoritarian state of Putin’s Russia run amok with invasion. Leaving that particular nightmare aside, do the Chinese have the potential to become such a rogue actor? Please. Where and what for? Are the Chinese insane enough to take on India at heinous cost for some kind of slave raid? Occupation of India would be impossible and fruitless. In theory China could militarily expand and occupy to the south in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, but what on earth for? Costs of terrible smashing scope for territory and resources they simply do not need. Taiwan, the lone province of the 1949 revolution that didn’t join in and is now a decent small democracy, what are the odds of invasion there? Extremely low, the cost and scope of military tasks are astronomical for the hazy small returns, if Taiwan could have been politically and militarily subjugated it would have happened long ago. President Biden recently said we’d defend Taiwan from invasion or attack, so what, it’s not happening anyway. If capitalism gave the queasy reaction of massive investing to an authoritarian China state at least there was the comforting knowledge of economic interdependence, for China to go militarily rogue would mean abandoning its massive trade economy in elements and scope that would equal plain smashing insanity. Making the galactic assumption China goes rogue and the equally huge assumption the United States pulls the war trigger to stop them, in their present and projected military state do the Chinese have the ability to successfully take on the United States? No way. War with America means two pods of Nimitz class aircraft carriers, six ships in 2 groups equalling roughly 240 F-18 SuperHornets that no air force in the world could take on, let alone the Chinese, the air wing of the US Navy could militarily annihilate the Chinese in 2 weeks. So the Chinese have a new anti-ship missile we didn’t know about and sink 4 carriers, in one day $50 billion worth of equipment and 10,000 Navy personnel are scattered on the bottom of the South China Sea. That still leaves the totally stealthy forces of the Navy submarine force and Air Force B-2 fleet, either of which could completely smash the Chinese with no losses in a month, they are that good and capable. At $800 billion American Pentagon annual spending the Chinese are never taking on the United States, they would quickly lose and have huge elements of their own forces in utter tatters, it’s simply not ever happening. Even if they were stupid enough to do so, do they really want to take on a nuclear risk too? Right. All of this insanity rests upon the assumption that China is a basely robust country, which isn’t the case at all, currently the Chinese are ensnared in a vivid, hugely stark population crisis. So many elements of a brutally authoritarian Chinese government are so repulsive and repressive the Chinese have simply stopped having children. If the Chinese don’t get it together on this within 20 years they will have ruinous catastrophic problems that will instantly slot military adventurism to the insane fantasy it always was, the country could easily fall apart in catastrophic mayhem if younger generations simply vanish. To my Pentagon brothers and sisters so blithely requesting $40 billion more annually: shut up. You have been granted an unbelievable fortune to build the greatest military machine ever built with nothing to show for it but hideous failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, your technology of death does nothing to solve our human American problems while still nobody can take you on. Just Jesus Mary & Joseph shut up, take your $800 billion for death machines, they’ve served us all so well so far, yes. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/2/2161622/-Just-Where-is-the-Emerging-Threat-from-China Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/