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Back off Iran and the Persian Gulf, or else......
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...or else
what?
Or else they will commit suicide by going to war with us? Or else they commit economic suicide by severing ties with us? What exactly do you think they are going to do Kaladr---er---Goldendog?
Do you know what the phrase "empty threat" means?
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Chinese missile destroys satellite in space
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I dont see what the big deal is. The Chinese have had ballistic missile technology for a very long time now. This really doesnt change anything. They dont have any capability now that they did not already have before.
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What ever happened to SDI?
Oh I see the Chineese got there first
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SDI is not about the ability to destroy a stationary satellite. Technically they didnt get there first...we've been there since the 50s or so.
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Shooting an old satellite in a fixed orbit out of the sky is far different than shooting down a ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead
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THANK you. At least
someone gets it.
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1. How will this affect the Missile Defense Shield currently under development?
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It wont affect it at all, except maybe as an excuse to accellerate it. The Chinese have no new capabilities; we already knew they could attack orbital targets. It is a pre-requisite for ballistic missile technology, which they have had for a long time.
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2. Is China still to remain "most favored nation" trading partner?
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Probably. They should not be most favored nation in the first place. I would love it if this were the catalyst for removing them from that status. But I'm not holding my breath; I am in the minority on that issue.
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3. Any ideas how this will affect geo-political economics? (Think about how multi-national companies will fare if billion dollar satellites get shot down. How will they conduct commerce?)
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China cannot do that without risking a war with us that they know they cannot win. It is the exact same reason they have not invaded Taiwan yet.
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4. Military satellites, and military operations are certainly beginning to understand the "pucker factor" now aren't they?
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What is the pucker factor?
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Where does this belief that the USA is the only country that should be able to have weapons come from.
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No one in teh US has ever expressed that belief as far as I know. On what do you base that assumption?
I certainly dont have a problem with France or Japan or Austrailia or Taiwan having weapons.
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If you were China, what would you do.
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That is like saying "of course the child molester killed those children; he didnt want to be caught! If you were a child molester what woudl YOU do?? Huh??"
There is no moral equivilency. Yes, I expect oppressive governments to try to defend themselves. That doesnt mean I think they are
justified in defending themselves.
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When Dubya got elected in 2000, the United States made the decision to pursue a program of the weaponisation of space, to our benefit.
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It cant happen fast enough for me.
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America withdrew from both the Space Treaty and an ABM Treaty in order to pursue both a missle defence shield and satellite military platforms. Is it so surprising that this threatened dominance of Earth's orbital space has provoked a response by another major power?
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Not to me. I fully expected it. This is not news to me.
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I don't think the timing has anything to do with the Iranian situation at all.
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Neither do I. That is just more liberal conspiracy theory bullѕhіt.
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With the the amount of money China has and the US debt because of the Iraq war, could the Chinese put us in dire straits financially?
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In a war, what is our incentive to pay back that money that we owe China?
The sword cuts both ways. They
need us.
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Shooting an old communications satellite out of the sky is no big accomplishment.
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Especially when it is your own satellite, heh heh
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China itself is starting to wonder if its nuclear ballistic missile system is a credible deterrent against the US.
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Which isnt a bad thing IMO. I would LIKE to see a proliferation of missile defense systems. Because there is always the risk of an accidental launch if nothing else. I am very nervous at the prospect of having 0% defense against anything.
If we were to (for example) accidentally launch a missile at them, there is a possibility of averting a full scale war if they can knock it down. We should be maintaining our military supreamacy with conventional weapons, not WMDs. If everyone can defend against WMDs, then we fall back to conventional weapons, which are less likely to end with armageddon.
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Yep. You can expect to see even more amazing stuff from China in the next few years. Those people are smart.
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It is a shame they are handicapped by an inferior form of government. Well, a shame for them anyway.
You do know that two Chinese Americans were key to the development of our stealth technology right? China has a billion or more Chinese than we do...why didnt they develop it first?
It is not the people that are inferior. It is the culture.
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That's Capitalism! You don't like it?
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No, I dont
like it. I *love* it.
The more capitalistic they become, the more like us they become...and the more open their markets become. None of that is a bad thing.
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China is non-aggressive. They've been that way for 3,000 years.
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Has anyone notified Taiwan or Tibet that China is non-aggressive? heh heh