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US allies are going to be shocked when they eventually have to pay full freight for their own defense. The American taxpayer is sick of subsidizing them with our "treasure" & blood.
US allies are going to be shocked when they eventually have to pay full freight for their own defense. The American taxpayer is sick of subsidizing them with our "treasure" & blood.
We don't need your help, thanks. Collectively, we pack enough punch.
We don't need your help, thanks. Collectively, we pack enough punch.
You may pack a lot of punch but being honest you all seem to lack the ability to strike effectively with your power without the aid of the US. Libya was a good example of that with the US having to provide a lot of support.
You may pack a lot of punch but being honest you all seem to lack the ability to strike effectively with your power without the aid of the US. Libya was a good example of that with the US having to provide a lot of support.
And just how effective has the primarily US-led air campaign against ISIL been?
I also recall a lot of frustration over the lack of progress in the initial few months in the air campaign over the former Yugoslavia.
Evidently, air campaign effectiveness is a multivariate analysis. In the former case Western intelligence had underestimated Qaddafi's military infrastructure.
As far as I understand it, it was the French that still did most of the fighting, even with the U.S. contributing forces later in the campaign. A good show case for the ground attack capabilities of the Rafale.
As far as I understand it, it was the French that still did most of the fighting, even with the U.S. contributing forces later in the campaign. A good show case for the ground attack capabilities of the Rafale.
There's a lot of literature on the effectiveness of air campaigns in achieving strategic objectives minus regular ground troops. Allied Force was actually heralded as an example of a great success in this role, but it looked to be going nowhere for most of the campaign and it reportedly did little to stop the ethnic cleansing until diplomacy intervened. I'm clearly no analyst but the whole issue seems to be blighted by skepticism in the military community.
I'm also not sure we should be discussing Russia and NATO's military power in a thread about world economics. Maybe start a new thread?
You may pack a lot of punch but being honest you all seem to lack the ability to strike effectively with your power without the aid of the US. Libya was a good example of that with the US having to provide a lot of support.
But the US was barely involved in Libya - it just provided a little bit of assistance. It was mostly the UK and France doing the heavy-duty work. I wish you idiots would stop trying to claim credit for everything (even if it's something as questionable as Libya). You are not as important as you would like to think you are.
Plus, both nations have had military ventures on their own with no help from Uncle Sam, like the UK with Argentina or its help with Sierra Leone (might as well be a colony still), and France's efforts in Mali to combat extremism. No, we don't need your assistance.
Re: 'You are not as important as you would like to think you are'
You know all in all I'd think that the Royal Navy has to be happy to have a country putting about 60% of its naval assets in the Asia-Pacific region to make sure China is on the 'straight and narrow' in the region. If in the future conflict escalates there in the Asian region I'd think both countries would be in the position of reprising the roles they had in WWII ocean and sea theaters.
US allies are going to be shocked when they eventually have to pay full freight for their own defense. The American taxpayer is sick of subsidizing them with our "treasure" & blood.
Are you pretending the US is doing this for free?
In the present day world, it is other countries that are subsidizing the US. Why else do you think the US didn't incurr huge inflation with its reckless QEs?
A lot of people seem to view this as the world socking it to the US, specifically as a big "f-you" to it and its global hegemony. That's really more just people projecting their personal frustrations at the US onto a complex global economic issue.
how many of the nations that signed on with the AIIB who were members of the IMF and world bank have renounced their membership? Zero. That would be a big middle finger to the US, but that isn't happening any time soon. The nations that are members have billions tied up and benefit from their membership; if they didn't, they'd walk.
This is more a situation where, say, a business owner has been dealing with a bank for years and benefitted from it, but then another bank opens up and offers good perks for joining, so they take some of the money they make from their business and put it in the new bank while leaving the money they had in their old bank there all the same.
The NDB/AIIB are great opportunities for nations who were not allowed into the WB/IMF. The US and post-colonial powers who make up these entities operated in a very predatory way towards developing nations, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, packaging investment with self-serving political and economic requirements. "Sure, we will invest in your country, but you won't be abke to trade with this country, have to sever political ties with this one, and offer exclusive trade rights to our corporations." That sucks. you also have more than a few examples of the US and UK turning its back, or turning on, former allies or partners as the wind blows, iraq being a great example.
The thing that the US needs to take heed of in this is matter is that it is no longer the only option. The UK and France lost their global hegemony and are simply looking out for their own best interest and diversifying their investments, as they have done for some time now. The US' current economic policies are a total mess and a model of cronyist inefficiency. People in the US Itself are increasingly sick of its shift towards a bureaucratic oligarchy and other nations are increasingly wary of going down the same road.
Good assessment. The European powers are simply diversifying their portfolio; but on the other hand, it does show that they don't mind annoying the US mildly by getting closer to China.
For China, it is a big win. It has 46% voting rights in AIIB, currently with 57 founding members, compared with 4.5% in world bank and 6.5% at ADB. Seriously, 6.5% at Asian Development Bank, which was always led by the Japanese (15.7%), when China's economy is more than twice Japan's size even in nominal terms? This is why it is taking some actions. UK and France probably didn't say a big F to uncle sam, but China definitely did.
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