Friday, March 09, 2012

NOISE ABOUT CHINA'S PLAN TO INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING BY 11% IN 2012


POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

For those who do not know, China's military expenditures have run officially at about 10% those of the United States for years.

Even if you allow for some disguise in expenditures, it has not been more than 15% those of the United States.

In recent years the United States' expenditures have increased at explosive rates, as the Pentagon quite literally aims to have the entire planet subject to its drones and spy satellites and new hypersonic killing machines.

The United States spends as much as the total of all the other world's countries on the military.

The United States is the world's greatest arms dealer, by a huge measure.

Only in recent weeks Obama - yes, Obama, that former sandal-wearing academic - announced new measures to keep America's hold of the Eastern Pacific - a direct threat to China, courtesy of the Pentagon which now pretty much controls what an American president may or may not do.

And China sees America doing things like using its high-tech drones to assassinate people in half a dozen countries.

That is the context around China's new expenditure, and I believe we should all be grateful that the world has a few states that will not allow America's usurpation of authority around the globe to go unchallenged.