Its not that the US military is waning its that other countries are catching up. its like the African space programs or even china's renewable energy initiatives - some of it has caught up (or surpassed) with the US. Thats not the decline of the US, its the rising of competitors. Its not the same thing.

Also while it may be argued the US has lost influence on one piece of the board, it retains or increases influence on another part of the board. the demise of the US is very much overstated and not credible at this time, and to say the same for the US military is not an informed statement.

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 16 2023 08:17am

I think Blinken is trying to force a meeting with Wang Yi in Munich.

to do what ? acknowledge that china is the 2nd greatest power in the world and decide between them what to do with Russia ? its more credible that they will try to lean on China, again.

This post was edited by ferdia on Feb 16 2023 08:29am

From what I read on Taiwanese Media.
The Balloon incident is just a show that the Biden government put up to not go to China for talks.

Politico and MSM in the US have been talking about Blinken's visit on the 5th of Feb for the longest time.
That being said although the Chinese government have said they will welcome the US delegation they have not made it official but the Biden's government were trying to push for it.

The main agenda of this meeting is the Russia / Ukraine conflict and Chinese US Debt Sell off and of course a myriad of other issues which includes tech, " Human Rights " crap etc etc.
Before Blinken even step into China , they want to have all these to be roughly sort out. The Chinese refused because of US incessant involvement in Taiwan which is China's red line.

So the " Spy" " Weather " Balloon incident got blown out of proportion.
Well also in this period of time the Balloon incident blanketed the Ohio train incident.

For the past two days a couple of balloons were also taken down by the US government from what I heard from the media, but the US military says that those are not a threat to national security.
So they are trying to meet up with Wang Yi in Munich to pressure the Chinese Government on two most important issue. Russia / Ukraine and the Debt Sell off.
Chinese held 1.2 or 1.3 trillion US Debt before ?
They have lowered it down to about 650 to 700 billion in a very short span of time this couple of months.
The US is asking / pressuring the Chinese to buy them back.

From Taiwanese Media. TVBS

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Feb 16 2023 08:35am

Both military and soft power are mixed anyway. US Lost more on influence due republicans decisions.

Like i said in terms of absolute "military power" , nope, they keep their advance since they spend so much on defense budget
But yeah i must admit that China,NK, Iran threats are indirectly preventing it to "grow" more, hopefully Japan considers to get nukes, that would be awesome (!). And Israel made promise to not allow Iran to get nuclear power.
- Minus global incoming nuclear proliferation that could end it all (in many ways).

I was just talking about the influence since 2001, then Bush iraq war 2, then Trump emergence (distrust from allies): This had serious consequences on US influence and soft power.

Btw It's funny to read Putin about it: Some years ago he was constantly whinning about a "multi-polar" world, where everyone would have a voice... It was just another lie. (cf: the article i linked to you before)

If Taiwan and Japan have Nukes and is being controlled fully by the Japanese government or the Taiwanese government in Taiwan.
The US is fucked

In the west military power and spending is not independent of economic strength. I make that distinction because in other parts of the world i.e. Russia, Iran, NK, you could have seemingly "weak" economies but strong militaries.

We've been spending far too much on everything. McCarthy once he got the job already said we're going to need to have cuts. Republicans will probably fail to cut anything meaningfully but were getting closer and closer to the day when cuts are going to be forced. I don't think we will see military cuts in the next few years, but if the petro-dollar truly starts to collapse and inflation remains strong you might see some hard choice on spending being made. Military spending has long faced immunity to this but I don't think that's limitless, not when our interest payments on our debt are ballooning out of control.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-06/mccarthy-s-emerging-speaker-deal-tees-up-75-billion-defense-cut?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Lol. India.

Good luck russia, providing energy to all of the 3rd world countries mentioned above.

Yes...China is a 3rd world country.

This post was edited by said_aouita on Feb 16 2023 08:42am

I will say that in terms of hegemony/reputation, which does have an affect on non-aligned countries and how they perceive the current US global dominance; Then the war in Ukraine will draw cast some negative aspersions on the US, if Russia is deemed to take a resounding "victory". Also the Afghanistan withdrawal and war in general has negatively impacted the US military reputation. Less from a technical standpoint, but an ideological/long-term planning standpoint.

There are also vectors were the US military/intelligence machine is gaining exponentially from what is currently going on; That is simply a statement of fact and not something that I support or am happy about.



I actually see India as having the largest potential of all powers. But the Indian project will also be fraught with huge challenges.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Feb 16 2023 08:44am

Japan being a nuclear power would be -totally- awesome.
Ofc US would still be there in case to protect Taiwan from CCP fascists.