[Ben6789 (OP)]

North Korea is no more than an irritant - it lacks the economic base to be a threat.

China is a real threat, but it is playing it very clever - it allows the US to exhaust itself fighting futile wars with third parties (such as Iraq), while it sits on the sidelines making the best economic advantage it can out of it (trading with all the countries that feel threatened by US aggression, including most of Africa, and countries that are subject to US sanctions).

When the US is sufficiently exhausted, then China can make the moves it really wants to make (you will know when China is ready to move against the US when it finally takes action against Taiwan, and the US will be too week to protect Taiwan).  It has already absorbed Honk Kong and Macao, which Britain and Portugal could not prevent, so just stepped aside.

The real problem is how India will fit into all of this.  India has the capability to challenge China, but it has some problems with internal politics (so has China, but in a different way).  To what degree will India and China cooperate, and to what extent will they compete.  If they do compete, how will this effect those countries in which they do compete (particularly in the Middle and Far East).  Will China and India have proxy wars, in the way that the USA and USSR used Cuba, Angola, South Africa, Vietnam, etc. for proxy wars.

In the Middle East in particular, with the Sunni/Shia schism, one can see different parties backing the two sides (and, as is so often the case, the USA simple vacillates, first backing one side, then the other).

It is unlikely that either India or China (or any Asian country) will provide the unconditional backing for Israel that the USA has, although it is in my view more probable that India will provide some backing for Israel than China would, but it certainly wont be to the level that the USA presently does.

Then there is the question as to how the Russia and ex-soviet States will play out in this.  At present, Russia is not playing an especially clever game, making more enemies amongst its neighbours than friends, and these enemies could be used (and no doubt in many cases already are) by foreign interested parties to undermine Russia's influence.

No doubt that Iraq and Afghanistan are sapping the USA's strength, and even the recent Israeli's war in Lebanon, although not directly involving the USA, has an impact on the foreign influence and credibility that the USA has, and it has effected it negatively.

But as has been hinted at by Ben6789, the USA was a total fool to try and fight two wars at once - but the problem is that the USA totally and naively underestimated the size of either task, and thought that invading a third world country was trivial task for a superpower (invading them was trivial, holding them is another matter altogether - as if Somalia had not been enough of a lesson).
----another_someone

I read this and see a lot of truth in it. China could very well be the "next US." But if we help Iraq and somehow manage to clean up the mess, will Iraq try to help us in our war on China?

Just a thought....

[paul.fr]

Paul, Re the UN and "But George, what except talking do they do."
They were the organisation that gave credibility to gulf war 1 which achieved the objective of freeing Kuwait.
They were not involved in gulf war 2 which has, according to recent reports, worsened the problem of international terrorism.

i would suggest that arab troops gave credibility to gulf war 1

Also, re "Darfur, 400,000 dead, thousands raped and tortured. 4 million refugees. where are the UN?".
Good point, but tell me, where are the US? As has already been pointed out, the US has a budget and the UN doesn't.

where are the US! this is a problem, people have this big hang up about the US interviening in other countries. yet they want them to take the initiative in situations where it's "tricky". Darfur needs a massive injection of UN peecekeepers or NATO troops but there will be one hell of a bloody mess, so we wait for the US to recognise the situation as genocide and act.

it can not be down to oil and resources...can it. but still we sit, watch and do bugger all. when did you last see a news report from there? even us tv shows are trying to highlight the problem.

[Bored chemist]

"i would suggest that arab troops gave credibility to gulf war 1"!
A very good point; just the sort of thing that an international organisation like the UN can arrange.

Presumably, like the UK, the US are providing some humanitarian aid. I'm not sure they need NATO troops because I think that would be seen as too "Western". I'm also not sure that taking the initiative is what's needed. The whole of the UN needs to agree to act and that will always be a slow process.

[paul.fr]

"i would suggest that arab troops gave credibility to gulf war 1"!
A very good point; just the sort of thing that an international organisation like the UN can arrange.

gives with one hand, takes with the other  [] evening, BC

Presumably, like the UK, the US are providing some humanitarian aid. I'm not sure they need NATO troops because I think that would be seen as too "Western". I'm also not sure that taking the initiative is what's needed. The whole of the UN needs to agree to act and that will always be a slow process.

doctors without borders, and others are all doing an excellent job over there and deserve some major credit for what they do.

slow process! it is another of those forgotten conflicts and in our newly revamped puppy friendly media not news worthy, we dont want to put people off their dinner, lets show some lovely puppy story. meanwhile women are systematically raped, then shunned by their men for being unclean......and hundreds of thousands of people die as we sit on our hands.

[another_someone]

There are two problems in Darfur, the political and the humanitarian.

The humanitarian issue needs not so much military force as to airlift the refugees well outside of the region, and well away from harms way.  At present, they are in neighbouring Chad - the Chad government can neither afford to feed them, or to protect them, and the war is beginning to spill over into Chad.  If we had the guts to airlift them to Europe of America, it would protect them, and would also denude the area of a civilian population that the military parties can utilise to further their aims.

Then we can apply economic sanctions against those who remain in the region until they clean up their act (knowing full well that we will give sanctuary to those who wish to leave the zone, so that they can avoid the sanctions by just getting out). We also offer to help with reconstruction once people decide to stop killing each other.

Lots of money involved, but the minimum of bullets.

The logistics of sending foreign troops in is just impractical.  There is some attempt at present to send African troops into the region, but even that is fraught with difficulty.

The trouble is that in practice there is no point in peace keepers until the combatants have decided for themselves that there is nothing more they can gain by war.  In order to keep the peace, you first need a peace to keep.

[Ben6789 (OP)]

Why does the US feel it needs to protect and stabalize every country in need? We can't stop all evil in the world, the only way for world peace to happen is if someone takes over the world, which is impossible.

Besides, we need evil.

[paul.fr]

Why does the US feel it needs to protect and stabalize every country in need? We can't stop all evil in the world, the only way for world peace to happen is if someone takes over the world, which is impossible.

well obviously, the US and others, do not feel the need to protect and stabalize every country in need. if they did thingd happening now would not be.

Besides, we need evil.

i am sure those sentiments are/were shared by:

jews, arabs, palastinians, israelies, african migrates in the middle east, cambodians under pol pot, those in darfur, rowanda, serbs, muslims, croats, irish catholics, irish protestants...........................

[Seany]

wow very deep dude...lol personally i say we get the F$@# outta there and worry bout N korea and china

*Cough*. Im South Korean []

By the way, I dont like North Korea. But I doubt they would actually use the Nuclear weapon, because either way, it would mean world war 3. If North Korea bombs South Korea with a Nuclear Weapon, then America backs us up, because there are American troops in South Korea and we're quite close to America (Because America needs an Asian Democratic friend).
Then, China will back up North Korea, along with their other communist friends. Then UK and some of Europe will come and join America's side.

And BANG. World War III. Cool huh?

Also, North Korea has made a nuclear weapon, for their own safety so that they cannot be threatened by other countries such as America or China.

Conclusion, America has paid a large sum of money to North Korea, to make them stop making more nuclear weapons.

[Ben6789 (OP)]

I beileve something like this has happened before. Tripoli was making the US pay bribes to keep the pirates from attacking US ships. They raised the bribe, and long story short, the War of Tripoli happened. The US won and didn't have to pay any bribes after that.

But WWIII is a lot bigger than the War Tripoli...