China.

Agreed.

<cough>

You can also use the same word to justify not squandering any more strength, blood or treasure in Iraq. And to justify reallocating that capital into our own aging infrastructure and faltering economy. Useful word, China, it can do all kinds of things... :-)

Stop-truth-decay:

China.

Or you could just say:

"Deterrence"

And cover all of your bases; how one of the reasons we don't have conventional wars is it would be stupid to challenge U.S. supremecy in that department.

That being said, though, we could shift more twords boots of the ground, which we badly need, and a few less big ticket items, which we have enough of.

High tech weapons won't help us when it comes to China. They can cripple our economy whenever they feel like it. We are already in bed with the Chinese, for better or for worse.

The down side is that they have a lot of power over us financially, but the up side is that we're pretty safe as long as we have a profitable business relationship with China. They won't mess with us as long as it's more profitable for them to trade with us.

s34738:

High tech weapons won't help us when it comes to China. They can cripple our economy whenever they feel like it. We are already in bed with the Chinese, for better or for worse.

China cannot destroy the US economy without doing equal damage to their own economy; even ignoring our direct economic ties, the shock waves sent by a massive downturn in the US economy would eventually devastate the Chinese economy. Whatever bluster and rhetoric either side employs, it seems that thus far both sides recognize the importance of not attempting to destroy the other.

widowson:

shift more twords boots of the ground, which we badly need, and a few less big ticket items, which we have enough of.

Who's going to fill these boots? This generation has shown distaste for service in search of the paycheck. I suspect it's the backlash that should be expected from the children of those who were too young for Vietnam and too apathetic or unavoidably detained by yuppidom to give a few years to their country.

And continue it so that, eventually, most of the population of the USA over the age of 21 will be veterans or active service. We would be a much stronger nation, and not just militarily. Our future generations would be less apt to elect an AWOL deserter with an itchy trigger finger for Iraq.