Raptor vs Eagle

China is the elephant in the room of American foreign policy. With its
Chamber of Commerce mentality, the Bush. administration, like the Clinton
administration before it, appears to believe that trade entanglements will
restrain Chinese aggression indefinitely. This policy is helping China
develop an economic engine powerful and sophisticated enough to produce a
military mega-power.

That is inevitable, no matter what we do.

I think the morale is: 'Tis better to trade with the elephant than to get
stomped by him.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

China is the elephant in the room of American foreign policy. With its
Chamber of Commerce mentality, the Bush. administration, like the Clinton
administration before it, appears to believe that trade entanglements will
restrain Chinese aggression indefinitely. This policy is helping China
develop an economic engine powerful and sophisticated enough to produce a
military mega-power.

That is inevitable, no matter what we do.

I think the morale is: 'Tis better to trade with the elephant than to get
stomped by him.

'Tis better to fatten up the elephant before you get stomped by him?

Well,

I don't see the problem. If this thing can take on 8 other aircraft, then
it means the US needs fewer of them.

What was the ratio for the F-16 and F-18s?

Figure out the difference, and thats how many F-22s we need. Even if they
do cost more.


"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote:
8 versus 1! And this against arguably the best fighter (and pilots) in
the world.

Looks like Lockheed's got another winner. (I just hope it isn't the last
manned fighter aircraft...)

Impressive, but...

One must remember that it is politically important for military brass to
ensure that their latest toys get good press. Not saying the dogfight was
faked, but I would not be surprised to learn that the exercise was
designed to show the F-22 to maximum advantage.

Congress has been upset about the astounding cost of the Raptor, which has
gone from around $90 million to nearly $200 million per plane. At one
point in 1999, conservative Republicans Jerry Lewis of California and Bill
Young of Florida, and conservative Democrat John Murtha of Pennsylvania,
all key figures on the House Appropriations Committee, attempted to zero
production funding because of skyrocketing costs and procurement
"irregularities." To keep that from happening again, the Air Force will
make every effort to make sure the F-22 is perceived as the uber-fighter
it was touted to be.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

'Tis better to fatten up the elephant before you get stomped by him?

'tis better the elephant isn't hungry.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Recently, Jay Honeck posted:

Lyndon Johnson tried to have both "guns and butter" (Viet Nam and
Apollo) -- and started our long, death spiral of deficit spending.

NASA's budget is rather insignificant compared with *any* military
spending. Why concentrate on the pennies while wasting the megabucks?

Guess you weren't around during the heady Apollo days, eh? NASA's
budget was hardly insignificant when we were building moonships.

I was an adult before we landed on the moon, so I remember those days
pretty well... ;-)

Those days were in the midst of the war in Viet Nam and the arms race
w/the Soviet Union. AIRC we weren't outspending those involvements to get
to the moon.

Of course, when he tried to do all these things AND Apollo AND Viet
Nam, something had to give.

We were spending big bucks on many other military projects that were not
deployed in Viet Nam. What do you think cost us more; the Apollo program,
or the ICBMs, nuclear subs and Polaris programs during that time span?

Jay... "they" are "us". We middle-aged citizens are the ones in the
driver's seat. And, from what I can see, we're not doing so hot at
driving. Or even thinking about what direction we should be driving.
So, instead, we run in circles like chickens missing our heads,
enacting piles of pointless legislation and hoping that no one with
any power objects.

True enough, but look at our choices! My God, we've got the
conservatives controlling the Federal Government, which should
virtually assure a balanced budget and fiscal restraint -- something
I have supported my entire adult life.

The problem is, those controlling the Federal Government are not
conservatives, regardless of what label they assign to themselves. I tend
to go by what people do, rather than what they say. And, what they are
doing is about as far from conservative as one can get. I think they get
away with it in part because people are satisfied to believe that they are
what they call themselves.

And the loyal opposition presents absolutely no alternative. If
anything, the situation would be frighteningly worse, if the tables
were turned. I can't imagine what the deficit would be if the
Democrats were to ever control both houses of congress, and the
presidency. It boggles the mind.

The only real-world examples I recall would call this notion into
question. What does appear to happen is that the focus of the spending
shifts, but overall, the amount of spending doesn't seem to change much.

Neil

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:eAkOe.272944$_o.188778@attbi_s71...
China is the elephant in the room of American foreign policy. With its
Chamber of Commerce mentality, the Bush. administration, like the
Clinton
administration before it, appears to believe that trade entanglements
will
restrain Chinese aggression indefinitely. This policy is helping China
develop an economic engine powerful and sophisticated enough to produce
a
military mega-power.

That is inevitable, no matter what we do.

I think the morale is: 'Tis better to trade with the elephant than to get
stomped by him.

"When trade doesn't cross borders, armies will" -- Adam Smith

George Patterson opined

Ash Wyllie wrote:

In a generation the Pacific rim will be a very dangerous place.

The Atlantic carried a story a month or two back on this. One of our military
experts was quoted as saying "Getting into a war with China is easy. I can
think of several trigger points; Taiwan, for instance. The question is, how
do get yourself *out* of a war with China?"

Some points the article made -- 1) China is a nuclear power. 2) Their sub
force is increasing rapidly and could control most of the Pacific in ten
years or so if they maintain the current build rate. 3) They have a small
carrier force and are working hard at developing it. Carriers give you
offensive capabilities that nothing else will provide.

In short, in ten to twenty years, China will have offensive capacity which
will allow them to do pretty much anything they want in the Pacific and they
will be able to easily sink any surface forces we deploy against them. What
they do with this remains to be seen, of course.

Very true. Our best hope is that a middle class democratic revolution occurs
and then behaves in a much less aggrexive manner.


-ash
Cthulhu in 2005!
Why wait for nature?

Jay Honeck opined


No, I'm afraid we are screwed until the Libertarians figure out how to
present a politically viable candidate. It will be a race to see if that
will happen before the next revolution.

We're screwed then... Libertarians are philosophically against buying votes
using taxpayer money.



-ash
Cthulhu in 2005!
Why wait for nature?

Hi Joe!

"JJS" jschneider@remove socks cebridge.net wrote:
I have a goal of visiting your country to learn more of it's rich
history and people and to visit the area where my cousin lost his
life. Would you be available as a guide to the Hattonville area?

Hattonville is located Southeast of Verdun, France, thus quite a ways from
Martin's location in Austria. I happen to live in the Southwest of Germany,
about two hours by car (or 45 minutes by plane :-) from the Verdun area.
Please let me know if I can be of any assistance in your travel plans.


Many greetings,
Markus Voget


--
For email, substitute epost with web.

"Stubby" wrote in message
...
Blueskies wrote:
....


There was an allusion to us all living together peacefully without war.
von Clausewicz wrote that war is the ultimate resolution of political
disputes. If you can figure a way to get rid of politics and politicians,
maybe we can avoid war, but I don't think that is possible.

Actually, it is the other way around. If you get *more* politicians
talking, you *avoid* war.

http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle8772.htm

Major (world) war is the result of backroom alliances, not political
rhetoric. The mentality that I ask my buddy to join me in a barroom brawl
no matter what, whether or not it is good for the bar, him, his family, the
neighbourhood, etc.

Politicians, even the woefully corrupt and inefficient United Nations,
usually manage to remain in a war of words instead of knives. Unless they
have allowed themselves to be seduced into using their forum for backroom
conspiracy instead of political argument.

Major (world) war will be averted only so long as nations grit their teeth
and abide within some global framework, bad as that may be, but encouraging
others to do likewise.

When nations claim to be somehow above that, and act unilaterally, others
are also encouraged to do likewise.

You may be right...in that "I don't think its possible..." to avoid "wars".
But the goal has to be to avoid *world* wars. We managed to avoid that for
the past sixty years...

What has changed to have us be sliding into it at this very moment?


--
*** A great civilization is not conquered from without until it
has destroyed itself from within. ***
- Ariel Durant 1898-1981