Rattling China's imaginary sabers

There's an article out this week in The New York Times (see link below), warning us Americans of the big defense threat that China is. It's repeated over on Yahoo! News at "The Week" and it really frustrates me a great deal. It's so stupid, really. The US outspends China, to date, of a margin of roughly 7 to 1 ($698B vs. $114B and that's only what's officially on the books. It's been estimated we actually spend far more than this). And we've outspent China for years on defense. The articles read like fear-mongering on the part of the defense department and the people who support them so we won't cut defense spending one iota. A writer, one "Raply W" wrote a simple but appropriate response to the 2nd article (at The Week) when he wrote "The Soviets used to say we would sell them the rope they used to hang us. Instead of that, we are paying the Chinese to manufacture the rope." Honestly, we learned nothing from the Soviet Union's collapse after it spent so heavily and ignorantly on defense against us. They collapsed and we're spending money like drunken sailors, even though they fell. No one will ever claim the US was that bright once we collapse from the same policies. We'll fall for this nonsense, too, unfortunately. Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/05/opinion/chinas-challenge-at-sea.html?_r=1&hp; http://news.yahoo.com/danger-chinas-relentless-military-buildup-105700023.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures