@Lizard:
Well said.
I suppose my comments earlier were not so much directed at your statements themselves, but on the inferences that the careless or unscrupulous might make from your statements. In the main, I agree with you.
Maybe I've just been haunted in recent weeks by a 20 CD audio book I just finished, Max Hastings's "Catastrophe 1914." There are uncomfortable similarities between Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, and our own time now:
* Long period of relative peace and stability that made war seem like a thing of the past.
* Tight interconnection of the ruling houses of the major participants (England, Germany, Russia, Austria).
* Military and the public blissfully unaware of what modern war truly meant.
* A complicated alliance system that made it difficult to stop a conflagration once started.
The analogy is not perfect, of course.
But I do expect some sort of conflict to arise with China within the next 50 years or so. Why? I think history suggests this as an outcome.
Usually in history, when two rival powers have competed for the same economic turf, the one that has failed in the economic competition has made war upon the other. China's continued economic growth, its armament, and its increasing penetration of Latin American markets is not going to sit well with the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. Recall that Japan in the 1930s had signed deals with Uruguay for the establishment of free trade zones that directly challenged American economic power in its own perceived backyard.
Well said.
I suppose my comments earlier were not so much directed at your statements themselves, but on the inferences that the careless or unscrupulous might make from your statements. In the main, I agree with you.
Maybe I've just been haunted in recent weeks by a 20 CD audio book I just finished, Max Hastings's "Catastrophe 1914." There are uncomfortable similarities between Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, and our own time now:
* Long period of relative peace and stability that made war seem like a thing of the past.
* Tight interconnection of the ruling houses of the major participants (England, Germany, Russia, Austria).
* Military and the public blissfully unaware of what modern war truly meant.
* A complicated alliance system that made it difficult to stop a conflagration once started.
The analogy is not perfect, of course.
But I do expect some sort of conflict to arise with China within the next 50 years or so. Why? I think history suggests this as an outcome.
Usually in history, when two rival powers have competed for the same economic turf, the one that has failed in the economic competition has made war upon the other. China's continued economic growth, its armament, and its increasing penetration of Latin American markets is not going to sit well with the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. Recall that Japan in the 1930s had signed deals with Uruguay for the establishment of free trade zones that directly challenged American economic power in its own perceived backyard.