Their Perspective

[Arctic Wind]

Well, Undertoad, I think your criticism toward my opinions are pretty articulated. So I decided to defend them. I'm waiting further for your answer.
I would like to mention in the beginning that I live in a Eastern European country and this means I can better answer to your first and third asserts. Lets take them one by one:
1) "China's economy matching the US: not really. When Billy makes his reports on what China is doing he always includes a big dose of insular attitude and protectionism. Most previously-socialist countries of the world are trying to add a dose of capitalism to their mix because they see the gains in productivity. But that is not the only ingredient they need, and they don't see this yet." (Undertoad)
Yes, I agree that Billy (whom I translated CIA) has many times failed to correctly appreciate the world events and movements, and this was mostly because of blindly mixing of national or/and political party in power interests in the perception and analyzing process. This time although, this was not the case. There are enough signs that China isn't a joke put in some serious but tricky politicians mouths.
Firstly, China is a very big country (with more than 7 millions km.2), with the biggest population in the world (1.3 billion citizens) and, as Russia, with huge amounts of various raw materials. And you shouldn't forget that a big power is being able to sustain itself as long as it controls key sources of resources.
Second, lets talk about the relation China-communism. I lived in a communist economical system till 1989 when it fell apart. From my own experience I can totally agree with your subtext which assets that the communist economical system it's uncompetitive and doomed to fail. China is a special case in this context. Officially China is a communist country but the reality is partially different. Politically speaking, yes, China with its monolithically and single party, is communist but from the economical point of view China is almost completely capitalist. In 1979 the communist authorities in China realised that economically, the communist system was facing decline. So, accordingly, after a big congress in 1979, the communist party started an economical reform which steadily headed till today the country toward capitalism. The success of the reform process was to be seen in more than two decades of continuous approximately 7% annual economic growth. So, I woudn't treat China as an inherited disabled child.
2)"Europe renouncing NATO: Europe's problem is that most of the European countries have allowed their military to lag severely in order to compete economically. After you do that for many years, your military winds up pretty weak. It's not just one year's worth of spending, but repeated years that lead to such a situation.

Germany: $40 billion, 1.8% of GNP
United Kingdom: $35.1 billion, 3.1% of GDP
France: $47.1 billion, 3.1% of GDP
Italy: $21.5 billion, 2% of GDP
Spain: $8 billion, 1.6% of GDP
USA: $284.4 billion, 4.2% of GDP

Europe, as a military force, would have to undertake massive spending just to get to the point where they were all able to fight at night, or with each other's communication systems, etc. I don't think, with their current tax situation, they would be interested in increasing taxes by 50% in order to get there." (Undertoad)

Again, I have to partially agree with some of your propositions. Western European countries neglected after the Second World War the military aspects, as you showed above. Where I have a different opinion, is at the part with the possibility of Europe of rebuilding a powerful and comparable with USA's army. The most important countries of the European Union kept alive their military industry capabilities which are able to produce weapons with technological levels and efficiency very close to the American hi-tech weapons. Because countries like France and Germany have at anytime the capability to build armies comparable with the American one, because under the umbrella of the European Union, the European countries can joint their military budgets for building a common very powerful army without rising at all or at least significantly their GDP percentages for the military sector, Europe will always have the option to break NATO alliance, if its interests and points of view are systematically ignored.
I appreciate that without some possible strong external factors (like - today- the American tendency toward unilateralism, and toward treating its European ally as a tool for its own interests and not as an equal with whom to cooperate), Europe won't be eager to build a comparative powerful army with the USA and will try mostly to cooperate with America. I warn that the USA - EU friendship is momentarily to some degree endangered, since France, Germany and Luxembourg already proposed (following the Irak crisis) to European Union to build an united European army separately from NATO. The uniteralism is becoming to some extent dangerous for Europe but also for USA which, by following this line, will slowly but surely loose their allies and will remain isolated. A vicious circle will follow. The United States will have to continuously increase their military expenses so that no other power could challenge their supremacy, but these already problematical expenses will (and even today are hitting) hit the economy; the economy will be increasingly weaken decreasing USA power all over the world. The history will be partially repeated as happened with the Russians.
3) "This "unilateralism" included most eastern European countries, who were told by Chiraq that they missed their opportunity to shut up. Don't miss another opportunity!" (Undertoad)
How I said before I'm an East European and that's why, I think I understand pretty well what happens there.
Actually, the East European countries are so weak after decades of communism and other ten years of transition toward democracy, liberalism and capitalism, that they simply couldn't afford to be big or key players in the international affairs. In the same time, because the East Europeans countries were badly abused by the Russians and their dark empire before but specially after the Second World War, these countries would do anything for being defended from the future Russian imperial aggressions/adventures. In this context, NATO was welcomed with big relief and for this safe "umbrella" the East Europeans say everything that Americans want to hear. You just can't say you don't take unilateral actions when you convince/softly force some little and poor countries to aggree with you. United States was adopting an unilateral attitude because, firstly, they totally ignored the world wide opposition of the big political countries. Simply you can not rule as a dictator. Are we facing here double standards? The internal democratic America and the external authoritarian?
About Chiraq, he was unrude because of the international tensions and emotions, but the West Europeans know very well as the East European also know, that at the end, their place is together and East Europe will go soon into the European Union. Our (East Europeans)destiny couldn't be for long time with America if America isn't allied with Western Europe. We can see clearly that USA power is declining relatively to countries like China and even European Union and now it only reached its peach. What will happened when America (lets suppose that United States will divorce from European Union) will be forced to retreat from the most part of the world? Let me tell you! We, your last allies will be the first victims. It wouldn't be the first case like this in our two thousand years tormented history, with five empires competing in different times for world dominance in this region.
Coming back to our theme, I would like to say that underestimating the competitors and acting according to what it would have been desired to be and not with what it is will lead automatically to disastruos consequences and finally with the much hated decline.