Quote Originally Posted by poop
Big difference there - a navy exists on Earth. It can ship material things around the world, including troops. The US is not going to be able to beam up a tank division to Space Post 17 and then beam it back to somewhere else on Earth in the foreseeable future.
Not so fast there. We're talking the future here. If I were intent on dominating the world in 2100, ideally I'd want fighter droids ready to be deployed. Where shall I keep them? In low orbit. So... maybe space will be precisely where troops will be.

The illogical part of this is that you don't believe the US will roll over and let China become No. 1 overall, but you seriously consider that China will roll over and let the US become the predominant space power.
China won't roll over. Neither side will back down until it becomes apparent that the consequences are worse. Like Japan in WWII... it took a second bomb. Most people roll over after the first. I dunno who blinks first, but USA have more to lose, so perhaps they are the ones who will fight to the death.

Right, just like Spain tried to stop France, who tried to stop Britain, who tried to stop the USA from overtaking them as No. 1. You can try to stop them - in fact it seems obligatory - but it happens nonetheless.
But why couldn't these nations be stopped? In USA's case, it's largely because of air power. If China take space before USA, then I can't see anyone stopping China either. This is why I think USA are so publicly talking about space. We're in the opening moves of a very long game of chess. I guess USA are white, because they moved first.

It was a democracy in early 1970s, the US wanted a fascist in charge, so they ousted Allende and installed Pinochet. That's what I was referring to. If you want to argue that helped them become a democracy in the long run, well good luck.
I must admit I forgot Pinochet was Chilean, they're so stable now it's easy to forget they have recent troubles.

Remember how many times they tried to assassinate Castro and failed? China would be a much harder place to pull that off imo.
They didn't have rods from god and drones back then.

"How did Xi die? Oh, a laser bore through the top of his head the week after they announced the Space Force." Wonder how that would play out in the world press.
Depends who's in control of the press, really, doesn't it? I mean, a certain nation got away with assassinating a world leader by means of a bayonet up the arse, but for some reason that didn't seem to cause any outrage.

Yeah, thing about space assassinations is, you do it to someone else and everyone knows it was you 'cause you're always bragging about your space force. Not sure it's the way to win hearts and minds.
Not being funny, but if it's a fight between USA and China for world dominance, nobody needs to win my "heart and mind". It's already won, based on the fact the Chinese government are even bigger cunts than ours.

Also, if they could take out a world leader without killing any civilians, without the need for a full scale war, then I'd say they'd win a lot of public support.

Seems a bit easier to harvest phosphorous from pee than to build a space mine on Mars to get it, dunno.
I read it can't be synthesised. I might be wrong, but there's going to be stuff we run out of and might only be able to get in the future from space. Helium springs to mind, but phosphorous is more important for life so a little more pressing than helium.

Vietnam.
This was a war where USA where actually trying to win hearts and minds. If USA wanted to end that war with a win, they could, but it would render the entire place a radioactive wasteland, and would cause a complete collapse in public support. It would be grossly unproportionate. Do you disagree? Do you think Vietnam can survive the war if USA goes nuclear?