According to US diplomat, US is the new USSR

I don't know a whole lot about China, but the one thing I am fairly conversant with is their nuclear policy. The U.S.S.R. literally bankrupted itself in the arms race. The U.S. had a broader economic base to draw on, but until fairly recently the amount of money spent on the arms race was roughly equivalent to the national debt. All this to buy an N-thousandth weapons system that could do no more than make the rubble bounce. It was a dumb move in a lot of ways and we're (hopefully just the U.S. 'we') going to be paying for it for the foreseeable future.

China, by contrast, stopped building warheads at around the 250ish mark. That (probably) makes them the fifth largest nuclear power in terms of how many devices they have. But really, how many do you need? China is also one of only three nations that has ICBMs.

I'd argue that those 250ish weapons and the ICBMs some of them are sitting on give China strategic parity with the U.S. and U.S.S.R. It's inarguable that if they DO have strategic parity, they've achieved it at a tiny fraction of the cost paid by either the U.S. or U.S.S.R.

Nice moves, China.

Well, we're in a no-win battle in Afghanistan, the "reforms" we were promised to promote regime change three years ago were simply more of the same, our military budget is the largest in the world although our monetary system is collapsing, economic growth has stagnated, internal strife is increasing, half the states have some sort of nullification or secession movement under way, the Supremes have ruled you have no right to privacy or property, our puppet governments in a number of countries have been replaced by local leaders our bosses aren't happy about, and there are internal cries for the dissolution of the empire.

I see no similarity to the USSR in the 1980s at all.

Don said:

Well, we're in a no-win battle in Afghanistan, the "reforms" we were promised to promote regime change three years ago were simply more of the same, our military budget is the largest in the world although our monetary system is collapsing, economic growth has stagnated, internal strife is increasing, half the states have some sort of nullification or secession movement under way, the Supremes have ruled you have no right to privacy or property, our puppet governments in a number of countries have been replaced by local leaders our bosses aren't happy about, and there are internal cries for the dissolution of the empire.

I see no similarity to the USSR in the 1980s at all.

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Is there an honorary USSR in every brief glimmer of historical resembance fantasies? So who was the USSR in
1510? Afghanistan itself? After all in 1510 Afghanistan was fighting a losing war in Afghanistan. A pointless war so pointless that Babur eventually left and founded the Mughal Empire Elsewhere. Like in India.

After that brief flash of USSR resemblance, darkness closed once more on the historical imagination disclosing only a curiously USSR-like moment as the Russians and Persians stuggle to contain the Hotaks from 1709-1725. The amount of madness and murder during picnics makes it sound less USSR-like, but YMMV.

Or maybe pink is the new USSR.

Maxx said:

Is there an honorary USSR in every brief glimmer of historical resembance fantasies? So who was the USSR in
1510? Afghanistan itself? After all in 1510 Afghanistan was fighting a losing war in Afghanistan. A pointless war so pointless that Babur eventually left and founded the Mughal Empire Elsewhere. Like in India.

After that brief flash of USSR resemblance, darkness closed once more on the historical imagination disclosing only a curiously USSR-like moment as the Russians and Persians stuggle to contain the Hotaks from 1709-1725. The amount of madness and murder during picnics makes it sound less USSR-like, but YMMV.

Or maybe pink is the new USSR.

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Could I get a translation?

There's math involved.

Don said:

Could I get a translation?

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He's talking about the Empire that collapsed before the USSR Empire.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE!

What what, cheerio, jolly good!

Empires collapse?

Whodathunkit?

It's almost as though it's an unsustainable social system!

Zoombie said:

It's almost as though it's an unsustainable social system!

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FFS, don't tell DC. They can't handle the truth.

Zoombie said:

He's talking about the Empire that collapsed before the USSR Empire.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE!

What what, cheerio, jolly good!

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It didn't collapse, we gave it away

That's what you want us to think!

You made us do it

Rock Throwing Peasan said:

There's math involved.

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Just the positive integers.

Zoombie said:

He's talking about the Empire that collapsed before the USSR Empire.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE!

What what, cheerio, jolly good!

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Since the USSR never sat for centuries at the top of the
world monetary system (unlike the US, which is entering its second century of taking a big cut from sucking all the money out of the world and vaguely redistributing it), any resemblance amounts to comparing an antique empire -- one that literally can trace its Imperial authority clear back to Rome -- with a series of global monetary regimes that have been mostly pretty successful, but all of which have centered on the US since 1920, if not earlier.

Maxx said:

Since the USSR never sat for centuries at the top of the
world monetary system (unlike the US, which is entering its second century of taking a big cut from sucking all the money out of the world and vaguely redistributing it), any resemblance amounts to comparing an antique empire -- one that literally can trace its Imperial authority clear back to Rome -- with a series of global monetary regimes that have been mostly pretty successful, but all of which have centered on the US since 1920, if not earlier.

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Only if you believe the myth of paper money and the Federal Reserve.

And apparently fewer people believe that every day.

Money <> Wealth

But a lot of people make that mistake.

Don said:

Only if you believe the myth of paper money and the Federal Reserve.

And apparently fewer people believe that every day.

Money <> Wealth

But a lot of people make that mistake.

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Money = power. If you stop making the "mistake" about money, then you can have somebody else take the power you leave to them by avoiding the "myth".