"The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century"

[Rhinox]

Ive never seen people fly mexican flag anywhere but that would disgust me, if you are so obsessed get the fuck back to the place you call a "Country" on the otherhand, the Texas flag is the only flag that can legally be as high as the US flag. True shit

Texas pride... gotta love it





(No its actually pretty annoying tbh)

[Max™]

Yeah, the Gundams taking over the world would be epic, but it screams that this guy has watched way too much manga and Ghost in the Shell.

Also: Part of the whole Texas pride thing, is that we are taught in school that we're Texans first, then Americans... as that's how it happened originally.

These last 8 years have made people a bit more rabid about a few things, such as the FACT that Dubya is NOT A GODDAMN TEXAN, he's a fucking Connecticut native. We don't want him, nor do we appreciate being associated with him. That, and being a bit less than pleased with the way America is viewed in the world these days makes it much easier to say "No, I'm a Texan" when asked if you're an American.

In school, I recall Texas History being taught a grade earlier than American History as well, just reinforcing the point that we're Texans first.

[Dimmauk]

I think its funny that Bush moved to Dallas. He has now brought that town to epic levels of Fail.

Texas could beat up your state. And it snows here sometimes.

[0ni0n]

"There are many who predict that China is the next challenger to the United States, not Russia. I don’t agree with that view for three reasons. First, when you look at a map of China closely, you see that it is really a very isolated country physically. With Siberia in the north, the Himalayas and jungles to the south, and most of China’s population in the eastern part of the country, the Chinese aren’t going to easily expand. Second, China has not been a major naval power for centuries, and building a navy requires a long time not only to build ships but to create well-trained and experienced sailors.

Third, there is a deeper reason for not worrying about China. China is inherently unstable. Whenever it opens its borders to the outside world, the coastal region becomes prosperous, but the vast majority of Chinese in the interior remain impoverished. This leads to tension, conflict, and instability. It also leads to economic decisions made for political reasons, resulting in inefficiency and corruption. This is not the first time that China has opened itself to foreign trade, and it will not be the last time that it becomes unstable as a result. Nor will it be the last time that a figure like Mao emerges to close the country off from the outside, equalize the wealth—or poverty—and begin the cycle anew. There are some who believe that the trends of the last thirty years will continue indefinitely. I believe the Chinese cycle will move to its next and inevitable phase in the coming decade. Far from being a challenger, China is a country the United States will be trying to bolster and hold together as a counterweight to the Russians. Current Chinese economic dynamism does not translate into long-term success."

Your analysis of China totally misses the mark. First of all, China has a standing army of more than 2 million, another 800,000 on reserve. It has the most ICBMs and nuclear warheads after the US and Russia. Any sane man won't start a land war with China. Period. As part of its military modernization and expansion, it is enhancing its Naval influence by purchasing submarines and carriers from foreign nations such as Russia and France. It is also building permanent naval bases in the south China sea. Don't hold your breath if you hope that it will stop anytime soon. With 2 trillion dollars in foreign reserve (denominated mostly in US dollar) and a budget surplus, it has plenty of resources to do whatever it wants militarily. And it brings us to my next point, economics.

Economically speaking, are we seriously to believe that China will close itself off when it manufactures trillions worth of good for the rest of the world annually? It's called "the factory of the world" for a reason. I just don't see how isolationism will become a dominant theme and dictate Chinese policies. It tastes the sweet of globalization and it won't jeopardize its incessant economic growth by closing itself off because it would mean social unrests and possible domestic revolution. Plus, US-Sino economies are too intertwined to not be affected by isolationist policies, which are almost always detrimental to economic development. Both country will do everything in their power to prevent that from happening.

It's mutually beneficial to be friends of China. Our economic dependence on China and its well being is completely contradictory with our foreign policies. A lot of people here still stuck with the deep-seated mentality that China is a communist country. They are unwilling to cooperate with China even though it is in our every interest to do so. Don't kid yourselves, the cold war is over and China is almost as capitalist as the US. Hell, I am not sure how capitalistic we actually are when we are bailing companies, industries one after another. We are so hypocritical on this China issue that it really bothers me.

[0ni0n]

double posts.

[Elvis]

You guys ever hear of Prof. Chalmers Johnson? He wrote a book on blowback called...Blowback, before 9/11. Not exactly prophetic but the continuation of these series of books (Nemesis and The Sorrows of Empire) really hone in on the main conflicts of our foreign policy.

Anyways, he's said that a war with China would be another Vietnam. Worse actually, because we'd be forced to use Nuclear Weapons and then we'd lose. I agree w/ Oni0n, a conventional war with China wouldn't work.

Here's the interview, DECLINE of EMPIRES: The Signs of Decay.

Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the same symptoms: overextension, corruption and the inability to reform.

Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. http://www.jpri.org/

Interesting stuff.

EDIT:

Oh, and the difference between Johnson and the other people talking about declining empires is that he's not saying it's going to happen at a specific time. His argument is more indirect in tone. The description above uses the word 'symptoms'. That really characterizes his argument. He says we are exhibiting the 'symptoms' of a declining empire as opposed to saying we are declining and will decline.

He's just saying that there is no substantiated argument for the alternative - that we just go on forever. Obviously, there is a time threshold for what we'd consider relevant (of course, for example, we don't expect to be here in 1 million years).

[0ni0n]

You guys ever hear of Prof. Chalmers Johnson? He wrote a book on blowback called...Blowback, before 9/11. Not exactly prophetic but the continuation of these series of books (Nemesis and The Sorrows of Empire) really hone in on the main conflicts of our foreign policy.

Anyways, he's said that a war with China would be another Vietnam. Worse actually, because we'd be forced to use Nuclear Weapons and then we'd lose. I agree w/ Oni0n, a conventional war with China wouldn't work.

Here's the interview, DECLINE of EMPIRES: The Signs of Decay.



Interesting stuff.

Yup, I have blowback, among others hah.

[algrensan]

Your analysis of China totally misses the mark.

not my analysis-just throwing in some text from george friedman. i like one of his quotes that says, "The United States doesn’t need to win wars. It needs to simply disrupt things so the other side can’t build up sufficient strength to challenge it."

any country that controls both North Atlantic and the Pacific can control the the world's trading system, and therefore the global economy. so with china-who says we have to come to them? let them buy a ton of naval stuff for their 2 million+ standing army and then train them. last time i checked, china wasn't immune to the global financial crisis and a lot of their factories had to be closed cause of products not selling. but like the author predicts, "Far from being a challenger, China is a country the United States will be trying to bolster and hold together as a counterweight to the Russians."

[Kuya]

You guys ever hear of Prof. Chalmers Johnson? He wrote a book on blowback called...Blowback, before 9/11. Not exactly prophetic but the continuation of these series of books (Nemesis and The Sorrows of Empire) really hone in on the main conflicts of our foreign policy.

Anyways, he's said that a war with China would be another Vietnam. Worse actually, because we'd be forced to use Nuclear Weapons and then we'd lose. I agree w/ Oni0n, a conventional war with China wouldn't work.

Here's the interview, DECLINE of EMPIRES: The Signs of Decay.



Interesting stuff.

EDIT:

Oh, and the difference between Johnson and the other people talking about declining empires is that he's not saying it's going to happen at a specific time. His argument is more indirect in tone. The description above uses the word 'symptoms'. That really characterizes his argument. He says we are exhibiting the 'symptoms' of a declining empire as opposed to saying we are declining and will decline.

He's just saying that there is no substantiated argument for the alternative - that we just go on forever. Obviously, there is a time threshold for what we'd consider relevant (of course, for example, we don't expect to be here in 1 million years).

Not a declining empire, specifically. First its democratic institutions will decay, and then it will more or less become an empire, after that the empire's "decline" won't necessarily mean it's disappearance.

[Maguspk]

I think cyber attacks are what would give us the upper hand against China. A lot of the time people make the mistake of thinking physical contact including bombs are the only way to fight wars but scenarios wherein you take a large area of China and say, cut off telephone communications would result in widespread panic and be a nice force multiplier so when we did do something physical it was enhanced due to the chaotic state of affairs. The US isn't immune to cyber attacks either, in 2006 or so we had at least 30,000 or so attacks reported and you know that number is under inflated because if we gave the idea that we knew we were being attacked the attackers would know they weren't being efficient. It's pretty cool to consider, with more things connected to the internet, it isn't hard to see that cyber attacks will become a deciding factor in conflicts.

Look at recent attacks on Georgia for a great example, the cyber attack there was catastrophic.

[Mayareira]

Turkey, while i do give credit to the current government for maintaining the country as a secular country, it is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world that institute sharia law. I am not sure how that will play out but one thing is sure that it will complicate the rise of Turkey even if the prediction were true.

Sharia? Nope

"The changes were both conceptually radical and culturally significant. The religious education system was replaced by a national education system on March 3, 1924, and the office of caliphate, held by the Ottomans since 1517, was abolished on the same day. The Islamic courts and Islamic canon law gave way to a secular law structure based on the Swiss Civil Code."

Turkey Abolishes the Death Penalty - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime Death Penalty(which wasn't really being used) also abolished.
Human rights related issues and military influence would probably the primary "troubles" of the country.

"Turkey is officially a secular republic, with no official state religion; the Turkish Constitution provides the freedom of religion and conscience, but does not represent or promote a religion.[94][95]"

Detailed tl;dr version of 1924 reforms:

Spoiler: show

"In the years following 1926, Mustafa Kemal introduced a radical departure from previous reformations established by the Ottoman Empire.[36] For the first time in history, Islamic law was clearly separated from the secular law of the nation and confined to its religious domain.[36] Mustafa Kemal said

We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and our legal institutions from the bonds which, even though they are incompatible with the needs of our century, still hold a tight grip on us.[37]
—Mustafa Kemal

On March 1, 1926 the Turkish penal code was passed. It was modeled after the Italian Penal Code. On October 4, 1926, Islamic courts were closed. Establishing the civic law needed time, so Kemal delayed the inclusion of the principle of laïcité until February 5, 1937. Ottoman practice discouraged the social interaction between men and women aligned with the Islamic practice of sex segregation. Mustafa Kemal began to develop the concepts of his social reforms very early, as was evident in his personal journal. He and his staff constantly discussed issues like abolishing the veiling of women and the integration of women to social life. The clue on how he was planning to tackle the issue was stated in his journal on November 1915;

The social change can come by (1) educating capable mothers who are knowledgeable about life; (2) giving freedom to women; (3) a man can change his morals, thoughts, and feelings by leading a common life with a woman; as there is an inborn tendency towards the attraction of mutual affection.[38]
—Mustafa Kemal

In 1927, during the opening of the State Art and Sculpture Museum

Mustafa Kemal needed a new civil code to establish his second major step of giving freedom to women. The first part was the education of girls and was established with the unification of education. On October 4, 1926, the new Turkish civil code passed. It was modeled after the Swiss Civil Code. Under the new code, women gained equality with men in such matters as inheritance and divorce. Mustafa Kemal did not consider gender a factor in social organization. According to his view, society marched towards its goal with all its women and men together. He believed that it was scientifically impossible for him to achieve progress and to become civilized if the gender separation continued as in Ottoman times.[39] During a meeting he declaimed:

To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal.
To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West.[40]
—Mustafa Kemal

In 1927, advocated by Mustafa Kemal, the State Art and Sculpture Museum (Turkish: Ankara Resim ve Heykel Müzesi) opened its doors. The museum highlighted the art of sculpture which had hardly been practiced in Turkey due to the Islamic tradition of avoiding idolatry. Kemal believed that "culture is the foundation of the Turkish Republic."[41] and described modern Turkey's ideological thrust as "a creation of patriotism blended with a lofty humanist ideal." He included both his own nation's creative legacy and what he saw as the admirable values of global civilization. The pre-Islamic culture of the Turks became the subject of extensive research, and particular emphasis was laid upon the fact that, long before the Seljuk and Ottoman civilizations, the Turks have had a rich culture. He instigated the policy of studying the Anatolian civilizations such as the Phrygians and Lydians, foremost of which being the Sumerians and Hittites. To link the cultural signatures of the past into public attention, he personally named the "Sümerbank" (1932) after the Sumerians, and the "Etibank" (1935) after the Hittites. He also stressed the folk arts of the countryside as a wellspring of Turkish creativity.
October 1928 issue of L'Illustration showing Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Sinop

On November 1, 1928, Mustafa Kemal introduced the Turkish alphabet as a replacement for Arabic script and as a solution to the literacy problem. Literate citizens of the country comprised as little as 10% of the population at the time. Dewey noted that learning how to read and write in Turkish with Arabic script took roughly three years with rather strenuous methods at the elementary level.[27] They used the Ottoman Language written in Arabic script with Arabic and Persian loan vocabulary.[27] The creation of the new Turkish alphabet as a variant of the Latin alphabet was undertaken by the Language Commission (Turkish: Dil Encümeni) with the initiative of Mustafa Kemal.[27] The tutelage was received from an Ottoman-Armenian calligrapher.[42] The first Turkish newspaper using the new alphabet published on December 15, 1928. Kemal himself actively encouraged people and made many trips to the countryside in order to teach the new alphabet. The adaptation to the new alphabet was very quick. Beginning in 1932, the People's Houses (Turkish: Halk Evleri) opened throughout the country. The older population of Turkey received help at People's Houses. There were congresses for discussing the issues of copyright, public education and scientific publishing. Literacy reform was also supported by strengthening the private publishing sector with a new law on copyrights.

Mustafa Kemal promoted modern teaching methods at the primary education level, and Dewey took a place of honour.[27] Dewey presented a paradigmatic set of recommendations designed for developing societies that are moving towards modernity in his "Report and Recommendation for the Turkish educational system."[27] He was interested in adult education for the goal of forming a skill base in the country. Turkish women were taught not only child care, dress-making and household management, but also the tools that they needed to use in becoming part of the general economy. Turkish education became a state-supervised system, which was designed to create a skill base for the social and economic progress of the country.[43] His "unified" education program was designed to educate responsible citizens as well as useful and appreciated members of society.[27] Turkish education became an integrative system, aimed to alleviate poverty and used female education to establish gender equality.

Mustafa Kemal constantly tried to generate media to propagate modern education during this period. He instigated official education meetings called "Science Boards" and "Education Summits." The quality of education, training issues and certain basic educational principles were discussed at these meetings. He said, "our schools [curriculum] should aim to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve." He was personally engaged with the development of two textbooks. The first one was Turkish: Vatandaş İçin Medeni Bilgiler (1930). The second one was Geometry (1937), a text for high schools. The Vatandaş İçin Medeni Bilgiler (Civic knowledge for the citizens) introduced the science of comparative government and explained the means of administering public trust by explaining the rules of governance as applied to the new state institutions."

[Xno Kappa]

This just reminded me of that one weaboo video of the guy/girl(?), was hard to tell. Fucking rages you in like the first 15 seconds of the vid with kawaii's and shit.

[0ni0n]

not my analysis-just throwing in some text from george friedman. i like one of his quotes that says, "The United States doesn’t need to win wars. It needs to simply disrupt things so the other side can’t build up sufficient strength to challenge it."

That's too bad because it seems that we are the ones who are disrupted by things (wars, financial crises, etc) that we are losing our strength, while the China has amassed a huge amount of financial resources and momentum in their economy since they opened their market in 1978.

any country that controls both North Atlantic and the Pacific can control the the world's trading system, and therefore the global economy.

There's plenty of evidence to show that it is not how it works. China has an abysmal Naval force, but that doesn't prevent them from exporting trillions worth of goods and becoming one of the most influential power in the global economy. Another case is Japan, which has no Navy to speak of whatsoever since it's prohibited by its constitution to have one since WWII, yet it's the fourth largest exporters in the world. So is Germany, the largest exporter in 2008 with a subpar navy when compared to us. On the other hand, Russia, a Naval power with all the submarines and battlecruisers, has a fragile economy that is solely based on natural resources like natural gas.

I am inclined to think that being a strong military power is no longer a guarantee of a global super power, it is merely symbolic. For the last 30years, being a great military power has been more of a burden than a blessing for the US, given how many regrettable wars we have gotten ourselves into, barring the benefits from scientific researches done by the military.

I haven't read the book in the OP, but so far the argument you quoted has been unconvincing regarding how poland, turkey, mexico are gonna become the next super power but china and india aren't, despite all the indication that these two nations are the most promising economies around.

[algrensan]

That's too bad because it seems that we are the ones who are disrupted by things (wars, financial crises, etc) that we are losing our strength, while the China has amassed a huge amount of financial resources and momentum in their economy since they opened their market in 1978.

"...Inevitably, they had to strike at the United States in an attempt to draw the world’s primary power into war, trying to demonstrate its weakness in order to trigger an Islamic uprising. The United States responded by invading the Islamic world. But its goal wasn’t victory. It wasn’t even clear what victory would mean. Its goal was simply to disrupt the Islamic world and set it against itself, so that an Islamic empire could not emerge.

...On one level, the twenty-first century will see a series of confrontations involving lesser powers trying to build coalitions to control American behavior and the United States’ mounting military operations to disrupt them. The twenty-first century will see even more war than the twentieth century, but the wars will be much less catastrophic, because of both technological changes and the nature of the geopolitical challenge."

Another case is Japan, which has no Navy to speak of whatsoever since it's prohibited by its constitution to have one since WWII, yet it's the fourth largest exporters in the world... On the other hand, Russia, a Naval power with all the submarines and battlecruisers, has a fragile economy that is solely based on natural resources like natural gas.

Japan is prohibited to have a traditional military force but they do have a Self Defense Force (SDF). with China and North Korea perceived as threats, i think Japan is going to do something about it eventually and not rely on U.S. protection. you can read more about Japan and Its Military.

"The Russians can’t avoid trying to reassert power, and the United States can’t avoid trying to resist. But in the end Russia can’t win. Its deep internal problems, massively declining population, and poor infrastructure ultimately make Russia’s long- term survival prospects bleak. And the second cold war, less frightening and much less global than the first, will end as the first did, with the collapse of Russia."

I haven't read the book in the OP, but so far the argument you quoted has been unconvincing regarding how poland, turkey, mexico are gonna become the next super power but china and india aren't, despite all the indication that these two nations are the most promising economies around.

is there a difference between world power and super power? >.> i guess spaced-based energy powering earth doesn't sound as important either.

[archibaldcrane]

Sharia? Nope

Heh, I was wondering when our resident defender of delicious thanksgiving meal centerpieces / Armenian holocaust denier would pop up.

[Kuya]

What's wrong with turkey?

[archibaldcrane]

I don't have any problems with Turkey.

in fact I'm eating it right now.

[Kuya]

Atta boy.

[archibaldcrane]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...eyomnomnom.jpgSee?

[Kuya]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...eyomnomnom.jpgSee?

Nope.

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5...enocidevs1.jpg

Nope.