• US Adm. John Aquilino said China’s military is building up at a rate not seen since World War II.
  • That puts it on the path to meeting its goal of being ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, he said.
  • Aquilino, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, urged Washington to accelerate military development.

China’s rapid military build-up is more expansive than anything seen since World War II, which means it’s on track with its 2027 goal to be ready for a Taiwan invasion, said US Navy Adm. John Aquilino.

“All indications point to the PLA meeting President Xi Jinping’s directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027,” Aquilino wrote in a testimony to the US Armed Services House Committee.

“Furthermore, the PLA’s actions indicate their ability to meet Xi’s preferred timeline to unify Taiwan with mainland China by force if directed,” added the admiral, the outgoing head of the US Indo-Pacific Command.

  • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    8 months ago

    stay out of conflicts between other nations

    Exactly. There’s no way Hitler’s will try to take Poland. Even if he does, it’s not like the Nazis or Japanese would attack the US.

    • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      8 months ago

      Americans can’t afford housing, homelessness is increasing, healthcare is unaffordable; and you want its population to support teabagging the rest of the world like it’s 1945. When militaries spread themselves thin, without the nation taking care of its home population, that spells trouble. Ask Rome.

        • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          That puts the Kremlin’s war budget at 4.1%, but their 2024 budget puts military spending at 6% GDP. If they go over (like they did last year by 12%) it’ll be even higher. Some analysts think there’s even more hidden spending not being captured in these numbers.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          I’ll tell this to Terry, the homeless veteran who can’t afford insulin for his untreated diabetes from agent Orange that the U.S. is only ranked 10th in military spending per GDP and ask what he thinks.

          The question should not be “how much?” But “why?” If it’s to preserve our “way of life.” Whose way of life? Certainly not Terry’s.

        • ferralcat@monyet.cc
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          I don’t understand why you’d use GDP here. Is the assumption that, normalized for currency differences, all countries have the same gdp? That’s not true.

          I think argued earlier that tue money goes less far in the us because the cost of living is higher, so then normalize by cost or standard of living? But even that would assume that the average wage in the country is supporting the same lifestyle in both Russia and the us. Which it isn’t. Some countries live “better” than others.

          I think raw numbers are probably best here. 100 trillion in military spending is 100 trillion.

    • somethingchameleon@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      8 months ago

      Your analogy is not a 1:1 representation of the situation at hand and only serves to distract people from the subject.

      I think less of people who always resort to analogies, because they just reduce complicated situations into ones that are easier for their small minds to comprehend.

      • laverabe@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 months ago

        That’s all well and good, but I just don’t understand. Can you rephrase that in how it relates to an Olympic size swimming pool?