give it a decade or two

russia gets more decrepit, china gets more powerful

china is not going to do anything until it's an easy grab

that's some simple nice pat hindsight

i'm sure all the countries where they were stuck under the failed system for decades were happy there was no need to resist and it would just go away on it's own

heck they should have just let the entire western hemisphere, the usa even, fall to communism and just let things run their course, right?

are you telling me the chinese have common culture with coral sponges?

no one lives there. no one ever did. it's a fucking joke that china claims these atolls clearly the property of the philippines

as for russia being an ally, you're historically ignorant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split

i wasn't thinking about tom clancy, i was thinking about recent history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict

not to mention manchuria and beyond has been a war field between russia, japan, and china for decades in recent history

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Port_Arthur

china, today, has border arguments with all its neighbors, all around

but russia?

shhh

all quiet on the western front

ominous

ruling?

they floated boats there

they made maps

that's not rule

i was going to argue with you but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries

you are correct sir

you're about 75 years too late

isolationism's heyday has come and gone

appeasement doesn't work. it just emboldens aggressors

it's POTS

the world is everyone's interest

you nip problems when they are small and far away, or when they are large and on your border

those are your choices in life

i'm glad the usa is involved heavily in the world- by that i do not mean wars, i mean policy questions, like diplomacy with iran

you make enemies sure. you also make a lot more friends

isolationism is a failed, loser's attitude

why do you have to view problems only through the lens of the usa's motives?

you do realize there are other actors in the world right? they have their own agenda and their own organic, original actions

the world does not actually revolve around the usa

if you can only view every international question through "well the usa..."

you're doing it wrong

the topic adequacy police has spoken

we have to move on now

delete your comments and find a new topic

if the self-appoint judge disapproves again, you need to abandon that thread too

i'm sorry folks, but the topic adequacy police is in charge here, we all know that

honest question:

why don't they just go after siberia?

130 million russians (and shrinking, population wise and economically) versus 1.3 billion chinese (and growing, population wise and economically) sounds like good odds

why piss so much over tiny reefs off the philippines when one good thrust can increase you country's size by a third or more, with fertile resources

siberia is even closer to beijing than it is is to moscow

the chinese claim islands off the philippines because some asshole put it on a map once

certainly they can find some ancient map of siberia in their archives, since that's apparently all the justification the chinese need to claim land

well said

false complacency is as dangerous as false alarmism

propaganda is never made up. it's always truth

or rather, half-truth

completely true statements, with context and certain facts omitted, so as to suggest something else entirely

there is never a need to lie. just carefully omit certain facts

well that sounds nice except that history teaches us that warmongers often come out on top in civil wars and continue the carnage abroad after consolidating power