numberwang said:
Comparing numbers based on nominal exchange rates for different sized countries is misleading. Do you think a Chinese soldier costs as much as an American soldier? National spending has to be compared as a percentage of GDP.
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But is an American soldier better trained than a Chinese one? Better bang for buck.
Hiku said:
Add to the fact that it was USA who forced Japan to only have an army for self defense, which barred them from “collective self-defense” — aiding friendly countries under attack — and thus were far more constrained than those of other nations, I wouldn't be talking smack about Japan's "reliance" on USA on this subject either. USA forced them into that situation. Understandable immediately after WW2, but not in this day and age.
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I think in Japans case they could bolster their military efforts, I think they have shown their capability to get on really well with western powers since WW2.
Hiku said:
If Chinese soldier wages are that much lower, while taking into account how much taxes they have to spend, then that's certainly a factor to consider. I'll have to look more closely into this later, and see how it correlates to their GDP.
Though keep in mind that things like R&D for new weapons and nuclear programs also fall under "defense budget". And USA has about half of the worlds nuclear arsenal. We can't just look at soldier wages and call it a day.
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Even on the tech front, China has shown an insane ability to manufacture and reproduce opponents efforts for a fraction of a cost, it's obviously lower quality, but I wouldn't underestimate their ability to replicate and mass produce.
Bofferbrauer2 said:
China has more soldiers, so what? China has 4 times more population, is a bigger country and the one with the most neighboring countries (14, not counting any close countries across the sea). So it's only natural that the country has a larger military as it has more space to cover. India has a bigger army mostly because of it's huge population.
I didn't expect North Korean Army to be this big. Sitting between China, Russia and South Korea, I expected a very large one, but that's ludicrous in size
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The USA also has large chunks of Europe, Oceania, Latin America and more backing them, which will allow the USA to have the military edge for decades to come, it's not just a numbers game of military personnel.
Information is one of the biggest key aspects of it all.
HollyGamer said:
But u need to admitted US are Australian allies and both need each other unless u one get threatened by CCP . So you don't have any choice at the moment because Trumps is the US President and his cabinet are opposing China. And also Australia also bough many F-35 from US.
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Australia has assisted the USA in every single war the USA has engaged in since WW2.
We didn't have to. We chose to.
Why? Because we share a common history, we share a common culture, we are as close as Allies typically can get.
If we hypothetically elected a new government and they had a mandated proposal taken to the election to kick the Americans out, you wouldn't have a choice in the matter, Trump or not. You would be forced to leave, if you think Trump holds any power here... You would be highly mistaken, especially after insulting our prime minister.
Again, we don't actually need the USA, Australia is an entire continent that is extremely inhospitable and thus not really logistically feasible to invade and control... And we know it, it's become a meme at this point.
And we aren't actually enemies of China... In-fact, we profit more from China than any other nation due to their massive reliance on our vast resources, which is simply another reason why the USA would want us on their side, to hurt China's manufacturing potential if war did hypothetically happen.
In-fact a few of our politicians have already proposed to cut back on working with the USA in order to bolster our relationship with China, so it will be interesting to see how that conversation goes in the future.
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/does-australia-really-need-the-us-alliance-20140512-zraey.html
As for the F-35, that is a contentious issue, it's overpriced, under delivered, we could have gotten a better deal elsewhere.
Last edited by Pemalite - on 03 August 2018