why global defence should be our major defence

In 1983 Ronald Reagan delivered his speech initiating the Strategic Defense Initiative system dubbed 'Star Wars', this envisioned a hi-tech defense ground and space defense network, but throughout the years it has changed from global to regional, Ronald Reagan who among other things claimed to have seen UFO's when he was a child living in California had hinted at clear aims to make SDI as a global defense against the unknown, in 1986 he had even offered the Soviets the technology they were working on, Gorbachev had this to say:

"Excuse me, Mr. President, but I do not take your idea of sharing SDI seriously. You don't want to share even petroleum equipment, automatic machine tools or equipment for dairies, while sharing SDI would be a second American Revolution."

Now that the Soviet Union is gone the Cold War is over (theoretically), America has lost a lot of initiative since the 1990's and the Military Industrial Complex has gone out of control, building tilt rotor aircraft to fight insurgents in pickup trucks and failed fighter jets that cost a fortune.

But what about Star Wars?

The system has since been renamed and moved to regional defense with the suggestions of $6.6 billion to be spent on ballistic missile defense systems to protect mainland USA against attacks from North Korea or "accidental" launches from Russia or China.

The money for all of this can be put to much better use, technologically the world today is tiny, better economic ties should be made between east and west considering its the start of a new century and we've pretty much spent the last nine years being indifferent to the other side of the world one way or another.

The SDI should be resurrected on a global scale, with interlinked missile and radar bases spread across the world along with satellites and space vehicles with kinetic energy and/or laser weapons in space because we don't know what is out there and if there is anything hostile it would be better not to be caught with our pants down and at least be able to mean a little bit of business.



Maybe in practical terms the $300 billion plus spent on the War on Terror would go a long way funding different guided surface launched missiles, along with that simple kinetic energy weapons mounted on space vehicles would be a start, and when something gets a good kick start there is no telling on how far its development would evolve over a fifty year period. *


F-15 Eagle launching ASAT anti satellite missile

Along with this interlinked system a shared colony on the moon along with short range defensive missiles would help spread the system along way and give it a good start on its evolution, while ideas similar to these have been played around with its about time they got a solid start!

* I suppose that can't be said about after the moon landing

the rise and fall of the 'American Empire'

The Romans and the British had both powerful and massive empires, both of which after time slowly dissolved and collapsed, the same things seemed to be happening to the growing 'American empire' today.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 America was left as the only superpower in a unipolar world, now dubbed a hyperpower able to influence anywhere in the world, and using the USSR as an example oil is a vital resource to keep a massive superpower functioning, Soviet oil production peaked a mere four years before the USSR collapsed.



The United States is divided by two oceans from the Arab oil states, it has 5% of the worlds population and uses 25% of its resources, when push comes to shove I somehow doubt a growing superpower (China) will want to share the energy from Southeast Asia with energy craved America.

There are 191 countries in the world and America has bases in 130 of them, and a strong force in the Middle East, (the US backed Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East and has around 150 nuclear weapons), including Iraq (after the 2003 shock and awe invasion), but there is only one country that stands in the middle of it all, directly in their way.

Iran.

Around 40% of the worlds oil supplies pass through the Straits of Hormuz, and I'm pretty sure Iran wouldn't take an attack lying down neither.

But if the US control control Iran they can control Eurasia and control the world;
Empire.

Even though this seems to be the path that they're taking reality shows that with their economy and the recession it might even collapse before it becomes a reality.

Although as I mentioned earlier China are rapidly building up their naval and air force doubling the former in size in the last ten years, yes the recession didn't seem to hit the worlds biggest communist country that hard, and we all know that China can economically bring the US and its empire to its knees.

The cost of an empire

the Talibans final stand?

The current Taliban are a dissident of the mujahideen resistance which in the 1980's were supplied arms by the United States and proved to be the sand in the underwear of the occupying Soviets, they were even armed with the latest hand held FIM-92 Stinger missiles which they used to take down Soviet aircraft, the Russians were losing (literally) millions worth in hardware, in 1989 they withdrew leaving a powerful government in charge.



But civil war broke out which was to last until 1992, in 1989, the army and pro-government militias still had 1568 tanks, 828 armoured personnel carriers, 4880 artillery pieces, 126 modern fighter-bombers and 14 attack helicopters. Also, the DRA continued to receive massive aid from the Soviet Union, valued at two to six billion dollars a year, and Soviet military advisors were still present in Afghanistan. The government forces also came to rely on the use of large quantities of Scud missiles: between 1988 and 1992 more than 2000 of these were fired inside Afghanistan, the largest amount of ballistic missiles used since World War II. This considerable amount of firepower was sufficient to keep the mujahideen at bay.

Read that paragraph again, all that fire power and still not enough to keep the mujahideen at bay, although major fighting did continue the Afghan Army still proved to be tough but corrupt and many were negotiating with mujahideen rebels, by 1992 the war had come to the end and the afghan army had appeared to collapse after the mujahideen had destroyed half of Kabul!
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was no more.

The Taliban rose to power in 1996 but after the attacks on the World Trade in September 2001 the coalition responded with bombing Afghanistan in October, followed by a ground offensive of around 11,000 troops in December, following that Operation Anaconda in 2002 that hit the Taliban hard several fleeing to Pakistan, the war seemed to have cooled then.



Instead of hunting down the 50,000 or so in the mountains of Pakistan Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 bogging down the US Army there in the occupation, the Taliban then had five or so years, it was not until 2004 that it seemed to make a revival and now in 2008 it has sky rocketed, starting in his last year Bush had started to send troops to Afghanistan from Iraq and Obama has continued where he has left off.

They're no longer the thriving victorious warriors that they were back in the 1980's and now as the US completely control Afghanistan seem to be trying to bring order down in Pakistan, Gordon Brown has hinted several times of an attack on Pakistan (maybe even supported by India who at the moment has itchy trigger fingers).

For instance after Bhutto's assassination in late 2007 order came close to falling, US Special Forces had been readying for the seizure of all of Pakistan's nuclear weapon, (250 of which situated in ten bases across the country).

But the Taliban seem to be pushing for order to fall before their last attack since they've already proved they don't have the man or fire power to fight another war with the coalition since they've no longer anywhere to fall back too, they obviously realized this and after years of fighting seem to want to symbolize their downfall in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Or maybe get into the minds of the people since Pakistan at the moment is one bullet away from Islamic Revolution (think Iran in late 1978), and a revolution will leave the new leaders led by God knows who armed with 250 nuclear weapons including the means (ballistic missiles and F-16 fighter-bombers) to deliver them.

will the United States collapse?

Not long after the worldwide recession hit last October a Russian analyst predicted the decline and breakup of the United States by 2010, a map of what will happen is shown above.

I'm not exactly interested in predicting what state will go where but more interested in comparing how North America would stand compared to Russia did back in 1991.

Three of Americas five major banks fell in days, thousands of people are still out of work and currently America is bogged down in a war in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban (a dissident of the mujahideen from the 1980's) and Obama is simply pouring in more troops from Iraq (around 21,000 over there at the time of writing).

Since Bush got sidetracked in Iraq instead of continuing to finish off the Taliban after Operation Anaconda in 2002.

Now they've had less pressure and now have a chance to rebuild their forces whilst hiding in the mountains in Pakistan before striking once again.

In 1991 when the Soviet Union fell the 14 other countries that separated from Russia gained their independence and may have been poor but survived, Russia opened up to the west and Russia had become a democracy.

But the people had been more prepared than say most people in the United States, if the United States collapsed very suddenly like as fast as the financial crisis hit last year what would happen then, the way the United States run depends on the federal government to keep order so you're talking about a brief fall of civilisation.

Take New Orleans in 2005 for example, the few days before actual soldiers were sent in people were looting, killing and raping each other, imagine if that happened across the states!

Does that also mean American influence across the world would also fail, like the 14 other countries apart from Russia that fell will the 130 countries in the world that have America bases and soldiers simply be passed on to the nation like Soviet hardware was passed on to ex Soviet countries in Eastern Europe?

China is growing in power economically and militarily over the last five years while the US is slowly falling from superpower level, along with that the trillion dollar war on terror isn't showing much clear results.

Hell maybe instead of McDonalds restaurants there will be more Chinese restaurants across the world.

Obama to continue the 'real' War on Terror

After 9/11 Bush launched combat operations against Afghanistan, major retaliation started in an airstrikes involving Tomahawk missiles and F-18's before the ground operations were launched, some 11,000 troops involved in the Battle for Tora Bora in December 2001 and Operation Anaconda in 2002, these were the major operations in Afghanistan the remains of the Taliban have fled to the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan where they have been making border skirmishes.

Last summer saw some activity including gunships but nothing big.

President Obama plans to put more effort into the war there to finish them off, it seemed Bush lost the objective when he bogged down the US Army in occupying Iraq and losing the main objective that had been started after 9/11, that is fighting the real terrorists!

6 worst things about the Bush Administration

Here's my list of the six worst things Bush did during his time as president:

6. Bush squandered the budget surplus.
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bush had a near-religious faith in the ability of tax cuts to deliver prosperity. Tax cuts were the panacea that would cure all ills. Economy too strong? Cut taxes. Economy too weak? Cut taxes. Stock market falling? Cut dividend taxes. Investment weak? Cut capital gains taxes. But tax cuts didn't make the economy stronger; they merely blew a big hole in the budget. Now, when we could really use that surplus to pay for the bailouts and the stimulus, it's gone.

5. Bush comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted.
The Bush years were the ultimate test of trickle-down economics, the theory that says the government should favor the rich because the benefits will flow down to the rest of us. The results of that experiment are clear: We've had the weakest job growth since the 1930s. We've had the biggest increase in debt ever. We've had the highest share of national income going to profits since the 1920s. Income inequality has soared while our public and private investment has slowed to a trickle. Instead of building a fundamentally sound economy, Bush nurtured a Ponzi economy based on get-rich-quick schemes.

4. Bush rewarded incompetence.
Because politics and personal loyalty were all that counted, Bush appointed incompetent people to vital jobs. He hired interns to run Iraq. He hired a horse expert to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He wanted to hire Harriett Miers to be a Supreme Court justice. Top jobs were reserved for sycophants, toadies and failures.

3. Bush lied to get into war.
Every argument for war against Iraq was a delusion, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost as a result. Saddam Hussein was not responsible for 9/11 in any way. He was not a danger to the United States. The Bush administration ignored or dismissed mountains of evidence that showed that Saddam was not building an arsenal of chemical or nuclear weapons. Bush rushed to war without giving diplomacy or weapons inspectors a chance. Later, administration officials blew the cover of a CIA employee whose husband told the truth, and then lied about their involvement.

2. Bush has exposed himself to war crime charges.
By his own admission, Bush authorized interrogation practices that are illegal under U.S. and international law. His administration at best looked the other way and at worst ordered prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to be tortured. Not only is torture an immoral and heinous crime against humanity, it is ineffective in the fight against terrorism. Nothing has given Osama bin Laden more support than Bush's immorality. And our nation's reputation has been tarnished, possibly forever.

1. Bush weakened democracy.
Bush has embraced a theory of dictatorship. Bush, under Vice President Dick Cheney's guidance, encouraged an imperial presidency answerable to no one. Working with a complacent Congress, Bush gutted the constitutional checks and balances that are supposed to keep any part of the government from growing too powerful or too corrupt. In the name of an endless war against an amorphous enemy, he canceled our most fundamental rights of habeas corpus and the right to be free from unreasonable government spying.
One final note: Bush had the opportunity to be a great president. After 9/11, the nation was as united as it had been since Pearl Harbor, and Bush rode a wave of popularity that he could have used to turn around the nation's politics, security and economy.
Instead of uniting he divided!