Jensen Huang CEO of NVIDIA, with 4 trillion dollar market cap, is floating the idea with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI that US needs to buy their debt because China's AI evolution is a threat to 'national security.
Which will it be NVIDIA bonds or aircraft carriers....?
Unfortunately, I read the New York Times which only confirms my pessimism. According to the Op Ed columnists, the shutdown was all about which side won or lost or what the polls said or how it might affect future elections. The American people be dammed.
Turn over the city of finance to a communist and a jihadist? No big deal if it energizes the base!
I can hear the laughter in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.
CDR Sal, you have been writing on this presciently for...decades. Simplistically, as you state, the doves are responding to their own self-interest. Human behavior 101: you get more of what you reward, less of what you punish. If your incentive structures reward individual behavior (personal self-interest) over the goals and objectives of the group (family, clan, nation, etc.) no one should be surprised they act like NVidia. Humint 101: Listen to what they say, watch what they do, and follow the money. The "doves" said that welcoming China into the world economy would change their behavior for the better. The "doves" profited handsomely (obscenely, some would say) via this philosophy, and now, are so deeply embedded in China they may not be able to get out. Thus far, they have said "words" indicating they are disinvesting in China, their actions belie that, or clearly show a "say do gap" regarding statements and actions. If you follow the money, and company profit margins from China, it's clear why. "Doves" will decry this as reductionist, overly simplistic, lacking nuance...yep, agree to all of that. However, if it fits, overhauling the incentive structures to "encourage" reshoring manufacturing of defense article, pharmaceuticals, etc. is in the U.S. SELF INTEREST for national security and economic sovereignty. Creating an incentive structure that is self-interested is actually the "natural order". Or not.
If you made a list of things a nation could do to deliberately and systematically undermine its capacity to sustain a large scale conflict, it could hardly be worse than the stuff we are just doing. It’s enough to make you think it’s all a plot, but a plot would require some thought and talent, so it’s probably just people doing dumb stuff.
"Never ascribe to malice that which can explained by incompetence...but don't rule out malice." Attributed (perhaps erroneously) to Science Fiction writer Robert Heinlein as an addendum to "Hanlon's Razor". Looking for generational "malice"? Read a "Love Letter to America" by Yuri Bezemov...as always with a skeptical, challenging mindset.
If one thinks in terms of the incentive structure, the Private Equity types like KKR set the pattern. Make like it is a good idea to gobble up businesses, take management fees that make a few guys very very wealthy (Say Henry, as in Kravits, which Bugatti Venom are you taking to the Seminole Golf Club this morning the blue one or the red one? Recall showroom price for a venom is around $1 million bucks) strip the value out of the businesses because that is all you know how to do things, and never run them or run them well, and then move to the next target. The horizon line for PE funds is something like 7-10 years. Real long term thinking…..and in order for it to work you need the greater fool theory to always continue into infinity. A real contango business model, ask the executives of Enron how it can all work out. Then these very wealthy guys in concert with the very large, too big to fail banks, get everyone to believe that by offshoring our industrial base to a group of strict communist grifter’s that an ebbing tide will float all boats. It is a great a plan for the guys getting rich, it is bad plan for any free economy to embrace. Common sense would have told anyone building a factory in China and creating some sort of articles of incorporation that a 49/51 split with communist thugs was a bad deal and would lead to a bad business plan and worse outcomes. But they didn’t bother with that concern. Common sense is not a class that is taught at Harvard Business School. What the Hell, when they had the chance to get Vice Admiral James Stockdale to teach an ethics class at HBS, they screwed it up so badly, that he said sorry I can’t help you…let that marinate for a moment….so let us see what comes of the next couple of months. We roll into the mid term election cycle in earnest right after the first of the new year. We will hear a lot of chatter. Time to separate the wheat from the chaff…
We can’t even build ships for our navy. Given failure re that obvious mandate, it’s highly doubtful we can accomplish these more subtle things that require a long term commitment and perspective across several Presidential and Senatorial terms.
How many carriers and frigates could we simultaneously build in the United States if the need arose? Maybe 3 combined a year?
What objective are we trying to achieve inside of the Chinese sphere of influence? Do we have a clear definition?
I regard it as doubtful that our capitalist economy’s larger players will abandon the world’s largest market. China is already far less competitive as a manufacturing country than it was 20 years ago, when compared to other countries in Asia.
Finally, it’s hard to imagine that the U.S. population will have the will or discipline to genuinely defeat China if, God forbid, it comes to that. We will be fighting them in their sphere of influence and the PRC navy will have the benefit of a huge ship, that being the unsinkable Chinese mainland. The war wouldn’t be fought east of the Philippines.
As we’ve seen since Vietnam, the U.S. has a very limited attention span when it comes to wars, with that being 2 or at most 3 years. What happens if a US aircraft carrier is sunk with 2000+ lives lost? Not nukes one hopes, especially if, as expected, the U.S. has sunk several PRC capital ships.
My expectation, having witnessed the debacle endings in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, is that after a couple of years and the loss of many American lives we would again say ”oh, never mind”.
Like a skipping record, I (like many wiser people) will refer to the destruction of our education system (K-post graduate university) and its descent into an enterprise level Marxist / post modernist indoctrination factory. The young hate their country, and the lack of upper mobility for them in the current economy provides reinforcing fires to their perception and perceived lack of "fairness"...and they have a point. And these are our future CEOs...an important component of the "long game".
One should also refer to the abysmal decisions by political leaders to enter wars without any definition of success or victory. They’re almost all war cheerleaders until the public tires of it. Then they lead the “oh,never mind” chorus.
What American family is willing to risk the lives of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters and grandchildren to save Taiwan from PRC rule? Taiwan has 2 1/2 times the population of Israel at 23+ million. Why isn't and hasn't Taiwan been on an emergency war footing like the Israelis seem to be all the time? IMO, one answer is that the threat to Israel is existential (death for all of its citizens) while the threat to Taiwan is a change in the political system. YMMV
If you consider what happened to Hong Kong in the relatively recent past, I'd say your point is well taken. HK was a bit more aggressive than the "boiling a frog a degree at a time" approach from the PLA standpoint, but aside from a slightly bruised international PR standpoint, highly effective. Suspect "invasion fatigue" is a very real thing in Taiwan.
Agree, should have been clearer. Economic, political and social subjugation by the PRC is (like HK) a certainty. So, their approach in HK worked, Taiwan can expect the same endgame. "From the River to the Sea" probably not on the table.
Aside from the strong possibility that "narcotics" will be forgotten soon, or after some dubious regime-change operation against Venezuela, the ratio of resources expended vs drugs stopped is huge.
Most drugs come in over the Mexican border or in shipping containers.
If one country is pissed off at the USA, that’s their problem.
If every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is pissed off at the USA, it’s the USA’s problem. Just what Trump is accomplishing with his tariffs and threats. Even Denmark!
China is not our enemy. Nor, is she our friend. There is a solid middle ground which is where we should stand. We should encourage commercial relations with China, and all the nations. Our free enterprise system coupled with individual liberty and freedom, is the quickest way to improve the lot of normal folks. The authoritarians who call themselves “conservatives” ought to harken back to the words of our founders; Madison, Hamilton and Washington. “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”
China is an economic rival, a competitor, and a customer; not an enemy. “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.” But, we should remain wary, of China, and all other nations, even our “friends.” “Even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.”
So what? We should treat China with honor and justice, like every other nation.
"Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim."
I would like to treat them as you suggest but I would also like to have a powerful and industrial base while doing so. I certainly do not want to depend upon them for antibiotics rare earths silicon chips etc.
There is nothing constitutionally wrong with Congress taxing imports.
Of course Hamilton believed in a strong Navy. He lived in an island nation, dependant on trade. Treating nations with honor and respect does not mean you abandon the ability to defend yourself. Perhaps XI has been reading No. 11 of the Federalist Papers. "A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral."
The Chinese government has indulged a habitual hatred towards America since WW2 for no particularly good reason, and your quote emphasizes the downside of that.
Those guys also built up the navy, deliberately took actions they believed would hamper the trade of foreign powers, and engaged in expansionist warfare in order to secure the position of the United States. I submit to you that citing them in order to pooh-pooh hawkishness on China is to rest upon a broken staff.
The point you miss is that the foreign powers were intruding on Madison’s continent. Warfare against european’s asserting power in our hemisphere is an entirely different kettle of fish from our asserting power in Asia.
The business of America is business. Observing good faith, and conducting fair dealing is simply good business. So, somebody distrusts the USA, so what? That’s no reason not to be honorable in our conduct.
Given that the Chinese have been mucking around in our hemisphere, this argument fails on that score, and, further, the Chinese have not engaged in fair dealing with us, so it fails on that score as well.
It is not dishonorable for us to penalize those who do not deal honorably with us.
Yes, it is. Two wrongs never make a right. Consider Washington’s wisdom. A nation responding with antipathy to another nation becomes a slave to emotion. Nations are not humans. None of them are to be trusted; even our cousins are perfidious.
“The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”
Here in Australia we host many Chinese students & tech workers, often in positions of great trust. Have had more than one conversation where hate for America was expressed freely. Most of these folk are honest hard working grafters, but I wonder who they’ll choose in a crisis.
China’s current view of being treated with honour & justice amounts to acquiescence in all things. They believe that this is their time & everyone else needs to get out of their way.
Never lose sight of the simple fact that Communist China is, first and foremost, Communist. Second, they were horrified by the collapse of the Soviet Union and have striven ever since to insure nothing like that could, or would, ever happen in China. All you need to understand about China's motivations, strategic goals, priorities, or intentions are encapsulated in those two points.
Thanks. I agree the USN has lots of challenges, and more now than at any point since 1970, but the PLAN has yet to demonstrate more than 30 fixed wing sorties per day with their carriers. Fujian might do better, but all the PRC propagandists what to say is that its EMALS is "more powerful." What does that mean? Irrelevant! How many sorties per day will it fly and for how many straight days will it conduct flight ops?
Sorties and CASREP rates are the only thing that matter to a carrier launch system of any type. Yes, EMALS potentially creates an acceleration curve customized by airframe and load to minimize structural stresses. Wonderful for extending an individual plane's lifespan. We will discover in a major naval conflict how many aircraft are sidelined early due to cumulative damage from carrier launches versus loses due to other causes. Bean counters are princes in a peacetime Tiffany Navy. Once the shooting starts they deserve to go to the pointy end of the spear.
I am currently reading "American Ceasar," William Manchester's biography of General Douglass MacArthur. The General believed that the world's center of gravity was Pacific Asia and that the Philippines were vitally important to the US. He also believed that air power (i.e. control of the sky) would be essential to defeating the Japanese.
Imperial Japan certainly recognized the importance of Asia's natural resources and built up the Imperial military, especially the navy, to capture Asian resources and (slave) labor. The US, the UK, the Australians, the French and the Dutch were all taken off guard by Japan, until US production ramped up and the US began its island-hopping campaign to re-take the Pacific and attack Japan, proper.
China has two reason to build a huge navy: (1) To keep young, single Chinese men occupied, and (2) to project Chinese power, for purposes of gaining and securing natural resources.
Today, China is still "bottled up" west of the Philippines. We should keep it that way.
I don't take my views on what is shameful vis a vis views on China from people named Huang. Our own leadership has been selling us out to China in every way possible since the Clinton machine oozed its way into town 33 years ago. We as a nation have stood back and let them poison and orphan our future fighting force to the tune of at least 1 million people in the last 15 years. They have sold us crap steel that has ruined our infrastructure in countless ways, they have undermined us agriculturally even as they have been allowed to take over huge swaths of our agribusiness, and they are buying up houses and neighborhoods and pricing Americans out of the housing market here, causing many Americans to postpone having children. Nothing out of their mouths is the truth, even their own real population. (Worth an entire post itself, Phib!) I'm still gobsmacked anyone thinks their opinion on anything in our nation can be taken at face value.
Do you remember all of the Chinese agents who contributed to Clinton? One of them said the White House was like a turn stile and you had to do was put in the coins. Then there was Al Gore and the Buddhist monks.
The long term future depends on the short-term post 2027 future. If they succeed in reunification then we can expect to see the CCP hawks get victory fever and exert territorial demands in their near abroad. We might be living with a very different map by 2030.
Hello Commander Salamander. Hey great site, and an off-topic for this thread question, but maybe you can give the best answer. Is the site www.sailorbob.com the lead anti-President Trump Navy site? I know that its not an official site, but after a friend of mine allowed me to take a look at it via their little-used account, it sure appears so. Curious to know your take on that site, as it appears that you are also a member (but obviously do not appear in any of those anti-Trump threads.) Many thanks sir for what you do and look forward to reading more of your posts.
SB has been around a long time. Like most message boards, it is the sum of its contributors. Who they collectively welcome, and who they drive away. It is what it is.
They're (the doves) simultaneously are going to live forever and "not be alive if it turns bad". Our nation's real problem overall.
Jensen Huang CEO of NVIDIA, with 4 trillion dollar market cap, is floating the idea with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI that US needs to buy their debt because China's AI evolution is a threat to 'national security.
Which will it be NVIDIA bonds or aircraft carriers....?
CDR,
I am not optimistic about our ability to confront China.
There are too many people who are making a lot of money managing America’s decline.
Unfortunately, I read the New York Times which only confirms my pessimism. According to the Op Ed columnists, the shutdown was all about which side won or lost or what the polls said or how it might affect future elections. The American people be dammed.
Turn over the city of finance to a communist and a jihadist? No big deal if it energizes the base!
I can hear the laughter in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.
CDR Sal, you have been writing on this presciently for...decades. Simplistically, as you state, the doves are responding to their own self-interest. Human behavior 101: you get more of what you reward, less of what you punish. If your incentive structures reward individual behavior (personal self-interest) over the goals and objectives of the group (family, clan, nation, etc.) no one should be surprised they act like NVidia. Humint 101: Listen to what they say, watch what they do, and follow the money. The "doves" said that welcoming China into the world economy would change their behavior for the better. The "doves" profited handsomely (obscenely, some would say) via this philosophy, and now, are so deeply embedded in China they may not be able to get out. Thus far, they have said "words" indicating they are disinvesting in China, their actions belie that, or clearly show a "say do gap" regarding statements and actions. If you follow the money, and company profit margins from China, it's clear why. "Doves" will decry this as reductionist, overly simplistic, lacking nuance...yep, agree to all of that. However, if it fits, overhauling the incentive structures to "encourage" reshoring manufacturing of defense article, pharmaceuticals, etc. is in the U.S. SELF INTEREST for national security and economic sovereignty. Creating an incentive structure that is self-interested is actually the "natural order". Or not.
If you made a list of things a nation could do to deliberately and systematically undermine its capacity to sustain a large scale conflict, it could hardly be worse than the stuff we are just doing. It’s enough to make you think it’s all a plot, but a plot would require some thought and talent, so it’s probably just people doing dumb stuff.
"Never ascribe to malice that which can explained by incompetence...but don't rule out malice." Attributed (perhaps erroneously) to Science Fiction writer Robert Heinlein as an addendum to "Hanlon's Razor". Looking for generational "malice"? Read a "Love Letter to America" by Yuri Bezemov...as always with a skeptical, challenging mindset.
If one thinks in terms of the incentive structure, the Private Equity types like KKR set the pattern. Make like it is a good idea to gobble up businesses, take management fees that make a few guys very very wealthy (Say Henry, as in Kravits, which Bugatti Venom are you taking to the Seminole Golf Club this morning the blue one or the red one? Recall showroom price for a venom is around $1 million bucks) strip the value out of the businesses because that is all you know how to do things, and never run them or run them well, and then move to the next target. The horizon line for PE funds is something like 7-10 years. Real long term thinking…..and in order for it to work you need the greater fool theory to always continue into infinity. A real contango business model, ask the executives of Enron how it can all work out. Then these very wealthy guys in concert with the very large, too big to fail banks, get everyone to believe that by offshoring our industrial base to a group of strict communist grifter’s that an ebbing tide will float all boats. It is a great a plan for the guys getting rich, it is bad plan for any free economy to embrace. Common sense would have told anyone building a factory in China and creating some sort of articles of incorporation that a 49/51 split with communist thugs was a bad deal and would lead to a bad business plan and worse outcomes. But they didn’t bother with that concern. Common sense is not a class that is taught at Harvard Business School. What the Hell, when they had the chance to get Vice Admiral James Stockdale to teach an ethics class at HBS, they screwed it up so badly, that he said sorry I can’t help you…let that marinate for a moment….so let us see what comes of the next couple of months. We roll into the mid term election cycle in earnest right after the first of the new year. We will hear a lot of chatter. Time to separate the wheat from the chaff…
China got factories. We got credit default swaps or as I like to say insurance without the necessary resources to pay claims.
We can’t even build ships for our navy. Given failure re that obvious mandate, it’s highly doubtful we can accomplish these more subtle things that require a long term commitment and perspective across several Presidential and Senatorial terms.
How many carriers and frigates could we simultaneously build in the United States if the need arose? Maybe 3 combined a year?
What objective are we trying to achieve inside of the Chinese sphere of influence? Do we have a clear definition?
I regard it as doubtful that our capitalist economy’s larger players will abandon the world’s largest market. China is already far less competitive as a manufacturing country than it was 20 years ago, when compared to other countries in Asia.
Finally, it’s hard to imagine that the U.S. population will have the will or discipline to genuinely defeat China if, God forbid, it comes to that. We will be fighting them in their sphere of influence and the PRC navy will have the benefit of a huge ship, that being the unsinkable Chinese mainland. The war wouldn’t be fought east of the Philippines.
As we’ve seen since Vietnam, the U.S. has a very limited attention span when it comes to wars, with that being 2 or at most 3 years. What happens if a US aircraft carrier is sunk with 2000+ lives lost? Not nukes one hopes, especially if, as expected, the U.S. has sunk several PRC capital ships.
My expectation, having witnessed the debacle endings in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, is that after a couple of years and the loss of many American lives we would again say ”oh, never mind”.
Like a skipping record, I (like many wiser people) will refer to the destruction of our education system (K-post graduate university) and its descent into an enterprise level Marxist / post modernist indoctrination factory. The young hate their country, and the lack of upper mobility for them in the current economy provides reinforcing fires to their perception and perceived lack of "fairness"...and they have a point. And these are our future CEOs...an important component of the "long game".
One should also refer to the abysmal decisions by political leaders to enter wars without any definition of success or victory. They’re almost all war cheerleaders until the public tires of it. Then they lead the “oh,never mind” chorus.
The Marxists destroyed the humanities and have infected the sciences too.
That’s hardly the core issue where the problem under discussion is concerned.
Not so sure. Admiral Rickover always stressed the importance of education.
Daily broken record reply.
STEM education. I’m sure Rickover thought political science and international relations were wastes of time majors.
What American family is willing to risk the lives of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters and grandchildren to save Taiwan from PRC rule? Taiwan has 2 1/2 times the population of Israel at 23+ million. Why isn't and hasn't Taiwan been on an emergency war footing like the Israelis seem to be all the time? IMO, one answer is that the threat to Israel is existential (death for all of its citizens) while the threat to Taiwan is a change in the political system. YMMV
If you consider what happened to Hong Kong in the relatively recent past, I'd say your point is well taken. HK was a bit more aggressive than the "boiling a frog a degree at a time" approach from the PLA standpoint, but aside from a slightly bruised international PR standpoint, highly effective. Suspect "invasion fatigue" is a very real thing in Taiwan.
Maybe.
But look how North Vietnam treated South Vietnam.
It’s hard to say how China would treat a conquered Taiwan.
Agree, should have been clearer. Economic, political and social subjugation by the PRC is (like HK) a certainty. So, their approach in HK worked, Taiwan can expect the same endgame. "From the River to the Sea" probably not on the table.
Functionally and objectively Trump is a China dove. He might have already done "the art of the deal" to sell out Taiwan.
How else can you explain his surrender to Xi a couple weeks ago, and the waste of resources in the Caribbean?
Huh?
Narcotics is a major threat to our nation and I applaud the president for destroying cartel boats and subs.
Trump does not want war but that hardly makes him a dove
Aside from the strong possibility that "narcotics" will be forgotten soon, or after some dubious regime-change operation against Venezuela, the ratio of resources expended vs drugs stopped is huge.
Most drugs come in over the Mexican border or in shipping containers.
Then think of it as a training exercise. RIMPAC in the Caribbean with live ammo.
Except you're pissing off Colombia and other parts of Latin America too.
Some day we'll see the Treaties of Friendship and Cooperation between the PRC and Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Peru etc.
It looks like an oil grab.
They should be worried about passing us off
If one country is pissed off at the USA, that’s their problem.
If every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is pissed off at the USA, it’s the USA’s problem. Just what Trump is accomplishing with his tariffs and threats. Even Denmark!
China is not our enemy. Nor, is she our friend. There is a solid middle ground which is where we should stand. We should encourage commercial relations with China, and all the nations. Our free enterprise system coupled with individual liberty and freedom, is the quickest way to improve the lot of normal folks. The authoritarians who call themselves “conservatives” ought to harken back to the words of our founders; Madison, Hamilton and Washington. “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”
China is an economic rival, a competitor, and a customer; not an enemy. “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.” But, we should remain wary, of China, and all other nations, even our “friends.” “Even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.”
I would like to agree with you, but I suspect China does not the feel the same way and regards us as an enemy.
So what? We should treat China with honor and justice, like every other nation.
"Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim."
I would like to treat them as you suggest but I would also like to have a powerful and industrial base while doing so. I certainly do not want to depend upon them for antibiotics rare earths silicon chips etc.
It's not my suggestion, that belongs to Madison, Washington, and Hamilton.
Hamilton was a believer in tariffs central bank gold standard central planning Navy Coast Guard etc.
if you are in NJ visit the Great Falls in Paterson where he planned an industrial center.
There is nothing constitutionally wrong with Congress taxing imports.
Of course Hamilton believed in a strong Navy. He lived in an island nation, dependant on trade. Treating nations with honor and respect does not mean you abandon the ability to defend yourself. Perhaps XI has been reading No. 11 of the Federalist Papers. "A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral."
The Chinese government has indulged a habitual hatred towards America since WW2 for no particularly good reason, and your quote emphasizes the downside of that.
Those guys also built up the navy, deliberately took actions they believed would hamper the trade of foreign powers, and engaged in expansionist warfare in order to secure the position of the United States. I submit to you that citing them in order to pooh-pooh hawkishness on China is to rest upon a broken staff.
The point you miss is that the foreign powers were intruding on Madison’s continent. Warfare against european’s asserting power in our hemisphere is an entirely different kettle of fish from our asserting power in Asia.
The business of America is business. Observing good faith, and conducting fair dealing is simply good business. So, somebody distrusts the USA, so what? That’s no reason not to be honorable in our conduct.
Given that the Chinese have been mucking around in our hemisphere, this argument fails on that score, and, further, the Chinese have not engaged in fair dealing with us, so it fails on that score as well.
It is not dishonorable for us to penalize those who do not deal honorably with us.
Yes, it is. Two wrongs never make a right. Consider Washington’s wisdom. A nation responding with antipathy to another nation becomes a slave to emotion. Nations are not humans. None of them are to be trusted; even our cousins are perfidious.
“The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”
Just out of curiosity, have you ever sued someone?
Today?
I sue folks several times a month. Why?
Here in Australia we host many Chinese students & tech workers, often in positions of great trust. Have had more than one conversation where hate for America was expressed freely. Most of these folk are honest hard working grafters, but I wonder who they’ll choose in a crisis.
China’s current view of being treated with honour & justice amounts to acquiescence in all things. They believe that this is their time & everyone else needs to get out of their way.
Never lose sight of the simple fact that Communist China is, first and foremost, Communist. Second, they were horrified by the collapse of the Soviet Union and have striven ever since to insure nothing like that could, or would, ever happen in China. All you need to understand about China's motivations, strategic goals, priorities, or intentions are encapsulated in those two points.
If China is communist, the word has no meaning. The most you can say is that it's state managed capitalism.
Totalitarian fascism. Benito smiles.
Yes, that’s a better description than communism.
Truth be told, there's not much difference.
Lazarus had a great take down on the PLAN propaganda account bragging about their new carrier.
Yeah, FORD turned out more like a Lincoln, but she's working, and has proof of it on her flight deck. FUJIAN, not so much.
May the Lord continue to favor fools, small children, and the United States of America.
Thanks. I agree the USN has lots of challenges, and more now than at any point since 1970, but the PLAN has yet to demonstrate more than 30 fixed wing sorties per day with their carriers. Fujian might do better, but all the PRC propagandists what to say is that its EMALS is "more powerful." What does that mean? Irrelevant! How many sorties per day will it fly and for how many straight days will it conduct flight ops?
Sorties and CASREP rates are the only thing that matter to a carrier launch system of any type. Yes, EMALS potentially creates an acceleration curve customized by airframe and load to minimize structural stresses. Wonderful for extending an individual plane's lifespan. We will discover in a major naval conflict how many aircraft are sidelined early due to cumulative damage from carrier launches versus loses due to other causes. Bean counters are princes in a peacetime Tiffany Navy. Once the shooting starts they deserve to go to the pointy end of the spear.
I am currently reading "American Ceasar," William Manchester's biography of General Douglass MacArthur. The General believed that the world's center of gravity was Pacific Asia and that the Philippines were vitally important to the US. He also believed that air power (i.e. control of the sky) would be essential to defeating the Japanese.
Imperial Japan certainly recognized the importance of Asia's natural resources and built up the Imperial military, especially the navy, to capture Asian resources and (slave) labor. The US, the UK, the Australians, the French and the Dutch were all taken off guard by Japan, until US production ramped up and the US began its island-hopping campaign to re-take the Pacific and attack Japan, proper.
China has two reason to build a huge navy: (1) To keep young, single Chinese men occupied, and (2) to project Chinese power, for purposes of gaining and securing natural resources.
Today, China is still "bottled up" west of the Philippines. We should keep it that way.
I don't take my views on what is shameful vis a vis views on China from people named Huang. Our own leadership has been selling us out to China in every way possible since the Clinton machine oozed its way into town 33 years ago. We as a nation have stood back and let them poison and orphan our future fighting force to the tune of at least 1 million people in the last 15 years. They have sold us crap steel that has ruined our infrastructure in countless ways, they have undermined us agriculturally even as they have been allowed to take over huge swaths of our agribusiness, and they are buying up houses and neighborhoods and pricing Americans out of the housing market here, causing many Americans to postpone having children. Nothing out of their mouths is the truth, even their own real population. (Worth an entire post itself, Phib!) I'm still gobsmacked anyone thinks their opinion on anything in our nation can be taken at face value.
Do you remember all of the Chinese agents who contributed to Clinton? One of them said the White House was like a turn stile and you had to do was put in the coins. Then there was Al Gore and the Buddhist monks.
One of them was even named… Huang!
The long term future depends on the short-term post 2027 future. If they succeed in reunification then we can expect to see the CCP hawks get victory fever and exert territorial demands in their near abroad. We might be living with a very different map by 2030.
If Chinese will sell the maps to us as they already make them all...
Hello Commander Salamander. Hey great site, and an off-topic for this thread question, but maybe you can give the best answer. Is the site www.sailorbob.com the lead anti-President Trump Navy site? I know that its not an official site, but after a friend of mine allowed me to take a look at it via their little-used account, it sure appears so. Curious to know your take on that site, as it appears that you are also a member (but obviously do not appear in any of those anti-Trump threads.) Many thanks sir for what you do and look forward to reading more of your posts.
Philo
SB has been around a long time. Like most message boards, it is the sum of its contributors. Who they collectively welcome, and who they drive away. It is what it is.