^ We use it to land on the moon.

Also if you want to blame everything on immigration, a thread about the US might not be the best place to do it. If immigrants are a net negative to the country, well, we get far more of them than anyone else and if you can use them as an excuse, we can too.

Not much more than Britain.

America=14.3% immigrants
Britain=12.4% immigrants

Right, but America is also a significantly larger country. Integration problems don't scale in a linear manner with size.

In 1783, the founding fathers were worried that the American experiment with democracy would completely fail simply because it would be impossible to have a republic this large and diverse. And yet the UK is the one barely holding on to one of its three-and-a-half constituent countries while the US has a firm grip on 50 states and external territories- to the point it's newsworthy for 10,000 nuts in a state of 25 million people to support secession.

Let's face it- we're the omnipower. We won the Cold War. Without our support, the UK would've had to retreat its armies and navies to Canada before the Soviets took over most of Europe after beating the Nazis.

The UK's always had this elitist attitude toward us. During WWII, the Manhattan Project was the last one to start between the Nazi nuclear project, the British project, and ours. Initially, the US wasn't even planning to start our own- we wanted to contribute to the British project, but the Brits believed we had nothing to contribute.

Within a year, the British nuclear project's director wrote a message to the rest of the command- join the American project within a year or we will be the ones with nothing to contribute.

America has industry. America has innovation. America has passion and drive. We might not be the best at the outset of competition, but we're the country that catches up and wins. Let us not forget that you used to be our colonizing masters and now you're the ones living under our hegemony, whose governmental elections in 2015 were still affected (fewer Labour votes) by our ex-President's 12-year-old decision to invade Iraq.

We are the cornerstone of global stability, of the neoliberal capitalist order- and, unlike the British, we're here to stay.

God bless America.

There's no frain about power - America is certainly more powerful than Britain.

Living standards.

We are the cornerstone of global stability, of the neoliberal capitalist order- and, unlike the British, we're here to stay.

China is your cornerstone, now. And America is not going to stay (successful) for long. Britain is going to stay longer because they have less enemies.

Edited 5/18/2015 03:00:12

America has industry. America has innovation. America has passion and drive. We might not be the best at the outset of competition, but we're the country that catches up and wins. Let us not forget that you used to be our colonizing masters and now you're the ones living under our hegemony, whose governmental elections in 2015 were still affected (fewer Labour votes) by our ex-President's 12-year-old decision to invade Iraq.

Have you considered being American propaganda maker?

China is your cornerstone, now. And America is not going to stay (successful) for long. Britain is going to stay longer because they have less enemies.

China has few close friends (North Korea, Pakistan) and is surrounded on the south, east, and west by a counterbalancing coalition backed by American interests (India, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, the list gets very long). On the north, China faces a dying ex-superpower with its own motives- and the American-backed sinoskeptic russoskeptic democracy of Mongolia. China is isolated, lacking a blue-water navy, and a volatile factor-driven economy.

On the other hand, the United States is an innovation-driven economy that's far less volatile, backed by the greatest concentration of hard and soft power the world has ever seen. I do not see China becoming the omnipower anytime soon- even as they pass us in GDP, they've got three times the population.

China matching the US in GDP simply means that the average Chinese is one third as wealthy/productive as the average American. And even then, right now it's based on PPP adjustments that assume that the average Chinese car is comparable to a Ford or Chevy- which is simply not true.

Hard power- there is no dispute. Soft power- China is just beginning to match favorability in the Global South. Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa are still, however, the strongest believers in America for the most part, and Chinese investment in these regions simply means more consumers for Americans to sell to.

Joseph Nye, the pioneer of soft power studies, has himself noted that China and Russia lack right now anything approximating actual soft power. Meanwhile, American film outdoes Chinese film- see Kung-fu Panda. America's fast food suddenly becomes a status symbol in China. America's exploitative phone manufacturers are being gobbled up by Chinese consumers.

By all meaningful metrics of power- hard and soft- America is winning. America will win.

Have you considered being American propaganda maker?

If that's all you have to say, then I rest my case. I haven't found anything in Europe approximating the innovation capacity or venture capital funding of Silicon Valley, so I think we've got the edge in the tech market for the foreseeable future as well.

Edited 5/18/2015 03:14:44

its america.

what a stupid question.

America, Fuck Yeah!
Comin' again to save the motherfuckin' day, Yeah

Ya this is definitly off topic...

"A friendly discussion provide points to your statemants and no need to be offensive :)"

Psh what did i say. Anyone stupid enough to pose such a question on an open forum with a bunch of 12 year olds sitting safety behind computers is just asking for a verbal firestorm. Plus, why the hell is this even on General Forum in the first place? Obviously way off-topic.

knyte
Level 55
America, Fuck Yeah!
Comin' again to save the motherfuckin' day, Yeah

Wow, I honestly thought I was the only person to have seen that. Boy was I wrong xD

China has few close friends (North Korea, Pakistan) and is surrounded on the south, east, and west by a counterbalancing coalition backed by American interests (India, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, the list gets very long). On the north, China faces a dying ex-superpower with its own motives- and the American-backed sinoskeptic russoskeptic democracy of Mongolia. China is isolated, lacking a blue-water navy, and a volatile factor-driven economy.[/quote[

Few close friends? Try the SCO and number one exporter in the world. India is not pro-American (not anti-American, but still) at all, it is much closer to China. Vietnam - way more pro-China. Phillipines, they depend on China quite heavily, though they don't like to admit it. Thailand - China's friend (and America's enemy). So just Japan and South Korea, really, which depend on China quite a bit and could flip ship (especially South Korea). On the North, China has it's second best definite ally: Russia, and between China and Russia, Mongolia is friendlily split. To the east, China is making buddies with Russia's buddies, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. Afghanistan isn't friends, but Afghanistan's weak.

On the other hand, the United States is an innovation-driven economy that's far less volatile, backed by the greatest concentration of hard and soft power the world has ever seen. I do not see China becoming the omnipower anytime soon- even as they pass us in GDP, they've got three times the population.

Sorry, what? The Chinese Yuan is the most stable currency there is right now. China has the greatest big of soft power. Hard power is impossible to measure. China passes America in GDP - and they have three times the workforce! That's not a detriment, that's a benefit.

Hard power- there is no dispute. Soft power- China is just beginning to match favorability in the Global South. Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa are still, however, the strongest believers in America for the most part, and Chinese investment in these regions simply means more consumers for Americans to sell to.

No disupte in hardpower because we can't measure hardpower. Soft-power - China already has half of Africa (Chinese neo-colonisation), Indochina and Central Asia, combined with the SCO, it has more allies in even farther places. Egypt, for a big one. America only has soft power with NATO, Middle America (which is useless except for Mexico) and a couple other European countries (Ukraine being one).

Joseph Nye, the pioneer of soft power studies, has himself noted that China and Russia lack right now anything approximating actual soft power. Meanwhile, American film outdoes Chinese film- see Kung-fu Panda. America's fast food suddenly becomes a status symbol in China. America's exploitative phone manufacturers are being gobbled up by Chinese consumers.

Softpower studies' pioneer - according to who? An employed geostrategist is not a geostrategist, by the way. Employed geostrategists have to tell the folk what make folk happy and confident. Notice how geostrategists rarely ever say bad news or that they're in a bad situation. Russia is no superpower, but has loads of softpower (going all the way to Nauru and Venezuela). China is a superpower and has even more (Indochina). Film? Pirated. America's fast food becomes status symbol - tshhh. It's a bad place for fatsos to go no matter where you go (unless you're in some absolute poor country like Somalia). Who makes those telephones? Yes, China does.

By all meaningful metrics of power- hard and soft- America is winning. America will win.

Neither is it winning.

If that's all you have to say, then I rest my case. I haven't found anything in Europe approximating the innovation capacity or venture capital funding of Silicon Valley, so I think we've got the edge in the tech market for the foreseeable future as well.

Called Moskva, Hamburg and London.

Edited 5/18/2015 03:43:57

Sorry for weird quotes. Too lazy to fix.

ZXC - you handle the parts where America's living standards are worse than Britain's.

America isn't Communist. Thus better than China :P

Strength:
China>US>UK
Living:
UK>US>China
:)

Thomas 633 is actually right here.

I mean, most of what Juq said is easily countered by any expert on IR or anyone vaguely aware of current territorial and maritime disputes so I'm not gonna bother. Just gonna wait for the PRC to slowly collapse once labor becomes expensive and it's unable to transition to a resource-driven economy.

You're no expert, mate.

"India is America's ally".

Please get away from my geostrategist eyes (and no, I didn't steal them).

Edited 5/18/2015 05:02:08

India is not an absolute American ally, of course, and its chief interests are isolationist. But there's an argument to be made for the formation of a de facto tripartite counterbalancing coalition of India, Japan, and the US against China in the Asia-Pacific region.

Since the fall of the USSR, India's been opportunistically warming up the US- you can see this reflected in immigration waves, economic agreements, nuclear/military treaties. At the same time, China is now warming up to Pakistan (who now is clearly drifting away from the US, especially since 2001) and India has territorial disputes with both Pakistan and China, both of which claim entire states' worth of Indian-controlled and -claimed territory. SCO membership is not an end-all-be-all; SCO is by far a looser coalition than NATO and even CIS. However, GUAM makes CIS a decent analogue for the SCO- it's not a tight pact but rather a loose coalition of states that are part of the coalition to pursue their own interests, states that are not fully aligned with each other and in many cases better aligned with external groups like the US, EU, and NATO.

Am I saying India's America's bitch the same way the UK is? Nope. India is isolationist and heavily self-interested; one needs look no further than India's retconning of its own history to see that. However, currently India's interests are against China and very coincidentally align with American interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Moreover, the current Indian BJP government buys heavily into the American right-wing neoliberal capitalist narrative, unlike India's previous INC governments, and moreover has a strong mandate for its pro-private sector policies that can easily be compared to the economic policies promoted by successive American governments.

As someone who actually holds an Indian passport and has a stake in the foreign policy and geostrategic behavior of India, I'd rather not be lectured to by an Internet "geostrategist" on the political alignments of my country. I'm all too aware of them.

And as far as your understanding of general strategy goes, don't make me remind you of your simple errors of analysis in our 1v1 game. Before you attempt to analyze the behaviors of other rational actors, I'd encourage you to first understand how a rational actor behaves given a particular set of circumstances- an understanding you clearly lack as you can't seem to think beyond one turn or step at a time.

Edited 5/18/2015 05:27:18