Stacking the World Domination Deck

Here's something i found very interesting:
(www.cnn.com...)

"Powell: Pakistan a key ally

Earlier Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Musharraf in Islamabad and said Washington will designate Pakistan a major, non-NATO ally, making it easier for the country to buy advanced U.S. weapons."

Now, as we all (should) know, the two largest nations on earth are China (1st: 1.29B, 4x larger than US) and India (2nd: 1.05B, 3x larger than US). The third largest is the US with 0.29B. Now, due to thier populatory eminence, both China and India are slated as developing superpowers, i.e. in direct geo-political competition with the US, at least in the near-term if not currently.

How strange it seems that we count both China's bitter historical enemy (Japan) and India's bitter historical enemy (Pakistan) as key-non-nato allies, and sell them weapons?

Oh and lets not forget the Middle East: Population 215.1 million, 5th place after (3rd US, 4th Indonesia-> australia, phillipines). Why.. Israel is a key-non-nato ally that just happens to be a bitter-historical-enemy as well... they get our bad-assed # too!

I see a disturbing trend...

Cas

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by Cascadego]

Perhaps they are trying to even the score.

But more believeably, they could be looking to arm the resistance so to speak.

Japan I understand, because they are a big market, well established and consistant.

I think we are making a mistake with even getting involved in the India/Pakistan situation.

Israel is a different situation. Without our help, they would all be dead by now.

If you assume there is a link between population and super-poweredness there is a disturbing trend.

Countries 1 thru 4 on this list (not counting the US) are 1. not strategic partners of the US, and 2. Have strategic enemies that are strategic partners of the US.

The facts are uncontestable.

What they mean is open to interpretation.

Do you think we are "arming a resistence"?
It seems to me we are opposed to the ascendency of new superpowers, and willing to make deals with the devil to accomplish this.

I think, as a nation, our foreign policy clearly shows we are militaristic and xenophobic.

Cas

p.s. Do you think we helped Israel so that they wouldnt die or instead, as is more plausible, so that we could hold a gun to the head of middle-eastern regimes?

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by Cascadego]

Originally posted by Cascadego
Do you think we are "arming a resistence"?
It seems to me we are opposed to the ascendency of new superpowers, and willing to make deals with the devil to accomplish this.

I think this is a very plausible idea, and would make sense in the "self preservation" department, although if it is true, then our means are seriously out of wack.

I think, as a nation, our foreign policy clearly shows we are militaristic and xenophobic.

I agree. I think we have our fingers in much to many pies and that has caused us not end of grief (9-11 and the war on terror come to mind more readily).

Cas

p.s. Do you think we helped Israel so that they wouldnt die or instead, as is more plausible, so that we could hold a gun to the head of middle-eastern regimes?

Uh, it's hard to say. I think we would have to look more specifically at different time periods to find that out. I tend to think that in the begining we did it under pressure from the Jewish comminuty, then had no choice but to support them as they began fighting with their neighbors, and now we could very easily be modifying our middle east policy with them in mind. We did after all create quite a strong nation which is better than any military base we could ever set up. I like to think of them as our very own Middle East Police Force.

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by Cascadego]

A police force soon to be joined by the likes of Pakistan, and The Democratic Republic of Iraq.

The US: sponsoring responcible policing of foreign upstarts since 1948!

Not to mention the other US allies like Briton, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Australia etc. Im sure it'd be a messy fight if things started. We'd probably find ourselves in one of those situations where you find out your true allies.

But i do agree that the trend the US has taken towards ally countries is somewhat strange. Maybe they can maintain leverage somehow by being allies with these countries. That's the only plausible reason i can think of, have allies that share a common interest?