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US Marines to be Stationed in Australia


Fist 666

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hey dudes. sorry i started this thread and then went on vacation.

 

i'm done with the active duty army (but still national guard), trying a new career path now with school in the future...

 

i don't think i have any particularly unique insight to this, but my qualms with the situation is the continual global reliance on the US to provide a presence to maintain the status quo. we (the US) are dealing with such socially painful budget cuts that its tough for me to swallow us setting up another OCONUS post to maintain.

 

I understand the strategic necessity. i just don't like it.

 

mostly I wanted to get a better conversation going than I could have on my own.

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When the US does well, doesn't every other country do well too? Asia to me seems very much dominated by Governments controlling commodities and prices of things like rice which has horrible effects on the stability of the world economy as we recently saw with the rice crisis... IF china continues to to claim control of things it shouldn't control like trade routes and the natural resources of other countries, that could obviously have adverse on affects on the global economy, the stability of the region, and so on. Obama said it's goal here is to make china "play by the rules."

 

And i've gotta do some more research on what the hell the fed just did but to me it seems good for the European economy. A lot of the world economy runs on US treasury bonds, so allowing people of European banks to buy US treasury bonds through their own central banks seems like a good plan-- US treasury bonds are, after all, one of the safest, and most boring bonds you can buy.

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I understand that we will act in our interest, regardless of anyone's reliance upon our actions, and that we receive a fair amount of support/leeway/blind eyes in exchange for the west's piggy-backing on our military.

 

i would just rather see more balance in the militaries that make action to maintain the status quo. as its seemingly been decided that china won't play by the rules through talks or sanctions, and that military presence is necessary--then nations that are reliant on the US as guardians of the West need to increase their own military and play a part in the presence. if this escalates (distant and unlikely i hope) it will be US service members lost fighting to preserve life as we like it.

 

again, i understand it, just don't like it.

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In response to Fist, a large part of the US policy in the region is based on encouraging allies/friends to increase their defence spending and action in the region.

 

There's even a typical military-esque acronym for the policy, just can't think of it right now. The US does not want to shoulder the effort by itself and very much wants regional players to increase their commitment in ways that lock them in to the Western side of the balance. Given the high price of US arms and the reluctance of the US to transfer certain technologies and manufacturing rights it's not an easy task to get what are mostly developing countries to buy US. So that means that there has to be a balance between locking countries in to US based purchases (which mean training, maintenance, spare parts, upgrades, etc) and price as to having them buy elsewhere and also allowing countries to increase military power to the point that a) they can move outside of the US sphere of interest and b) that this military capability can contain US interests in any way in the future.

 

I hear you on understanding but not liking, for sure. The paradox of acting in one's own interests can sometimes seem exceedingly uninteresting.

 

 

I'm rambling and procrastinating from work....

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Given that the US econ and US global primacy figures in to this discussion so deeply I figured this would fit here. I got it from the Stratfor website:

 

Fed Action in Europe Underscores Dollar Primacy

http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20111130-fed-action-europe-underscores-dollar-primacy

 

December 1, 2011 | 0156 GMT

PRINTPRINT Text Resize:

0 0ShareThisNew

 

The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday adjusted its “dollar liquidity swap arrangements” with Europe’s central banks, as well as with Japan and Canada. This means that for now, European banks will not require a massive bailout that Europe is ill-equipped to provide. It also demonstrates the true nature of the U.S.-dominated global financial order.

 

“Even though the Fed is merely providing liquidity as opposed to long-term structural support, its action will do much to abate Europe’s crisis.”

 

The Fed’s action effectively gives these central banks access to a massive pool of new U.S. dollars that they can borrow at low costs. Central banks will then provide funding to their banking sectors. The loans must be repaid to the Fed within three months and are structured so that the risks are borne by the foreign central banks, not the Fed. Similar arrangements have been used since the days following the 9/11 attacks and were deployed in the early stages of the U.S. subprime crisis, but Wednesday’s deal offers the best terms yet to borrowers. And loans like this are regularly refinanced as they expire.

 

The move generates relief amid rapid deterioration in the European financial markets as banks’ holdings of distressed sovereign bonds decline in value. European banks cannot withstand serious declines in the value of their assets compounded by unwieldy amounts of leverage — borrowing money to purchase these bonds and other assets. In some cases even two-percent fluctuations in asset values could lead these banks into bankruptcy. In this environment, banks stop lending to each other, fearful that the borrower will go bankrupt and therefore be unable to pay back the loans.

 

Europe’s intertwined banking and sovereign debt crises create a complex and unwieldy situation. The banks need governments to service what are basically unserviceable debt burdens or the banks will become insolvent. Governments, meanwhile, need banks to refinance their countries’ growing debts or they will default. And on top of this sits a relatively constrained European Central Bank (ECB) that does not have the wide latitude for action its counterparts in other economies have. There is a strong argument to be made that limitations on the ECB will ease as the crisis continues — they already have to a significant degree — but the stress in Europe’s banking sector has reached a critical stage.

 

The proposed solutions are, for the most part, not clearly conceived — and all are improbable as long-term fixes. Sovereign wealth funds based in nations whose per capita incomes are a fifth of Europe’s balked at providing funds. Investors who had already shunned European bond markets despite full sovereign guarantees could not be lured back with complex schemes involving only partial guarantees. The overall sense of futility has been growing.

 

Even though the Fed is merely providing liquidity, as opposed to long-term structural support, its action will do much to abate Europe’s crisis. Nominally designed to support markets with short-term dollar loans, the funds provided by the currency swaps will find their way through numerous channels into the broader European financial markets. Thus, in addition to helping banks, the funds could relieve pressure on Europe’s sovereign debt markets. For example, banks can purchase government bonds — even those, such as Greek bonds, that are very poorly rated — and use them as collateral to secure this unlimited funding. But even though the risk of a fundamental breakup in the banking sector or currency union will abate somewhat, none of the underlying problems that have created the crisis will have been solved.

 

In fact it is STRATFOR’s standing forecast that nothing will solve the underlying problems that have created Europe’s crisis. The European Union is an inherently desynchronized entity, and packing disparate economies like Germany and Greece into a free trade zone, let alone a currency union, is naturally problematic. Peripheral European countries cannot forever absorb unchecked German exports with no recourse to the traditional methods they have used to protect themselves— such as trade barriers, controls on capital flows and independent monetary policies.

 

Still, forceful backing from the United States is a significant geopolitical event in that it reinforces the established global financial and monetary order. The United States provided this type of liquidity to Europe in the past, in order to counter the effects of the U.S. subprime crisis. Now, as countries watch Europe’s crisis grow to threaten the eurozone’s very existence, the United States is ultimately the only economy large enough and with enough political credibility to prop up the global system. This was a given for most of the postwar era, but was seemingly forgotten over the past decade as proponents of the euro touted the currency as a counterbalance to the dollar. But the facade of the euro’s stability has begun eroding, and dollar primacy has begun reasserting itself.

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I dont get the whole stink that article puts on the united states being at the top of the "global financial and monetary order." Our economy rivals all of Europe combined. Our economy rivals all of Asia combined. Our currency is out there in circulation far more than any other currency, and that's the basis for a lot of cross-border trade being exchanged in US currency first. Everybody knows what dollars are worth, everybody accepts them. It's not like you can provide liquidity to Europe's economy with yen or beanie babies. It HAS to be the U.S. dollar. SURE, europe doesn't want dollars so it has to give back those US dollars back to America by buying our goods, or investing in bonds, so it benefits us the most. But you have to weigh that against how much money the EU is losing every day it waits for their governments to work out a bailout for greece, italy, france, etc.

 

I also want to stress that this isn't some conversion of europe to the USD. If that was the case Europe would just buy cash from the federal reserve. It's buying it from their own central bank, which somewhat helps to peg the Euro, Yen, and maple leaf (whatever Canuks use as currency... moose antlers?) to the USD.

 

On a side note, where are all the NWO conspiracy theorists in all of this? I think it's pretty clear at this point that europe's "One currency to rule them all" isn't some Rothschild mastermind plan.

 

 

And another linky http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/30/142945987/the-central-banks-are-doing-what#more

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I think it's because Stratfor has always pushed the line of continuing US primacy based on its massive depth in both the economy and military capability and capacity (and copped a bit of shit for it too). This is them pointing out that what the Fed did is evidence of that continued strength and depth.

 

It also effectively devalues the USD by around 3% and that is good for US exports and bad for Chinese forex fortunes.

 

 

Whilst this isn't exactly the US-Aust. shared facilities agreement it's part of the bigger picture of the US exercising its vast power over the rest of the world. And incidentally, whilst this move was in the US interest it is also in the interest of Europe, China, Japan, Russia, India, Australia, Angola, Venezuela, KSA, Indonesia, etc. etc.

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I think it's because Stratfor has always pushed the line of continuing US primacy based on its massive depth in both the economy and military capability and capacity (and copped a bit of shit for it too). This is them pointing out that what the Fed did is evidence of that continued strength and depth.

 

It also effectively devalues the USD by around 3% and that is good for US exports and bad for Chinese forex fortunes.

 

 

Whilst this isn't exactly the US-Aust. shared facilities agreement it's part of the bigger picture of the US exercising its vast power over the rest of the world. And incidentally, whilst this move was in the US interest it is also in the interest of Europe, China, Japan, Russia, India, Australia, Angola, Venezuela, KSA, Indonesia, etc. etc.

 

I think fucking with China who's willfully pegged its currency to the USD is an added bonus. Bernake's been wanting to inflate the USD for a while to bring housing prices in america back in line, which would help the 1/3 of americans who are underwater on their mortgages and prevent future defaults. It also strengthens the yen and other currencies which would mean outsourcing overseas is no longer as profitable, and potentially could bring more jobs back to the states. And it also provides liquidity to the states which needs it as much as europe....

 

This is all Bernake's idea. Obviously if you own anything that's pegged to the USD you're going to be pretty pissed off.... like for instance savings accounts. I have a feeling that this will end up hurting more americans than it helps. Most americans still have very little faith in the US economy and will probably refuse to reinvest to pre-crisis levels.

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I get paid in USD, I'm not particularly fucking thrilled with it.

 

The devaluation of the USD won't really do anything for outsourcing (which is really overseas manufacturing based on labor cost and preferable tax rates, etc.) as other countries will either adjust their currencies accordingly (China sets the daily central parity rate for the RMB and only lets it trade with in a band of 0.5% each day, Japan will conduct more market interventions to lower the Yen, etc. etc.). This is somewhat similar to QE1-2, so look to how other states reacted to that and you've got a benchmark in what to expect with this.

 

It hasn't solved the Euro-crisis though, that can just got kicked down the road a little further.

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This is kind of like QE3, but the difference here is that this is specifically helps banks that will be affected by Greece defaulting on its debt. Last month it was announced that Greece can default on their debt by up to 50%. That's potentially a 50% decrease in capital for greek banks. If you have a savings account in a bank that just lost half of its capital, you just lost your savings, maybe even start a bank run. This way these banks can borrow more money at an extremely low interest rate in preparation of Greece defaulting.

 

Think of the affect this has on the psyches of investors. Greece no longer needs a bailout, the future of the Euro looks more secure, there will make more security in the markets which means people will have more money to spend, which means people will invest more in companies that rely on consumer spending... It's a good time to buy more stocks. Take those dollars and invest because now's the time.

 

Sure the US currency has inflated 3% but unless the price of goods goes up it doesn't affect anyone. The price at the pump is already reflecting the rising price of oil...

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Yeah, I understand what you're saying but the banks are directly tied to their governments and the governments are tied to the EU. So the banks have been thrown a printing press right now but that isn't an open ended deal. The EU won't work and will have to change drastically or die. The meeting on the 9th is supposedly going to be moving towards something like this. I don't think that anyone is working with the understanding that the swap deal has fixed anything, it's just bought time for the banks to keep going until a solution for the larger, systemic problem is found.

 

The EU as an economic union simply cannot work. you have a merrcantilist, family based (meaning 'black') economy such as Greece using the same currency as one of the world's largest industrialised economies, the second largest exporter in the world with stringent tax regime. Greece can't service their debt without the EU, they won't be able to get their people to accept the Austerity, they don't have the Soviet threat so the US won't be throwing modern weaponry at them but the Turks haven't gone away. So the structural problems of the EU remain and the US swap deal isn't infinite, the problems and imbalances have to be dealt with and Germany has to bail other EU countries out or face massive defaults and a break up of the EU.

 

Where this comes back on topic is NATO, it's almost dead already and if the EU goes belly up you're going to have Germany looking more towards Russia than ever whilst the Baltic states, Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Sweden and the UK shitting themselves and looking directly at the US for support. This at a time when they US is adjusting its posture to the Pacific.

 

Should be interesting.

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Because you were trying to mediate my conversation with dudes I've talked to for years and know by first name.

You started this derail by talking across (rather than to) Christo-f about some kind of conflated mixture of corruption, taxation and GDP.

 

Who does that? Nobody knows you. Please, shut the fuck up.

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no. its the general direction you always steer things.

 

if you think soup or anyone else is stupid you don't need to argue about it for any number of posts. everyone in crossfire and a good portion of ch0 knows you think soup is a moron.

 

a lot of us think you're off your rocker, we just don't give enough of a shit about it to argue with you or turn every thread into the same arguments.

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Posting this with the relevance of Hu Jintao's comments to prepare for war.

 

Keep in mind that public statements, the one below by Flournoy as another good example are not to be taken at face value and need to be seen as part of the maneuvering process between the two states. I'm sure most people here realise this, just good to remind ourselves from time to time that for the best insight in to geopolitics one must view actions as opposed to words and constraints as opposed to intent.

 

 

 

US official says military pacts not aimed at China

APAP – 12 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/us-official-says-military-pacts-not-aimed-china-023106097.html

 

BEIJING (AP) — A top U.S. defense official says U.S. moves to strengthen its military alliances in Asia are not aimed at containing China.

 

Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy said Thursday that she communicated that message to her Chinese counterparts during annual defense talks the day before.

 

She said her comments came in response to Chinese questions about a decision to base 2,500 Marines for training in Australia next year.

 

Flournoy also said the sides would reschedule joint anti-piracy exercises and other exchanges postponed in September by China in anger over a massive U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

 

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

 

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese and U.S. defense officials met in Beijing on Wednesday to talk about reducing the risk of confrontation after recent friction over arms sales to Taiwan and a stepped-up American military presence on China's edges.

 

The 12th round of U.S.-China Defense Consultative Talks are a barometer of relations between China's 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army and a U.S. military that is repositioning itself in the Pacific following the winding down of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

While the Chinese military has lashed out at the recent U.S. moves, Beijing's decision to proceed with the talks appears to show it is placing a new importance on regular talks between the sides, even as their rivalry sharpens.

 

Lead Chinese delegate Gen. Ma Xiaotian said going ahead with the meeting shows both sides are committed to improving relations.

 

"We attach great value to this platform to enhance communication, to expand common ground, to promote mutual understanding, to manage and control risks and to avoid miscalculation, this maintaining the stability of our military-to-military relationship," Ma, the People's Liberation Army's deputy chief of staff, said in opening remarks at the hulking Defense Ministry in downtown Beijing.

 

Representing the U.S., Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy said next year would be a "very significant" year for relations and "it's very important to cooperate on a number of issues that impact both of our countries," apparently referring to a looming political leadership transition in China and the U.S. presidential election.

 

Neither official referred to the Taiwan arms sale. Beijing says the self-ruled island is Chinese territory to be recovered by military force if necessary.

 

China summoned the U.S. ambassador and warned of damage to relations following an announcement in September of a decision to offer Taiwan the $5.85 billion package to upgrade the island's F-16 fleet.

 

In the weeks that followed, it postponed a visit by the U.S. Army Band and Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, along with joint anti-piracy exercises and a military medical exchange, scholars Bonnie Glaser and Brittany Billingsley said in an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

 

China's decision to proceed with the talks, however, appears to show that Beijing has "accepted that suspending overall bilateral military ties does not serve U.S. and Chinese interests," Glaser and Billingsley said, warning also that it wasn't clear yet whether the Chinese side is willing to restore the full range of military-to-military contacts.

 

Besides the U.S. military sales to Taiwan, China is also expected to complain about U.S. military surveillance missions within China's Exclusive Economic Zone.

 

Ma is likely to raise U.S. plans announced in late November to rotate Marines to Australia for training with Australian forces from an Australian army base in Darwin, beginning in 2012, Chinese officers quoted in state media said.

 

Up to 2,500 Marines, infantry units as well as aviation squadrons and combat logistic battalions, will go there from Okinawa or other Marine stations in Japan and elsewhere in the Pacific for a few months at a time.

 

Chinese hard-liners have called the move, along with strengthened military ties with allies Japan and the Philippines as well as former enemy Vietnam, a new U.S. containment policy that must be resisted through more active diplomacy.

 

"The U.S. has always asked China to be transparent about its strategy. It is the U.S. who should make its intentions clear," Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, of the PLA's Academy of Military Sciences, was quoted as saying in the China Daily newspaper.

 

Flournoy is expected to raise U.S. concerns about territorial disputes in the South China Sea, North Korea, Iran, maritime security, cyber security, nuclear weapons policy, and outer space, Glaser and Billingsley said. She will also seek to reschedule postponed exchanges.

 

China's recent start of sea trials on its first aircraft carrier have emphasized its growing capabilities, particularly in the naval field, raising concerns it apply those to make good on its claim to the South China Sea and its island groups.

 

President Hu Jintao told navy officers Tuesday to extend the modernization of the force and "expand the deepening of preparations for military struggle."

 

Results of Wednesday's discussions will provide an indication of the overall health of military-to-military ties, including whether or not they set an agenda for exchanges next year and how extensive the list is, Glaser and Billingsley said.

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I kinda read that and just thought, "Yep, those are exactly the quotes I was expecting." Who I want to hear from are Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and every other country that's affected by China's decision to take whatever land it wants for whatever reason they think is valid. Actually, I want to hear China try to explain to westerners why they think they're deserving of taiwan and the south china sea... without resorting to "Fuck you we're china. We gave you pork buns you ingrates."

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