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This is purely opinion, so feel free to say I'm full of it but what seems to be happening globally is that newer left leaning groups are cannibalizing older left leaning groups.

So, the New York Times once again fails at journalism, framing Hope Hicks' subpoena as a "existential dilemma" instead of an issue of legal compliance.

An increasingly sad trend for a once-respected news organization.

Then again, they once said that Hitler "was one of the greatest, if not the greatest".

@BrentD15
Who's they? Neville Chamberlain? Paul von Hindenburg?

The only way anyone can see it is when they have their own head up their ass like you do, but there ya go.

So you know what I see the world, then how about you then? Would you pull out all our forces from the rest of the world and abandon our allies and let what happens, happen then?

That is not exactly what happened. Here, BBC made a better summery of it.

The Brexit made a huge showing and it's movement is getting stronger, The centrist parties are in ruins and the left and right are now more prominent, if not more polarized than ever.

there are still more elections to call too.

For once you are not full of it and you are rather accurate in your view.

It IS happening and many of us on the right have noticed it happening for decades. However back then it was a VERY slow encroachment of the new far left on the establishment center left. I say in the last 3 or so years it has picked up pace of the take over to a break neck speed.

> I made the point that many socialist societies suffered or even collapsed due to capitalist intervention.

Neither the Holodomor, the Chinese Famine, or the Ethopian Famine had anything to do with Capitalist nations intervening. Neither did many if all of the socialist states collapsed or suffer due to capitalism. North Korea has avoided famine after famine precisely because it has maintained food-aid primarily from US. Venezuela's economy collapses if it cannot export and trade with primarily Capitalist nations. Similarly, Cuba's economy is in a state of virtual status quo and they are forced to slowly transform themselves because they cannot trade with their Capitalist neighbor. China's communist system had to transform itself if it was to survive the modern economic world, and is, for the most part, reliant on rich capitalist nations for markets and investment. The USSR's collapse was due to it's persistently terrible economic status as I have pointed out, with a mix of steady liberalization which opened the flood gates to a near velvet revolution.

>But if we make sure everyone's needs are taken care of, i.e. food, housing, etc. and make education as accessible as possible, we'll open up the doors to a lot more people.

What basis of proof do you have for any of this?
The only communist country that has an excess of doctors, Cuba, suffered heavily from a flight of doctors fleeing the country the moment they can because Cuba liberalized a few laws (now rescinded) about medical doctors traveling. And despite that, government intervention in the medical field is so deep and prevalent it forces abortions on women if a fetus is found even remotely abnormal. And even with all that, the facilities are so poor, and doctors are so badly paid they have to take second jobs just to maintain.
And why exactly does Cuba have such a huge excess of doctors?
Well according to Dr Hilda Molina, the former chief neurosurgeon of Cuba and now a huge critic of their healthcare system asserts the Cuban government essentially economic collapse known in Cuba as the Special Period, the Cuban Government established mechanisms designed to turn the medical system into a profit-making enterprise. This creates an enormous disparity in the quality of healthcare services between foreigners and Cubans leading to a form of what she calls tourist apartheid.

>That's your appraisal of labor value. That you can divide labor into "skilled" and "unskilled" and that one is objectively more valuable than the other.

That's the appraisal of labor value that economists use, and one of the most fundamental critique of Marxism was his poor understanding of labor value. In this case yes, labor can be divided between skilled and unskilled. Skilled labor is far more rare, and thus more valuable. If my skill is hard to replace, and it is in great demand, guess what, my value goes up, if I am easily replaceable, my value drops. And the fact of the matter is, a janitor is easily replaced.

But don't take my word for it, there is a very broad and thorough critique of Marx's labor theory .

>Because someone has to do that labor.

That's right, they do. And if they don't, there will always be someone to do that labor. And if there isn't then the value of that labor increases until such a person willing to work that job for that wage comes.

>What's so difficult about measuring these things? Especially with the advent of incredible technologies like the Internet. How hard would it be to keep track of how many apples we produce and how many are consumed?

Because people's purchasing habits aren't consistent. And never will be. If this week I bought only 2 apples, but next week I decide to bake an apple pie and then need to buy 20, how the hell is a small bureaucracy or a machine able to determine my random decision to purchase more of the same good? It can estimate, and it can guess, and based on those estimations a price value is assigned. An army of companies and corporations all compete with one another to determine the optimal price vs demand, with more or less a far more efficient system than some sort of individual.

As I point out though, maybe eventually s ome block-chain based system would allow us to make a far more efficient system of distribution of resources – but that is not here today, and not going to be here anytime soon.

>And what percent of that paycheck now goes towards paying for rent or other housing costs?

As of 2003, which I know is a long time ago at this point

About 10% higher.

Anyhoo. Fundamentally, I am cynical and skeptical of an engineered society by idealists with little understanding of the complexity of market forces. And I doubt very much that said idealists would engineer such a society without creating horrendous problems, as the 20th century has proven to us time and time and time again.

Real politik?

Iran, through its Quds forces, is directly funding Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad in Palestine, Hamas, and is bank rolling the Assad regime. It is also responsible for much of the destabilization efforts in the middle east currently, not to mention directly responsible for the perpetual sectarian violence in places like Iraq.

Iran also has a massive strategic importance in the sense that it can choke one of the world's biggest trade lanes in the Straights of Hormuz.

Iran has also been directly supplying and working with the North Koreans.

It has also been directly threatening and actively involved in proxy-warfare with US's allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, and Egypt.

It has in fact used Syria as a staging grounds to directly assault Israel.

Iran has also been trying very hard to undermine the gulf-states attempt at circumventing the oil shipping lanes by creating a gas pipeline directly into europe (which, by the way, would also undermine Russia's hegemony over supplying energy to Europe).

But even further

Iran is on the brink of economic collapse, and an internal revolution. It is currently going through a series of ecological disasters with little help from the government – as much of the money is spent on it's Quds forces. That means even a small conflict with the US could push it over the brink.

I find it amazing how little the US news media is paying attention to Iran's internal problems, and how even a bit of a push can set t he entire nation into a state of civil war.

@Arkos

"The only way anyone can see it is when they have their own head up their ass like you do."

Perfectly describe all your comment.

The New York Times.

You keep pointing out trade with capitalist nations as if the nations had to be capitalist in order for the trade to be beneficial, or like there isn’t trade or foreign aid or socialism. Yes, mismanagement could cause famines, but if you think every major socialist famine was strictly due to socialism, then you should blame great famines in capitalist societies like the Irish Potato Famine on capitalism, shouldn’t you?

>What basis of proof do you have for any of this?

Simple logic? Maybe the hierarchy of needs, a bit, as well. If you’re free to do anything at all, then naturally, you’ll follow your own passions. I don’t get why you’re using Cuba so heavily as an example here considering the long history of economic sanctions imposed on them and other issues have definitely put them in a state of being unable to totally provide for people’s basic needs. My point is that there are huge economic barriers for many passions that effectively limit who can pursue those passions, where only the top 1% can feasibly pursue them.

>That's the appraisal of labor value that economists use

That doesn’t make it objective, does it? At best it means that that appraisal of labor value is the best one… under a capitalist system. Whatever appraisal of labor value you use, you can still take it back to human rights. The janitor’s work is still valuable because it’s necessary labor. Assuming everyone in society is pursuing the labor that they truly desire, why should the janitor be punished for not desiring to be a doctor or some other “skilled” labor? If you’re prioritizing labor like that, you’re coercing people into doing something that they might not individually be driven to do. And it happens all the time now--people talk about it all the time; you can’t deny it. Parents disapproving of their children’s passion because it won’t pay well. Why are you okay with that kind of coercion? Why are you okay with coercing people into doing jobs that they don’t want to by basically punishing them for taking certain jobs?

>Because people's purchasing habits aren't consistent. And never will be. If this week I bought only 2 apples, but next week I decide to bake an apple pie and then need to buy 20

That’s a poor example, because whatever fluctuations like this you might have, there is a tendency, like with all things, to average out over time. You can measure year to year how many apples a community consumes, and make sure that many apples are produced (with surplus, to keep a safe margin. You can even predict whether the next year might have more or less apples being consumed, like if you were to have a rise in immigration or something.

>Fundamentally, I am cynical and skeptical of an engineered society by idealists with little understanding of the complexity of market force

Market forces aren’t very relevant if there is no market, are they?

>as the 20th century has proven to us time and time and time again.

Every single one was marred by intervention by much greater world powers. If you’re going to use history to disprove socialism, you better provide a compelling analysis and argument that all those societies would have failed even in lieu of such intervention. Otherwise all you’re really proving is that rich countries dictate what poor countries are and aren’t allowed to do (namely that they’re not allowed to pursue socialism).

The US struck first, Iranian forces came to Iraq's aid. You essentially said we should invade Iran because we invaded Iraq.

(Countries in red have US bases.)
I would pull out our forces from the rest of the world. There's no reason to have that many military bases.
I find it interesting that you think Iran is a threat to the US even though the US has bases surrounding it.
And considering you blindly support Trump regardless of what he does you're the one with your head in your ass.

vous méritez le Stylo Le comme votre nouveau chef.

So you are a complete Ron Paul isolationist who would let the world burn down. Got ya.

If valuing human life makes me an isolationist then so be it.
I would think you supporting Trump meant you supported America First, not Saudi Arabia first.

Dont tarnish my language you martyr-complexe sheep who doesn't even realize that the character he took the name go idealgy against everything he believe;

Also Le Pen is just french Trump, Macron has a lot of default but he will never be has bad than these two.

@Team Arkos
How exactly did isolationism cause the Attack on Pearl Harbor? Was it because the US did preemptively strike Japan? You are a fucking caricature of neo-cons. You unironically believe America is the world police. Iran is not a fucking threat to the US. And the Iran nuclear deal was nuclear non-proliferation but I guess because Obama did it it's automatically terrible.

What are you talking about? The US didn't attack japan first. What are your sources for this claim that the Us per-emptively struck japan?

>You keep pointing out trade with capitalist nations as if the nations had to be capitalist in order for the trade to be beneficial, or like there isn’t trade or foreign aid or socialism.

That's because capitalist, relatively market economies, tend to have excess amount of goods to export – at such high quantities – that it makes importing those goods make sense. In the case of Venezuela, it primarily sold it's oil to capitalist nations because capitalist nations had the capital to buy it. In the case of North Korea, they can't even export anything and they have, continuously, relied on food-aid relief from US primarily, every time there is a famine. Which is why they saber rattle every few years. The fact of the matter is, capitalist-market economies tend to produce a wealthier population that can afford to buy the goods and services from socialist countries which become increasingly dependent on those nations.

>Irish Potato Famine on capitalism, shouldn’t you?

I blame it mostly on age-old Mercantile system which was not really that capitalist, and gross mismanagement by interventionist policies (I'll go into details). But let me repeat myself, it isn't particularly socialism in of itself that I am most critical of, it's a centralized planned economy which socialist countries tend to adopt. And while it was a tragedy let's put things into some perspective on this issue: First, the vast majority of the agricultural land was owned by a small number of English and Irish landlords, most of whom didn't even live in Ireland – i.e. the farmer-tenants literally beholden by a powerful centralized aristocracy. Second, the Irish were exclusively dependent on a single crop that had a tendency to have problems, i.e. since 1739 to 1850 there was 24 potato failures in Ireland. Third: I wouldn't particularly say that the UK at the time was all that relatively "free-market" or capitalist as it's passing of corn-laws (which was a protectionist measure to artificially keep grain prices high), and navigation laws which were designed to protect British shipping. These two measures greatly increased the cost of buying food for Irish and English laborers. This protectionist policy, which was not a market based economic system, but a planned one, was a 180 pivot from the more free-market policies that the UK was starting to adopt.

In fact, when the corn-laws were repealed in January 1846, American grain was bought to sell in Ireland, thus providing food that the Irish desperately needed. A year later the repeal of the navigation laws allowed donations from foreign countries to enter Ireland freely.

The British government for it's part tried to again intervene investing 8 million pounds into public works projects that were so disastrous that it actually caused more grief than any good. Complaints about shoddy roads being built to absolutely no where,

I also want to highlight that it is precisely in this condition that private charity did tremendous good for the Irish. Especially from the Quakers (shout out to you lads), which provided turnip seeds to Irish farmers for free that produced very bountiful harvests.

Not to mention, Historians tend to ignore how much of an impact private lace-making cottage industry that gave so many Irish women and children the means to earn money to pay for food.

Certainly the UK was not a socialist country during the 1840s, such concepts in of themselves were relatively discussed among a few activists. But it was still largely a Mercantile economic system. In other words, all commercial interests were subject to government intervention in the allocation of goods and the determination of prices. But it was massive government interventionism, that exacerbated a problem that was decades in the making. All European countries during the 18th century were Mercantile – and not Capitalist. Adam Smith's theories on Capitalism only emerged in late 18th century, about half a century before the great Irish Famine. And it was Adam Smith's protege Richard Cobden that led the anti-Corn Laws League that would eventually radically change the British economy into a more free-market based.

>Simple logic?

It's not though. Just because it sounds good to you on paper, as I have provided example after example, it is not the case.

> I don’t get why you’re using Cuba so heavily as an example here

Because what is to you "logical" here on paper isn't actually doable when practiced. I cite Cuba as an example of such a "logical" conclusion and it's result.

>That’s a poor example, because whatever fluctuations like this you might have, there is a tendency, like with all things, to average out over time.

And averages is what produces consistent scarcity of basic goods. Price mechanisms which are far more dynamic and change on a weekly, even daily basis, are far more efficient at determining how much of something should be produced and sold. Long term averages doesn't give you a day-to-day picture of the multitude of wants and needs.

>Market forces aren’t very relevant if there is no market, are they?

As long as there is someone that wants something, there will always be a market. And if there is no market for a particular product, service, or good, t hen there wouldn't be a real need for it to be produced. Hence why there are hardly any horse-carriage drivers as there used to be.

>Every single one was marred by intervention by much greater world powers.

Really? How was the Holodomor, the great chinese famine, etc, marred by interventionism from greater world powers?

I meant didn’t. Ugh. They really need to make the edit button work for longer than thirty minutes.

>First, the vast majority of the agricultural land was owned by a small number of English and Irish landlords, most of whom didn't even live in Ireland – i.e. the farmer-tenants literally beholden by a powerful centralized aristocracy.

But you’re basically describing something central to capitalism here. Private property. A small number of wealthy business owners own multitude of lands, tools, and resources that they don’t even use.

>as I have provided example after example, it is not the case.

And I’ve addressed how each example you’ve provided is flawed and thus doesn’t really back your point.

>I cite Cuba as an example of such a "logical" conclusion and it's result

It’s almost like if you engage in economic (and traditional) warfare on a country much smaller and more vulnerable than you, they won’t do so well.

>Long term averages doesn't give you a day-to-day picture of the multitude of wants and needs.

You don’t need a day-to-day picture, you just need to produce enough and make it available. If I know my community uses, on average, 1000 apples a year, and I have 2000 apples in public storehouses right now, and I’m set to produce 1000 apples a year, then how is that day-to-day picture relevant at all?

>As long as there is someone that wants something, there will always be a market.

If I want an apple, and I have free access to apple orchards to pick apples whenever I want, where’s the market in that?

As for US intervention against socialism, please refer to the list at https://www.socialism101.com/basic. And before you shun it for being “biased”--since people have done so before--of course it is. Everything is biased. You’re either fighting against the status quo (capitalism) or allowing/promoting it.

>it isn't particularly socialism in of itself that I am most critical of, it's a centralized planned economy which socialist countries tend to adopt

Cool. Then I agree with you, to some degree. Anarcho-communist here. The people can decide democratically what products they need/want, and how to go about producing them. If people are divided ten different ways on how they want their apples, they can have ten different apple orchards. I think with the right education, the people absolutely are capable of self-rule, and can organize socially based on principles of mutual aid. I’d be happy to work 5 hours per workday on some democratically designated “necessary” labor if it meant that all my necessities (food, housing, electricity, etc.--whatever “necessary” labor produces, to be decided democratically as well) would be guaranteed to me and provided for in return, and I believe most people would agree as well.

Had America intervened when Japan began to actively ignore the league of nations, and even began engaging in bombing attacks against us ships located near china, a lot of lives probably would have been saved. Japan initially didn't want a war with the US, as they knew a prolonged battle against them wasn't going to end well. However, as Japan began to run out of oil, it desperately looked at US neutrality and isolationism as a unwillingness to engage in any military effort. They figured the shock of being attacked on their own land would demoralize the Us, and further enforce their isolationism so that they could take the resource and oil rich southern-asian territories without worrying about the US.

It also didn't help that the desperate situation for oil was due to embargos put on them from the US among others, due to the horrific warcrimes the Japanese were commiting. The Japanese strategy never accounted for the US becoming focused on joining the war after the attack. After that became clear, japan had very little choice except to rely on a 2 point strategy. Delay the US until more oil could he secured, and continue shock and awe tactics to demoralize America and hope they'd eventually lose enough men to sue for a ceasefire. Victory was never something they believed they could achieve against a angry US, and always hoped to exploit people's grief and the cost of life in order to leverage a favorable peace deal for themselves.

Imo, there's a lot of parallels to gleam from, in studying the mentality and tactics of the Japanese, with those of a growingly imperialistic Iran.

Trump HUD official doesn't care if she breaks Federal law.

@Black Graphic T
"Imo, there's a lot of parallels to gleam from"
Except the Empire of Japan
•Had a military twelve times the size of Iran's
•Had thousands of aircraft, while Iran only has a few hundred
•Had control of multiple territories before the war(Korea, Taiwan, southern half of Sakhalin).
Iran has no large territories outside of their country
•Was located far from allies who had declared war on them(until August 1945)
Iran has enemy countries with US bases in them located East, west, and south of
them
So no, their aren't any major similarities between the Empire of Japan and Iran

I think you're just being very obtuse on it. Both Modern Iran and Imperial Japan worked to achieve a goal of Modernizing their military in order to expand their territory and resources, and gain recognition on the world stage as a power on par with the other major powers of the world. Both of them as well are employing a State whose main leader is glorified as religious figure and whose words are considered both legal and moral law.

Iran has the intent to invade it's neighbors, and it has the intent to take what it wants by force. What I was getting at is that the world has a chance to learn from history, and possibly prevent a 3rd world war. Need I remind you that it was Japan's leaving the League of Nation after being condemned for their invasion of China that signaled both Germany and Italy to ignore their rulings and invade their neighbors as well. Iran doesn't really seem concerned with following any UN resolution, and will likely leave the organization should its quest for nuclear power be stopped again.

The reality of the situation is simple. The US has been relied upon to carry out a majority of UN operations. Hell, the US makes up the bulk of NATO despite multiple developed western countries being member states. It's in a place right now where, whether it likes it or not, it's going to be dragged into the Iran situation.

The real thing the US needs to decide if whether it wants to still join the War, even after the lessons learned from World War 2 and the number of lives lost in that conflict. Or, if it wants to retire from the world stage and allow Russia to become the world's super power. Because to avoid conflicts with Iran, the US would need to step down from the UN security council, Pull out of NATO, And pull out all of it's military bases located throughout the world.

Because Iran is going to do one of 3 things. They're going to attack Isreal because it's been their dream since the 80's. They're going to attack Saudi Arabia because they want their version of Islam to be dominant, or they're going to invade Iraq because it makes them feel like it better secures its border.

Any of these is going to trigger a Major crisis in the UN, and most likely cause NATO to be mobilized. It isn't a question of If iran decides to attack one of its neighbors to me. From the rhetoric, the repeated intent, and the repeated historical pattern of Iran's actions whenever facing a crisis, it's actually more a question of which decade it's going to be in, 2020's or 2030's. And if the US is going to stay out of it, it needs to fully commit to having no responsibility. The US got dragged into WW2 because it started interfering with Japan, as Japan was working to destroy US boats near its conquered territories. This led to the Oil Embargo, and that led to Pearl Harbor.

If the US wants to avoid conflict, it needs to clear out all of its military assets from the region, and remove any treaties that would bind it to military action within the Middle East. Otherwise, all you're doing is complaining that the US having every reason to be in the Middle East and invested in what happens to Iran is wrong, because it just is. And then getting a Shocked Pikachu face when Iran bombs a military base or Nuke's an ally, and drags us into another bloody conflict.

If you think we're not the world police, you should really tell the UN to stop leaving the US voice mails begging it to help it police the world. It's a mixed signal for people to say the US doesn't police the world when it has military bases in almost every country precisely so that it can do exactly that, and quickly. A lesson to learn from WW2 is one of commitment. You either commit to be in a war or you commit to not be in a war. You can't have it both ways, dictating what foreign policies occur and what countries deserve condemnation while having no military so your people never die in the conflicts your policies create.

Imo, i think the US does get involved in to many wars. But i also think that is the fate the Us choose from its actions in world war 2, when it built bases in old axis territories and kept them operating. Regardless, the only way to avoid this conflict is to have nothing of the US's that is within striking distance of the enemy. As Iran has every intention of carrying out a war, and is probably just waiting to become desperate or secure enough to do so. Since depriving them of what they want will lead to war, and giving them what they want also leads to war, the only way to not be in this war is to severe our ties to every international org. And just stop caring about death tolls for people we considered allies.

So yeah, no pressure i guess.

China seeks to buy soybeans from Russia to replace US markets.

@Team Arkos
Iran wanting nukes did not happen in a vacuum. The US has over 6,000 nukes in it's arsenal. The US is also overthew Iran's democratically elected leader in 1953 because he wanted to nationalize their oil industry. Iran has some of the largest oil reserves in the world. So do Iraq and Libya. If you think war with Iran is about anything other than oil you are then you're idiot.
@Black Graphic T
Iran will be an offensive threat when I become Germany's next Kaiser.

@ Patrick

>Iran will be an offensive threat when I become Germany's next Kaiser.

Funny you should say that. Looks like Merkel's job spot is going to be an open spot soon.

I have a question about Iran: how do you plan on getting the money to go to war with Iran? I mean don't you folks always talk about how the budget should be balanced?

Neo-cons/libs when it comes to military spending

Neo-cons/libs when it comes to Medicare for all

It is politically a no starter for the US to go to war with Iran. Why would we? The sanctions have been doing a great job in crushing the Iranian regime. However, in a few days is the Mecca Summit# where the talk of the Town suggests that there will be a resolution to topple the current regime. Talk is the gulf states will foot the entire bill for the US to open hostilities to Iran. However I doubt they will get far, as I have pointed out, the American people have no stomach for an invasion of Iran.

In addition German Intel is talking the talk about Iran wanting to get nuclear weapons

Also the Chinese have stopped buying Iranian oil

The other reason why not to go to war is that our national debt right now is $22 trillion dollars.

Justin Amash once again rips into William Barr's deliberate attempts to deceive the US public about Robert Mueller's findings.

I have another stupid question: why does the USA spend so much money on developing ways to humanly kill people if most of the wars we've been involved with recently have been against religiously radicalized insurgents?

Like with ISIS they didn't have any fighter jets, so what is the point in developing the F-35? Wouldn't it make more sense military wise to develop primarily air to ground aircraft?

I look forward to your reign, future furher. Until then, we'll do what we do in every conflict. Wait for a bunch of people to die, go in too late, and blame everything on the other party.

Basically? Russia. The weird balance between Russia and the United States isn't really all that sustainable. We're just kinda waiting for the other side to find a way to circumvent the mutually assured destruction. So we keep pumping up our military to be a step ahead of theoretical russias theoretical military advances.

I feel like it's a doomed process but at the same time, Russia keeps giving reasons to be wary about not being prepared for them to try and pull something dumb. So we're pretty much stuck in a cycle of preparing for russia, trying to stop, russia acting aggressive, and us ramping up efforts again. Wouldn't be surprised if we were being led on to drive up our deficit in all honesty.

Trump sucks Russia's metaphorical dick harder than an autoblow

Russia yea, but don't forget China too now. They have ripped off way too many of your weapon systems and they can be a serious threat as Russia is if we're not careful.

"we'll do what we do in every conflict. Kill a lot of innocent people, screw up the region in the name of profit that will only be beneficial for a small elite."

FTFY.

Honestly i have to wonder if you consider anyone killed by the natives of these areas as Innocents or even people, since the only death toll people seem to care about is when some American gets involved in it

Power projection.
Primarily to counter Russia and China. I know a lot of Trump supporters and many liberals hate the idea of US involvement in the world as it is. And believe me there is much to criticize about it, but the post European imperial order – which we are living in – essentially demands it. This is especially true as the world becomes increasingly interwoven economically. The worst thing to happen isn't necessarily a large scale war, but a modern haudralic dictatorships. What I mean is, for some place like the middle East turning off oil to choke the world into political, military, or economic concessions.

Land acquisition isn't nearly as important if you can project hegemony across the region. The Europeans wanted to balance the US hegemony with the strength of the EU, but it fundamentally cannot as we are starting to witness. Age old grievencea, rivalries, cultural, historic, and linguistics make that nearly impossible (hence why euroskepticism greatest critique is the dispassionate beuracracy that the EU will become.

Since there is a massive economic gap (that is shrinking however) between the bulk of the world's nationstates and the super powers it is difficult to create a counterbalance to the power of the super state.

Here is an example. The Mekong river travels 4000 kilometers from China, Laos and into Vietnam. Vietnam is particularly dependent on that river for agriculture, and it's Delta is also prone to foooding. China, however desires to build 7 dams across that river essentially controlling the water flow into Vietnam. Vietnam for it's part cannot on it's own really stand up to China, since China can literally split the country in two by blockading it from the ocean. So Vietnam is actually working with the US to strengthen it's power as a buffer to China. This also coincides with Chinas desire to control the South China Sea, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Well since they are formed by US soldier that pretty much the same thing.

So basically like how people buy big vehicles to compensate for small penises?

Joking aside the last time we were involved in wars where the enemies were backed by China we got our asses kicked. We got our asses kicked in Korea and again in Vietnam. If the USA got involved in a land war with China we would absolutely get our asses kicked.

If the USA does go to war with China,
USA, "We have the technological advantage"
China, "ZERG RUSH! KEKEKEKEKE!"

To the people that genuinely believe the USA can win a land war against China:

@Adegenratefurry
"We got our asses kicked in Korea"
The Korean war ended with no winner. China's casualties were five time that of the US. How exactly is that getting our asses kicked?

Neither in Vietnam or Korea did we get our asses kicked.
As PatrickBateman96 pointed out the Chinese suffered five times the casualties. And by the way South Korea remained a free-country, which I consider is a win.
The myth that the US got it's ass kicked in Vietnam is just that, popular myth. The US would have won the war quite easily if it wasn't for the domestic changes in the US. The massive anti-War movement, the watergate scandal, and congressional antipathy for the war effort effectively made it that the US could no longer actively fight or support the Vietnamese. During the Easter Offensive of 1972 at the time the biggest campaign of the war -the South Vietnamese Army was able to hold onto every one of the 44 provincial capitals except Quang Tri, which it regained a few months later. The South Vietnamese relied on American air support during that offensive. If we had done the same in 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed in the face of another North Vietnamese offensive, the outcome might have been at least the same as in 1972. The oil embargo of 1973-74 also created economic hardship at home which severely weakened support from America.

Even Hanoi's main patron, the Soviet Union, was convinced that a North Vietnamese military victory was highly unlikely.

The US doesn't need to get involved in a land-war with China. The Chinese achilles heel has always been is it's coastal areas.

This has been precisely what gave the colonial powers such an edge over China. It's control of Chinese shipping lanes effectively destroyed it's internal economy. The Chinese have a long history, and in context, it wasn't that long ago that China was plagued with several peasant rebellions that cost the lives of tens of millions, and brought, what was considered the pinnacle of civilization* in the early 19th century to total ruin. Not only that, the current government fully understands the power of a peasant revolt…since it was a peasant revolt that put them into power.

We have 13 carriers, and China has 1 (maybe). And the Vietnamese are building a port specifically to house an American Carrier fleet.

*I am currently reading "Imperial Twilight" which is about the lead-up , the process of, and consequence of the Opium war. One of the biggest tid-bits that I garnered from reading this book (which by the way, is thoroughly documented) is that for many many MANY decades the European powers, even as far as the early 19th century viewed China as the pinnacle of civilization. They marveled at how efficient, powerful, and culturally elite the Chinese were. But because China was such an incredibly closed-off country (foreigners for the most part were not allowed to go into mainland China, and it was forbidden by death to teach Chinese to any non Chinese person), most Europeans didn't even know, at the time, the extent by which a lot of the internal problems that plagued China.

Straight from the man himself, not even half an hour ago.