Why is the US currently the most powerful nation?

[KillerMuffin]

This is not meant to be an insult to other nationals. The US is the most powerful nation right now, by how much is immaterial. How long this will last is likewise immaterial.

Why is the US the most powerful nation? I realize there's lots of reasons why, but what do you think is the primary reason? Do you think it will last?

Please let us know what you picked and why.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[KillerMuffin]

Because I am an American and not everyone is going to want to face the fact that the US is the world leader right now despite all evidence to the contrary. These people, hopefully, will pop right up and explain why they think the US isn't the most powerful country and who they think is.

Always leave room for people to disagree, makes life easier.

 

[Purple Haze]

There are a lot of reasons to pick that are right.

The reason you forgot to list is the fact that when it comes down to human survival, the overlooked commodity is food.

Why the farmers are not the most powerful people on the earth is beyond me, it may take a food shortage, or a two-by-four upside the head to make people realize what it is that they really need.

Food is power.

 

[Purple Haze]

What's my prize, a canned ham?

 

[KillerMuffin]

No, farmers aren't getting the subsidy package they want so they're refusing to fork over the pork.

You know we pay people to quit growing food?

Food isn't the primary resource we're into these days. It's energy.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[WriterDom]

We're the most powerful nation because of Ronald Reagan. Four more years of Carter, and we'd still be the best nation, but not the most powerful.

We're the best nation because of the vision of the great men who founded our country and gave us the constitution. Having abundant natural resources, an influx of skilled labor from Europe during the 1800s, and a big pond separating us from the Brit, German, and Russian warmongers helped also.

 

[Purple Haze]

You know we pay people to quit growing food?

That's because we have too much of it, for ourselves anyway. It isn't worth beans over here, but there are plenty of other places where it's pretty hot stuff. The politics of farming is a big topic where I live, and nothing interests me less. I know very little about government programs in agriculture because I'm not a farmer, but if I was I'd sure be pissed off that I can't even grow a plant as useful and harmless as hemp. That's fucked up, and so is the fact that the same government that gives money to suffering tobacco farmers is trying it's damndest at every turn to put tobacco out of business, like it or not.

Ultimately though, food is power. It's the only thing you absolutely need.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

We're the most powerful nation on earth because of the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, which made security and freedom part of our national soul. Everything we've done has been done to tenaciously keep security and freedom alive.

 

[Problem Child]

CB, if war broke out between the US and China, we'd win. Easily.

The only advantage China has over us is manpower. We don't fight large-scale infantry battles anymore though. Just as in the Gulf War and Afghanistan, we would find their concentrations of troops and simply decimate them by air. Their navy is no match for ours, neither is their air force or their armor forces.

Militarily, there's no one that can touch us. Our technology is so far ahead of the Chinese, it's ridiculous. We've got planes that can't be seen, bombs that track a pinpoint of a laser to their targets, tanks that can hit moving targets while traveling cross-country at 45 mph with a 95% accuracy rate.

The chinese are still recycling Russian cold war technology, although I'm sure they've managed to steal quite a bit from us in the last decade.

More than that, we've proven we know how to fight and win wars. We know how to use our combined arms so effectively that any enemy we face will be blinded and deafened in the first few hours after the battle begins. We will take away all their intelligence gathering ability and then pick them apart, piece by piece.

Food is part of what made us great, the fact that we've never had to struggle to feed ourselves. Energy is important, and we have some...used to be the only game in town, and now we have the money to buy it and the guns to protect it.

But the thing that made us great, I believe, is our economic system, which allows entrepreneurs to flourish, and new ideas to develop. These entrepreurial ideas create wealth, and this wealth pays for the food, for the guns, for the energy.

In WWII we were able to stay out of the war for several years because we were supporting our allies in Europe. We kept them supplied with food, guns, everything they needed to keep fighting hitler.

When we were finally ready to fight, it was over relatively quickly, in less than a year from the time we landed at normandy. Because our economy allowed us to crush our enemies under the weight of the weapons and supplies we could produce. The Allied armies fought the second world war and won it. But the reason they won was the U.S. economy.

Today, our economy is even stronger, relatively speaking. And that makes our nation even stronger.

Edited to add:

If you doubt that our economy is what makes us strong, remember that we didn't defeat the second-strongest nation of the twentieth century, the USSR, militarily...we spent them out of business. Their economic system couldn't keep up with ours, and everything else crumbled when it failed...

 

[paphian]

Other

Mostly a combination of many of the factors listed. Id says it's predominately the diversity of this country's people, combined with their spirit, the fact that they can enjoy more guaranteed freedom (via a strong Constitution) here than anywhere else, and their ability to make money.

Add to that the "luck" of being geographically isolated from the rest of the developed world until nearly WWII, and you have a recipe for success.

While it *could* be argued that China (and maybe even some other coutries) have a "power advantage" due to huge populations and a large military, I think that's a very narrow definition of "power."

 

[Closet Desire]

Hmmm...interesting question

Afghanistan is more poorly armed than Arkansas but the US hasn't "won" a war there--neither did the Soviets. The US didn't win in Iraq either--Saddam is still there. The US didn't "win" in Korea or Vietnam either. By "won" I mean as in Japan or Germany surrendured.

How powerful is the US? 12,000 nukes or 2,000 nukes...does it really matter? Office of Technology Assessment ran scenarios in 1989 with 10 Soviet missiles--end game. Country completely cripped from an energy and industrial standpoint. Ten missiles only. Got a better defense now than then?

In 1973 OPEC tweaked the tap down a bit and brought the country to a standstill. What would happen if the Middle East decided to cut off the oil? US has 55 days of oil in reserve. Go to war to take control? Before you get there they would do the same thing the Iraqis did as they pulled out of Kuwait--blow the wells. Iran could easily sabotage and blockade the Straits of Hormuz.

Got lots of food? Not if you haven't got the oil to plant, harvest, and transport it.

China backward? Not as backward as you might think. Nearly everything electronic that you own has Chinese components in it. They are forward thinking enough to be able to launch rockets which can put men into orbit--as demonstrated two weeks ago. Many of their military items are functionally equal to US equipment. It wasn't so long ago that we believed our military was more advanced than the Soviets. That's until the breakup of the USSR and American pilots discovered that the front line MIGs could outfly anything in the US inventory and that their electronics were immune to NMP. That was until the Iraqi's launched French Exocet missiles into the Stark or Argentina used A-4's to launch Exocets into the Sheffield.

Nineteen men with unarmed passenger jets brought the US to a standstill in one day and killed nearly 4,000 people with ample evidence that it could be done again today if they chose. Piss off enough people with the idea that you are invicible and they will set off to prove you wrong. What kind of a victory can you expect if warfare visits the mainland from invisible warriors and unimagined forms of weapons?

Piss off enough people and Americans will not be safe anywhere in the world nor could their government guarantee their safety.

Not my opinion, by the way, just history. The Romans once thought the same thing. We still drive on their highways but nobody speaks Latin anymore.

It's a discussion that I don't think can be logical.

 

[BerthaButt]

What's my prize, a canned ham?

Will a PRESSED HAM do?

 

[Cibo]

Should have another option in the poll...All of the above.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Re: Hmmm...interesting question

Afghanistan is more poorly armed than Arkansas but the US hasn't "won" a war there--neither did the Soviets. The US didn't win in Iraq either--Saddam is still there. The US didn't "win" in Korea or Vietnam either. By "won" I mean as in Japan or Germany surrendured.

Then what's your point? If the goal HAD been to win "as in Japan or Germany" we would have secured that kind of victory a hell of a lot more easily than the containments we acheived instead.

In other words, if the U.S. decided to destroy Afghanistan, Korea, and Iraq there really wasn't a whole hell of a lot to stop us.

We won in Afghansitan because in less than a few months we toppled a regime, helped a democratic regime rise, and made the world a hell of a lot safer.

We won in Iraq because our goal wasn't occupation of Iraq, but liberation of Kuwaait. Sure, we would have liked a local uprising to topple Saddam, but that would have just been gravy.

We won against the Soviets because, well, there aren't any Soviets left, are there?

We won in Korea because it was a limited war (the first such defined "war") whose goal was containment, not imperialism. There's still a South Korea.

As we will all be reminded during the upcoming "Spider-man" movie, "with great power comes great responsibility". What the hell kind of nation would we be if our goal in every conflict was to win "as in Japan and Germany"?

 

[Problem Child]

Re: Hmmm...interesting question

Afghanistan is more poorly armed than Arkansas but the US hasn't "won" a war there--neither did the Soviets. The US didn't win in Iraq either--Saddam is still there. The US didn't "win" in Korea or Vietnam either. By "won" I mean as in Japan or Germany surrendured.

It's true, most conflicts nowdays are not fought on a "formal" basis as they were in the past. They are guerilla wars, wars of terrorism, so I don't think you can use the same win/loss definition. Of course Afghanistan hasn't surrendered, but do you really think we aren't "winning" in Afghanistan, no matter how you define it in military terms? I would say yes, based soley on the probable kill ratio (100:1? 1000:1?). We aren't there to occupy them or take their land. We are simply trying to eliminate a select group of people.

You can say we didn't win in Iraq, and if you look at it politically, you're probably right. An educated guess was made that his own people would eventually oust him, and it was a wrong guess. But militarily we soundly defeated them.

How powerful is the US? 12,000 nukes or 2,000 nukes...does it really matter? Office of Technology Assessment ran scenarios in 1989 with 10 Soviet missiles--end game. Country completely cripped from an energy and industrial standpoint. Ten missiles only. Got a better defense now than then?

I can see how that could be plausible. The right missiles hit the right cities. I suppose it depends again on your definition of winning and losing. If we get hit by ten missilles and hit them with a thousand, I'd say they'd be worse off. Quite a bit more crippled. We'd survive. They wouldn't. But, then again, nobody wants to go there.

In 1973 OPEC tweaked the tap down a bit and brought the country to a standstill. What would happen if the Middle East decided to cut off the oil? US has 55 days of oil in reserve. Go to war to take control? Before you get there they would do the same thing the Iraqis did as they pulled out of Kuwait--blow the wells. Iran could easily sabotage and blockade the Straits of Hormuz.

Got lots of food? Not if you haven't got the oil to plant, harvest, and transport it.

I would differ with your characterization of "bringing the country to a standstill" in 1973. We had gas lines, we had some minor discomfort, prices went up. We didn't come to a standstill. It wasn't the great depression, it wasn't even a tenth of the deprivation americans faced during rationing in WWII. I do think we need to get more energy independent though.

Sure, there are lots of ways people around the world can make life tough for us. And there are lots of ways we can make life tough for them. That doesn't mean they are more powerful. All it means is that they may be able to inflict localized pain at specific times. Bering able to fly planes into buildings is a lot different than being able to project task forces and armies across the globe and destroy nations and bring down governments.

China backward? Not as backward as you might think. Nearly everything electronic that you own has Chinese components in it. They are forward thinking enough to be able to launch rockets which can put men into orbit--as demonstrated two weeks ago. Many of their military items are functionally equal to US equipment. It wasn't so long ago that we believed our military was more advanced than the Soviets. That's until the breakup of the USSR and American pilots discovered that the front line MIGs could outfly anything in the US inventory and that their electronics were immune to NMP. That was until the Iraqi's launched French Exocet missiles into the Stark or Argentina used A-4's to launch Exocets into the Sheffield.

I never said China was backward, although they are behind us in almost every aspect. Yes, they do produce a lot of electronics but where are their fleets of advanced weaponry, the stuff that will run rings around ours? Of course I could be wrong, but I think don't have it. And as long as, like the Soviets, they have to steal a lot of their high tech from us (such as the W88 warhead plans) what does that say about their ability to produce advanced weaponry. It says, like the soviets, they will on the whole be trying to catch up with us.

You can list many examples of individual weapons that may be very good, or even superior to what we have, but overall, they don't have our quality, and they don't have our sophistication in the way we fight.

Nineteen men with unarmed passenger jets brought the US to a standstill in one day and killed nearly 4,000 people with ample evidence that it could be done again today if they chose. Piss off enough people with the idea that you are invicible and they will set off to prove you wrong. What kind of a victory can you expect if warfare visits the mainland from invisible warriors and unimagined forms of weapons?

Piss off enough people and Americans will not be safe anywhere in the world nor could their government guarantee their safety.

Not my opinion, by the way, just history. The Romans once thought the same thing. We still drive on their highways but nobody speaks Latin anymore.

It's a discussion that I don't think can be logical.

Eh, I think we're getting away from the original question here, and you are using your own definition of what power is, which is fine.

Of course nothing lasts forever, not the U.S., not the Roman empire.

By your definiton, one kid with a gun in a school has all the power for a couple of hours...until the cops rush him and gun him down. I don't think Arab terrorists are going to bring down the U.S. anytime soon.

nice to see you posting again, btw.

 

[marksgirl]

I just returned recently from Ground Zero. The spirit of America is aparently what holds this nation together. What I saw there was awsome American Spirit!

 

[Private Vasquez]

it's because of Hollywood.

 

[Purple Haze]

Spirit is everywhere......

When did we introduce spirit to the planet? I'm not saying we don't have it, but the guy driving the SUV with a cell-phone pressed against his head with Old Glory flapping out his window is not all that spiritual to me. Don't the Irish have spirit? The Aussies, the Israelis, the Finns that jump into an icy lake every year?



"The American Spirit"

I can hear the theme song to "High Chapperell"

Wow, now I can hear a flute and a snare drum,

Oh my God, now I can hear Sniff Doggy Dung,

and Kathie Lee Gifford,

Oh good, they went away.



Where's my pressed ham?

 

[Problem Child]

Damn, that icy Finn water will make your balls suck right up into your abdomen.

Yikes!

 

[CelestialBody]

Re: Spirit is everywhere......

 

[glamorilla]

it's because of Hollywood.

Give the lady a golden statue!

We get better press.

 

[SINthysist]

The Chinese are currently doing what Japan, Germany, and to some extent what America did prior to and during WWII.

A massive technology infusion as well as training.

So when war breaks out, the powerful nations who become complacent due to superiority, suddenly find themselves with obsolete technology.







The blending of cultures. Capitalism and freedom. But surely, at first, the isolation and the raw, untapped resources. Plus the advancements in farming technology allowed us to escape the depletion of resources that had been occuring throughout mankind's history.

I'd choose all of the above, really.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

When did we introduce spirit to the planet?

When did anyone say we did? You're being obstinate. Stop it, or I'll have every cheerleader in Texas give you a "Go USA!" cheer. And you know they will.