- US Adm. John Aquilino said China’s military is building up at a rate not seen since World War II.
- That puts it on the path to meeting its goal of being ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, he said.
- Aquilino, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, urged Washington to accelerate military development.
China’s rapid military build-up is more expansive than anything seen since World War II, which means it’s on track with its 2027 goal to be ready for a Taiwan invasion, said US Navy Adm. John Aquilino.
“All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027,” Aquilino wrote in a testimony to the US Armed Services House Committee.
“Furthermore, the PLA’s actions indicate their ability to meet Xi’s preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed,” added the admiral, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command.
outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, urged Washington to accelerate military development.
Better yet. Instead of spending a trillion dollars to gear up to join WW3, how about spend that money to develope domestic manufacturing so we can completely embargo all imports from China. Stay out of conflicts between other nations.
Hit them in the economy and it will hurt them far more than hitting them with bombs, plus the bonus effect of not wasting thousands if not millions of human lives.
That is the thing. We funded the Chinese build up. Stupid to fund a hostile nation.
We shouldn’t do business with China, period. Not only would our economy grow like crazy, but China would decline and become less of a threat to the world.
Ironically could have learnt something from China. Just said fuck you we got everything we need on this side and close the border.
Except food, China is a net importer of food. I wonder what would happen if it stopped, would the CCP fall or would they all just starve until the population stabilized.
stay out of conflicts between other nations
Exactly. There’s no way Hitler’s will try to take Poland. Even if he does, it’s not like the Nazis or Japanese would attack the US.
Americans can’t afford housing, homelessness is increasing, healthcare is unaffordable; and you want its population to support teabagging the rest of the world like it’s 1945. When militaries spread themselves thin, without the nation taking care of its home population, that spells trouble. Ask Rome.
Sounds like you’ve never visited the US.
I’ve only lived here my whole life.
I don’t believe you.
Why? Because I’m not Blue MAGA like you? Read A People’s History of the United States, and if you’re still gung-ho about American Exceptionalism, more power to ya.
You have no idea who I am.
though luck
All of those problems are because of political corruption, not raw money in/out. The US spends 3.5% of GDP on military, a lot, but not the most. Ranked #10 globally for military spending per GDP. Russia spends more than the US.
US is not Rome, at least not yet, or anytime in the immediate future.
That puts the Kremlin’s war budget at 4.1%, but their 2024 budget puts military spending at 6% GDP. If they go over (like they did last year by 12%) it’ll be even higher. Some analysts think there’s even more hidden spending not being captured in these numbers.
I’ll tell this to Terry, the homeless veteran who can’t afford insulin for his untreated diabetes from agent Orange that the U.S. is only ranked 10th in military spending per GDP and ask what he thinks.
The question should not be “how much?” But “why?” If it’s to preserve our “way of life.” Whose way of life? Certainly not Terry’s.
Porque no los dos?
Um the thousands of human lives part? That’s why we shouldn’t do both?
Paradoxically, a large standing army will mean less likelihood of conflict. Deterrence works.
Canonical
The idea behind a massive build out of weapons is so nobody even dares to point a barrel in your direction.
The downside is that everybody else will try to find a way to make those weapons irrelevant, like swarms of $1.000 drones bypassing million dollars air defenses.
Would you rather the Chinese be allowed to have their way with the entirety of the Asia-Pacific region? Based on what we’ve seen in Hong Kong I don’t think that’s a good idea.
China would be irrelevant without its purely manpower based economy.
Maybe one day they can attain the freedom status of the exceptional USA.
USA should invade USA and spread democracy there.
It will on April 12.
KSA being on this chart is an imposter because they can’t even defeat the Houthis by themselves lmao.
All that funding is to buy and bribe the US military to maintain their own bases in the country to keep themselves secure.
I’m all against populist and authoritarian regimes, but taking them out of the table, fuck USA.
How dare they defend Taiwanese freedom, disgusting.
They also funded and supported Juntas all over my continent
I think Taiwan doing so well in the semiconductor space is a huge win for the region. I fear China attacking would put East Asians in a tough spot; especially if the foundries get destroyed.
Oooh Western money is gonna be pissed.
Can’t they make haste please? I wanna see live action fallout irl /s
How much is this fearmongering to justify increased military spending and how much is this true? This is the second article I’ve seen in 2 days about “unprecedented” military buildup in Russia and China.
War is fucking stupid. Anyone who wants war is fucking stupid. China and Russia’s autocrats are evil stupid, but are they stupid enough to create another great conflict that we all have to suffer through? Why the sudden change now? Russia tried the quick takeover and that’s failed miserably, drawing them into a prolonged conflict with high casualties.
With all that said, I also recognize the US is a declining world power (from the absolute top to now in competition with others) and stories like this are excellent for drumming up movements to try and maintain that absolute power position.
So how much is this article (and other recent ones) US propaganda?
Do you belive mainstream media does non-propaganda journalism?
Mainstream media sells commercials. However you want to look at that to make it fit your world view - have at it, but they are not agents of truth. They are agents of capitalism and all the hell that unbridled greed entails.
I agree with the other guy. The media made sound bytes of Trump during his first presidential run because it was popular and directly contributed to him winning, which is now a problem for all of us.
My skepticism arises from similar articles saying the same thing about Russia, though those had more analysis about the transition to a wartime economy, that come at the same time as this article.
I’m concerned media article like this are primers for accepting conflicts down the line as there seems to be a looming threat of greater conflict that’s being highlighted here. I’m an advocate of working together and see war as an incredibly stupid objective so part of this may be just not wanting to believe humans are this stupid.
You shouldnt be naive to the point you belive this is a mistake or product of stupidity. Those people know very well what they are doing
If they know what they’re doing and we know what they’re doing, but we actually do nothing to stop it before it come to a head, how much are we culpable for the outcome? This goes for Russians, Chinese, and Americans.
All that to say, I’m not gung-ho about ramping up war productions just yet
Its not really fair to say we (the peope) do nothing. The rulling classes have the armed forces, the media, the educational system, most politicians etc etc. When we do something we are met with censorship and violence
97%
It isn’t intended to stop at smashing Taiwan.
All of Asia’s the target.
Global-domination’s the goal.
“the destruction of the West is the midwife of Chinese dominion” or something like that, from a few decades ago, a general’s words.
I don’t know of ANY government on this planet that is stratically-altruistic, and most are openly machiavellian/sociopathic-psychopathic/nihilist(globally, re ClimatePunctuation).
The more people are investing-in dealing-with making-believing, because that’s more comforting than actuality,
the LESS actuality evolves to match the making-believing, because of useless wasting-of-opportunity.
Objectivity’s the most-effective traction humankind’s got, and making-believing just throws opportunity down the sewer.
Short-term-ism’s going to butcher nearly-all lives on this planet, this century.
It’s setting-up “nicely”, what with
- the ClimatePunctuation still accelerating,
- the food-chains ( both terrestrial & marine ) being butchered as quickly/efficiently as possible, by money’s lack of care,
- the political-tantrum/pogrom,
- the religious-tantrum/pogrom,
- the aggressive sabotage-of-governing of both left & right’s Leninism/Murdochism, with their “proletariat dictatorship”/“populist dictatorship” rule
- the nationalism-religions providing identity-“security”, by displacing reason’s anxiety…
It really is too bad that only “journalism”, … which treats gaslighting as equally-valid to fact, … remains, in the for-profit-“journalism” world…
Actual journalism, which stuck to objectivity, called gaslighters gaslighters ( locally & other governments, both ), etc, wasn’t allowed to live, by money, so it’s gone.
And, when actual-journalism’s gone, then you’re “driving the runaway bus while hallucinating/on-drugs”, and the disconnect keeps getting more & more profound/complete…
“business is booming!” while underemployment & homelessness skyrocket, & businesses keep going bankrupt, because the supply-chain’s disintegrating…
I remember that screencap someone did, early-Covid, which showed 2 headlines in the same image:
-
1 was in the “stock markets climb drastically” vein,
-
the other was in the “unemployment & homelessness reach new heights” vein,
& they were both run by the same company as headlines??
Gaslighting’s the only industry dominant in our world, now, it looks like…
Russian dictatorship intends to butcher all of Eastern Europe that it can, because possession is the ONLY part of the law that it feels valid.
China’s committed to doing something similar through all of Asia, & Modi’s Hindutva India’s in China’s sights, just as Tibet was, just as Nepal, Bangladesh, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, ALL of them are.
Give it another decade, & see what’s left, outside of the 3-ish major empires that will be butchering-all-who-are-in-their-way.
Our nature hasn’t changed in the last 12 millenia, so why would our actual-behavior?
Our unconscious-toddler’s committed to enforcing its “greatness”, and some politicians embody that current, & win on that embodying-our-unconscious-toddler, because much of humankind would rather be identifying-with the ruling-toddler than tolerate others to live, so it’s an identity thing, not rational.
Also, ask yourself this:
IF China can’t possess all of Asia, does it make sense to permit the West to make any use of the un-possessed portions of Asia?
XOR does it make more Chinese Dominion sense to smash/butcher them all, who won’t be the possessed-property of CCP?
Which would gut the West’s dominion more?
When you understand the answer to that question, then you begin understanding what the world’s going to be looking-like, 1 decade+ on…
Welcome to The Great Filter.
_ /\ _
Time to go touch some grass mate :)
