It's too early to tell but we can both agree that China is expanding through economic means. How heavily they will try to influence the region remains to be seen in the future. As it is now they just want raw materials which is not un-like the Western Powers Scramble for Africa but the major difference is China is not imposing themselves as Colonial rulers or demanding regime changes and Autocracies to quell popular uprisings in exchange for aid.

I doubt China will remain neutral in these countries for long but for now it's harmless in comparison to say arming PJAK to overthrow Iran or claiming they have WMD's when the U.N. has stated otherwise.

A) So you think the US is planning to invade Russia and China?

B) No... it's more like saying that me spending more on cars then you spend on cars is justified by the fact that I make way more money then you do.  As a percent of the budget, US militatry spending is fine.... and actually very low as far as how US spending usually is as a percentage of GDP.

Though yeah, i do agree the US Should loosen up and sell more weapons to more countries.

Spending more then 10 times the next 10 countries really isn't relevent when you make more then 10 times the next 10 countries.

A) *facepalm*, so you're in denial after all.

B) You don't make more money, actually you're outspending what you've earned, hence the debt. And again how exactly GDP is connected to "making money" whatever you mean by that? Elaborate. You officially have budget deficit. Your GDP to military spendings is just random numbers math.

If you want some real comparisons, compare military spending not against GDP, but budget. Anything GDP-related just serves the aim to delude people, you need to know what exactly contributes to GDP, how exactly budget correlates to GDP, taxtion, laws... omg, my head already hurts. But if compared against budget it makes the picture not perfectly but clear enough, the US spend smth like 20-25% of budget on military, this's high. As high as Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, India, but less than UAE (your ally). Not exactly the dove of peace, lol.

Though the initial point as I understand the TS was not how big the military budget is, but what political consequences pumping up US military presence, supported by said military budget, in different regions might have. And the idea of evil Chinese occupying "the land of the free and the home of the brave" just cracks me up :D Oh well, this's maybe too much even for American conspirologists, yet the notion of China investing into Africa is smth like political "hegemony" is just funny. Yeah, the Chinese are investing in Africa, so what? Everyone have ambitions. And they are being pushed from Africa by everyone else pretty easily since Lybian conflict. Why? Their hands are too short, that's not very superpowerish. Even in recent Syrian confilct they're playing only supporting role and being bullied by everyone in South China Sea.

Meanwhile in the real world the biggest political hegemony, military precense and military infrastructure around the world  "are belong to US" :D Size matters after all. Remember reading Peter Hopkirk on the Great Game, when being asked isn't Russian Empire is way too much expansionist and threatening national interests of British crown, he answered "Well, in order to able to threat British interests in Central Asia, the British should be somewhere near, isn't it? So I'm gonna ask: where's Kent and where's Tashkent?" :D

SickleSigh, there're a lot of factors contributing to false information. Some countries have their state militia and reserve being reported under different categories rather than military, some do not. Depending on the country some report part of army personel salaries again somehow differently rather than military spendings. There could be a lot of army programs that do not get qualified as military spendings, say, cheap mortgage credits for army personel etc. Some even fake documents on purpose in order to lower military spendings. Making smth useful out of this (i.e. not fancy graphs for lazy people) is a titanic work. Are you people really want take on this job? This's not what's important for this thread anyway.

I love japan and all, but there is no such thing as a perfect country, japanese people are very racist as well, just like every other country in the world.

Yes it is pretty deplorable. Your play things are not more important than lives of people and destruction of planet. May i suggest a Wii U preorder thread. 

OT: Here is a protest video. Not sure how to embed that. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19620700

It doesn't help that there are a few troublemaking provocateurs on the Japanese side, like the overtly racist/nationalist governor of Tokyo who made a symbolic push to "buy" the islands (so that they'd be private property of the Tokyo municipal government), and groups who support him and are trying to goad the Chinese. I'd hazard a guess that most Japanese don't give a fuck.

You have to consider that the United States political system works very differently to most other countries. Yes, defense as percentage of Federal budget is high... but it's one of the few areas that the Federal Government is supposed to focus on. When you include state Governments, which do most of the things that most central Governments do, the numbers are different. Also, local, etc.

Muslims getting pissed over a silly video.

China and Japan getting pissed over some islands.

What's next; America getting pissed off over the removal of a cheeseburger?

To be fair, we have to spend 20-25% on the military since so many other countries that we're allied with won't bother to defend themselves. If the Europeans and Japanese would bother to get off their rear end and spend at a reasonable, NATO-required level, we wouldn't need to spend as much.