know your friends well, but your enemies better, why the united states will fall Options

[sadolakced acid]

The United States of America.

the promise land?
land of milk and honey?
land of the mountain of gold?

maybe.

yet, like all empires, doomed to fail.

why, you ask? mayhaps it's politics. mayhaps it's terrorists. or mayhaps it's cultural.

So says the old joke, that people who only know one language are americans. This may be true for some, but with more and more high schools requiring foriegn languages, this is slowly changing.

yet to what purpose? sure, we might learn the culture of the romans, the french, the spanish (and mexicans), and the germans. but will this help us in the world?

if we consider the world as a whole, what is the greatest threat to the United States of America? Is it russia? they seem to be fading from the stage, their act over, exiting stage left.

is it the middle east? certainly they are the source for terrorists. Yet what do terrorists do? they kill people. They terrorize. yet this is not what kills a nation. Terrorist's actions unify America, they make it stronger.

then what is the threat?

let's look at recent events.

george bush annouces that the united states will return to the moon by 2019.
and china anounces that they will put a man on the moon by 2018.

a brilliant display of one-up-manship if it's pulled off.

this is a nation that has vast potential, and they are begining to tap it. Sure, there are growing pains, but it means they are growing.

so let's consider this for a second. most every nation, china included, teach thier children to speak english.

To do this, they read american books, learn from american teachers, and watch american movies.

American culture is exported to other countries. yet these countries don't completely ignore thier own culture. the two- american culture and local culture- coexist.

jump to america.

a country where youths make jokes based on racial stereotypes from 100 years ago.

a country where most children's knowledge of chinese is how to say a few bad words.

a country where other cultures are not valued, or studied.

let us look to the future. Is the united states going to be able to sell things to china? not anymore, not with our limited understanding of thier culture.

but they, on the other, they have hundreds of thousands of college graduates who know how to operate in a western buisness world, who know what americans want, and can give it to them for much cheaper.

So what, you ask. Why should it matter?

the answer is staring you in the face. America dominates because america innovates. the internet. automobiles. aeroplanes. all created here.

so what happens when america loses it's innovation? then it's military weapons cease to be the worlds best. It's industry ceases to do things others cannot. It's commerce soon depends on someone else. and it's dominence-- it's dominence fades.

and thus the empire falls.

[sadolakced acid]

americans don't know thier enemies.

but our enemies know us all too well.

therefore, we will fall, in the next 50 years.
at least, from power.

the government will fall not long after that.

[medic]

americans don't know thier enemies.

but our enemies know us all too well.

therefore, we will fall, in the next 50 years.
at least, from power.

the government will fall not long after that.

Well, in the next 50 years, well see about that.

Now remember, the world was going to end from Y2K back in the day...

Well, China has a modified AK-47 that's in bullpup configuration. It was made by the Chinese, but its heart and soul is still the AK-47. Also China has made a few tanks based off of Soviet designs, and they're trying to copy the ARENA system.

Russia simply has no money to maintain, let alone develop, weapons. They had to sell one of their aircraft carriers to China, interestingly enough.

The AK-47 was made by the Russian, and was sold to China during the fall of the Soviet Union. Along with half of there armor and jets. Chinas main jet is the MIG, once again a Russian built war machine. Yes, they sold one of there aircraft carriers to China. But why can't China produce there own aircraft carriers? You also have to take into fact that China is Communist, the ideals of communism is a stock pile of power for a mass war. I dought that is what China has in mind, they are leaning towards Democracy now-a-days. Give it a few years, and China will be back to its old ways. China, is a super power, but so is the US, Brittan, Canada, and Russia. The Third largest military is Russia, during the cold war, Russia had 4x the amount of long range nuqs that the US had. During the fall of the USSR, they "disappeared". Now, remember when China first became a Communist country, it was a hell hole. The Russian economy is growing at nearly eight percent, adjusted for inflation. With a rising middle class, retail sales have been growing about 20 percent a year. When you are in Russia, the average family car is a Mercedes. It is not because of the so called “Russian Mob” now a days, its because companies have started to invest billions into the Russia Economy.

And the Russian Treasury has bounced back from the ruble crisis of 1998.A critical difference in economy today is the Russian central bank. It has foreign currency reserves of almost $900.9 billion. Money is flowing into the Russian stock market. Give it time, soon Russia will once again, be the super power it once was.

Russian oil companies are increasing production, spurred by high oil prices on world markets. In doing this, the companies curtail their investments in exploration of new deposits and overall development of their business. Equipment producers already say that a number of orders for new equipment have decreased greatly.

Russian daily Izvestia writes that in 2003 the total net income of Russian oil companies amounted to $25 billion, while total investments in business development were only $7 billion. In the first months of 2004 oil production grew by 10.7 percent compared to the same period of last year. Such a notable increase is attributed to high prices that rule world oil markets.

Russia is the only country which exports oil and increases its production along with increase in demand. This information was contained in the monthly report prepared by experts of International Energy Agency. According to the Agency’s figures over the first fourth months of 2004 overall production of oil in Russia increased by almost 30 percent. At the same time other countries which export oil, notably members of OPEC, are reducing the production.

The dangers of uncontrolled production increases which can lead to rapid “depletion of deposits” were pointed out today by Simon Vainstock, CEO of state-owned pipeline monopoly Transneft. Vainstock declared that Transneft is ready to become “an instrument” that would help limit the export of oil. In the opinion of Transneft official the government should control the development of natural resources’ deposits with the help of licensing agreements because improper usage will have a major adverse effect on Russia’s future.

Yah, I kind of wen't off subject a little bit...