Here's hoping your 30-50% is waay pessimistic!! I await the opportunity to deconstruct your script!! :-)
I have been aware of the experimentation of village democracy and thanks for the links for the info. I'll peruse them all over the next few days. Regarding Taiwan, one wonders how much of an impact the island Chinese will make on the mainland. Out of all proportion to their numbers I hope.
I think you need to engage some serious thought to the use of nuclear weapons. A working ABM is within the abilities of the mainland itself and just about everybody else. Nuclear weapons are, in some respects verging on the obsolecent. You have to understand the command and control problems inherent in maintaining a nuclear arsenal to realize how risible talk about fishing boats and freighters with cruise missiles is. Nuclear weapons have a "finger print" which points to where it's fuel came from. The US has been dealing with thinking about smuggled nukes since at least the 50's if not the 40's. An estimated 11,000 detectors have been manufactured to watch various places like ports. Certain items needed for manufacture of nukes are also watched, and you occassionally read of how some schmuck gets scooped up for having aquired such an item. It takes more money to overcome an ABM system then it does to manufacture an ABM system. The reason the US is taking so long is because it wishes to do "hit to kill". The US solved the problems of ABMs back in the 60's, it's just that you had bozos like Robert Strange McNamara involved. Try this thread:
pub82.ezboard.com
I believe that the N Korean nukes are probably less then they may seem. Remember, the Pakistani had tests where the general consensus is, is that the nukes "fizziled", ie, didn't go off as well as planned. No word has come out AFAIK, that the NK have actually tested a device. Then there is the problem of manufacturing more then a test device but an actual deliverable weapon. Then there is a problem of manufacturing a weapon that will be storable for a reasonable length of time. The first US weapons were to be assembled on the aircraft while the B-29's were in the air and on their way to Bejing or Moscow. Construction, Command and control, delivery, et al, are not easy things to do with nukes; it's why the South African white led regime built a nuke, thought about it, then got rid of them.
My own feeling about Iraq is that the US is going in with it's allies regardless of the UN (essentially a dead organism,BTW). Just a matter of time. Will Saddam lash out first with bio or chemical on his scuds?? Stay tuned!! |
