Why would Russia and China object to the US pulling out the big guns and killing a large portion of people who are causing all the problems? The war hurts their interests more than it hurts US interests. And the world does sit idly by and watch the mayhem while criticizing the US actions or inactions.

Other than the US embassy what property or bank accounts could China freeze to seriously harm the US? And for a million soldiers to get any where close to the US they would have to execute the "million man" swim to get there. One word: logistics. Geography has always given the US an advantage. There is not a single country on the planet who can project military power any where in the world on a moments notice except for the US. No other country has as many foreign military bases around the world as the US. Bases that are there because the foreign governments have welcomed them for various reasons. Bases that were built after WW2 to place trip wires to deter potential aggression against US allies. SK is the best example.However, the US has always vacated any base were the host asked them to. The Philippines are sort of regretting their decision as well as Iraq. And in the event that things get really out of hand a nuclear war would devastate all sides so there is really nothing to talk about in that dismal case. If missile defense technology continues to advance to the point of rendering ICBM's and cruise missiles useless we could see another non-nuclear WW3 in the future.

About the idea of China owning much of the US debt. Over 80% of the national debt is owned by the US Federal Reserve. The remaining debt is parceled out in bonds and investment certificates to countries and regular people. China and a lot of other countries stash large sums of cash in US financial instruments. The US is recognized as one of the safest and stable places to invest their money. And in the unlikely event that the US and China were to start a war or do anything else that pisses off the US government their assets can be frozen with a signature.

I think you would be hard pressed to find "idiot programmers" working in the MS kernel space. The same goes for Apple, Linux, Google, and the other top OS developers. You can hate the companies all you want but the developer talent they have collected is impressive. About the only other place you may find better talent is at the NSA. If you want to see some real "idiot programmers" you should look at the vast number of application developers.

The "shortsightedness" is giving away your technology advantages to a country that is slowly losing their only advantage, namely cheap labor. Low labor costs and little to no corporate regulations in the labor and environmental areas plus some considerable currency manipulation has allowed China's exports to surge. Now other countries in SE Asia are able to compete with China's low labor costs while China's labor force is asking for better wages and benefits which if granted would help stimulate their domestic economy. If China cannot improve it's citizens buying power the size of their market will no longer justify doing anything to enter their market. China may post a high GDP but their per-capita statistics are far behind countries such as Japan and the US. China is not known for their innovation or quality they are just manufacturing what others have designed. Companies willing to give China all their proprietary technology just to operate within China is a one time event. If they decide to move their manufacturing out of China they don't get to ask for their technology back. One good example is when Google folded up their tents and left China instead of capitulating to China's demands.

Most of the chips built in China are being built by fabs set up by foreign companies, not indigenous Chinese foundries. There is a big difference. I can't understand why so many companies are willing to provide their technical knowledge to China just to do business with them. Even for people looking to make an extra buck off the cheap labor should see the shortsightedness of taking this path.

Communism is a failed and impracticable ideology. It sounds good on paper but in reality it doesn't scale. It dampens motivations, incentives, and brings progress to a stop. The only equality produced by communist policies is when everyone are equally poor. Communist slogans and rhetoric preach equality of the masses while demonizing anyone who dares to succeed and attain wealth. But the harsh reality is that people are not equal. Some contribute more to society than others and they expect more for their efforts. The leaders of the countries espousing communism are just pandering to their populations to foster the impression that the state really does care about the common man. The only equality to be found in communism is making everyone equally poor. Meanwhile the leaders of these countries are some of the richest people on the planet. The Great Leap Forward was just Mao's way of consolidating his power while removing anyone who might challenge his rule.

China is quintessential corporatism in action. The total merger of state and corporate power controlled by a board of directors commonly called the "Party". The country has not been communist for a long time and there are strong arguments supporting idea that they truly were never communist in the first place. The Chinese citizens have absolutely no way of influencing any government policies and decisions. Even simple non-violent protesting is frowned upon and suppressed by the government if it threatens the status quo . The government programs aimed at benefiting it's citizens do just enough to keep a lid on dissent and mass protests, and China definitely contains a lot of mass. China built it's economy on cheap labor and a fair amount of currency manipulation instead of adding their currency to the international basket of currencies and allowed to float in relation to other economies. Theses two pillars of economic policy are not sustainable. There are other countries capable of providing low cost labor. The Chinese citizens uplifted by the economic gains are starting to demand higher pay and benefits which is a well established principle in nationalistic economy model. The country may have risen up to be a world economic power but their Per capita statistics are still far behind countries such as Japan and the US. It is possible for a state to have a high GDP but if that success doesn't translate down to the average citizens it is a pretty meaningless metric.

China and Russia,like most countries, are good at making grandiose plans but so far they have not fulfilled their lofty sounding goals. They seem to be stuck in the "Linux will dominate the desktop next year" prediction model. The last Chinese-Russian joint effort to send a satellite to Mars blew up in the atmosphere. Of course the US has had their share of failures but both China and Russia have not displayed any ground breaking technology advances that surpassed US efforts and capabilities in space. The US may need to hitch a ride to the ISS but at $70 million a seat it is a lot cheaper than maintaining the old shuttle program.

The multilingual internet will be the prime catalyst of the next global war. Nuclear or otherwise. The Internet is the strategic propagandists most effective weapon. Influencing public opinion has never been easier for both governments and civilians. And there is absolutely no possibility of the US, Russia, China, or any other nuclear powers given up their nuclear arsenals so you can stop wasting your breath and pick another world injustice to protest. All of the past nuclear arms treaties are meaningless. What difference does it make if the US or Russia reduces it's warhead inventory by a few thousand warheads when they still retain thousands more?

If he had only released the information related to domestic programs he would not be exiled in Russia and under threat of arrest the minute he leaves Russia. He could have used the foreign surveillance information as a bargaining chip to severely limit or even eliminate any legal consequences in the US. He could have returned all the information on foreign intelligence programs for a get out of jail free card. The government would have excepted that deal in a minute. The information on the domestic programs would still have been made public which is what he claimed to be his stated goal. By releasing information on the foreign intelligence programs he showed another goal which was to damage the US in any way possible regardless of the consequences. His claims about vetting the information to determine if the disclosures would be dangerous or not showed an unprecedented level arrogance on his part. How would he know what information is dangerous and what information is not? He set himself up as the sole authority and arbitrator for determining what information constitutes danger.

Whats the difference? Cell phone technology would have falling into the fantasy or magic category 200 years ago along with just about every other high tech gadget in use today.

There are currently a lot of smart and well funded global efforts to create alternative energy sources. And people would be surprised how much money the current Oil companies are investing in alternative fuel research. They know eventually that fossil fuel use will decline and they would like to be as dominate in the alternative energy market as they are in the hydrocarbon extraction market. Whoever gets there first with a viable alternative energy source will reap enormous profits. And as long as we are talking about science fiction I think harnessing zero-point energy technologies would be really cool.

Of course it is about the money just like everything else. However, The money spent on military technology advancements eventually results in that technology ending up in the civilian domain.

Military R&D has translated into the rapid advancement of civilian commercial applications that benefits not only the US but everyone else in the world, friend or foe. If you have a new technology idea and want the government to fund it you need to offer up a possible military application for the science no matter how tenuous. Your chances of getting funding increase. The GPS system started as a purely military project. The feasibility of a redundant node based distributed networking system (ie Internet) was a DARPA military project. The not so visible contributions are advances in materiel sciences, rocket sciences, computer technologies, medical advances in trauma and prosthetics , aeronautics, civilian radar networks, alternate fuel technologies. The navy is working on turning sea water into a renewable energy source for ships at sea and self-sustaining solar powered field tents. All of these technologies paid for by the military budget eventually end up in the civilian domain and as an added benefit you also end up with the most advanced and lethal military force on the planet.