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Must be nice to be China. We (the USA) knew this and yet had no response. China's economic tentacles are so engained in our lives that we are left powerless. Su

• melling 4y ago
  “China's economic tentacles are so engained[sic] in our lives that we are left powerless” To be clear, we did that to ourselves. Hope everyone enjoyed cheaper stuff for the past couple of decades. By the way, military spending as a percentage of GDP has gone way down. https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941/ https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2002099941...
  • chiefalchemist 4y ago
    Yes, we did. Spending as a percentage of GDP isn't really a helpful metric. What it was 5, 10, 25, etc. years ago, well that was then and this is now. And right now people across the US political spectrum are feeling cheated, let down, etc. Another over-priced fighter jet isn't going to help where we are presently. It's a question of focus and priorities. You said it yourself, we did it to ourselves. Why? Because swinging our big military dick all the time led us to believe we were invincible. And yet we haven't changed? We out spead the next 10 or so counties *combined* and the majority of those are our allies. On top of that, all that spending (for example) didn't stop Russia did it? Didn't stop China from agreeing to supply weapons to Russia did it? The MIC is real. But it's a 20th Century paradigm in 2023, what could go wrong?