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http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_china_123104,00.html

www.fas.org/irp/agency/oni/chinanavy2007.pdf

I think you will enjoy this. they have a quite better navy than you think.

Hmm? the first one is old, nothing new, and doesn't change my appraisal of the situation one bit: I am talking about invasion, not interdiction, blackading or ship-ship combat. I am talking about invasion, which requires huge amounts of troops and materielle to be transported. Currently, I see little capacity for this.

The second thing you gave me will have to be carefully looked over before I can even begin to assess it... 144 pages long, that will most likely take a few weeks of reading, comarisons, and such, so again, I will not comment on that(though thanks, (will be a good read hopefuly).

The first one is not meant to change your opinion. It's meant to base your thinking on that, while you work on the 2007 report.

My commanding officer gave me this report, when you said China I thought of this. There is one more report that tells about the construction of the ships, I'm looking for that one right now. This one does give detail of that, just the other report tells far more detail. This report gives a bios of the state of the Chinese navy so it will jump around.

Note: Yeah, that report is quite long. Took me a week to read it all. Some of it is wish wash.

And the simple rules of economics cause more people to consume more foreign goods, because of their cheapness, instead of domestic products. This causes average Americans basically to screw themselves, because once supply and demand kick in, it's the American jobs that are lost, and the small local businesses that are eliminated.

The excess consumerism that I'm speaking of though is something different. It's the fact that one individual doesn't *need* two i-pods. It's the fact that there are huge wastes of resources that could be better used in other areas... that as we're buying s**t that we don't need or even want, just fot the sake of doing so, we're consuming a disproportionate quantity of the world's resources that could be better used on people who actually have unfulfilled physical needs.

The US is not under direct threat of invasion yet, but the EU could pose a threat in the next few decades. In some ways reminds me of Germany at a certain point. If the Middle East could join together, then they could threaten us, but a growing Islamic Europe is also a threat. Say the two were to become one, then, we'd have some problems.

I disagree on France, they are in no position to go into anything right now because of the amount of social unrest. I don't know if you guys heard but pretty recently there were mass riots all over France, the police stations around Paris were burnt to the ground and people were firing on cops with shotguns, had wounded 12 and were saying they wouldn''t stop until 2 were dead (the cops killed two immigrants). At the moment it's called down but it's a very uneasy situation.

As for who would attack, just wait till we go after Iran and Russia and China jump in to give Iran aid (they already have). Then they're involved in a military conflict with us, although it probably wouldn't end in invasion of the US, we'd most likely be bombed a few times. If they wanted to invade they'd go through South America at us because it's a huge border, there are several countries there who wouldn't mind aiding in an attack on the US, and that's the closest side to them.

Red Dawn?

The American jobs are lost because of the inherent flaws of capitalism. There will always be a tension between the interests of the worker and that of the capitalist. The worker always seeks higher wages and improved conditions, whereas the capitalist wants the most labor at the lowest cost so as to produce the maximum profit. Capitalism functions because there's a sort of balance between the two. However, in cases like the US economy, that balance is no longer there, because US laws are such that workers' rights are to a certain degree protected, when international laws are not. Therefore it's significantly more profitable for large businesses to move their factories overseas, where the workers don't have the power to stand up for themselves, and so they won't have to pay as much money. Workers in the US get screwed, because they can no longer find jobs, and workers in other countries get exploited and have poor working conditions. The only people winning in this case are the capitalists.

This leaves open the question as to why US workers don't take to the streets and further stand up for their jobs and rights. This is where excess consumerism comes in... we've created for ourselves a culture in which a significant amount of people live a relatively comfortable life. Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses, which kept people from revolting... but in our more cynical age, we've got our i-pods, computers, television, etc. It's like a drug; it sucks up people's time, and convinces them that they're more secure than they actually are. There's a media image that we're well off as a society, and there's a certain amount of stigma attached to people who don't live up to this, within society at large. So people go into increasing debt to give themselves the 'American Dream,' and one day this whole mess is going to reach the breaking point. The cost of living keeps soaring... minimum wage went up a bit, but still didn't adjust for inflation, and most certainly didn't adjust for the rising cost of gas. Most Americans commute to work, and so the rising cost of gas means that there's a lot less real money that the working class sees. In rural areas, you've got to have a car to get to your job, but especially with minimum wage jobs, you're not really earning that much because it costs so much to get there.

^^Sorry, randomly ranting there.