18 ms·

China will soon have air power rivalling the West’s

55 points by fmihaila 9y ago

caio1982 9y ago
For a moment I was hoping this to be some groundbreaking air pollution feat, alas. The naive downside of not being a native english speaker :-)
- z2 9y ago
  If the naivety is actually a healthy bit of optimism when taking in information, then that's not so bad!
arialeks 9y ago
I see this as good news, no country should rein supreme as that would most certainly allow it to misuse it's power, instead having two competitors guarantees, to some degree at least, that neither will abuse it's position.
- eloff 9y ago
  In principle, yes. In reality, look at how they use their power. You don't see the US taking territory and resources at gunpoint from Mexico and Canada, like China in the South China Sea. You don't see parallels to the Taiwan situation. Let's not pretend that communist China acts with the same level of integrity in the world as the USA. Not the the US hasn't done many questionable things, but by and large the US has invaded countries and brought them democracy and freed their people from dictators. China would do the opposite if they could get away with it, look at Nepal, Hong Kong. I spent 10 years in Panama, where although many people still resent the US invasion, chiefly over the loss of life - the country is unquestionably better off today for it.
  - arialeks 9y ago
    As someone whose country was destroyed by the US and is still taking damage and being oppressed by them, I tend to disagree with your opinion, in fact both China and Russia have been way more helpful.
    - reducesuffering 9y ago
      Could you elaborate more details on your country, what the US has done, and how China and Russia have been more helpful?
  - orijing 9y ago
    Are you sure about that? I live in California, which was previously Mexican territory. I also have friends from Texas, which was also Mexican territory. Perhaps your point is that the US became less imperialistic since then, but that's easy to say once it's taken what it wants. China sees Taiwan as an integral part of the "Greater China", a still unresolved problem from the past century's wars. It sees the South China sea as its own backyard. Can you imagine the US response if China were sailing military vessels provocatively close to the cost of continental US? I'm not saying either is right. I'm pointing out that the US is not without its hypocrisies either, and that each country has its own flaws.
    - eloff 9y ago
      That was hundreds of years ago when the world was a very different place. In a post WWII, post UN world, the standards for behavior for nation states are very, very different. The point I'm trying to make is the world has largely moved beyond that, but China still thinks it's ok to steal territory from it's neighbors. If the situation were reversed and Chinese vessels were patrolling in international waters in the Caribbean to dissuade the US from taking territory from it's neighbors there, I'd be cheering them on. That's not to say the USA doesn't do their fair share of despicable or hypocritical things, but by and large they have been a much better steward of power than China. I think the world will come to miss those days of American leadership in this century.
    - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
      170 years ago. Hardly relevant now. At the time conquest was considered a legitimate way to acquire territory. That changed with the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928 and the UN Charter in 1945.
    - khuey 9y ago
      > Can you imagine the US response if China were sailing military vessels provocatively close to the cost of continental US? Thankfully we don't have to imagine. https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/china-is-spying-on-rimpac/ https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/china-is-spying-on-rimpac/ "“It has not entered the territorial seas of the U.S. and it is in accordance with international law regarding freedom of navigation,” Capt. James said in a statement released to the Wall Street Journal. He explained that the ship was in Hawaii’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The U.S. maintains that freedom of navigation for all international ships extend to countries’ EEZs, and it has long maintained ships inside China’s EEZ."
  - figjamjam 9y ago
    The US is currently trying to start WWIII with Russia, the damage for this is yet to play out. The US installed a CIA backed dictator in Panama. When he stopped playing ball the US decided to use Panama as a cheap testing ground for their new weapons. Panamanians are mainly thankful for the canal and the fact they're not Columbian. Panama is great because it's a drug money laundering tax haven that's protected from serious international retribution by a ruling jewish elite. Which is why I live in Panama.
    - eloff 9y ago
      You're remarkably off base on just about everything. I think the only thing you said which is correct is that Panamanians are thankful for the canal and to be independent of Columbia.
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Flagged for gratuitous anti-semitism (to wit: neither the current, nor the former President are jewish)
      - figjamjam 9y ago
        I don't have any anti-semitic feelings towards the jews. The jews here make up ~10K of the 20K upper class and I live in Punta Pacifica which is a jewish area. I consider their influence to be instrumental for preventing many of the policies that have severely tarnished other Latin American countries.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    I'd say the treatment of Cuba has some parallels to the Taiwan situation. And there have been many comments in recent months pointing out that China is actually acting with a lot more integrity on the international stage as the US with regards to, for example, the Paris Climate Treaty. With regards to Panama: let's not forget that the US actively supported Noriega until they changed their mind.
    - eloff 9y ago
      Yes, all good points. Although I think (hope?) the policies of Trump are not representative of past or future US policy. Nobody, group, or nation is all good or bad, it's always somewhere on a slider between the two. China does many admirable things that the US would do well to follow. But I think it's also clear that the US ranks better on that sliding scale.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    > You don't see the US taking territory and resources at gunpoint from Mexico... Not in this century. It happened, though. But I agree with your larger point. The US has not always been pure in how it used its power, but I don't trust China very far in terms of how it uses power. (Tibet, Vietnam, South China Sea, North Korea...)
  - yesenadam 9y ago
    >You don't see the US taking territory..at gunpoint from Mexico >by and large the US has invaded countries and brought them democracy and freed their people from dictators Hahaha. I mean really. It's amazing that educated people can be brainwashed to believe this absolute nonsense. The first of those statements show, I don't know, breathtaking historical ignorance, or something, it's hard to explain otherwise. You don't see it because it already happened, long ago. The second is the official line heard in the US mainstream media and White House press statements etc. I was brought up believing it too. But it's very far from reality. It's been more usual since the 1890s for democracy, self-determination, refusal to submit obediently to US bullying, standing up to the US, to be the very reasons for invasion. It's thoroughly depressing to learn the history. It's the opposite of what you're told. The US has installed dictators, often military types given a load of US weapons. The US prefers dictators—whatever makes for docile 'stability' and exploitation by US business, and democracy is unpredictable, uncontrollable. Then, disgustingly, the US media is filled with stories of how it was all to bring democracy to a land threatened by communists, terrorists, instability etc. And more bilge about doing God's sacred work on earth etc. > the same level of integrity in the world as the USA hehehe. Ah I don't know if it's much use my saying this stuff to people on here. The reality is soooo different from what people in the US are taught to believe. So different that you'll feel physically sick when it starts to dawn on you.
    - eloff 9y ago
      I'm not from the USA, nor am I ignorant of history. I used the present tense, because I'm talking of modern times. You cannot judge countries in the past by today's standards. Things were just different then. You also should not say that the US prefers dictators, I don't think that's ever been true. But sometimes they see it as the lesser evil when the populace would go against US interests - which is certainly hypocritical.
      - yesenadam 9y ago
        OK, sorry if some of my assumptions were incorrect. >sometimes they see it as the lesser evil when the populace would go against US interests So here democracy is 'the greater evil'. Countries have their own interests, the US has just often tried to stomp out any chance of other countries achieving theirs. If anyone tries to do the to the US it's met with moral outrage. Same with 'free markets'. Endless preaching them, actually it's the last thing corporations want.
- OmarIsmail 9y ago
  The converse is that having one supreme superpower is better for world peace because there's nobody to compete with them militarily. Therefore there's only one power that can decide to take military action (the superpower). This is because the weak players won't start a war because they will get crushed. However, if N > 1 powers are on equal footing where starting a war does NOT mean you get crushed, now there's N > 1 actors that can start a very large war. And that may have compounding effects where likelihood of war isn't just Percentage * N, but instead some exponent of N because the increased likelihood of war itself increases the likelihood of war. One country misusing its power is probably less destructive to humanity than superpowers militarily fighting (i.e. number of deaths/problems caused by US wars since WW2 is substantially less than deaths during WW2).
- jamra 9y ago
  Actually having two competitors is what causes the most bloodshed in the world. War by proxies erupt and they play chess with other people’s lives.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Indeed. This is what is currently in progress at the Turkey-Syria border between the US and Russia. Estimates place the casualties between 400k and over a million people [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_Civil...
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > having two competitors is what causes the most bloodshed in the world If by "most bloodshed" you mean the population-adjusted (or unadjusted) incidence of violent mortality, bipolarity has its proponents [1][2]. Unipolarity has traditionally been seen as nice in the short-run but inherently unstable in the long [Cf 3]. One point on which there is agreement, however, is the violent instability of multipolar social systems. [1] http://www.rochelleterman.com/ir/sites/default/files/waltz%201964.pdf http://www.rochelleterman.com/ir/sites/default/files/waltz%2... [2] https://samuelbhfauredotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/s2-mearsheimer-2001.pdf https://samuelbhfauredotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/s2-m... [3] https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/stability-unipolar-world https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/stability-unipolar-...
  - varren 9y ago
    Actually, most of my international relations professors tend to disagree. And there is a huge amount of literature that points out that bipolar system was probably much safer for international stability, than unipolar or multipolar for a long run.(nice summary[1]) The general idea is that unipolarity is anarchical and that it will always try to produce a competitor = lots of wars to come, while in bipolar system you always have 2 strong competitors and it is in theirs interest to stop any local conflict before the second superpower uses it in its advantage. Today it is a complete different story where everyone is figing for who know what reason and USA doesn't really care to stop anyone and it probably cannot do anything in most cases, because back in the days of the cold war there was fight for power and now we actually have luck of power in most conflicts. During cold war we had a clear understanding who is finghig and major hot spots were actually pretty localized (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan), but nowadays look at Syria/Yemen/Iraq/Libya/Egypt (I try to follow international relations daily, but have a hard time to truly understand who is fighting whom at this point)War on Terror, wtf is this, some USA global war? who are they fighting really? Afghanistan? Iraq? Enforcing national interests? Who knows. It actually looks like everyone have this war on terror nowadays and USA was just one of the first to face this lack of power all over the world. Actually I'm really hoping that USA is playing the role of Orwellian big brother with constant war, because the alternative is scary: USA is already not able to control the situation and it is going to get worse, much worse. The unipolar world brought us 3-4 more nuclear powers because no one is playing by the rulls anymore. There is no policemen to enforce those rules. We have North Korea escalation not because they are playing with nukes, but because if the USA allows them to keep the weapon, everyone else will go and create one. And then we will be truly fucked up. - "The United States has been at war for thirteen of the twenty-two years since the end of the Cold War. Put another way, the first two decades of unipolarity, which make up less than 10 percent of U.S. history, account for more than 25 percent of the nation's total time at war." - "in 2014 these are the only 11 countries in the world that are actually free from conflict" [2] And if you look at [3] you can see that starting from late 70-s - early 80-s (because that's the time SU started to loose power) we have a spike in number of local conflicts worldwide and there are lots of brutal massacres in 90-s+. Most of the conflicts are in ongoing status for 30-50+ years now and we can see the rapid increase in deaths [4]. I'm not saying that it is 100% correct, most of this is just a theory and everything can change in a matter of 1-5 years, but we still have to see the emergence of new rivals of the USA hegemony and the worst case scenario is the comeback to the multipolar world of 18-19 centuries, but with everyone having nukes and who knows what else. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relations) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relati... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-peace-these-are-the-only-11-countries-in-the-world-that-are-actually-free-from-conflict-9669623.html#gallery http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-peace... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number_of_conflicts_per_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number_of_conflicts_pe...
- meri_dian 9y ago
  As others have said, having a superpower keeps the peace. Multipolar worlds tend to be ridden with conflict.
  - pishpash 9y ago
    Neither a unipolar world or a multipolar world is inherently more or less peaceful. Peace comes when you get used to living in a certain world and accept your position. Conflict happens in transitions to such acceptance.
    - meri_dian 9y ago
      When there is unipolarity, the superpower can enforce the status quo. Which produces certainty. When a superpower exists, the order of power is clear. Thus a nation has little choice but to accept its position. So according to your own definition wouldn't you agree that unipolarity produces peace?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
trisimix 9y ago
Cool, China’s not so bad. U.S needs to be kept on our toes.
- munificent 9y ago
  I'm struggling to understand why we should enthused about an arms race. Wouldn't it be better to put those resources into things that actually improve the lives of people?
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Arms races are a type of technological competition. The Cold War was an arms race that gave us the moon landing and everything that came with it. We can debate if the ends justify the means but arms races do have benefits.
  - wil421 9y ago
    Aren’t a large majority of technical advances from Military application or from Governemnt funded programs. ARPANET, solar cells, radar, microwave ovens, jet engines, GPS and drones are a few.
colemannugent 9y ago
I'm getting some serious Cold War vibes from this article: Communist country tries to get into an arms race with the US, has to choose between their preferred economic strategy and military competitiveness, ends up trying to have both. The big difference I see with China is that they have a massive booming economy. Unlike the USSR which failed to stay productive, they might be able to pull it off. But the "air power" advancements in the article seem a bit underwhelming to me. A new fighter jet, a new air-to-air missile, and another unnamed air-to-air system with longer range seem like the first steps in bringing Chinese air power up to par. It certainly doesn't suggest that they will soon be able to "rival the West", let alone the US.
- totalZero 9y ago
  The US needs more manpower and cheap manufacturing to compete with such a large adversary as China. Instead of keeping close ties with Europe, we should be investing our time and energy in building a strong fraternity among American nations.
  - DamnYuppie 9y ago
    I do not disagree with your sentiment. Yet most of America has closer cultural ties to Europe than the America's. Also the economies of Europe are much more robust and well run compared to those in Central and South America.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > The US needs more manpower and cheap manufacturing to compete with such a large adversary as China Automation.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    American ties to Europe were never entirely altruistic but about maintaining it against Russian influence and control. Whereas the US presence in South America has always been about anti-communism at any cost, including overthrowing elected governments to replace them with dictatorships (Chile); then secondarily about maintaining the drug war and its associated violence. If the US wants to get started there it should see about bringing peace to Mexico and work downwards.
FrozenTuna 9y ago
Had me interested until: "Non-state firms are helping the armed forces to develop quantum technologies that will boost their ability to make use of artificial intelligence and big data, as well as to develop unhackable communications networks." Oh boy is that buzz word central. I'm still convinced we're decades away from using quantum computing for much more than finding prime numbers. Everything I've read says we're just barely scratching the surface how to use this stuff. We're a long way off before Quantum AI uses Big Data to design military planes.
- williamscales 9y ago
  It is buzz-word central for sure. However, there is a nugget of truth in there: China is currently winning handily in the quantum teleportation race. They have been setting all kinds of records for teleporting photons to satellites. Quantum encryption is different from general purpose quantum computing. It relies on teleporting photons to communicate and it is unhackable—if someone tries to eavesdrop on a quantum encrypted communication, then the people communicating can immediately tell that this has happened. So on this one China really does seem to be ahead and the applications are not so fantastical.
  - drb91 9y ago
    I thought quantum encryption was about secure key distribution for traditional sigint, not anything about a new encryption mechanism or medium for communicating an encrypted payload or an ability to detect interception. Do you have any more information?
    - outworlder 9y ago
      You need the quantum state and a conventional communication channel. Your 'key' is basically the quantum state. So you can consider it a new encryption mechanism. Interception detection is for someone messing with the quantum state (in other words, trying to use it). Both parties will know that happened. It is not for the conventional channel.
eatbitseveryday 9y ago
We should stop spending so much money on defense as a world, and more on health, beneficial applications of scientific progress, and improving global well-being... Arms races are stupid and a waste of human talent. /rant
- ams6110 9y ago
  Indeed. Now just get all the militant and megalomanical dictators to agree.
  - neaden 9y ago
    The US currently has the largest military in the entire world by a huge amount, almost three times that of China. The US could begin to reign in military spending without being vulnerable.
- nickthemagicman 9y ago
  Can't agree more. There's members of our species that are extremely messed up and they ruin it for the rest of us.
  - pixl97 9y ago
    Our species? By that you mean everything that uses DNA right? Violence is just one part of our toolkit.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Arms races are stupid and a waste of human talent Arms races are how we got meritocracy [1], NASA, the ARPANET and other goodies. Our species has a terrible track record with non-hedonistically deploying capital without the motivation of an external threat. In that mold, a Cold War (emphasis on "cold") is a least-worst optimum. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jena–Auerstedt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jena–Auerstedt EDIT: Better source https://books.google.com/books?id=z14AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=battle+of+jena+reform&source=bl&ots=FRoOuJMWso&sig=21Xg2pkLyIGJHmMBsx7IY7F8xGs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-nY6-4rfZAhVhmuAKHUbNBTw4FBDoAQgsMAE#v=onepage&q=battle%20of%20jena%20reform&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=z14AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=...
calimac 9y ago
You need to have a base to operate air power from. I.E. Aircraft carriers. China at full speed will take 20 years to rival the projection of power of the current US Military. What is the motive of having the economist writer miss key facts that underpin the argument?
philipkglass 9y ago
Whether or not China has technology to directly threaten US aircraft carriers or air defenses is pretty inconsequential IMO. Both sides have had thermonuclear weapons and ICBMs for decades. Are US aircraft carriers immune to Chinese anti-ship weapons? Then the US gets the opportunity to spark thermonuclear war if they press that advantage against Chinese forces. Are US aircraft carriers vulnerable to Chinese anti-ship weapons? Then it's the Chinese who can start WW III by sinking them. The movie Threads is still terrifyingly relevant: https://archive.org/details/threads_201712 https://archive.org/details/threads_201712 I suppose that with improved military forces China can intervene in weaker states' affairs like other P5 members do. There's always room for another nation to participate in the Syrian civil war.
- hollerith 9y ago
  By that logic, China never would've dared to send a million soldiers to drive UN forces from North Korea during the Korean war. Nor would Turkey have dared to shoot down one of Russia's warplanes based in Syria for violating its airspace.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > By that logic, China never would've dared to send a million soldiers to drive UN forces from North Korea during the Korean war. That happened before China had nuclear weapons.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Not only did it happen before nuclear weapons, but China has never been expansionist. The soldiers it sent into Korea were to help the north koreans. For a thousand years or more China has been content to stay within it's borders.
    - sidmitra 9y ago
      I recently finished Bertil Lintners China's India War which is a counterpoint to Neville Maxwell's India's China's war. It seems the Chinese way is not expansionist by definition but instead declaring countries, land, sea as part of their historical empire and justify a war as a means for re-aquiring them. It doesn't really matter whether it was justified or not because they do everything to integrate the region after the forceful takeover.
sgillen 9y ago
Worth noting, The J-20 compares favorable to the F-35, but what really gives America it’s air superiority is the F-22, which is still unmatched by China to my knowledge. America actually sells the F-35 to other countries it likes, and there are a lot of them and they were supposed to be inexpensive. We’ve kept the F-22 to ourselves, it’s main job is taking down over planes and it’s really really good at it.
- yborg 9y ago
  >tt's really really good at it Citation needed. To my knowledge the F-22 has downed exactly zero adversary aircraft in actual air-air combat.
  - slowmovintarget 9y ago
    Beyond that, they aren't made anymore, and require a land base. (Okinawa, for example.) In a carrier v. carrier battle, the F-22 likely won't be a factor unless the chosen "ground" is in the operational vicinity of a land base. Granted, Wikipedia believes the avionics range for the F-22 is 250 miles. That shows some of the advantages of China's South China Sea strategy (taken straight out of the U.S. playbook with Caribbean).
  - hyperbovine 9y ago
    This. It's really good at things because Lockheed Martin will spend $2 trillion building it and says it is.
  - velodrome 9y ago
    This is the closest "known" interaction: U.S. F-22 stealth fighter pilot taunted Iranian F-4 Phantom combat planes over the Persian Gulf https://theaviationist.com/2013/09/19/f-22-f-4-intercept/ https://theaviationist.com/2013/09/19/f-22-f-4-intercept/
  - sgillen 9y ago
    That's a fair point, it's been very effective in "simulated combat", but I guess the military can make that say whatever you want.
Pica_soO 9y ago
Im still wondering, weather the recent progress did not render aircraft, tanks and carriers sort of obsolete alltogether. Imagine a operation team, that rents a house, carves it out, and installs - delivered in 3 or 4 container- a explosive drone factory, generators and some material supply silos. Once the conflicts start, the factory starts out churning kill vehicles like there is no tomorrow- attacking vital infrastructure, public transport- and in addition depositing droves of "fallback" mines, activated after years of delay. The result is a instantly collapsing society, without even a aggressor visible. And who was it? Anyone could have done this- its a low cost attack. Low tech, once you have the auto-factory line up. Anyone having just one of those terrorizing a city has a plausible denial. Meanwhile out on the oceans some subs and ships have a cruise with noone to strike at. Noone to strike towards, a redundant a force as a battalion of cavalary at Verdun. Its nice and shiny new toys for the not yet big boys, but the great scott help us, the day they face a dedicated advessary forced to go cheap. That would be actually a nice little addition to the mil-industrial complex- a branch forced to develop assymetric attacks, with a very low budget. That way, if you allow that branch to conduct its own exercises and manouvers - you can actually look ahead to find out what those mysterious machine guns are- before you try to solve the excession by sending in wave after wave.

55 points by fmihaila 9y ago

caio1982 9y ago

For a moment I was hoping this to be some groundbreaking air pollution feat, alas. The naive downside of not being a native english speaker :-)

z2 9y ago
If the naivety is actually a healthy bit of optimism when taking in information, then that's not so bad!

arialeks 9y ago

I see this as good news, no country should rein supreme as that would most certainly allow it to misuse it's power, instead having two competitors guarantees, to some degree at least, that neither will abuse it's position.

eloff 9y ago
In principle, yes. In reality, look at how they use their power. You don't see the US taking territory and resources at gunpoint from Mexico and Canada, like China in the South China Sea. You don't see parallels to the Taiwan situation. Let's not pretend that communist China acts with the same level of integrity in the world as the USA. Not the the US hasn't done many questionable things, but by and large the US has invaded countries and brought them democracy and freed their people from dictators. China would do the opposite if they could get away with it, look at Nepal, Hong Kong. I spent 10 years in Panama, where although many people still resent the US invasion, chiefly over the loss of life - the country is unquestionably better off today for it.
- arialeks 9y ago
  As someone whose country was destroyed by the US and is still taking damage and being oppressed by them, I tend to disagree with your opinion, in fact both China and Russia have been way more helpful.
  - reducesuffering 9y ago
    Could you elaborate more details on your country, what the US has done, and how China and Russia have been more helpful?
- orijing 9y ago
  Are you sure about that? I live in California, which was previously Mexican territory. I also have friends from Texas, which was also Mexican territory. Perhaps your point is that the US became less imperialistic since then, but that's easy to say once it's taken what it wants. China sees Taiwan as an integral part of the "Greater China", a still unresolved problem from the past century's wars. It sees the South China sea as its own backyard. Can you imagine the US response if China were sailing military vessels provocatively close to the cost of continental US? I'm not saying either is right. I'm pointing out that the US is not without its hypocrisies either, and that each country has its own flaws.
  - eloff 9y ago
    That was hundreds of years ago when the world was a very different place. In a post WWII, post UN world, the standards for behavior for nation states are very, very different. The point I'm trying to make is the world has largely moved beyond that, but China still thinks it's ok to steal territory from it's neighbors. If the situation were reversed and Chinese vessels were patrolling in international waters in the Caribbean to dissuade the US from taking territory from it's neighbors there, I'd be cheering them on. That's not to say the USA doesn't do their fair share of despicable or hypocritical things, but by and large they have been a much better steward of power than China. I think the world will come to miss those days of American leadership in this century.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    170 years ago. Hardly relevant now. At the time conquest was considered a legitimate way to acquire territory. That changed with the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928 and the UN Charter in 1945.
  - khuey 9y ago
    > Can you imagine the US response if China were sailing military vessels provocatively close to the cost of continental US? Thankfully we don't have to imagine. https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/china-is-spying-on-rimpac/ https://thediplomat.com/2014/07/china-is-spying-on-rimpac/ "“It has not entered the territorial seas of the U.S. and it is in accordance with international law regarding freedom of navigation,” Capt. James said in a statement released to the Wall Street Journal. He explained that the ship was in Hawaii’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The U.S. maintains that freedom of navigation for all international ships extend to countries’ EEZs, and it has long maintained ships inside China’s EEZ."
- figjamjam 9y ago
  The US is currently trying to start WWIII with Russia, the damage for this is yet to play out. The US installed a CIA backed dictator in Panama. When he stopped playing ball the US decided to use Panama as a cheap testing ground for their new weapons. Panamanians are mainly thankful for the canal and the fact they're not Columbian. Panama is great because it's a drug money laundering tax haven that's protected from serious international retribution by a ruling jewish elite. Which is why I live in Panama.
  - eloff 9y ago
    You're remarkably off base on just about everything. I think the only thing you said which is correct is that Panamanians are thankful for the canal and to be independent of Columbia.
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Flagged for gratuitous anti-semitism (to wit: neither the current, nor the former President are jewish)
    - figjamjam 9y ago
      I don't have any anti-semitic feelings towards the jews. The jews here make up ~10K of the 20K upper class and I live in Punta Pacifica which is a jewish area. I consider their influence to be instrumental for preventing many of the policies that have severely tarnished other Latin American countries.
- matt4077 9y ago
  I'd say the treatment of Cuba has some parallels to the Taiwan situation. And there have been many comments in recent months pointing out that China is actually acting with a lot more integrity on the international stage as the US with regards to, for example, the Paris Climate Treaty. With regards to Panama: let's not forget that the US actively supported Noriega until they changed their mind.
  - eloff 9y ago
    Yes, all good points. Although I think (hope?) the policies of Trump are not representative of past or future US policy. Nobody, group, or nation is all good or bad, it's always somewhere on a slider between the two. China does many admirable things that the US would do well to follow. But I think it's also clear that the US ranks better on that sliding scale.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  > You don't see the US taking territory and resources at gunpoint from Mexico... Not in this century. It happened, though. But I agree with your larger point. The US has not always been pure in how it used its power, but I don't trust China very far in terms of how it uses power. (Tibet, Vietnam, South China Sea, North Korea...)
- yesenadam 9y ago
  >You don't see the US taking territory..at gunpoint from Mexico >by and large the US has invaded countries and brought them democracy and freed their people from dictators Hahaha. I mean really. It's amazing that educated people can be brainwashed to believe this absolute nonsense. The first of those statements show, I don't know, breathtaking historical ignorance, or something, it's hard to explain otherwise. You don't see it because it already happened, long ago. The second is the official line heard in the US mainstream media and White House press statements etc. I was brought up believing it too. But it's very far from reality. It's been more usual since the 1890s for democracy, self-determination, refusal to submit obediently to US bullying, standing up to the US, to be the very reasons for invasion. It's thoroughly depressing to learn the history. It's the opposite of what you're told. The US has installed dictators, often military types given a load of US weapons. The US prefers dictators—whatever makes for docile 'stability' and exploitation by US business, and democracy is unpredictable, uncontrollable. Then, disgustingly, the US media is filled with stories of how it was all to bring democracy to a land threatened by communists, terrorists, instability etc. And more bilge about doing God's sacred work on earth etc. > the same level of integrity in the world as the USA hehehe. Ah I don't know if it's much use my saying this stuff to people on here. The reality is soooo different from what people in the US are taught to believe. So different that you'll feel physically sick when it starts to dawn on you.
  - eloff 9y ago
    I'm not from the USA, nor am I ignorant of history. I used the present tense, because I'm talking of modern times. You cannot judge countries in the past by today's standards. Things were just different then. You also should not say that the US prefers dictators, I don't think that's ever been true. But sometimes they see it as the lesser evil when the populace would go against US interests - which is certainly hypocritical.
    - yesenadam 9y ago
      OK, sorry if some of my assumptions were incorrect. >sometimes they see it as the lesser evil when the populace would go against US interests So here democracy is 'the greater evil'. Countries have their own interests, the US has just often tried to stomp out any chance of other countries achieving theirs. If anyone tries to do the to the US it's met with moral outrage. Same with 'free markets'. Endless preaching them, actually it's the last thing corporations want.
OmarIsmail 9y ago
The converse is that having one supreme superpower is better for world peace because there's nobody to compete with them militarily. Therefore there's only one power that can decide to take military action (the superpower). This is because the weak players won't start a war because they will get crushed. However, if N > 1 powers are on equal footing where starting a war does NOT mean you get crushed, now there's N > 1 actors that can start a very large war. And that may have compounding effects where likelihood of war isn't just Percentage * N, but instead some exponent of N because the increased likelihood of war itself increases the likelihood of war. One country misusing its power is probably less destructive to humanity than superpowers militarily fighting (i.e. number of deaths/problems caused by US wars since WW2 is substantially less than deaths during WW2).
jamra 9y ago
Actually having two competitors is what causes the most bloodshed in the world. War by proxies erupt and they play chess with other people’s lives.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Indeed. This is what is currently in progress at the Turkey-Syria border between the US and Russia. Estimates place the casualties between 400k and over a million people [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_Civil...
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > having two competitors is what causes the most bloodshed in the world If by "most bloodshed" you mean the population-adjusted (or unadjusted) incidence of violent mortality, bipolarity has its proponents [1][2]. Unipolarity has traditionally been seen as nice in the short-run but inherently unstable in the long [Cf 3]. One point on which there is agreement, however, is the violent instability of multipolar social systems. [1] http://www.rochelleterman.com/ir/sites/default/files/waltz%201964.pdf http://www.rochelleterman.com/ir/sites/default/files/waltz%2... [2] https://samuelbhfauredotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/s2-mearsheimer-2001.pdf https://samuelbhfauredotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/s2-m... [3] https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/stability-unipolar-world https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/stability-unipolar-...
- varren 9y ago
  Actually, most of my international relations professors tend to disagree. And there is a huge amount of literature that points out that bipolar system was probably much safer for international stability, than unipolar or multipolar for a long run.(nice summary[1]) The general idea is that unipolarity is anarchical and that it will always try to produce a competitor = lots of wars to come, while in bipolar system you always have 2 strong competitors and it is in theirs interest to stop any local conflict before the second superpower uses it in its advantage. Today it is a complete different story where everyone is figing for who know what reason and USA doesn't really care to stop anyone and it probably cannot do anything in most cases, because back in the days of the cold war there was fight for power and now we actually have luck of power in most conflicts. During cold war we had a clear understanding who is finghig and major hot spots were actually pretty localized (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan), but nowadays look at Syria/Yemen/Iraq/Libya/Egypt (I try to follow international relations daily, but have a hard time to truly understand who is fighting whom at this point)War on Terror, wtf is this, some USA global war? who are they fighting really? Afghanistan? Iraq? Enforcing national interests? Who knows. It actually looks like everyone have this war on terror nowadays and USA was just one of the first to face this lack of power all over the world. Actually I'm really hoping that USA is playing the role of Orwellian big brother with constant war, because the alternative is scary: USA is already not able to control the situation and it is going to get worse, much worse. The unipolar world brought us 3-4 more nuclear powers because no one is playing by the rulls anymore. There is no policemen to enforce those rules. We have North Korea escalation not because they are playing with nukes, but because if the USA allows them to keep the weapon, everyone else will go and create one. And then we will be truly fucked up. - "The United States has been at war for thirteen of the twenty-two years since the end of the Cold War. Put another way, the first two decades of unipolarity, which make up less than 10 percent of U.S. history, account for more than 25 percent of the nation's total time at war." - "in 2014 these are the only 11 countries in the world that are actually free from conflict" [2] And if you look at [3] you can see that starting from late 70-s - early 80-s (because that's the time SU started to loose power) we have a spike in number of local conflicts worldwide and there are lots of brutal massacres in 90-s+. Most of the conflicts are in ongoing status for 30-50+ years now and we can see the rapid increase in deaths [4]. I'm not saying that it is 100% correct, most of this is just a theory and everything can change in a matter of 1-5 years, but we still have to see the emergence of new rivals of the USA hegemony and the worst case scenario is the comeback to the multipolar world of 18-19 centuries, but with everyone having nukes and who knows what else. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relations) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarity_(international_relati... [2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-peace-these-are-the-only-11-countries-in-the-world-that-are-actually-free-from-conflict-9669623.html#gallery http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-peace... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_by_death_toll [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number_of_conflicts_per_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number_of_conflicts_pe...
meri_dian 9y ago
As others have said, having a superpower keeps the peace. Multipolar worlds tend to be ridden with conflict.
- pishpash 9y ago
  Neither a unipolar world or a multipolar world is inherently more or less peaceful. Peace comes when you get used to living in a certain world and accept your position. Conflict happens in transitions to such acceptance.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    When there is unipolarity, the superpower can enforce the status quo. Which produces certainty. When a superpower exists, the order of power is clear. Thus a nation has little choice but to accept its position. So according to your own definition wouldn't you agree that unipolarity produces peace?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

trisimix 9y ago

Cool, China’s not so bad. U.S needs to be kept on our toes.

munificent 9y ago
I'm struggling to understand why we should enthused about an arms race. Wouldn't it be better to put those resources into things that actually improve the lives of people?
- mulmen 9y ago
  Arms races are a type of technological competition. The Cold War was an arms race that gave us the moon landing and everything that came with it. We can debate if the ends justify the means but arms races do have benefits.
- wil421 9y ago
  Aren’t a large majority of technical advances from Military application or from Governemnt funded programs. ARPANET, solar cells, radar, microwave ovens, jet engines, GPS and drones are a few.

colemannugent 9y ago

I'm getting some serious Cold War vibes from this article: Communist country tries to get into an arms race with the US, has to choose between their preferred economic strategy and military competitiveness, ends up trying to have both. The big difference I see with China is that they have a massive booming economy. Unlike the USSR which failed to stay productive, they might be able to pull it off. But the "air power" advancements in the article seem a bit underwhelming to me. A new fighter jet, a new air-to-air missile, and another unnamed air-to-air system with longer range seem like the first steps in bringing Chinese air power up to par. It certainly doesn't suggest that they will soon be able to "rival the West", let alone the US.

totalZero 9y ago
The US needs more manpower and cheap manufacturing to compete with such a large adversary as China. Instead of keeping close ties with Europe, we should be investing our time and energy in building a strong fraternity among American nations.
- DamnYuppie 9y ago
  I do not disagree with your sentiment. Yet most of America has closer cultural ties to Europe than the America's. Also the economies of Europe are much more robust and well run compared to those in Central and South America.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > The US needs more manpower and cheap manufacturing to compete with such a large adversary as China Automation.
- pjc50 9y ago
  American ties to Europe were never entirely altruistic but about maintaining it against Russian influence and control. Whereas the US presence in South America has always been about anti-communism at any cost, including overthrowing elected governments to replace them with dictatorships (Chile); then secondarily about maintaining the drug war and its associated violence. If the US wants to get started there it should see about bringing peace to Mexico and work downwards.

FrozenTuna 9y ago

Had me interested until: "Non-state firms are helping the armed forces to develop quantum technologies that will boost their ability to make use of artificial intelligence and big data, as well as to develop unhackable communications networks." Oh boy is that buzz word central. I'm still convinced we're decades away from using quantum computing for much more than finding prime numbers. Everything I've read says we're just barely scratching the surface how to use this stuff. We're a long way off before Quantum AI uses Big Data to design military planes.

williamscales 9y ago
It is buzz-word central for sure. However, there is a nugget of truth in there: China is currently winning handily in the quantum teleportation race. They have been setting all kinds of records for teleporting photons to satellites. Quantum encryption is different from general purpose quantum computing. It relies on teleporting photons to communicate and it is unhackable—if someone tries to eavesdrop on a quantum encrypted communication, then the people communicating can immediately tell that this has happened. So on this one China really does seem to be ahead and the applications are not so fantastical.
- drb91 9y ago
  I thought quantum encryption was about secure key distribution for traditional sigint, not anything about a new encryption mechanism or medium for communicating an encrypted payload or an ability to detect interception. Do you have any more information?
  - outworlder 9y ago
    You need the quantum state and a conventional communication channel. Your 'key' is basically the quantum state. So you can consider it a new encryption mechanism. Interception detection is for someone messing with the quantum state (in other words, trying to use it). Both parties will know that happened. It is not for the conventional channel.

eatbitseveryday 9y ago

We should stop spending so much money on defense as a world, and more on health, beneficial applications of scientific progress, and improving global well-being... Arms races are stupid and a waste of human talent. /rant

ams6110 9y ago
Indeed. Now just get all the militant and megalomanical dictators to agree.
- neaden 9y ago
  The US currently has the largest military in the entire world by a huge amount, almost three times that of China. The US could begin to reign in military spending without being vulnerable.
nickthemagicman 9y ago
Can't agree more. There's members of our species that are extremely messed up and they ruin it for the rest of us.
- pixl97 9y ago
  Our species? By that you mean everything that uses DNA right? Violence is just one part of our toolkit.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Arms races are stupid and a waste of human talent Arms races are how we got meritocracy [1], NASA, the ARPANET and other goodies. Our species has a terrible track record with non-hedonistically deploying capital without the motivation of an external threat. In that mold, a Cold War (emphasis on "cold") is a least-worst optimum. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jena–Auerstedt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jena–Auerstedt EDIT: Better source https://books.google.com/books?id=z14AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=PA220&dq=battle+of+jena+reform&source=bl&ots=FRoOuJMWso&sig=21Xg2pkLyIGJHmMBsx7IY7F8xGs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi-nY6-4rfZAhVhmuAKHUbNBTw4FBDoAQgsMAE#v=onepage&q=battle%20of%20jena%20reform&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=z14AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA220&lpg=...

calimac 9y ago

You need to have a base to operate air power from. I.E. Aircraft carriers. China at full speed will take 20 years to rival the projection of power of the current US Military. What is the motive of having the economist writer miss key facts that underpin the argument?

philipkglass 9y ago

Whether or not China has technology to directly threaten US aircraft carriers or air defenses is pretty inconsequential IMO. Both sides have had thermonuclear weapons and ICBMs for decades. Are US aircraft carriers immune to Chinese anti-ship weapons? Then the US gets the opportunity to spark thermonuclear war if they press that advantage against Chinese forces. Are US aircraft carriers vulnerable to Chinese anti-ship weapons? Then it's the Chinese who can start WW III by sinking them. The movie Threads is still terrifyingly relevant: https://archive.org/details/threads_201712 https://archive.org/details/threads_201712 I suppose that with improved military forces China can intervene in weaker states' affairs like other P5 members do. There's always room for another nation to participate in the Syrian civil war.

hollerith 9y ago
By that logic, China never would've dared to send a million soldiers to drive UN forces from North Korea during the Korean war. Nor would Turkey have dared to shoot down one of Russia's warplanes based in Syria for violating its airspace.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > By that logic, China never would've dared to send a million soldiers to drive UN forces from North Korea during the Korean war. That happened before China had nuclear weapons.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Not only did it happen before nuclear weapons, but China has never been expansionist. The soldiers it sent into Korea were to help the north koreans. For a thousand years or more China has been content to stay within it's borders.
  - sidmitra 9y ago
    I recently finished Bertil Lintners China's India War which is a counterpoint to Neville Maxwell's India's China's war. It seems the Chinese way is not expansionist by definition but instead declaring countries, land, sea as part of their historical empire and justify a war as a means for re-aquiring them. It doesn't really matter whether it was justified or not because they do everything to integrate the region after the forceful takeover.

sgillen 9y ago

Worth noting, The J-20 compares favorable to the F-35, but what really gives America it’s air superiority is the F-22, which is still unmatched by China to my knowledge. America actually sells the F-35 to other countries it likes, and there are a lot of them and they were supposed to be inexpensive. We’ve kept the F-22 to ourselves, it’s main job is taking down over planes and it’s really really good at it.

yborg 9y ago
>tt's really really good at it Citation needed. To my knowledge the F-22 has downed exactly zero adversary aircraft in actual air-air combat.
- slowmovintarget 9y ago
  Beyond that, they aren't made anymore, and require a land base. (Okinawa, for example.) In a carrier v. carrier battle, the F-22 likely won't be a factor unless the chosen "ground" is in the operational vicinity of a land base. Granted, Wikipedia believes the avionics range for the F-22 is 250 miles. That shows some of the advantages of China's South China Sea strategy (taken straight out of the U.S. playbook with Caribbean).
- hyperbovine 9y ago
  This. It's really good at things because Lockheed Martin will spend $2 trillion building it and says it is.
- velodrome 9y ago
  This is the closest "known" interaction: U.S. F-22 stealth fighter pilot taunted Iranian F-4 Phantom combat planes over the Persian Gulf https://theaviationist.com/2013/09/19/f-22-f-4-intercept/ https://theaviationist.com/2013/09/19/f-22-f-4-intercept/
- sgillen 9y ago
  That's a fair point, it's been very effective in "simulated combat", but I guess the military can make that say whatever you want.

Pica_soO 9y ago

Im still wondering, weather the recent progress did not render aircraft, tanks and carriers sort of obsolete alltogether. Imagine a operation team, that rents a house, carves it out, and installs - delivered in 3 or 4 container- a explosive drone factory, generators and some material supply silos. Once the conflicts start, the factory starts out churning kill vehicles like there is no tomorrow- attacking vital infrastructure, public transport- and in addition depositing droves of "fallback" mines, activated after years of delay. The result is a instantly collapsing society, without even a aggressor visible. And who was it? Anyone could have done this- its a low cost attack. Low tech, once you have the auto-factory line up. Anyone having just one of those terrorizing a city has a plausible denial. Meanwhile out on the oceans some subs and ships have a cruise with noone to strike at. Noone to strike towards, a redundant a force as a battalion of cavalary at Verdun. Its nice and shiny new toys for the not yet big boys, but the great scott help us, the day they face a dedicated advessary forced to go cheap. That would be actually a nice little addition to the mil-industrial complex- a branch forced to develop assymetric attacks, with a very low budget. That way, if you allow that branch to conduct its own exercises and manouvers - you can actually look ahead to find out what those mysterious machine guns are- before you try to solve the excession by sending in wave after wave.