[old patriot]

What you have stated here is the envelope of China's ambitions, and they do not end with just Taiwan. The Spratley islands, all of Indochina, and the lands north of Outer Mongolia and Tibet are all considered historical Chinese property. Not by any treaty or history, just their own version of spheres of influence.

And one should not be fooled that Beijing would not scuttle any support for the war on terror, when they are the originators of most of the unrest in Asia for the past fifty or sixty years.

Mao wanted Moscow's help to invade Taiwan in 1950, and received the beginnings of her navy, air force, and anti-aircraft forces. The only thing that kept her from her Taiwan ambitions was having to bail out the NKs from being completely stomped to death by our troops as they neared the Yalu. And it was only after losing a million of their volunteers in Korea that they agreed to end the war there.

The only thing that is keeping them from invasion right now is a couple of thousand mega-tons of microwave cooking from our strategic forces. Do not be aswaged into thinking that the Chinese will wait before they strike us first. Their own documents state that they must strike us first before 2010. This dragon will not go away peaceably.

Anyone for deep-fried dragon? I'll take a wing.

Old Patriot

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Military Space Service: Why It's Time Has Come*** As a relevant example, in recent Congressional Testimony, the Marine Corps has presented a compelling emerging need to overcome the constraints of thick air travel and non-permissive airspace for responsive expeditionary transport and insertion. As an emerging Joint requirement, it recognizes that Marine, SOCOM, and other Joint Forces will require heretofore-unimaginable assault support speed, range, and altitude in order to achieve strategic surprise in the future. The link to space is clear. It also illustrates how the Corps' vision of inevitable future Joint requirements are largely predictable through the projection of current technical possibilities, just as it was for General Billy Mitchell almost a century before. This should encourage a revisitation of a National Security Act that does not reflect the impact emerging NSS technological opportunities will have on the nature of warfare.

Conclusion

The existing cultural dilemma is unfair to the Department of the Air Force, and will lead to the delay of our national preparations for the comprehensive role that space will play in the future of warfare. Unlike America's energetic recovery and entrance into WWII, strategic surprise in the realm of NSS could cause damage to our national security from which we cannot recover. We will be wise to learn history's lessons and take the initiative, while we still have the initiative. Establishment of a Space Service now is a sound preparation for an uncertain, yet imaginable future.***