Apparently, according to my extraordinarily unscientific poll, when it comes to what country we think is going to be a big problem we give the nod to China. Not surprising, although what was mildly surprising was the way it was the top vote-getter.
The Chinese are famous for taking the long view of things. American politics tends to focus on short periods (like, say, four or eight years) when it comes to policy making… the Chinese, on the other hand, are in it for the long haul. I’ll give you an example:
I was reading an article about an airport in Sri Lanka that was built to handle a million passengers a year, but serves only 50,000. Who backed the construction of the airport? China. Why? Well, ostensibly its a development project for Third World countries. Mind you, its a development project that conveniently creates a large airport with runways capable of handling military transport. Interesting, that. And as you read about China’s other endeavours, you see more ‘long game’ maneuvering… long-term leases on huge swathes of African farmland spring to mind. And, again, those infrastructure improvements that look pretty noble and generous but are easily converted to military use.
You guys are all familiar with their recent activities in the South China sea, right? China is building islands in contested waters to give them a military launchpad for regional actions. Forward thinking stuff.
Economically, we hear about how China is the biggest buyer of US debt. A popular end-of-the-world scenario is China dumping that debt and doing tremendous financial damage to the US.
And there’s always that niggling little detail about how dang near everything we buy is Made in China. That includes electronic devices which sometimes mysteriously come with spyware already loaded into it that reports back to……?
Perhaps the Russians aren’t doing anything that China isn’t already doing, they just do it quieter. But, I’m of the opinion that between the two countries, I’d say China is a more viable threat than Russia because China’s focus is on economic warfare and dominance, whereas Russia seems to just go for the military. It’s the difference between being robbed by a shady accountant or by the guy in an alley with a baseball bat.
So, yeah, I’m in that percentage that voted China as the biggest problem.
I’ll agree with biggest problem but not threat. Putin is nearing the end of his life expectancy for a Russian man and political career. He has a huge nuclear arsenal and military at his disposal. He has no respect for borders and rule of law. He wants the glory of the Soviet Union restored. Really a man who has nothing to lose. So in the short term war with Russia is my vote because if that happens I won’t be too concerned about Chinas end game and I will be wishing I found your blog a lot sooner than I have.
Yes commander, China is nefarious with their investments outside of their country. Although they have a billion mouths to feed that are now accustomed to middle class ( their new standard) lifestyles. They are laying ground work ( smart mandarins they are) for securing resources,trade routes, and garrisoning their sector of the globe. They learned from nippons/japanese about being over stretched, no bad investments by policy planners or be shot in the head. Forget not that this is also grand planning by globalists/ oligarchs/party members to carve up sectors of control if-should the usa fail to control trade routes/ exert and extend global military dominance/ or dollar dominated finance-oil trade. We in the f.u.s.a. may be relegated to geriatric hospice conditions like the former greek, roman, or english empires (cough). Stay frosty.
China only has to be the “biggest problem” if we manage to convince ourselves that we have a truly strategic interest in containing China’s expansion. Personally I don’t think we do. Plenty of other folks who hate their guts – let’s let them “die for their countries”.
Also, fundamental to the South China Sea issue is that, China *really believes* the SCS is a part of ‘China’. They will be “dying for their homeland” so to speak, whereas U.S. personnel will be dying to maintain the ‘international status quo’. Not a very inspiring cause, to say the least.
“Let then have it”, I say. There’s really nothing out there worth dying for.
Tim:
You say “let them have it”. This would backfire!
Success breeds success – enough is NEVER enough…
Nowadays, as opposed to those times leading up to WW2, there are damn few young Americans who are willing to die for anything…..well, maybe snapchat….
Our ‘old timey’ mindset neglects the fact that we have no massive military anymore, and that our interests are protected by Technology. Lemme see, how many Chinese soldiers streamed across the Yalu River back in the Korean War? We are woefully equipped to fight for Anything……’cept maybe to get to the head of the line to get the latest iPhone.
I voted for Russia being the biggest threat, but I see collapse, disorder, and disease as being the most likely threat.
The only reason China holds our debt bonds is to have dollars to buy oil. And those bonds long ago went from long term to short term redeemable. The soy in the trade war mostly goes to pork first, rather than people, and rather than a danger it is merely an inconvenience. We are in a very dangerous game where we hold no cards.
When almost half of the electorate choose not to vote because the choices are so dismally bad…
http://brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/
When the latest poles say only two-thirds of young millennials, aged 18-24, are totally sure the Earth is round…
https://earther.com/millennials-can-t-buy-homes-but-can-they-buy-that-the-1825034269
When the government chooses to start looking over the shoulders of simple bloggers and keep track of their political views…
https://biglawbusiness.com/homeland-security-to-compile-database-of-journalists-bloggers/
I would say the greatest danger to the not so United States is from the inside not the outside.
Mike:
When it comes to millennials. you couldn’t get a 100% result if you asked them to all point at the ground!
They are sure they have a right to be wrong…
Don’t forget the new Silk Road project that will connect China to Europe with spurs to India and eventually Africa or 3/4 the world population(now that is a market to sell to and from which to get resources). Oil contracts in gold convertable yuan will soon supplant petrodollarsl(hollow paper vs real moneyl)and they are about the only ones we won’t attack for it(Iraq,Libya et al)