Russia displays military might

SampanViking

SampanViking

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Jeff Head said:
A look at the percentage of GDP being spent may reveal some answers. The US does outspend everyone else...no doubt. But it is a very small part of the entire GDP.

Despite whatever economic troubles going on now in the US (and I live here and am experiencing them), they are mild when compared to a lot of the world, and they are addressable as soon as the US public makes up its mind it wants to address them.

IMHO, the US has huge oil reserves in the Dakotas, in ANWR, off the Pacific and Gulf coasts and elsewhere. We have huge low sulfur coal reserves tied up in national monument areas, and certainly has the technology to excel in nuclear power plants.

The US is also very capable of building more refineries.

The American public simply has to reach a point where they are willing to commit to these things and force their political leadership through the ballot box to comply.

For whatever reasons (and there are several), the US public hasn't reached that stage yet...but the US has the resources to make good on it once they do.

Again, all of this is strictly my opinion.
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GDP is not the issue though is it Jeff? Its about the Federal Budget, the Federal Deficit and tax rates. To contain and shrink the deficit, Washington needs to reduce expenditure and raise taxation, not the opposite.

I stand with RedMercury on this. If the Federal Govt establishment in washington cannot understand these basic economic realities, maybe the American people need a new establishment. Maybe based in one or more different locations.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

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SampanViking said:
GDP is not the issue though is it Jeff? Its about the Federal Budget, the Federal Deficit and tax rates. To contain and shrink the deficit, Washington needs to reduce expenditure and raise taxation, not the opposite.

I stand with RedMercury on this. If the Federal Govt establishment in washington cannot understand these basic economic realities, maybe the American people need a new establishment. Maybe based in one or more different locations.
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I will not speak to the politcal statement other than to say that the American people are free to vote and change administrations in accordance with the constitution, either way, as they have been doing for over 200 years.

Having said that, a good measure of military spending and comparison between nations is in fact a percentage of GDP. Clearly the Federal budget establishes the exact dollar amounts, and how that budget is spolit up becomes a matter of politics as much as economics, as we all well know.

But in terms of what a people are able to produce, and what they actually choose to produce, the GDP has always been an effective measure.

I am not making any political statement by saying that, nor do I intend to. It is just a good means of comaprison between differing nations as regards their defense spending.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

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Infra_Man99 said:
A common belief around the world is that if a nation only spends a very small percentage of its GDP on its military, then everything is OK. This is an incorrect belief.

When looking at the ratio of military budget over GDP, the Soviet Union spent a lot more money on its military than the US did. The Soviet Union was able to spend like this for many decades before facing economic collapse. It is amazing the Soviet Union was able to do this. The US built so many national and international business plans so the US was able to easily afford its large Cold War budget, and then watch the Soviet Union labor to keep up.

Now the US is still spending a little of its GDP on its military, but the US is NOT OK. Today the US is spending a little too much over a long period, so the sum result is the US is spending too much. The US needs to end its current Middle East military plans and completely restart new plans that focus more on sensible economics. Most people around the world disapprove of the US wars in the Middle East. Most AMERICANS disapprove of the US wars, too.

The US has ignored sensible economics for too long so now the US has large debts to many nations around the world right now. This what happens when the US focuses too much on military production and not enough on civilian production. The price of oil in the US is more or less at $3.80 per gallon (depending on where you live). The US is dealing with inflation of the US dollar and the falling international value of the US dollar. The US has a major banking and mortgage problem. The US is accepting lots of illegal immigration to depress inflation.

The US cannot pay for its current Middle East wars for an indefinite period. If the US extends the war into Iran, then the US will pay an even greater cost (including injuries and fatalities). If the US goes into Pakistan, then the US will have an even harder time with the snowballing costs. Keep in mind that the Afghan and Iraqi wars do not have clear good outcomes for the US despite all these US costs. Then there is the humanitarian cost in Afghanistan and Iraq . . .

Russia is able to easily afford this military parade, especially since Russia is a major energy supplier and weapons seller, but if Russia tries to return to former Soviet Union glory, then this "revived" Russia will collapse in a few decades again. If Russia learned from past mistakes, it would have a sensible military budget within its overall sensible economic framework. This is true for all nations.
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Sorry, we disagree.

In order to explain my position on this, topics reagrding the overall War against Islamic Jihad and teror would have to be discussed in detail...and I am sure there would be major differences and it is also, after all, not the purpose of this forum.

Bottom line is that the US has risen to the occassion when necessary and spent (in WW II for example) far more of its budget and GDP on the military and came out the other end fine, after doing what it (and its allies) perceived needed to be done.

This will be no different in the long run.

America's major economic issues revolve around its increasing burden for entitlement programs that are much more socialistic in nature and far afield from the free market economies the US was established on, and on its monetary policy which suffer from the same ill.

But then again...that drifts far afield from the purpose of this forum and I will go no further into it than that statemnt, which is, in any case, merely my own opinion.
 
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R

RedMercury

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Sorry mods for bringing politics into this thread. My original point was less about motives than about the cost of military dominance versus military parity. I believe dominance costs many times more than parity (in resources and opportunity costs), and thus if A is determined to achieve dominance over B, while B only aims to avoid dominance by A, A would have to spend many times more resources than B.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

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RedMercury said:
Dominance versus military parity. I believe dominance costs many times more than parity.
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On this we agree. Absolute military dominance will always cost more than military parity. Thi is true in terms of numbers of system acquired, and especially in terms of the overall technology and quality of the systems acquired if true dominance is desired.

Thanks for pulling the thread back to the topic at hand and away from the "abyss".
 
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S

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Phead128 said:
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[qimg]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00669/soviet-parade-404_669957c.jpg[/qimg]

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My opinion:

Russia is still a force to be reckoned with. I have deep respect and admiration of the Russian armed forces. This is NOT a good idea for Russia to display its military might. Sure, displaying aging equipment and taking it for "a ride" as the pentagon spokesman puts it is okay but it gives even more justification to uphold USA's outrageous military spendings. I mean, its a lose-lose situation. USA's justification for war spending for the War on Terror is now as high as it was during the Cold War without Iraq and Afghanistan war cost. Add the Russian threat to this combo, and you won't see a greater annual increase in US military spending, which Russia does not want and should not want unless it can match or exceed US's annual increase in military spending.

Overall, Russia is symbolistic in its attempts I think. However, the repercussions of inciting the nostalgic days of the cold war might bring more bad than good if such provacative diplomatic acts continue.
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thanks for your respect of the motherland comrad, true that we need new gear wich are being made, but just give us time and we will realy be a force to be recken with. Relates to
Tom Clancy's ENDWAR, yes.
 
Finn McCool

Finn McCool

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SampanViking said:
GDP is not the issue though is it Jeff? Its about the Federal Budget, the Federal Deficit and tax rates. To contain and shrink the deficit, Washington needs to reduce expenditure and raise taxation, not the opposite.

I stand with RedMercury on this. If the Federal Govt establishment in washington cannot understand these basic economic realities, maybe the American people need a new establishment. Maybe based in one or more different locations.
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SampanViking, can you please at least make an attempt, for appearances sake, to conceal the fact that you would be giddy with pleasure if the US fell apart like the USSR. I'm sorry Sampan, I can see our overseas empire gradually shrinking and declining much like the British Empire did, but there won't be a Second Civil War anytime soon, so you'll have to find something else to look forward too.

With that said, if the US doesn't curtail it's massive spending soon, we will feel the affects in strategic terms. We need to bring the Iraq War to an end soon (not immediately), cut military spending (the DDX is indicative of the sort of unnecessary spending the military wastes), and get some sort of control over the politically-motivated waste that the winning party in Congress showers on its constituents (although we never seem to see any of it). The system can handle a lot of other shocks but those politically motivated money drains are what's "putting us over the top" so to speak. I don't have to tell you that going on this way is sucking all the value out of the dollar. We're already feeling the economic affects-the economy is in full recession. We haven't really started feeling the strategic affects yet because the Empire has built-in strength enough to handle a severe recession in the mother country; besides the US is so dominant that for now no on is fully strong enough to entirely take advantage of its troubles. But that is changing fast, and the Empire is reaching the limit of its ability to withstand the trouble it's going through.
 
I

Infra_Man99

Banned Idiot
I think Russia will continue to be at least a major power in the world in the near future (now to 2020). I don't like commenting too far into the future because it's too hard. Here are my reasons:

1. Russia may have lost its strong alliances during the Cold War, but Russia still has a sizable population and lots of natural resources, especially energy resources. Plus, today's Russia has more international business deals around the world than the Cold War's Soviet Union.

2. Russia seems to have finally learned that it can maximize its wealth and military power by having both a good civilian economy and a good military industry. The two reinforce one another.

3. Russia is losing China as a huge arms customer, but China is a friend to Russia. A quickly advancing China provides many benefits to Russia way beyond huge arms deals.

4. I believe Russia has learned to stay FAR, FAR, FAR away from out-of-balance economics, crazy dictators, and communist oppression.

5. Russia has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Finn McCool said:
SampanViking, can you please at least make an attempt, for appearances sake, to conceal the fact that you would be giddy with pleasure if the US fell apart like the USSR. I'm sorry Sampan, I can see our overseas empire gradually shrinking and declining much like the British Empire did, but there won't be a Second Civil War anytime soon, so you'll have to find something else to look forward too.
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I completely agree with Finn here.

America is losing its status as a world leader, but America will NOT collapse. Not even close. America is a HIGHLY stable nation. America may have lots of problems, but America has more solutions than problems. I predict America will still be the world's leader, but its lead will be diminishing over time because America will continue to waste itself on questionable domestic policies and controversial international disputes and wars. There are many, great differences between a nation that is decreasing in international power and a nation that is collapsing. In my opinion, America is probably in the former category and nowhere near the latter category.

By 2020, America will continue its leadership, although diminishing leadership.

First tier world powers: EU, Russia, China, Japan, India
Second tier world powers: OPEC, South Korea, Canada, some type of South American union, some type of Central American and Mexican union

Where do you guys (and gals) predict Russia will be by 2020? Please list your reasons. To keep things in one thread, please discuss any nation you want to as well.
 
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SampanViking

SampanViking

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Not wishing to bring discord into this happy little land, but I think a few points need making as my final words on these matters.

SampanViking, can you please at least make an attempt, for appearances sake, to conceal the fact that you would be giddy with pleasure if the US fell apart like the USSR
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Given the events which started last Autumn and which have climaxed over the last couple of months and continue to rumble on, I would say that the Gloves have well and truly come off and so I no longer feel any compulsion to pull punches. I am sorry if this offends, but it is a bit late to claim "we did'nt mean it" or "we dont want to play anymore".

I would also add that with organisation, that an Incompetent Managment is often shown the door and if not an Incompetently run Organisation will go to the wall and have their assets redistrubeted. Any organisation that continues to rack up huge losses and loans year on year and with no plan for solution qualifies to be describes as the above.

I can see our overseas empire gradually shrinking and declining much like the British Empire did
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Finn McCool

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Infra_Man99 said:
America is losing its status as a world leader, but America will NOT collapse. Not even close. America is a HIGHLY stable nation. America may have lots of problems, but America has more solutions than problems. I predict America will still be the world's leader, but its lead will be diminishing over time because America will continue to waste itself on questionable domestic policies and controversial international disputes and wars. There are many, great differences between a nation that is decreasing in international power and a nation that is collapsing. In my opinion, America is probably in the former category and nowhere near the latter category.

By 2020, America will continue its leadership, although diminishing leadership.

First tier world powers: EU, Russia, China, Japan, India
Second tier world powers: OPEC, South Korea, Canada, some type of South American union, some type of Central American and Mexican union

Where do you guys (and gals) predict Russia will be by 2020? Please list your reasons. To keep things in one thread, please discuss any nation you want to as well.
Click to expand...

During the Bush Administration years the US has taken on policies and commitments that strain its considerable resources and at the same time implemented unsound economic policies. That is what accounts for the current situation. However the overall decline of US power vis a vis the rest of the world is not so much because we are getting weaker but because they are getting stronger. This is largely because of the world order that the US instituted when it had the power to. Free trade, instituting systems to prevent great power conflict, punishing states that start aggressive wars, found the IMF and the WTO, supporting European post-war reconstruction and NATO (trends that led the formation of the EU) and many of the other policies that the US has supported as world hegemon have led to the current environment in which countries like China, India, Brazil and others can make the step up from second-tier economies and powers to the first tier.

I doubt that any hypothetical Central American Union, even on that included Mexico, would be much of a power. Even foreseeing that is difficult as the nations of Central America have a lot of problems to deal with, they're dirt poor. Mexico also has a huge population in poverty. They're in no position to be the leader of a regional union when they can't even keep all of their own territory under control (a lot of the US border region on the Mexican side is run more by drug traffickers than the federal government). Also the US would try to prevent that from happening, because when ever an anti-American ruler has risen in a Central or South American country, we always have the other leaders in the region to buy off and play off against each other. But I suppose it could happen.
 
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