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Biden can sign all the agreements he wants. They won't have any force until the Senate ratifies them.

Certainly, but meanwhile the Djibouti base is reality. It may well disappear once the locals see better incentives, but until underlying conditions change, Chinese power projection capabilities cannot be ignored. Mind, there's no need for hysterics to the point of a Cuban quarantine or Crimean annexion either, just some balance. And again, currently that's probably sufficiently covered by projecting out of the Med.

For the other Americans on this thread, how annoyed are you by Those not of Sam demanding that the US solve a problem of military import unilaterally? Just raise your hand...

How long did it last anywhere? Technology advanced to make the slavery itself a non productive thing in the rest of the Americas later on. Remember, slavery was the norm for a great part of the new world and part of many parts of the old world. Slavery needed to end. But freeing 4 million so that 1 in 4 could then die of starvation and disease in a wrecked post war economy kind of misses a point.

Still these reports from 1944 when the production multiplicated under heavy bombing. Metal grind in engine, sand in engine - most people my age group and older would not press the pedal more than 50% to the pedal in the first 500-1000 km, and would change engine oil well before 5000 km on a new car regardless of manufacturer - growing up on Lada, Polski Fiat, Skoda, etc. Nice to see forced labor was so brave in Germany, here everyone knew the alternative of an assembly line is a spade on the Eastern Front. Production was quite innovative then, speaking about dislocated productio

It was of course more advanced, but it was still a pusher, just as the Wright Flyer was. It was also called the spinning incinerator, which says something about its propensity to spin, possibly due to the engine being at the rear. The French had uninterrupted fire in 1915 using armoured reflectors on the blades. The Focker Eindecker, developed from said French deflectors, had an interupter gear. Both of those predated the DH2 by some months.

You need to study your early aircraft more. The Dh2 was as far advanced over a Wright Flyer as you claim the Albatross was over the DH2. The DH2 was configured as it was to give a clear frontal arc of fire because interrupter devices had yet to become widely used in the RFC when it was designed, not because they were following some design aesthetic from the past. The major advantage of the Albatross DII was that it had two interrupted, belt-fed machine guns and a slightly higher top speed. If it overmatched the DH2 as much as you implied von Richthofen would have been booming and zooming r

I don't personally care of they like us or not. Our shipping must be protected. If they won't do it, NATO should.

Correct, as do the Koreans and Japanese in competition. The fruits of lingering African suspicions held against their former colonizers, so to speak. Those suspicions will probably need to be comprehensively (and expensively) addressed if a level investment playing field is to be attained.

Yep. In that the DH2 was a throwback to a previous generation of aircraft (The Wright Flyer actually) and the Albatross heralded a generation of aircraft that continued up to the brink of WW2. Or you can compare the Mig21 to the F16, it's much the same kind of advance.

https://m.dw.com/en/pope-rejects-german-cardinals-resignation-over-abuse-scandal/a-57797610

No.

Just the cycle of life. speaking of which....

I've seen many discussions without any true consensus. However, one thing that I think really, really needs to be kept in mind is that the elite and those in power in the South regarded their slaves as not just producers of wealth, they were actually the wealth itself. It would be nice to think that it would wither on the vine but for it to do so you would have to effectively see the people in power losing their actual wealth to a huge extent for it to happen. I suspect we can look to China and other parts of the world and see that effective slavery with modifications still works really wel

Yes, and it is good like DB says there is need to counterbalance China.

The recent G7 summit at the weekend on China's belt and road initiative said that as well.

There are enough local powers that have the means to protect international shipping. Maybe they are not that friendly towards us, if they do not want to?

Tell that to the crew of the Stena Impero. Or indeed, the half dozen other ships the Iranians have helped themselves to without much response.

To keep China out of Africa we need more investment there. They create jobs and infrastructure.

Google Course Correcting Fuse. There is a bunch of interesting stuff, but the Chinese (!) paper on it is pretty interesting. Adapting such a fuse seems like a good idea.

Well one could make the case that NATO should counterbalance increasing Chinese power projection capabilities in neighboring Africa through their base in Djibouti etc. Would also serve to address American demands for greater NATO contributions within a realistic scope. But currently it's probably sufficient to shift forces from the Mediterranean if thought necessary, which can happen rather quick compared to the time needed to get there from China.

Even in 1982 against A-4 Skyhawks the British did not want to approach too closely to the Argentine mainland. These days it will be everything that can be managed for navies to defend sea lines of communication at a considerable distance from enemy shores. For actual power projection, it seems all standoff missiles and land based aircraft now.

Russian propaganda will naturally seize on such incidents, but they don't need to provoke them when they always can make some up. There have been fake news about German soldiers raping a local girl or plowing through a Jewish cemetery with tanks in Lithuania before, after all.

And you do not need forces in the Indian Ocean either, the Iranian Navy is not a threat.