It's not a good sign when Israel

[Breaker_Morant]

Back to the OP

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningnews/main4206201.shtml

(CBS) Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex.

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn't want to wait for a new administration.

"The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize," Oren said. "Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran."

(my note: A reference to indicate that the Israelis think Obama might actually win in November)

Israel's message is simple: If you don't, we will. Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone.

"Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers," Oren said. "The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran's nuclear program."

The U.S. with its stealth bombers and cruise missiles has a much greater capability. Vice President Cheney is said to favor a strike, but both Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates are opposed to an attack which could touch off a third war in the region.

U.S. intelligence estimates Iran won't be able to build a weapon until sometime early in the next decade. But Israel is operating on a much shorter timetable.

"The Iranians, according to Israeli security sources, will have an operable nuclear weapon by 2009. That's not a very long time," Oren said.

For now, the Bush administration is counting on new economic sanctions which took effect Tuesday to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program. But nobody's counting on it.

 

[Breaker_Morant]

I'm assuming alt means "alternate name", or something like that. Fill me in on the local language.

You are correct.

 

[Kennundrum]

Nope. Here on behalf of someone else and because I enjoy a good debate about Israel, and since it came up, the US.

"The Iranians, according to Israeli security sources, will have an operable nuclear weapon by 2009. That's not a very long time," Oren said.

2009 eh? Who knows, maybe the problems regarding Israel will be sorted out quicker than anyone could have hoped.

 

[Homburg]

Been out of town a few days.

Forgot to add-

It's not just lashing out with nukes that makes the world see any particular nation as a rogue state- invading countries with no good reason time after time will do it too. How many more times do you think the world will say "What, no WMDs again? Damn, you guys are just really unlucky at finding stuff!"?

Overall, I'm in agreement with you. About the only reason we aren't actually rogue at this point is due to stretching the initial UN respolutions on Iraq to allow this action. It's specious and thin as new ice, but it exists. The UN hasn't called down the US yet, and that allows for that razor thin veneer of legality.

I know people over there. I have very good friends in Iraq right now. One of my best friends that I've known for 20 years now very nearly died in Iraq a few months back, with a three month old daughter sitting back home that he'd never seen. And he's a surgeon for fuck's sake. Why a surgeon was involved in a combat patrol, I do not understand.

I'm fucking over this insipid war, in case it isn't blatantly clear.

Homburg-

Fair call, I won't tar you with the same brush as your countrymen. I'm enjoying the debate, and will leave the hostility to the fucktards who deserve it.

Many thanks!

The debate is over whether or not America is the world's great superpower. Quite obviously I'm on the negative side of this debate, and therefore, I'm not obligated to do anything other than undermine that statement. That's how debates over statements like this work.

Sort of. There have been a number of blanket statements made about China and the EU that have been unsupported. And there has been no support to offer any other examples of "great superpower" currently in existence.

While I appreciate that it's not pleasant to have debates revolve around semantics, defining what exactly is being debated is of primary importance. If two sides actually agree, but don't know it due to different definitions of terms used, the debate cannot move forward.

For example, projection of force is something worth defining. Wiki (an agreed usable source) has it that the US, France and the UK are all capable of power projection, and two of those three are in the EU, which has already been established to have more buying power than the US, and certainly are certainly politcally favoured globally in comparison to both the US and China.

Yes, actually, I think I mentioned the UK as capable of force projection. they're pretty damned good at it, actually, and vastly out of proportion to their size and population. Then again, the Brits have basically always been militarily competent far out of proportion to their size.

France has some issues with force projection. while they do have a small carrier fleet, and proper supports, they've suffered an unfortunate amount of technical issues with their big carrier that makes it less than reliable. They did, from what I recall, get it out for a serious cruise or two, and I was happy to see it. She was, again from memory, port-bound for far too long due to technical problems. (Please note this is from memory, I could be thinking of a different ship).

The reason that I don't append this ability of the UK and France to project force to the EU as a whole is that I have not seen much work being done to coordinate those forces or meld or anything. They are, so far as I have seen (and this is not an area in which I have studied), still very seperate forces. There is likely to be good cooperation due to many years of NATO exercises, but they still are not a choerent force. It would be the UK projecting, or France projecting, on behalf of the EU, and not the EU projecting.

I disagree. Being loved is as useful as being feared. If the world loves you, it will protect you, side with you, assist you. In many regards, this is a superior atribute to individual military power, because, as you've put forward, excercising military power can bring a negative reaction from the rest of the globe (moot point in the China v USA argument, as neither side is loved internationally, but important in defining how someone such as the EU could be influential)

That's kind of why I said "loved" was not a useful metric. Being a superpower pretty much guarantees that other nations ar elikely to dislike you. Look at the US, USSR, China today, Japan in the 40's, Britain during the colonial period, etc. No nation is going to be happy with someone that can roll over and squish them without effort.

That said, the EU may break that mold. Dunno. So far, it has been bland and inactive enough to not viciously piss anyone off. It also has not been seriously threatened. I'm not comfortable with the idea yet both because I haven't seen praise for the EU flowering up everywhere, and because history has not borne out that theoretical love to be useful.

Basically, "loved" and "superpower" just don't go together in my mind. This may well just be bias on my part, but I prefer to think of it as history and my personal experience supporting that bias.

At no point in this debate have I either praised China, nor have I put forward that China is currently capable of invading America, simply that it is capable of defending itself against America. For whatever reason, possibly insecurity, everyone on the affirmative side of this debate jumped to the conclusion that my argument tranlates to "China could walk into the US and take over it now", which it couldn't. Nor could the US take over China. That seems to make them fairly equal in that sense, and supports my argument against America being the great superpower. I'm sure that the US could invade somewhere like New Zealand that has no navy, but then I don't find that particularly impressive.

It is very likely insecurity. We have good damned reasons for feeling insecure in this country right now. We are very much not secure.

I can't say that I see the US and China equal because neither can invade the other. It is more a case of apples and oranges. The US and USSR were a better comparison. Neither could afford to act militarily agisnt the other because they were comparatively more evenly matched. USSR was stronger in some areas, and the US was stronger in others, but largely comparable.

The US and China are not comparable. Militarily, the US is a typical active major military power with the ability to project stupendous amounts of force. China is a vicious tarpit on the order of nothing the world has ever seen. There is no invading of China. They would drown you in bodies. While the USSR was also a tarpit (see Napoleon, Hitler, etc), they could reach out and touch you.

My refference to China's history isn't to put them forward as saints, simply to compare their recent human rights record to America's and look in which direction both countries are trending. It shows that China is diplomatically moving comparatively forward with their human rights issues, and the USA backwards.

That I can see. I thought you were speaking of China's history overall, as that is what I think when I hear history in generic terms. No one cares that China invented gunpowder, or is the source of basically all of the advanced philosophy in the Oriental sphere. Thousands of years of China is meaningless politically. But their human rights record is possibly more applicable.

That said, they've frikken sucked at human rights for a very, very long time. Tianamen Square is a perfect example of that. China has much farther to climb than other current superpowers. No, they aren't Germany in the 40's, but they aren't the EU either.

The problem with the US is that we set the bar pretty damned high for a long time. As a result, the fucked up things happening now look that much worse.

We've agreed that the USA is fucking up in the economic arena.

Hell, I think we're both understating it.

China can export to more places than the USA though, the EU for example, Australia, Canada (plus many more countries no doubt) all of which have strong economic ties with China, and a combined buying power higher than the US.

However, even if what your slant on things is true, saying that China wouldn't let America's economy slip to far doesn't make America sound like the world's great superpower, it makes it appear to be a superpower in a co-dependant relationship with another superpower to stay afloat.

This is accurate. The US and USSR competed against each other, and had no real trade. The US and China are in each others' pockets.

The rest of your post seems to revolve around the mistaken idea that I'm saying/have said that China would be the nation on the offensive in this hypothetical conflict. I'm not saying that, and clearly stated that on page 2 of this thread. My refference to nuking should be taken in the context of an American attack upon China, not the reverse.

Can it be agreed that neither nation could confidently/succesfully invade the other currently? Is it agreed that there is to a large extent a co-dependancy between both regarding their economies? Can it be agreed that America's preoccupation with war is what is undermining its once strong economy, as well as what were once strong political alliances?

Absolutley.

We have agreed that America is a superpower in decline, do you agree China is growing as a superpower? Do you agree that the world is more likely to be influenced by the superpower on the rise, rather than the one on the slide?

The statement "America is the world's great superpower", that's what this debate is about - whether America can be said to singularly have great influence on the world. I still haven't seen anything close to a decisive/conclusive argument from the affirmative.

This is where we can get to some meat. I've read an article or two where China is called an "Emerging superpower", and I think this is where the difference lies. I do not class china as a superpower on par with the US because China has not been a superpower long, and because China cannot act militarily to a capacity on par with nations that are not even superpowers. China is a massive economic powerhouse, and this provides them with political influence.

The US, in decline or no, is still an economic powerhouse (for now), and is the premier military powerhouse in the world.

The EU could likely outdo the US looked at en toto, but they lack the cooperation and infrastructure to really operate in that capacity, and I doubt that they would present a unified front militarily in any situation beyond an invasion. So the EU is a middling power militarily, and an economic powerhouse. Technically the EU is "emerging" as well, simply because they have not existed for long as a Union.

At which point, I see two "emerging superpowers" and one established one, however much decline it has. I see three economic powerhouses, but only one is a major military power, with one sort of middling, and the other a power only in home defense.

Political influence is all but impossible to rate, so I am not going to try.

Looking at it in this way, I rank the US as more of a superpower than China or the EU. This is why I argue sort of in the positive towards calling the us the "great superpower". I dislike the phrase though, because I feel it goes too far semantically. For me, the US is the established superpower. Great or not is immaterial. China and the EU are getting there, but haven't arrived yet. The EU will demonstrably arrive there more quickly than China, and I think that point is one that won't see too much argument.

If you looked at the US in the 50's-80's, I would call it a "great superpower", along with the USSR. Today, I don't think that "great" is a valid descriptor. But I cannpt also say that China or the EU deserve to be considered full superpowers just yet. China is hampered by the lack of ability to move military force around, and the EU is not as unified as it needs to be to really be a superpower just yet. It's still too new as well, IMO, to really hit that point.

And offtopic, don't offer your arse to me again Homburg, I can think of plenty of things I enjoy doing to arses, kissing them isn't a pastime I engage in

LOL, you got it, Kennundrum