Apollo

Well ,after a half year of trawling around the Saturn Area Cassini has finally released it's Huygens probe ,bound to land (hopefully safely) on Titan on januari 14. I thought i shoulda posted this in the "up up and away" thread ,but that thread is aboud the Mars rover's. Ive been waiting for this one a long time ,i remeber i was already interrested in this mission when the rocket was launched ,and i was an early teen then. Back then i thought Titan was the perfect planet in our solar system t find maybe extraterrestial life ,well i was a teen back then ,but still i think there will be some neat picture's and maybe some surprizing discoveries to find there. So finger's crossed for a safe landing of huygens.

The next level of this is Ex-Ronin claiming he's a decendant of pythahoras and by this claiming money for each use of his mathematical intellectual property. Nasa here he come's.

Knowing Brussels turkey won't be able to get into the EU if all of such type's of thing's stop. And knowing brussels it will have to pass trough 50 govermental organizations and a multiple amount of people in each of those before it get's done.

I am also all for the joining of Turkey ,when the time is right afcourse ,but in the spirit of the EU it's an obvious next step. I think there is still a lot of nationalism in the EU and people thinking from the viewpoint of their own country ,but it is slowly deminnishing though.The younger generations are usually more pro Europe and less regionalistic minded than the older generations ,i think in the end Europe was never expected to be fast evolution ,but still a graduat one. Â

No ,wrong ,because support for the war was much lower in the period that the case was made for war ,support for the war only rised upto 98% from maybe 50 or 60% when the decleration of war happened ,those mass that changed their oppinion on that point of the DOW didn't do it because of the case.

I don't see the problem... Heh ,neither do i ,but Most American's do. From an establishment point of view in the USA pot is very wrong.In some European country's ,like our own Belgium ,pot is not viewed as much of a problem really ,and politician's can freely express it if they ever smoked pot ,in the USA that could kill youre carreer ,besides the USA pumps Billion's of dollars in anti-narcotics ,even pot use is or sales is punished fairly harsh ,atleast to European norm's. Hippy's in the typical conception of a pacifist in the USA ,if youre not "patriotic" enough to go along with the mass when war comes around (even for dumb reasons) ,and all hipy's usually are on drug's ,so a pacifist is on drug's.It's a inheritance of the vietnam war ,where the pacifist movement collided with the hippy movement ,afcourse pacifists and hippy's share ideals but a pacifist is not by norm a hippy. Mind you American's might call me short sighted here by making such generalizations,but i remark that when Bush declared war on Iraq in an patriotic move over 98% percent of the people support that decission at that point ,mostly because of a cultural feeling that one in the USA "got to support the boys" ,not doing so would be perceived as treachery to the nation and the patriotic ideals ,in hindsight due to the progression of the war these matters may lay differently now with the comman USA citizin ,however at that point of the declearation of war these people that actually protested against the war were widely critisized by the people even insulted and declared parasites. That particular episode made me think back at the Mcarthy period where everyone with the slightest leftist ideals was called a communist and often persecuted for it ,something that was very contractial to the normal US ideals and wich may have polarized the USA up to this point in a far right society ,a ociety so overal right that a comman centre or centre left politician to European norm's is perceived as a far left politician in the USA. And then a far left politician is obviously a Communist (withought sub-classes) in their usual perception ,so all the synonim's that are compatible with liberal are also synonims with communist ,or otherwise a liberal = a communist ,something that is incorrect by a mile ,however there seems to be a clear phobie on lthe liberal ideoligy within a large share of the USA poppulation. In the last USA presidnetial ellection Bush often called his opponent a liberal and by thus also a far left politician ,he noted a lot that Kerry was on the far left of the political spectrum. (or also that he had "extremist" idea's ,also a word with a bad reputation) Not withstanding that to european norm's Kerry was more like right into the centre of the spectrum and Bush actually on the far right. There is also the conception in general among a lot of USA citizin that anything left is quassi communist ,while their are many different side's of the left spectrum ,like Green's (wich are usually far from anything communist) ,socialists (wich are usually centre left or left) ,and the communist subclasses like marxism ,trotskism ,leninism ,maoism etc. ,each having often different charasteristic's. (maoism as ex. emphasizes more on the farmer classes while marxism/leninism on the craftsmen (industrial worker) classes) So when chavez is reaching out to the poor class (80% of the Venezuelan poppulation) and nationalizes the vital oil industry ,then that's perceived by the USA as a communist move ,while European's would clasify it as socialist or liberal. I know ,it's a bit much for a one line remark and not much Ot ,but i thought it had some value.

Or can't..... Hey the UK still got that CIA funded Echelon monstrosity in Menwith hill England ,not something the EU is particulary content with. Yeah CIA's involvement in South America is lengendary ,lost of scandals and cover up's there.The recent ousting attempt of Chavez probably supported by the CIA was kinda rediculous ,sure Chavez is somewhat left wing (some people actually like that ,but in USA left or liberal is almost synonym to pot smoking hippy communist) ,however the Guy that the opposition tried to put into power was really really awfull ,Some puppet of the millitary junta and oliargy. You had to see the inauguration of that temporary president Carmona ,one of the most remarkable thing's i ever saw ,basicly he was sitting before a room of his supporters been called president as chavez was ousted temporarely ,and he like began disbanding social and political liberty's ,and everytime he disbanded something the room was cheering. Something along the lines of... Carmona: I declare herby all voting right's revoked room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: i declare herby all social program's scrapped room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: no more state funded healthcare room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps (varmona is getting more enthusiastic and begins to shout out any disbadiment of right while luaging pleasintly) Carmona: no more state funded education room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: no more state funded unemployement funds room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: no more state funded pensions room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: no more free trade unions room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: State media only room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: no more free trials or laywers room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: police with Ak's and dog's on every street corner room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: more taxes on the poor room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: less taxes on the rich room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps Carmona: More millitary room: cheers yaaay and enthusiasticly claps And soforth ,the room is excalted ,champagne is brought in ,people are cheering and drinking. 2 day's later theyll be chased away and banished to other country's by a reaction of the people and trade unions.

Huh ,AFAIK the human genome project was completed somewhere around 2003. And yes ,thats what's Wikipedia is claiming to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome_project Star wars i like (well mostly the older ones ,classics afcourse) ,star trek .... yuk. But under normal circumstances such technological evolutions will probably be only a matter of time ,if not in a 100 years then in a 1000 years or even 10.000 years ,if you see how much humankind has progressed just in the last 1000 years ,and how this evolution speed is cummulative and lead's to even bigger evolutions in increasingly shorter time (we may have progressed more technologicly in the last 100 years than in the 900 years before it) then it would be actually be rather ignorant tio claim that such technoligical evolutions will not happen. Science Fiction existed to 100 years back ,much of the thing's Jules vernes predicted for ex. are a reality for a long time now. Space colonization is symbolicly comparable to the age of explorations that started with early portugese Explorers supported By King Hendrik the seafarer.Once a vessel was developed that could undertake such long voyage's (carveel) the vastnesses lay open for the Europeans. Pity we are investing relativly so few resources into space exploration and technological development ,humans spend more on weapons really. Hopefully we might once find some strange resource in space that can supply us with an way exponantially more energy than any material known on earth ,then Space colonization will really also be economicly interresting and get hughe investments. Oh and a quasi immortality might be really not that far away no more ,the next century will see hughe evolutions on the field of genetic's and robotic's/informatics (these are 2 fields where hughe investments are made these days) ,scientists already have a broad view of what chemical processes makes a human actually age ,now it's only a matter of searching a cure or a brake to the aging process. In addition it's also known that a certain age humankind stop's making new cell's ,if this process could be changed however so that Human would indeffinatly produce new cells then we might be forever young to. (granted that we are not hit by a bus/boeing 747/Godzilla/other common non-natural reasons of death) Who knows ,in the far future they might even be able to raise the dead and make them alive again (BRAIN... ,delicious BRAAAAAIN....) ,though i figure they won't raise ordinary smoe's like you and me ,better make ourselfs famous. (OK i agree that last bit is probaly very farfetched ,i stand more by the previous thought's)

i wonder if the trend of world popplation growt will still be so drastic or even not decline when most of the baby-boom generations die out ,not only the European one's but especially the Asian one's.China has a demographic's where a majority of people are from 1 specific generation to ,taking into account their child control in addition that has to be a serious decline when they die out. Not to think about major Killers like AIDS ,wich is already depopulating southern Africa fast ,but is also on the rise in many place's including Asia. However genetic's research is evolving fast ,the speed by wich the human genome has been mapped for ex. have exceeded all predictions by far.Humankind already managed to increase the life expectancy of most people by far ,wonder how much it will even increase in the fuure ,heck pople might come near immortal in the more further future. (aging is nothing more than a physical process anyway) Overpoppulating should not be an issue however ,there is plenty of room to live on (as long as we get the max from it) ,there are whole ocean's where with some engineering can be lived on (sea city's in the future?) ,and when we develop engine's that can bring us trough space at relative high speed (like a few 100 times speed of light) then we can colonize Space to. (and begin the extermination of possible indiginous people out there to))

I think their Biggest problem will be how the USA react's to it ,normally South America lies in the USA sphere of influence and it has a lot of (actually mostly one-sided) trade agreements there. In addition ,there are more considertations. What about Columbia's civil war? What about state debt limitations (relativly recent the bankrupcy of Argentina is just an example of South American's not so stable economics) ,political difference's (not all South American country's are democratic ,or even to some extent ,some are pretty leftist (Like Chavez's Venezuaela (no pun to Chavez ,but as an big oil producing country that want's to regulate that export more it's bound to have big effect's for such a trade zone) ,Cuba is even communist. Multiple country's in Africa tried to set up a kinda like EU up there to ,not that this was to be thought ever succesfull ,South America isn't Africa ,but it hasn't got the Political and economical stabilety of Europe neither.

Well the stakes in Ukraine are pretty high actually ,not only for ukraine but also for Europe/US on one side and Russia on the other side ,bot support a different candidate as both have a number of strategic interrests in Ukraine. I fear that it might come to a civil war in Ukraine ,and that by both power block's giving support to a seperate party in Ukraine it might coe to a neo-cold war conflict ,something similar to Afhanistan or Vietnam (although in these cases there was presence of a superpower involved) ,a better ex. would be the spanish civil war ,both "ideoligy's" supporting one faction millitary. (material wise) It's strange how quickly the relations between the West and Russia are deterioating ,most people would have thought that With the Eu expanding and with russia fighting it's own war against terrorism ,as well as the rise of new power block's in Asia ,that Russia would come into better relations with the West. Seems however that the incorperation of the baltic states into the EU created a sort of devide between the EU and Russia where now the EU more and more begin's to see Russia again as a threat ,while russia sees EU expansion and growt of influence in the East as more of a threat to. Logicly that Ukraine seems like an interresting buffer. I wonder to what effect a join of Turkey might have on EU-Russian relations.

Sometimes i hear the goold old remark from a senior responsible adult ,oh this youth of today ,how will the world end with them? Oh this youth of today ,it's so materialistic. They all have to have a mobile phone ,100$ shoe's and equally expensive clothes.Meanwhile Grownup's in Sweden are producing mobile phone's en masse to buy them a living ,sales are important.A investor recently opened a shoe factory in Burma making use of flexible labor laws to pay his workmen a dollar a day ,most of the costs goes in marketing impressing young people that this product is cool and if you don't wear it youll be desoicialized from youre generation ,so presented the seazoned marketeer in his Guchi suit his product ,afterall he has to earn his food on the table. A grownup sit's in his prefferably villa with surrounding garden and matching SUV in his oakwood furniture looking at his broadview TV watching kids starve in Africa and cries foul ,moves his butt at his "hardearned" Turkey with 3 variety's of vegetable's filled table and critisized his son who just didn't eat up the leg he took of the Turkey wich now goes to waste ,shame you son if it was war you would have valued the smaller pieces of meat on that leg.100 kilometers from him peasent's are destroying a few tons of food as it went in mass production that year ,prices must be stabilized. Valuable natural resource's are squandered at worrying rate's to produce for parts product's that are in itself waste.Carppoling? no thank you Mister i rather are comfterable alone in my luxury spacey car filled with Supermarket product's that in itself have more wrap around them than product in it. No worry's ,by the time the resource's are out were already dead.This youth of today? No respect! Give throw them a hard deserved product and theyl hardly respect you for it. We worked hard to kill of all the nature in our surrounding to Flood it with cosy homes and parking lots ,and now they are vandalizing it! Our society is grayening they say ,a large poppulation of pension elegible people will have to be supported by a small amount of young people ,a burden ,for later that is.Don't let us worry about it now anyway ,while our economy's are still strong and this mass consuming wealth can still be upheld ,maybe still for a few years ,a decade or 2 maybe. A young student at shool is more occupied with SMSing to his mate's in class than listening to the lessons ,oh cries the the teacher ,how will society ever mold you into a senseless working drone to upkeep our by hard work created exuberant consuming society ,fear for my pension i do. Youll be a failure ,be thrown in for the dirty job's in youre proffesional life later until you jum before a train ending the depressing future of youre life. Oh this youth of today ,watch them rave in hard music filled disco's with drug's running trough their veins ,the 200 pound weithing man eating his 10 stages menu in the French cottage restaurant over his 8th glass of Chateau Lafitte 1787 shake's his head in dissapointment. I may be very sarcasticly here ,but am i the only person of this generation that is sick of the negative generalizations made on his generation while seeing the inheritance of a sick ,egoistical and unsustainable society created by grownups wich are giving "the right example"?

I guess you could make a simpliefied version of a world map and then create small simplified unit's on lego wars scale complete with small houses on same scale ,would really rock. i don't know how small you can make unit's in ofp ,but the smaller they are the bigger the impression of the island within Ofp limitations ,a 25x25km island would give the impression of a 250x250 km island for unit's of 1/10th the size of normal ofp unit's. In addition ,i would advice to use realy simplified texture's and elevations ,think civilization games style ,a desert texture ,a hill texture ,a grasland texture ,etc. Eventually i guess the goal of such a map would be to use it with some kind of strategic mod ,wouldn't know however how to translate such a concept into OFP.

Nice update ,progress looks to come along great ,i'm really anticipating this prommising work ,keep it up.

I'm done arguing with you to.

And afcourse ,there is also BOH (battle over Hokaido) ,a nice japanese mod tat released some addons aleardy to ,including a demo. (also featuring the famous Wanzer's) Ad there is also PLA (people's liberation army i think) ,A chinese mod ,quite a productive one with nice unit's to.

Muh ,you don't give up yet, Alrighty then... First of all ,i already pointed out that this particular point is irrelivant to the discussion ,that is the why or why not "stealing technoligy" is morrali wrong. Von braun actually developed his V2 under german financing (duh you should say now) ,and this technoligy was used to further engineer the eventual rockets that carried stuff into space.The fact is that any applied technoligy is in essence a derivation of science builded up all over history ,and that no nation has researched all that science themselfs ,whatever technoligy you make ,it will be derived from science made by a various amount of historians all over history with multiple country's of origin ,The man in space couldn't get there withought the mathimatical rules invented 5000 years ago by greek phillosopher's ,so in a way the USA "stole" that science. Same goes with the Nuke ,it is derived partly by science of physic's "researched" by people trough history ,from the laws of Newton up to Einstein ,i didn't recall the USA having funded Newton now don't i? Damned it's just an ex. ,i didn't want to go in the aerial thing but the same aplies there ,for every 1 USA plane there are 5 Chinese ones ,i think 5 SU27's would beat one F22 to (however few numbers there are build from them) ,besides the F22 is a typical myth of American millitary supperiority ,just because it's PARTLY stealthy. (it can still be seen on radar ,size of a bird but how many birds fly at Mach2?) besides ,the effeciancy of that stealth will be greatly decreased when it's forced in a defensive role ,and you also have to take into account that an F is not in the air 24/7 ,or otherwise planes sitting on the ground are pretty vulnurable to air attacks ,especially when the enemy is superior in numbers. Strange that you Quote ho Che ming here ,the vietnam is a pure ex. of how manpower wins against technoligy ,Ho chi minh here note's that he looses more men compared to the USA ,but in essence the fact that under his regime over millions of vietnamese were taken into the army (mostly volunteers to) ,even kids ,women and old folks ,withought much or any training just to attrition the enemy with superior numbers is just a show that training can only increase combat effectiveness but that in the end superior manpower to the soldier effeciancy ratio still wins. Training Isn't everything ,and then you also have to take into account that only America's standing army is a trained army ,in a case of a China-USA war both side's would have to draft conscript's and the quality of those conscript's would be not much different ,even if the USA has a million standing army in relative terms to Chinese manpower and full-out mobilized war this number is small. And then you also note that it's the numbers of USA material that make the difference ,but then again in this youre bound to be surpassed by China in the future. In the end ,if china will put up against the American army an amount of material in all fields (air,land and navy) of 1 generation older in tech but in general numbers of 5 to 1 China will surpass that combat effeciancy easily with sheer numbers. And then you also have to take into acount basic strategy 101 ,having a general number superiority of 5 to 1 means that on the strategical level you can have LOCAL supperiority of 20 vs 1. In a war front devissions are never spread equally in numbers over all zone's ,zone's of offense will have far larger number's than zone's of defense ,with a superiority of 5 vs 1 it will be easy to limit to a few zone's of superior in numbers offenses while having still quite large defensive forces on other front section's. And then ,there are aslo most historical precedent's ,almost every modern war has shown that manpower superiority means the road to victory. Like i noted with Japan VS China ,Japan was far more technologicaly superior (a chinese airforce was even virtually non-existant) ,yet they still couldn't defeat china. on the European theater ,Germany was well known to have the most advanced ,best equiped and best trained army's ,yet their superior tiger's eventually couldn't hold up to the superior numbers of the USA or Russia. Then there was the Korean war ,again US forces were then far more superior ,but suddently China drops of a few million low trained and low equiped millitia on the border and BOOM USA beaten back to the 38'th degree. vietnam ,same story.How can you be blind for such precedents? China has a million STANDING army ,like the USA ,but in a full blown war both nations will have to conscript. if USA conscript's 10% of poppulation they got 25 million lower quality conscript's ,if China conscript's 10% they have 125 million. Tats 1 Million regulars + 25million conscript's VS 1Million regulars VS 125Million conscript's ,see my point? Stealth figher's are 1 not undestroyable and 2 not in great numbers ,USA technological edge can't surpass the Chinese numbers edge. That is what you think ,but i think they 1 arleady can and 2 theyl certainly be able if their conomy is even more evolved. Mo taxpayers = mo money and when China is as advanced as USA it will be 5 times richer than the US because it has 5 times more people. True ,but in this Weakness of China lies a weakness of the USA to ,war would severely disrupt their economy to and the hughe amount's of oil needed for their troops would also be hard to find and expensive to pay. In fact ,the biggest weakness of the USA is that it's army is the most expensive to upkeep in the world ,even putting only 200.000 men in iraq already blows a hughe budget deficit in the US economy.

This point you make however dumb it seems to me has absolutly no relevance to the original section of the discussion the quoted point was made ,with other words that even if China steals some tech's from other country's it doesn't mean it can rise to a level that it will be technologicly on par with other modern country's or later even more advanced ,this remark you make rather is touching on some weird morallity issue you would have with copying technoligy ,something that has been done by all country's over the world in the course of history ,even USA. As an ex. ,i wonder how long it would have take the USA to put a man in space themselfs if it wasn't for the V2 rocket technoligy of that German man Werner von Braun ,lest to speak of all other technoligy the USA stole from defeated Nazi Germany. Or how easy it would have develloped nukes withough people like Einstein or Oppenheimer. China has a manpower 5 to 6 times larger than the US ,and when modernized an industrial and financial potential of that magnitude to. Human waves in the WW2 context is just an ex. ,a more modern ex. would be to let 1 abrams battle it out against 5 T72's ,i figure (takingout of account all other factor's like aerial reconnaisance etc that usually influence such tank battles) the T72's will win. Manpower is one if not the most determinal factor in war.A simple conclusion can be drawn from the WWII experience of Japan VS china ,while Japan was far more technologicly advanced and millitary organized than China ,it still couldn't beat it due to the pressence of extreme chinese numbers ,it couldn't beat the Chinese forces ,and even if they could have they wouldn't have been able to control that whole poppulation. Even if you are far more advanced ,beating odd's of 5 VS 1 is almost impossible. At the beginning of the weimar years and especially when 1929 broke Germany was bankrupted ,it's industry in a decaying state and a massive unemployement rate.What made Germany come back was determination for one and foremost ,and putting of the killing war immendity's that gave some space again for economic growth.That said those limitations for growth don't exist in China ,and the simple fact is that in the last 20 years China has progressed economicly in hughe leap's ,there are no factor's present to think that this evolution wouldn't continue in the next 20 years.

eh? BAHhahhaha!! sorry about that.. any technology we dont sell them they will STEAL They copied the Hummer, they copied the mig-21 (J-7) they copy Korean cars they copy a lot of things. You seem to confuse "China" with "America" or "Japan". IMO the most technically advanced part of China is Taiwan.. plus thats where all my PC parts come from. Youre being ignorant IMO ,yes at this point there are still almost a generation behind in millitary technoligy ,mind you 50 years ago they were 5 generations behind and a 100 years ago they were 20 generations behind ,the conclusion is that China is getting up to par with us much faster than we develop new technoligy. There is also the precedent of other Asian country's that have modernize'd that eventually have shown to be economical and technological tigers once the were modernized ,Japan modernized at a lightning rate after the Meiji restoration and is now one of the technologicly most advanced country's in the world. (if not THE most advanced) Taiwan once it was modernized became such a tiger itself to. What you are implying is almost saying that Chinese in essence are only able to copy and not to invent themselfs ,a grave underestimation of the Chinese people and it's powerfull society.May i remind you that ,before of the age of colonialism ,China was the most advanced country in the world for over 5000 years? An extreme amount of inventions trough history were made in China and eventually flew over to Europe ,gunpowder jsut being a small example.In fact the creation of the silk route by the Mongol empire in the 13-14th century that effectivly oppened up a continues secure land route from Europe to China was one of the major factor's why Europe could get itself out of the dark middle ages into the more modern times ,the Silk route could almost be called the technoligy route and is an important foundation of the Europe's world supremacy 5-6 century's later. China lost it's technological lead because it shut itself of from the whole world around 1500AD. When it comes to it though ,Chinese are able to perform massive feats. The chinese wall is an everlasting testimony of that ,being the only building seeable from space ,the most grandest structure ever made. The recent building of the 3 gorges dam and partially completion ,the largest dam in the world now ,is also one of this typical chinese feat's ,and believe me ,it was build by chinese engineers. believe me ,once China is up to par with the western world ,it won't take a long time before they start to leap technologicly ahead of us. well i hope so for China ,i wouldn't wish for Europe neither to become an "USA" ,frankly the social and political structure of the USA these days shouldn't be an object of envy or example anymore ,the whole ellectoral system and the 2 party monopoly isn't ex. the most perfect system in the world ,and the way the uSA is politicly evolving isn't exactly settling neither ,retractions of rights of privacy ,right's of thing's like gay marriage ,religious fanatism ,coorperate influence in politic's ,limited and decreasign social support ,all these thing's don't make me thing the USA is getting more democraticly healthy. If youre talking on how fast China will reach our level and pass us by economicly/millitary ,then i would guess inabout 20-30 years ,if youre talking about democracy ,then i guess it could take many decade's more. But the future is to country's like India and China ,they are the superpowers of the future ,IMO however The USA is more lickely to see faster decline on this level than the EU ,atleast the EU is expanding politicly and economicly ,The USA seems to have got it's xinith of power though IMO and is now started in a gradual decline ,it's power over resources ,it 's decline of it's economy ,it's self destruction of it's democratic ideal's and the growing extremism of various sorts in it's society seems to be a symptom of that. IMO ,the US should better stop their support for Taiwan ,it can only bring them in further conflict with China ,there are more dangerous country's ,like North korea for instance.

That may be now ,but China is a booming economy ,bound to become a hughe economical player in the future ,this trade will surely boom to. That's a dull argument ,It's not very plausible that anyone will send 60 nuke's on China when they are evolving peacefully ,thus as long as China evolve's at it is doing it will become the largest superpower in the world ,and any technoligy we don't sll to them they will eventually develop themselfs. You don't seem to understand ,Taiwan as a national state doesn't really exist ,the official name of that country is to this date The ROC ,Republic of China.Only a minority in Taiwan really want's to establish a Taiwanese nationalist state and taiwanese nationality. Furthermore ,taiwan may be somewhat of a democracy now ,it only evolved to that status only like 10 years go ,prior to that taiwan was ruled 40 years under martial law and another 20 years under a KMT 1 party rule.As such the incentive for America to suppor Taiwan from the 50's onward was that it was a Non-Communist foothold in Asia in the cold war period ,at that time ROC's politics were more facist like than democratic. This policy was mainly an inheritance of WWII ,at that time the KMT was the dominant power of the Chinese mainland and when the USA came into war with Japan it was strategicly important for the US to support the KMT ,afterall victory of japan over the KMT and thus Japan annexing parts of China and puppeting the rest woul have freed up a hughe lot of troops from that fron ready to be used against the USA in the pacific and UK in India ,since they were now allied anyway they favoured the KMT above the communist when the civil war started ,although American political analysts knew all to well that the KMT could never control China anymore as frankly the Chinese poppulation hated it. Even then ,American political analysts understood that Communist China was a different kind of communism not very simmilar to USSR communism ,and that given the thought that the KMT had been an totolitarian regime ,just like any other goverment China just had in the last 7000 years ,that Communist China was only regarded communist because it had certain policy's that were more than logical given the social reallity in China. It must be said that you can't negativly review the Communist Chinese goverment entirely ,under rule of the KMT China was as much the underdeveloped country it was under Imperial rule ,that the Comunsts in China managed to let the nation evolve that much since the 50's to the way more modern state it is now is an incredible feat ,furthermore China has been evolving the last decade's towards a more free market structure to.While i won't say that the Communists never made errors (just take the cultural revolution as ex.) in overall i would note that up to this point it has been a force of gradual modernization both economicly and politicly.Th conclusion would be here that there really never existed much of a "communist China" ,more or less that the current goverment in Beijing has more been "realistic China". China will graduatly reform at it's pace as it did the last 50 years. In addition ,China has a policy towards Taiwan of "one nation ,two system's" ,it doesn't want to destroy Taiwanese deomcracy and would even allow it to keep it's own millitary ,in essence all China want's is that Taiwan become's officially part of and steps of the seperatism. In addition it must be said that a part of the Taiwanese poppulation is pro this unification ,however that as long as the politician's in Taiwan are supported by the USA that they don't feel the need to go into this path.For Taiwan in the short term it would have egative economical consequences if they joined China ,but it would have good economical consequence's in the long run. The conclusion on the matter of USA involvement in Taiwan is that it doesn't do this because of an ideologcal support to freedom of democratic nations ,but because the USA has an interrest to support Pro USA country's in Asia to keep a certain power base out there ,deffinatly from a historical point of view it is as such.This withought understanding the complexity's of Asian politic's. Vietnam was effectivly an error on on a simmilar level ,The USA supported a nation (south vietnam) that was not based on any nationalistic distinction (there only existed 1 vietnam) ,that was only democratic in name (South vietnam was an autoritatian regime ,ruled by changing dictator's) ,and that virtually had no support among the Vietnamese poppulation ,in essence it supported a regime that couldn't exist withought the US and was more or less an artificial counterwheight against communist influence in Indochina ,there existed the historical error of the USA in Vietnam ,by supporting a regime that didn't have tlocal support it effectivly became an occupying country fighting against unification of vietnam rather than a allied partner fighting for the freedom of a viable liveable democratic Vietnamese counterpart. In the end ,China will strive for a unified China by all means nessecary ,but it will first explore all other option's before it goes to war.Ever since Imperial China had been trounced multiple times by foreign colonial powers and lost a lot of land to them ,it had the policy to reunify all Chinese lands from the hands of the "foreign devil's".This is an movement that exists for over 100 years and is an important factor in Chinese society. Chinese society however never glorifies war and only see's it as a last step.Anyone fammiliar with the teaching's of Sun-Tzu will understand that the strive there is to be victorious by all means except fighting ,that is the essence of these teaching's and they are deeply inbedded in the Chinese society. Beyon Historical Chinese lands China is an isolationist country however ,and the though that china would go on unreasonable conquest is fairly incompatibel with chinese culture. The fault of the USA however is that they fail to recognize that and effectivly see China as a danger ,just as it did in the Vietnam war where they thought that the collaps of South vietnam would lead to a domina effect where the whole of Indochine would become parrt of the Chinese influence sphere. The thought is that the more we support china to modernise ,the faster it will become semi-democratic and the faster that the Republic of China will loose it's reason for existance. another thing to point out is that the more evolved China is the faster new evolvement's will come ,china's evolution in the last 60 years is cummulative.

1) Russia ,the EU ,The US ,they are all involved in weapons sales (Russia being the master in it though ,but noone seems to mind that much ) and neither of those country's have a particularry clean sheat on dodgy arm sales. the US is fast to blame the Eu if it sells material to a country it seems as a thret to it's millitary supremacy ,when someone sells arms to some African minor engaged in civil war it doesn't matter much though. We european's feel though that when the US starts to complain about weapons sales to the EU that it's kinda like .... Hipocracy? 2)What will some european material make of difference? China can become the superpower of it's wishes and frankly there is no country in the world there that can stop them ,they can use us ,but in the end they don't need us ,it's only a matter of time until China is the most powerfull player in the world ,better have good relations with this country ,i would rather have them as a friend than an enemy. Besides the more we isolate China the worse it is in the longterm ,taking China in the WTo was a very good step ,economic interdependancy has shown to be the peacemaker of the late 20th century ,the more China and the West cummulativly enriches itself on trade with eachother ,the more theyll be depended on eachother for their wealth and that war will become impossible. 3)China doesn't seem so expansionist to me ,more like isolationist as it was for a few millenia already ,they strive though for a unified China. That they want Nationalist China (AKA the guomingdang ,the KMT or now known as indipendant taiwan) to become now part again of China is more than logical ,in the end China is really only still into a civil war state between Communists and nationalists for over 60 years.The historic alliance of the USA with "democratic China" is historicly kinda rediculous to ,for the simple reason that the KMT under the leadership of Chiang Kai Sheck was more a facist totalitarian regime than a democracy ,only in name democratic ,far from the original Guomingdangg ideals innitially established bu Sun Fats Yen ,The USA however never supported the Communists simply because they were communists. (and especially not during the cold war) Taiwan is an rediculous inheritance of Failed US policy in China combined with an cold war aftermath ,in esscense the result of betting on the wrong horse in WWII in a region filled by totalitarian regime's grown from a really good but o so American vision in that time that they should make China free from all colonial powers and foremost a democratic nation in the East. Yes there was a time that the USA was really an admirable country ,always ready to help smaler powers in their struggle against Tyrany ,a bullwark of freedom and democracy ,not that it was always really possible or that they really had an idea about the complexity's involved with their goals in forming some nations to democracy's. (whereas they seem to have failed to correctly estimate these complexity's in Iraq now to) But i have to say ,it all went seriously wrong in America with the Cold war ,IMO the cold war left a permanent idiological trauma onto the USA ,beginning with the awfull Mcarthy era ,basicly a time when the USA lost most of it's freedom fighting innosence to become a far right superpower. I guess i should be gratefull that the US liberated my country in WWII ,often Americans will remind Europeans of this liberation ("we saved ur ass") ,but IMO that was a whole other USA than there exists today. IMO it's just misplaced of the USA to still support Taiwan in these modern times ,knowing the whole episode of the 2 China's ,and the lost relavance of that conflict with the ended WWII and Cold war. The more we work toghether with Communist China and build up our relations and mutual trade the more China will evolve at it's own pace towards democracy ,given China's history that whole evolvement is a hughe step for the Chinese society ,this is an advanced and thousands of years old society that was and probably still is largely uncompatible with democracy in itself ,such was the class system in imperial china itself for thousands of Years (that class system was so radical different to western one ias such that fillosofer's and scientist in china were always regarded as the lowest of all classes) ,for thousands of years china has been a country ruled by a strong centralised goverment ,anything else led to civil war ,China became communist because it's social and political structure fitted quite well in such a framework ,you can't impose democracy on china ,it will need a long evolution before it can reach anthing resembling that. Taiwan might officially be called a democracy for over 50 years ,in the end it's still not really a democracy but already has had a long and slow evolution towards that way.The handover of hong knog from the UK to China has up to this date some effect's for politic's in china ,i think it's good for the Chinese evolution to have such thing's as small democratic microcosmosses in their country that graduatly pave the way for more of such evolutions in China.

Another awsome addon from the master of the masters. Â Â

Yes well ,Greek time ... ,but what have we learned of Sparta's political society? In Sparta ,only men over 60 were allowed to conduct politic's ,and every younger person had to abbide and respect that.result? Sparta politic's stayed ultra-conservative to the die hard end ,the demisse of their society largely due to that political structure. Lets see ,do we know other institutions that only put on old monuments as leader's, Ah yess.... Catcholic church ,that Church that wan'ts to be progressive and modertnize because their churches run empty ,but in the end come up with rediculous conservative point of views like the condom being a tool of the devil. (try to sell that to the south African goverment) My conclusion is that most elder people are simply scared of evolution ,they see modern changes of wich they only wish to see the nagative point's because they do not want to addapt to it anymore ,they are to tired for changes.

If liberation has some probles to overcome with their train then i can only hope AEF could hand them a help ,regardless of past words ,i think if liberation has been a little bit nasty then AEF can show the right example atleast. Liberation may be looking for some healthy compition but you have to hand it to this guys ,their mod is fairly young (younger than AEF i think) and in the time they exist they made a wide array of great looking vehicle's ,really an impressive and productive mod. (their texture's and models look awsome) Don't get me wrong ,AEF's train is looking great and you guys will be remembered for the breaktrough work you made on this field in OFP ,but i can only hope that trains in OFP will become widespread and for this to be achieved it's best that the knowledge is spread.