China is projected to be the SINGLE superpower on the globe by 2030. Seems to me, they are right on track.

Time to buy those Rosetta Stone Chinese I&II disks while demand is still low.

They are a patient country, waiting since the 15th century to return to a world "dominance" that reigned for several centuries before taking a small 500-year break.

Smart people those Chinese, electing to avoid allowing ideologues to spread their ambitions beyond their own borders.

Cold War 2: The Coldening

Dont know about this I would have considered them one now actually and if if was not for the yanks having bases and carrier groups around the world giving the ability to launch an attack or be knocking on someones door in less then 6 hrs the US would not rate as a super power at all.

NASA currently tracks about 11,000 items larger than 10 cm, and there's over 100,000 items between 1 cm and 10 cm up there.

I don't think PlanetES launched with the intent of cleaning up Chinese military tests.

Okay, well thanks for defining what a superpower is and why China is not one currently.

Now. why are you disagreeing with me again?

China isn't aiming for another cold war by matching the US. The plan is to have enough of a military that they can't be painlessly messed with. So rather than thousands of nukes they've built hundreds, the US would clearly "win" if it came to an exchange but China has enough to make sure that won't happen. People can over focus on numbers sometimes, so this test is a way of reminding them that having ten times the weapons in a field isn't all that great.

Given that the US Air Force's strategic plan includes the building of space-based offensive weapons, it seems only rational that a China would want to have the capability to destroy such weapons.

i think there's already some sort of treaty in effect banning the "weaponization" of space. i'm pretty sure directed energy weapons, projectile weapons, armed space stations, emp bursters, etc are banned by this treaty.

the treaty doesn't, however, include recon or other sats with uses to civilians and government. countries other than the US are free to put up as many orbital birds as they want, but so far the US and a few of its allies are the only states to have the technical skill and economic strength to do so in numbers significant enough to be "dominant." that's why the US has the "satellite superiority" it leverages in both the military and civilian realms.

this thing with China is different from what you're implying here, however. the weapon is a ballistic missile much like an SCUD or ICBM in that once you press the button, it's going to go where you aimed it and where environmental forces push it while in transit. it'll come back down to earth whether it hits something or not. the big "holy crap" about this whole deal is the fact that the US is surprised and concerned that China now has the technical know-how to hit a sat in orbit. it's not a space-based weapons platform from which to launch attacks.

as far as the treaty referenced above, shooting ballistic projectile weapons into space isn't expressly forbidden (i don't think so, at least) just as gathering intelligence via spy sat isn't.

i like how you try to make this into a "military: BAD" "republicans: BAD" sort of commentary, though. i especially like how you make the jump from the Chinese gearing up to shoot satellites out of the sky into into a statement about how the US shouldn't be able to weaponize space. good one.

also, one could make the point that the Cold War was won through economic means rather than with armed conflict. the USSR broke the bank trying to keep up with the US which caused the chain reaction that eventually led to its downfall. the arms race was simply the means the US government used as the expensive commodity that killed the USSR treasury. not saying i think more nukes pointed all over the place is a good thing and i wish they'd had found a better way, but, in a sense, it wasn't a total and complete loss.

You think wrongly. There is a 1967 Outerspace Treaty that prohibits the placing WMDs in space. The ABM Treaty had prohibitions against placing weapons in space but the US withdrew from that in 2002. China and Russia have drafted language for a treaty banning space weapons. The US refuses to enter into a dialouge on the issue.

Projected where Nick?

Sorry, I refuse to do your reading for you. But you can start with The Economist, of course you will have to read about 4 years of back issues to catch up.

Or you could read this and Kevin Phillips cites quite a bit of compelling stuff in his book.

It is disputable of course, especially by those myopic folks who insist that all is well with the US eoonomy. You know those folks who think 20 trillion in debt is no big deal.

I think he may be thinking of this: National Space Policy in which Bush states that space belongs to us and nobody better fuck with it.

I just wanted the links to read nick the attitude was not necessary.

Then say that - otherwise you come off as your typical "show me ths cites so I can say it isn't so" self.