If we do not, I believe we will fight them in the next ten years or maybe sooner depending on the Taiwan issue. I believe we will win in any case, but that the cost will be much greater than if we act accordingly now. Just my opinion.
Agreed. Our country needs to withdraw from the "One china" sham and Shanghai Communiques. Make Taiwan stronger (at least as strong as Japan militarily) and form a strategic triangle to counter China: A new SEATO. Taiwan should become part of the National Missile Defense system like Japan is. In addition to that Taiwan and Japan need nuclear weapons.
But we are NOT building up our force structure and readiness. We are reducing procurment on the F-22 and other weapon systems, and we are even eliminating weapon systems. We are cutting back on our military bases.
The Defense dollars are going to the war in Iraq and that does NOT help build our force projection.
Ronald Reagan spent money on Defense to build up our military capability since his spending went into new procurement, design and development. George Bush has reduced our military capability, even though total spending on Defense has increased. The problem is the money is NOT going into areas that increase our capability, it is going to fight the war in Iraq and logistics of moving supplies, etc. In fact, billions are going to other nations as bribe money (like to Pakistan) to pretend that they are fighting the war on terror.
The fact is, our military capability has shrunk under George Bush while Russia and China have increased their force projuection capability, and N. Korea and Iran have developed (or will develop soon) nukes.