New Chinese Stealth Fighter or is it? :O

I agree that the plane in itself will not be a threat for the US, but locally, it might be a very serious threat to Japan, Korea... And I highly doubt that the US or any other nation would step up in case of a confrontation with Japan or Korea. The Chinese can be very agressive. Summarizing China to a bunch of copycats riding bicycles is an incredible display of ignorance and oversight. Heck, the talibans are kicking our butts in Afgha, and they're a bunch of sneaker-wearing peasants with AK47 and RPG7's ! This habit of underestimating our competitors or adversaries is why they own that much of the US and soon Europe !
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
This habit of underestimating our competitors or adversaries is why they own that much of the US and soon Europe !
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Agreed. And without contributing too much to thread-drift (or, well, I don't care): What is to be done? There's a school of thought that suggests that as enraging and personally offensive as we might find it, after a solid millenium of trying, Islam will conquer Europe through out-breeding and assymetrical warfare. Likewise (some would say), the US will wind up a servant state due to our insatiable appetite for being Entertained. What will turn the tide? Or should we even care?
 
How are the Chinese coming on their carrier? I know they bought one from Ukraine to turn it into a floating casino or something like that...are they still out fitting it for carrier operations?
 
What a good thread ! Well, I have studied in the US for 4 years and I just love the country. The energy, the positive attitude, the inventivity make up for an amazing country. However what is bringing it down as a country (not politics) is this individualism and above all the incredible greed that is now driving it. I'm a French citizen, living in South America, but it seems that in Europe the market is still being controlled (by a shoestring, but still) by the politics. When the market dominates the politics and that the country is driven for thesole benefit of a few, it's a guaranteed failure. There is no such thing in China where 50 years of communism and smart politics have yielded a highly community-oriented population working for the benefit of the whole country vs their own good. Now of course, the corruption is tremendous, the human rights are inexistant, no freedom of press or anything, but they are very united.
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
Heck, the talibans are kicking our butts in Afgha, and they're a bunch of sneaker-wearing peasants with AK47 and RPG7's ! This habit of underestimating our competitors or adversaries is why they own that much of the US and soon Europe !
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Gotta stop you here for a second. The taliban are NOT kicking our butts. They haven't beat us in a fight yet. WE are kicking our own butts by our bullcrap Rules of Engagement that sends our own troops into battle with one hand tied behind our backs. We're so bogged down over there and it's been going on for nearly 10 years, because we don't have Generals or politicians with the balls to do whats necessary to fight the enemy as they fight us, times 10.
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
What a good thread ! Well, I have studied in the US for 4 years and I just love the country. The energy, the positive attitude, the inventivity make up for an amazing country. However what is bringing it down as a country (not politics) is this individualism and above all the incredible greed that is now driving it. I'm a French citizen, living in South America, but it seems that in Europe the market is still being controlled (by a shoestring, but still) by the politics. When the market dominates the politics and that the country is driven for thesole benefit of a few, it's a guaranteed failure. There is no such thing in China where 50 years of communism and smart politics have yielded a highly community-oriented population working for the benefit of the whole country vs their own good. Now of course, the corruption is tremendous, the human rights are inexistant, no freedom of press or anything, but they are very united.
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This seems oversimplified. Not with regards to the US, sadly, because I quite agree that the US is now essentially a feudal state a la Europe in the 10th century, except we've replaced Religion with Consumer Goods and Dancing with The Stars. But the Chinese aren't really all that unified, and the State that you describe is really just the same thing...everyone works to benefit the Few. The Chinese are slowly figuring this out. It will be an interesting story that appears over the next 20 or 30 years, over there.
 
MikeD said:
Gotta stop you here for a second. The taliban are NOT kicking our butts. They haven't beat us in a fight yet. WE are kicking our own butts by our bullcrap Rules of Engagement that sends our own troops into battle with one hand tied behind our backs. We're so bogged down over there and it's been going on for nearly 10 years, because we don't have Generals or politicians with the balls to do whats necessary to fight the enemy as they fight us, times 10.
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The political is the practical. Von Clauswitz was right. Arguing about whether my Dad can beat up your Dad is pointless if my Dad isn't willing to get his nose bloodied. Personally, I'm in favor of raising the drawbridge, hunkering down, and getting our own house in order before we have the insane arrogance to imagine that the rest of the world "needs" us. What do they need, exactly? Criminals running their government? They've got that and we do too. Ethical people laboring under the yoke of tyranny? They've got that and we do, too. Cheap consumer goods to keep the people watching fantasies rather than engage in the real world where they're being used and stolen from by their Betters? Well. We've got that. Maybe that's what they're missing.
 
Mike your answer is highly rethorical, and having spent quite some time there, you and I know that there's very little chance to get out of there with our heads high. We have miserably failed after 2001 to recognize the rebirth of the taliban movement. They have won the battle of opinion, used the unbelievable bureaucracy and the inept stupidity of the milint at their advantage, have killed thousands of young brave soldiers. Afghanistan is still and more than ever a huge mess, and unless we retire from there leaving a pacified country, they will have won the battle. Heck, the Greeks, the English, the Russian (at the top of their game) got shredded into pieces, how do you think we'll win ?
And because they have the advantage of terrain knowledge, because they don't value life as much as we occidental society do they do kick our asses....
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
Mike your answer is highly rethorical, and having spent quite some time there, you and I know that there's very little chance to get out of there with our heads high. We have miserably failed after 2001 to recognize the rebirth of the taliban movement. They have won the battle of opinion, used the unbelievable bureaucracy and the inept stupidity of the milint at their advantage, have killed thousands of young brave soldiers. Afghanistan is still and more than ever a huge mess, and unless we retire from there leaving a pacified country, they will have won the battle. Heck, the Greeks, the English, the Russian (at the top of their game) got shredded into pieces, how do you think we'll win ?
And because they have the advantage of terrain knowledge, because they don't value life as much as we occidental society do they do kick our asses....
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While I see where you're coming from, and agree on the political points of us losing our focus over there from the original mission and letting mission creep take us from simply rooting out the Taliban, to now nation building and other bogged-down crap; I still think that our troops do a fine job against the Taliban, but could do much better if allowed to do so by our candyass politicians and generals. I'm talking specifically the combat front here......as Im fully aware we have political problems there that are killing us....from shady politicians in the Afghan govt, to being bled financially every year we're there, etc. Don't get me wrong, the Taliban are to be respected just as the Viet Cong were to be.....they're good at what they do. But alot of their victories have been from what we're not doing, rather from what they are doing.

I agree that we never should've stayed as long as we did. If we would've fought this with more effort than just piecemeal in the first couple of years, we likely wouldn't be where we are now, in a quagmire. And the biggest thing the Taliban have that we don't: time.
 
Boris Badenov said:
The political is the practical. Von Clauswitz was right. Arguing about whether my Dad can beat up your Dad is pointless if my Dad isn't willing to get his nose bloodied. Personally, I'm in favor of raising the drawbridge, hunkering down, and getting our own house in order before we have the insane arrogance to imagine that the rest of the world "needs" us. What do they need, exactly? Criminals running their government? They've got that and we do too. Ethical people laboring under the yoke of tyranny? They've got that and we do, too. Cheap consumer goods to keep the people watching fantasies rather than engage in the real world where they're being used and stolen from by their Betters? Well. We've got that. Maybe that's what they're missing.
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You know, when I was over the multiple times I was......I was surprised at just how much importance we put towards securing the Afghan/Pakistan border, or the Iraq/Syria border......it's a hugely important mission objective over there.....6000 miles across the globe.

Then I come back here, and find that we give lip service to the border 60 miles south of TUS that in some ways is more dangerous than either of those borders 6000 miles away, and getting worse every week. How ironic.
 
We could kill everyone we see within 50 feet of an AK. We're not going to win until we give an alternative that is better than the Taliban. Karzai and his literally ludicrous and corrupt band of cronies is not that alternative. It's pretty much open knowledge that his brother is a big time heroin dealer, enriching himself at the cost of the entire country. If I were them, I'd be sorely pressed to figure out why supporting our bunch of corrupt a-holes is better than supporting their (generally NOT corrupt) a-holes. Well, ok, if I were gay or female, I'd probably be on our side, but I'd be holding my nose.
 
Boris Badenov said:
We could kill everyone we see within 50 feet of an AK. We're not going to win until we give an alternative that is better than the Taliban. Karzai and his literally ludicrous and corrupt band of cronies is not that alternative. It's pretty much open knowledge that his brother is a big time heroin dealer, enriching himself at the cost of the entire country. If I were them, I'd be sorely pressed to figure out why supporting our bunch of corrupt a-holes is better than supporting their (generally NOT corrupt) a-holes. Well, ok, if I were gay or female, I'd probably be on our side, but I'd be holding my nose.
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You aren't kidding. You remember the Wikileaks cable that was released regarding the Afghan Vice President caught by our own DEA smuggling Afghan money into the UAE.....likely to a personal account?

Everytime we support a Karzai, a Duvalier, a Noriega, a Hussein, a Somoza, a Batista........we lose some serious credibility.

Below....

Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
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MikeD said:
While I see where you're coming from, and agree on the political points of us losing our focus over there from the original mission and letting mission creep take us from simply rooting out the Taliban, to now nation building and other bogged-down crap; I still think that our troops do a fine job against the Taliban, but could do much better if allowed to do so by our candyass politicians and generals. I'm talking specifically the combat front here......as Im fully aware we have political problems there that are killing us....from shady politicians in the Afghan govt, to being bled financially every year we're there, etc. Don't get me wrong, the Taliban are to be respected just as the Viet Cong were to be.....they're good at what they do. But alot of their victories have been from what we're not doing, rather from what they are doing.

I agree that we never should've stayed as long as we did. If we would've fought this with more effort than just piecemeal in the first couple of years, we likely wouldn't be where we are now, in a quagmire. And the biggest thing the Taliban have that we don't: time.
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Mike, I have spent a lot of time with the French special forces and the US soldiers. They all are amazing individuals for whom I have the utmost respect. But we are failing because of the politics. Our weaknesses are their victories.
 
MikeD said:
Everytime we support a Karzai, a Duvalier, a Noriega, a Hussein, a Somoza, a Batista........we lose some serious credibility.
Click to expand...

We do worse than that, we lose the high ground (presuming we ever had it). The things I signed up to fight for are, IMHO, hollow phrases uttered by very smart men with lots of market research who say them to sell us something. The things I would have fought for are dead. They've become taglines for well-crafted advertisements. I saw a commercial for Dodge's execrable, junky pickups the other day that had the audacity to use the word "honor" as a sales pitch. We're selling "honor" to ourselves, and we expect dirt farmers who don't have a pot to piss in, and could be killed at any minute to stand up and fight because they trust our word? It would be funny if it weren't so damn sad.
 
Pépé le Pilot said:
Mike, I have spent a lot of time with the French special forces and the US soldiers. They all are amazing individuals for whom I have the utmost respect. But we are failing because of the politics. Our weaknesses are their victories.
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Spent a few tours over there too, and I fully agree with you on the failure due to politics. And its only getting worse.
 
Boris Badenov said:
We do worse than that, we lose the high ground (presuming we ever had it). The things I signed up to fight for are, IMHO, hollow phrases uttered by very smart men with lots of market research who say them to sell us something. The things I would have fought for are dead. They've become taglines for well-crafted advertisements. I saw a commercial for Dodge's execrable, junky pickups the other day that had the audacity to use the word "honor" as a sales pitch. We're selling "honor" to ourselves, and we expect dirt farmers who don't have a pot to piss in, and could be killed at any minute to stand up and fight because they trust our word? It would be funny if it weren't so damn sad.
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Kind of like just after Desert Storm, when we first started the Northern No Fly Zone enforcement and protection of the Kurdish populace in the north of Iraq. Operation Provide Comfort......what a joke. Basically, we patrolled the northern 1/3 of Iraq. If saddam chose to use his military forces to attack Kurdish towns we were protecting, he'd have his ass handed to him by the might of our patrolling aircraft. However.....the Turks would takeoff from their bases, refuel from OUR aerial tankers, and proceed to attack the very Kurd towns we were protecting, while our aircraft were recalled back behind some imaginary line in the sky so we wouldn't see it; all because the Turks were at war with the Kurds. No....Mr Saddam Hussein, YOU aren't allowed to attack the Kurds, but Turks....it's Ok..

What an absolute joke of a mission. And we wonder why we're looked at as hypocrites.
 
OUTTIE said:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808704576061674166905408.html?mod=yhoofront#articleTabs%3Darticle


This article made me laugh...This is almost an exact copy of the F-22 mix with Mig's styling:p

Made in China products will fail. Period. It looks fugly. Period.
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By that logic I suppose your clothes fall apart as soon as you put them on. Your arrogance is one of the big reasons why we're falling so far behind the rest of the world. If we just accepted the fact that we're not the best and thought "Hey, someone will probably catch up to us. What can we do to make sure that we can continue living the good life?" Instead, we sold our country and continue to invade others.
 
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