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2003-08-08 Home Front

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Posted by Steve White 2003-08-08 12:38:29 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I would like to see them give Connie to the Japanese.Don't ya know that twist a knot in the Norks panties.

Posted by raptor 2003-8-8 7:48:46 AM|| 2003-8-8 7:48:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Aye. She's served us long and well.

It'd be purely symbolic, Raptor: Japan itself is an unsinkable carrier in that region, given the current range of fighter/bombers. Probably reduce reaction/detection time a bit, but a carrier needs a huge support force for protection.

Posted by Ptah 2003-8-8 8:50:27 AM|| [http://www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2003-8-8 8:50:27 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 (sigh)you're right Ptah.
Just wishfull thinking I guess.

Posted by raptor 2003-8-8 9:23:04 AM|| 2003-8-8 9:23:04 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 I would like to see them give Connie to the Japanese.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand:

The Japanese are probably our closest allies in the Far East, but they're nowhere near as reliable as the UK or our major European allies. Do we really want them to reconstitute something the size of the Imperial Japanese Navy? What if they do a U-turn and decide the Chinese are their new best friends?

Another problem is that if the Japanese build up, we'll have an excuse to build down, which politicians will swiftly fasten on in order to divert money to more welfare boondoggles (Earned Income Credit, anyone?). What happens if push comes to shove in the Far East, and the Japanese decide to stay out of it? We'll be stuck doing the heavy lifting with even less forces than we have today.

On the other hand:

We would benefit from having a close ally with force projection capabilities in the Far East. Perhaps it's time the Japanese relearned the art of putting together carrier task forces. The new so-called destroyer / carrier hybrids they're deploying are a joke. 13,000 tons in this day and age, when their largest carrier during WWII was 70,000 tons. These new pint-sized boats may be fine for attacking isolated outposts, but as strike forces against anything else, they're a threat only to themselves.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 9:45:26 AM|| 2003-8-8 9:45:26 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 I think we need give it "bare boat" to the Chineese. It would be akin to giving your enemies child a Barbie for Christmas.

Reality: I like to see it made into a memorial - they missed the chance with the Saratoga.

Posted by Shipman 2003-8-8 10:25:40 AM|| 2003-8-8 10:25:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Why would the Japanese want a large fleet carrier? For conventional warfare involving the Sea of Japan, Korea, etc land based aircraft operating from Japan would be enough, no? Main reason for Japan to project naval power would be to deal with threats to sea routes in and near Indonesia, from terrorist-pirate threats, or possible failure of Indonesian state. For that small ships would probably be preferable, no?

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 11:36:46 AM|| 2003-8-8 11:36:46 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 Why would the Japanese want a large fleet carrier?

In a word, China. China views the entire South China Sea as Chinese territorial waters, i.e. as a Chinese lake. It has taken steps to enforce its claim by building military installations atop various island atolls it has seized from Vietnam and the Philippines, thousands of miles from the Chinese mainland. We've taken a blase view of these developments - I suspect the Japanese are not as sanguine - these Chinese moves are taking place right on their doorstep.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 11:50:01 AM|| 2003-8-8 11:50:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Better yet, give her to the Brits! They'd love her, take care of her, and the Phrench Phrogs would shit themselves. ^_^

Ed Becerra

Posted by Ed Becerra 2003-8-8 12:27:59 PM|| 2003-8-8 12:27:59 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 ZF--I agree. Another reason for wanting that carrier is flexibility. Even if Japan is an unsinkable aircraft carrier, it's immobile and the airborne threat is one-dimensional. A carrier allows them to pose a threat from another, unexpected direction, which the Chinese will have to compensate for.

Posted by Dar 2003-8-8 12:30:00 PM|| [http://users.stargate.net/~dsteckel/] 2003-8-8 12:30:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 So are you saying that a naval war between China and Japan, without US involvement, is in the cards within the next, say, 20 years? Cause if there is US involvement than the logical division of labor is US focus on the open seas, and Japanese focus on the Sea of Japan and Korea. And if the focus is longer than 20 years, than buying the Connie, or building a new carrier now doesnt make much sense (except perhaps as macroeconomic stimulus)

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 12:30:27 PM|| 2003-8-8 12:30:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Better yet, give her to the Brits!

That would be a great idea, except that the Brits barely have enough dough in their budget to support their existing force structure, let alone a new carrier task force. Blair's been a stalwart friend, but his defense budgets have significantly reduced Britain's military capabilities.

Let's face it - what the Brits are doing is at least short-term rational - the Warsaw Pact is no more, and Uncle Sam is picking up the slack. No real threats in any direction except maybe a long-term one from the Middle East and/or North Africa.

Japan is a completely different story. Most of the countries in the Far East irrationally hate them for something that happened 60 years ago.* They have no real militarily-significant allies except Australia and the US, both of which, ironically, were their primary military opponents in WWII. And both countries are far away. Russia, North Korea, China and South Korea are all potential threats.

As a result, the Japanese have real motivation to rearm, which has also freed up prior budgetary constraints on increased defense spending. Among all of our allies, Japan alone is motivated enough to make the investment in a carrier task force. I doubt we'll hand the Constellation to the Japanese, but it might actually be a good idea, unless we have other uses for it, such as putting it in mothballs just in case we need a replacement in a hurry.

* Some are irrationally egging on the Chinese military expansion despite its record of having attacked almost every single one of its neighbors over some territorial dispute or other. This is a shining example of how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The only thing that sticks out in their minds is the short-lived Japanese campaign of territorial conquest starting in the late 19th century.

They forget that China has a record of imperial expansion lasting thousands of years - stopping only when they were defeated. This is why China occupies almost all of the Far East. It took the Japanese conquest of Korea and Taiwan, combined with Western moves on Indochina and Burma and Russian advances in Siberia and Mongolia, to stop the relentless advance of Chinese empire. This is acknowledged, albeit in a self-serving manner, in Chinese textbooks - the Western powers and Japan are alleged to have "stolen" these territories from China.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 12:54:41 PM|| 2003-8-8 12:54:41 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 zhang on western textbooks - well in western histories (including Fairbanks) China hardly looks like its in conquering mode from 1850 - 1911 mainly it looks like its falling apart. Not surprised Chinese textbooks portray it differently :)

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 1:12:10 PM|| 2003-8-8 1:12:10 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 in the context of a US withdrawl from the "first line of islands" every asian power would have to re-evaluate its position. In that context, anti-Japanese sentiment would be a luxury few could afford. India and Viet Nam would certainly quickly ally with Japan, to form an Indian-VN-Australian-Japanese alliance. ASEAN states would have to start moving in that direction, if China moved to fill the vacuum.

OTOH your point about needing to slowly build up competence in a new area is good - especially one as difficult as naval aviation and carrier battle group management and maintenance.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 1:16:14 PM|| 2003-8-8 1:16:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 "It has taken steps to enforce its claim by building military installations atop various island atolls it has seized from Vietnam and the Philippines, thousands of miles from the Chinese mainland."

IE the spratleys - according to CIA factbook and other sources, all the claimants, including Viet Nam and the Phillipines, have occupied at least some of those islands. Last use of force by China in this regard was against Viet Nam in 1988. In November of last year (2002) China reached agreement with ASEAN to freeze status quo. Motive seems to be oil and gas in vicinity of the Spratleys themselves, more than grand strategic expansion.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 1:49:25 PM|| 2003-8-8 1:49:25 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Corrections - Taiwan and Malaysia also occupy some of the Spratleys.

There have also been incidents since 1988, though far smaller, and some have not involved PRC - EG one incident was Viet Nam vs Taiwan.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 1:58:01 PM|| 2003-8-8 1:58:01 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 well in western histories (including Fairbanks) China hardly looks like its in conquering mode from 1850 - 1911 mainly it looks like its falling apart. Not surprised Chinese textbooks portray it differently

Fairbank's account parrots the Chinese view that China is a peaceful country, and that is the way Chinese narratives of their own history run. (His contemporaries urged the abandonment of China to Mao Zedong, so that may give you an idea as to whether he's gone native). But if you look at what the Chinese do instead of what they say, a pattern of military expansion, followed by waves of Chinese colonists, is the rule rather than the exception.

Re the 19th century reference - just prior to that period of weakness*, they conquered what is now 50% of China's present territory, doubling the size of the Chinese empire (Tibet, East Turkistan and Mongolia). China considered all of its neighbors vassal states in the manner that a king might have feudal lords professing fealty to him. In the traditional Chinese view, the Son of Heaven (tian zi) ruled all under heaven (tian xia). Some of these millennia-old assumptions have carried over into current Chinese views of what China's boundaries should be. And what is taught in Chinese (and Taiwanese) textbooks continues to be that most or all of East Asia was Chinese territory.

* Like I said, Chinese ambitions have never dimmed, just Chinese capabilities, for just over 150 years.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 2:08:52 PM|| 2003-8-8 2:08:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Prior that period of weakness - precisely.

1. 1750 to 1840 - china continued to expand
2. 1840 to 1880 - China descends towards chaos (opium wars, religious civil war, decline in central authority)
3. 1880 to 1911 - territorial changes - russian annexations, expansion of French Indochina, brit annexation of Burma, Japanese expansion in korea and taiwan, creation of European spheres of influence. The carve up of China was NOT a response to Chinese expansionism, but to Chinese weakness - if it was jsutified by anything other than imperialist greed, it was the legitimate fear of each power that the others would move ahead without it. For which reason Britain and the US pushed an open door policy to STOP the carve up. The ultimate challenge to that open door policy was by Japan, which resulted in the Pacific side of WW2. Now Japanese may see their aggression as pre-emptive - to stop a united, industrialized China from emerging. However they could alternatively have used balance of power diplomacy - alliances with the US, UK, Russia to protect themselves. More likely they went in for markets and resources. And China's view of the world is inevitably colored by that Japanese action.

This "inevitable" chinese expansion sounds much like 19thc British belief in a secret Russian scheme for world conquest. It also seems potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. Im not saying that we shouldnt be in a position to contain China if necessary (US withdrawl from the first line of islands would probably be disastrous) but that policies that assume China is a future aggressor and that unecessarily provoke China should be avoided as well.

BTW, that period of expansion was relatively short-lived, and followed a period conservative isolationism under the late Ming.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 2:48:17 PM|| 2003-8-8 2:48:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Give the Connie to ISREAL.

Now wouldn't that tilt the negotiation process just a bit???

Posted by SOG475 2003-8-8 3:20:28 PM|| 2003-8-8 3:20:28 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 sog: theyd need like half the population to man a carrier battle group.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 3:22:24 PM|| 2003-8-8 3:22:24 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 The carve up of China was NOT a response to Chinese expansionism, but to Chinese weakness - if it was jsutified by anything other than imperialist greed, it was the legitimate fear of each power that the others would move ahead without it.

I've never stated that the Western powers or Japan moved into East Asia as part of a mission to counter Chinese expansionism. Rather, what I'm saying is that Chinese imperial expansion stopped only because it ran up against an irresistible force - Western imperial expansion. Western ambition (for some reason liberalhawk calls this greed, without similarly characterizing the Chinese equivalent thusly)* countered Chinese ambition, where previously Chinese ambition grew unchecked.

This "inevitable" chinese expansion sounds much like 19thc British belief in a secret Russian scheme for world conquest.

Nothing particularly secret about this - Russian empire was curbed only by military defeat and the threat of civil war. Poland is independent because Russia gave up some of its imperial holdings as the price of its unilateral withdrawal from WWI. The former Soviet Republics are free only because of the threat of devastating wars of independence - non-Russians and religious minorities outnumbered Russian Slavs. And unlike the Western powers, Russia has never returned any of the land it took from the Chinese empire in the 19th century. We returned Okinawa to Japan. Russia has held on to the Kuriles in the face of passionate Japanese objections.

that period of expansion was relatively short-lived, and followed a period conservative isolationism under the late Ming

The Ming dynasty was inept rather than peaceful - it launched numerous unsuccessful military expeditions into neighboring kingdoms, including Vietnam. Chinese boundaries did not grow during that period because the Ming dynasty was weak, not because it was peacefully-inclined.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 3:58:52 PM|| 2003-8-8 3:58:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 LH - of course, they would be able to get such a commitment from their population...

Can you picture it? Transiting the Suez... rounding the Straits of Hormuz - Bandar Abbas would scramble like their asses were on fire. Geez, it'd be under attack by someone from the instant it hoisted the flag.

SOG, you've got a mean mind - that is some serious outside the box thinking! It boggles - and appeals at the same time! What a hoot!

Posted by Â·com 2003-8-8 4:02:07 PM|| 2003-8-8 4:02:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 ZF and LH: I think you are both right but I suspect that your arguments are missing something. I have intensively studied nations playing catch up to understand "what went wrong" in Japan and Germany in the period 1848 to 1945. I call my theory "the problem of the text books" (so named on my lunchtime walk half an hour ago).

There is a script to wrench a nation from feudalism into industrialism. The Japanese used it during the Meiji restoration. Bismark used it throughout his chancellorship. Stolypin tried to use it in Russia prior to his assasination but was hampered by the reactionary elements in Russian society.

* Strengthen the peasantry: Give them title. Let them invest. Offer forms of upward mobility through education, business, military, civil service opportunities.

* Use the capital accumulation to build industry, especially cartels (zaibatsu in pre-war Japan), infrastructure, and the military (solves any excess labor issues).

* Create a national myth: Rifle the history books for examples of teamwork, heroism, self sacrifice, work ethic. Predict a glorious future based on those examples.

* Promote literacy. Standardize texts, hire teachers, use education as a transmission belt (to borrow Lenin's phrase) to spread the national myth and indoctrinate the youth.

The last two bullets create the problem. People have worked hard, sacrificed, and built. Things are looking up. Wealth is being created but the distribution is poor due to over-reliance on cartels instead of entrepreneurs and over-investment in the military. It's now up to the government to keep its end of the bargain, the glorious future. This is precisely the dilemma that China faces right now. How to deliver on the promise. As ZF points out, the texts say the Chinese should go "reclaim" Taiwan, Central Asia, Burma, etc. If the Chinese ruling class says that the national myth they propagated was false, they lose all face and fear revolution. If they do what the national myth demands, then they ae forced into imperial adventures. Now logically, this is a false dilemma. But Japan and Germany also faced that dilemma and chose war. One hopes that the Chinese leadership will be more intelligent and learn from the past. My fear for the past five years is Zhang Fei's: That they won't learn and will tragically follow a false myth to its conclusion, fearful of their stakeholders and unable to discard their own grade school text books.

Posted by 11A5S 2003-8-8 4:48:37 PM|| 2003-8-8 4:48:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 zhang re: 19th c russia 0 theres a difference between holding onto Poland and expanding in the east (as ALL imperial powers were expanding in the 19thc) and a global plan for conquest. Many 19th c Brits in fact believed in a secret Russian plan for world conquest, starting with but not confined to India. As documented in "The Great Game" this was essentially a myth.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 4:55:47 PM|| 2003-8-8 4:55:47 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 ok, so the ming were incompetent, and you accept that china was collapsing from 1840 to 1911. So the entirety of this "millenium of Chinese expansion" is the period 1750 to 1840 or so, and the sum of the gains was tibet, east turkestan, and parts of mongolia. The chinese texts may believe in a millenium of expanision, but theyre wrong

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-8-8 4:59:17 PM|| 2003-8-8 4:59:17 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 11A5S sums it up perfectly. On top of this, major Chinese expansion occurred even before the existing national myth was widely propagated. Today, all Chinese above some grade level subscribe to the myths taught in the textbooks, including all the personnel in the Chinese political and military establishment. This is why the next decades in the Far East could be extremely problematic depending on whether the Chinese assert what they believe to be their traditional territorial prerogatives.

Liberalhawk's tendency to view Western imperialism as original sin is typical of many liberals, but runs counter to the facts of history. The Western powers are actually Johnny-come-latelies to the practice of imperialism. Before the Western powers circled the globe and conquered all before them, local kingdoms had been fighting each other for millenia. The only difference between local and Western imperialists is that the locals were less successful, since we had the Maxim gun, and they had not.

The liberal conceit is that we should know better, almost as if the natives were children, unable to negotiate the complexities of a moral code. I'm unwilling to take that tack - I believe no one has a monopoly on virtue, including the people on the losing side during the period of Western expansion. If they could have done the same to us, they would have. They certainly had no qualms about lording it over the neighboring kingdoms they had defeated.*

* One extreme example: The Aztecs of modern-day Mexico, for example, routinely used defeated neighboring tribes for human sacrifices that involved removing beating hearts from their captives while they were still conscious. These hearts were then eaten. This is why many of the dominated tribes were so anxious to ally with the Spanish conquistadors to avenge the atrocities to which the Aztecs had subjected them.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 5:33:03 PM|| 2003-8-8 5:33:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 So the entirety of this "millenium of Chinese expansion" is the period 1750 to 1840 or so, and the sum of the gains was tibet, east turkestan, and parts of mongolia. The chinese texts may believe in a millenium of expanision, but theyre wrong

But that's the point - the Chinese texts don't view it as two milennia of expansion - for them it magically happened as China fought defensive wars against barbarian tribes*. But if you look at a map of China during the reign of the all-conquering First Emperor 2000 years ago, China's territorial extent was perhaps 15% of what it is today. I don't know what you would call the remainder of the territory amassed since then, but I call it imperial expansion. There were people of other ethnicities and languages living there, and the Chinese conquered them. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms (available on Amazon), a 12th century Chinese novel about the inter-state rivalries of the post-Han dynasty era, the author writes about Indian-fighting type engagements in what is now Hubei and Hunan (birthplace of Mao Zedong). Take it from me - imperialism isn't a Western invention - prior to the current age, whenever it's been more convenient to take something rather than produce it yourself, states have always gone for the first option.

The Russians also started small and conquered huge swaths of inhabited territory - at its start, the place was about the size of Sweden. They conquered Central Asia, Eastern Europe and much of what used to be Manchuria. Books like the Great Game share the traditional leftist pro-Russian/-Bolshevik bias of modern historians in interpreting history. The problem with their analysis is that it can easily be contradicted by simply looking at maps of different periods in Russian history. Russia has a smaller native Russian Slav population than Great Britain, but forms the largest country in the world, and has never given up a square inch of soil except when it was defeated militarily or when it faced the danger of civil war involving nukes. This was not the ever-expanding empire?

* At the end of the 18th century, the Western powers were viewed as just another bunch of barbarian tribes. Unfortunately for the Chinese, they turned out to be really strong barbarian tribes.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 5:58:13 PM|| 2003-8-8 5:58:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 The chinese texts may believe in a millenium of expanision, but theyre wrong

The key isn't what the Chinese accomplished, but the fact that they continue to believe these lands properly belong to China, even today.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 6:01:30 PM|| 2003-8-8 6:01:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#28 The chinese texts may believe in a millenium of expanision, but theyre wrong

The difference between us and the Chinese is that we believe in national self-determination - they believe in empire, except to the Chinese, China's traditional boundaries are not those of an empire* - they view them as part and parcel of China proper. (Fairbank seems to succumb to the Chinese view of China not being an empire - which is why I think of him as having gone native). This is why the Chinese will never remove their grubby little fingers from Tibet, East Turkistan or South Mongolia. The Chinese view about China's territorial claims is sort of like Manifest Destiny without the guilt complex.**

* In the Chinese view - which is as usual, self-serving - empires are what greedy Westerners do. Liberalhawk seems to share their view.

** Sending prisoners to penal colonies in conquered lands is another longtime Chinese tradition that way predates Australia. For a 12th century account, read the Water Margin - a Chinese novel about banditry during the Song dynasty available in translation from Amazon.com. The novel is very sophisticated in these sense that the characters adhere strictly to the Chinese custom of saying one thing and doing another.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 6:22:34 PM|| 2003-8-8 6:22:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#29 Interesting discussion, but we're getting waaay off topic! There's an obvious recipient of the Connie none of you have thought about - the Philippines. Yeah, it'd be a bitch building a carrier support group, manning and equipping it, but it would give the Philippines the ability to rapidly project forces in any of its islands. It would also be capable of reducing the piracy that's rampant in that part of the Pacific basin. Of course, Australia and Indonesia would immediately opt for a carrier strike force, to "maintain the balance of power". That, too, may not be a bad thing. The one thing such a force requires is internal stability in the supporting nation. That, too, could be a big help in easing tensions in the area. Either that, or pushing things over the edge, and hope there are enough pieces left to start over again.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-8-8 6:53:20 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-8-8 6:53:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#30 There's an obvious recipient of the Connie none of you have thought about - the Philippines.

Same problem as the UK - only worse - the budget won't cover it. If the UK can't afford to maintain an aircraft carrier the size of the Constellation, the Philippines definitely cannot. I don't think the Filipinos can even afford submarines. Heck, they can't even afford M-16's and night sights for their anti-guerrilla units - we had to donate hundreds of millions of dollars of this stuff just to get them going against Abu Sayyaf. Given the history we have with them (Bataan, Manila, etc.), it would be nice if we could just hand the Constellation over to them. But the only use they would have for it is as a theme park or as scrap metal.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 7:18:37 PM|| 2003-8-8 7:18:37 PM|| Front Page Top

#31 I dunno about that. Doesn't the IDF have about 2 million people?

They could use it as a Palestinian refuge camp yuknow.

Posted by SOG475 2003-8-8 7:35:06 PM|| 2003-8-8 7:35:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#32 Give the Connie to Taiwan (THAT would really twist the Chinese' knickers!), or, if we don't want to kick the realationship with China too hard...Singapore. We already train with the Singaporese AF extensively, they have the money and and a skilled educated populace to operate her, and they would provide a strategic southern counterwight vs China that's been missing since we pulled out of Cam Rahn Bay and Subic.

Posted by Watcher 2003-8-8 8:17:45 PM|| 2003-8-8 8:17:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#33 Give the Connie to Taiwan (THAT would really twist the Chinese' knickers!), or, if we don't want to kick the realationship with China too hard...Singapore.

Neither Taiwan nor Singapore has the budget for it. An aircraft carrier costs about $800m a year to operate (according to John Kasich (R-Kansas)). Besides, aircraft carriers are useful mainly as strike platforms for force projection missions in instances where land bases are not readily available or are out of range. I can't see Taiwan engaging in force projection - if it wants to attack China - it's only a hundred miles away - easily reachable by tactical aviation. Taiwan's main job is to defend itself, and its combat aviation is far better- and more cheaply-served by building a bunch of redundant airstrips that can't all be taken out at once.

Singapore could use a carrier to deter its local rivals, Malaysia and Indonesia, but the cost to the country would be prohibitive. The reason it chose to host the US Navy at Changi Naval Base was to provide this very deterrence. I can't see them wanting to lay out the $1.6b in annual expense that it would take to operate a Kitty Hawk class vessel and associated support ships.

Both Taiwan and Singapore are suspect as recipients of advanced US technology. Taiwan is suspect because they may decide in the future to throw in the towel, in which case our gizmos end up in Chinese hands. Singapore is ruled by ethnic Chinese who do not appear to view China as a threat. This means that they will probably give the Chinese a good look at anything we provide to them. Even if Singapore stayed neutral, the massive flow of new Chinese immigrants into the country means that some of them will join Singapore's armed forces and provide information on US equipment to China.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2003-8-8 9:53:38 PM|| 2003-8-8 9:53:38 PM|| Front Page Top

08:22 raptor
08:10 raptor
00:10 Bomb-a-rama
00:05 Bomb-a-rama
23:55 Not Mike Moore
23:46 Not Mike Moore
23:38 Not Mike Moore
23:20 Not Mike Moore
23:18 BJD (The Dignified Rant)
23:10 Not Mike Moore
23:00 Not Mike Moore
22:47 Not Mike Moore
22:15 Aris Katsaris
21:57 Frank G
21:53 Zhang Fei
21:46 Frank G
21:45 Frank G
21:17 mojo
20:50 Steve White
20:46 Steve White
20:17 Watcher
19:35 Dar
19:35 SOG475
19:18 True German Ally