[Saltheart]

The Navy thing in interesting if you look at the underlying strategies for our position in the world.

Right now everyone is talking tough about China do to the jobs lost. So part of the get tough on China rhetoric is the need to have a larger Navy to keep routes , etc open and free to all nations. If you believe this then we need a huge expansion of the Navy. Forget 313 ships. To do the Pacific (huge , huge body of water) we need 500+ ships.

Now realistically , I see things going differently than the current Presidential Debates , get tough on China talk. Yes there will be arguing about currency issues and possible restrictions on technology exports , etc. However , I see us totally abandoning the idea that we can keep that part of Asia under our sphere of military influence. China will someday have that part of the world under its sphere of influence. Its an unstoppable tide. Just as the Monroe Doctrine claimed the Americas for the US in terms of our sphere of influence based on logistics and seperation by the Oceans , China will eventually dominate the south and east coasts of Asia simply do to the obvious geography of the world. This would have happened hundreds of years ago had China not continued to be a third world , closed society until recently. You simple cannot project US influence across that part of Asia from across the worlds largest expanse of ocean against a rival with a land mass the size of our own , a Pacific coast as long or longer than our own and a population nearly triple our own.

IMO we need to stop thinking of China in hostile fashions and go back to thinking of them as a huge trade partner and potential military ally as they were in WW2. There is nothing we can do to prevent China from becoming a superpower and dominating that part of the world.

We'd be far better off doing all we can to further develop India as one of our strongest world allies. India will soon be the most populated country in the world. They are friendly to the US. They are in a crucial strategic geographical location. Next we should be beginning to make our presence known in Africa and do all we can to develop friendly allies there.

The overwhelming priority of foreign policy should be concentrating the bulk of our military planning and resources to combat radical Islam which I believe is our "to the death enemy" for the next 50 to 100 years. Most every other conflict we face are rooted in economics but the radical Islamists want to kill us. Its pretty easy to see there will be no negotiations with these radicals except for their attempts to pull the wool over our eyes to buy time to strengthen their position until they feel bold enough to break out and kill us and any other people who will not convert. Nothing in history has ever shown us that they will behave in any other way.

Anyway , as far as the debates go , I think Romney's camp had the strategy of specifically targeting the swing voters. By now those firmly committed to either side will not be changing their vote based on the third debate. The ones who can still be influenced are the middle of the roaders who in general are moderates. I believe Romney's stately performance was aimed at these moderate undecideds and I think it was a big success with that group. O---BAM-BAM-BAM-A simply appeared like an overbearing teen age bully. He kept interrupting Romney. Kept calling him a liar , had the body language of a bully and the facial expressions and foolish rhetoric of a condecending know it all. Yet behind all his bravado is an indefensable 4 years of doing no good for the country.


I think its going to be a very close race. I am thrilled there are no serious 3rd party candidates to steal significant votes from either side. I think there will be a winner who gathers a majority vote (not just a plurality) and I sure hope its a vote to change course for the country.

We'll find out in two weeks!