America's military is the greatest in the world.

"An ad hominem only applies if an insult is used IN PLACE of an argument TO FURTHER a claim. " Yes, which is what you've been doing at the start of every round, offering these little one-sided commentaries to what I presume are the people who will judge the debate and in doing so choose to insult my argument (sometimes without basis, ala your "I will show how his claims aren't holistic" claim right before failing to even attempt) to further your own. You believe that speaking to this currently anonymous third party holds the key to victory or else you wouldn't do it, and you're more than happy to downplay my arguments as "ignorant" or "twisted" or whatever your word of the day is without conclusively showing how. That is ad homiem, I've been doing this for a good number of years, I know Ad Homiem when I see it. " I agree that China's military isn't completely concealed, but I back up my claim from before that we have "absolutely no STABLE WAY" So you admit that your earlier point about China being, and I quote "so secretive" is a steaming pile? "Most countries" Most countries are, you just have to actually, you know, look. "upgrading/waste" Look who's putting words in my mouth, no. My point was that the upgrading is mutual but out of China and America, America is more prone to waste, so while America's military might have whistles and bells, China's military will have missiles and shells. "WE CAN AFFORD IT" You've indicated no such thing, you do realise that an army becomes much much more expensive once you actually send it to war, right? You do realise that this metaphorical conflict isn't going to be resolved with both nations defending their own borders, right? "examples" Already did with the site about China's upgrades specifically, also the point about China's upgrade in itself, and the sources about the M4 and the SCAR and SOCOM. You've posted on average about two sources so far per round, I like to think I've kept that standard. "supply your side" Are you f*cking kidding me? Just because I post the sources next to the argument rather than below it, suddenly I'm "not supplying my side?" "this is grossly underestimating it." Then so was your "it's a social networking bibblybobby toy" comment which neither explains it's purpose nor it's cost, which means you either don't want us to know what it does or you don't want us to know how much it cost, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's both. "history" So much for the, what was it? oh yes "distorting historical facts." I guess they can't be too distorted if you're unwilling to show how. "expensive tech/limited circumstances" You want me to provide a source for a point so blatantly obvious that even you, without argument, admit that it's true? "but at the same time this isn't inclusive of every technological advancement by America" I never actually said every piece of new tech fell into that category. "If this was so, America wouldn't simply be wasteful but rather stupid as well." Yeah, see, mmm, lowest 10%. "To further dismiss your claim" Dismiss? That counts as dismissing to you? "in my earlier rounds I've responded to your claims about America's military budget: the percentage of our GDP we use for military spending is quite low compared to most countries, therefore as a nation we can afford it." le sigh First and foremost, an overview of the budget from 2009: http://en.wikipedia.org... Lowest in the world my fragrant irish arse: http://static.globalissues.org... You're arguing with percentages, sneaky but not unbeatable. Your percentage itself is still much higher than your original figure (what was it? 4%?) and you fail to take into account yet again that if you have more money you can spend more while keeping your percentage "low." But lets imagine war did break out and suddenly the military is priority one, oops, all the cash for the military is spent, so which of the other parts of the US would you cut back on to gain the money? and we aren't talking the odd two or three million here, you're going to need billions for logistics, munitions, training, equipment, communications and so on and so forth. You can afford it now (actually even that is debatable, considering the defecit and the economic condition of the west in general, but that's for another debate) because right now your military is sucking down cash for leisure. Much of the money is being thrown into two fairly small warzones with fairly small quantities of activity. Try twenty or thirty times the activity that's going on now and you're still short of total war. "Thomas Barnett is correct in claiming that not every soldier is fully prepared for all situations, but this has been a constant problem since the earliest wars. We've gone miles to improve this, and while infantry are still susceptible to psychological and environmental (among others) factors, they can still perform reliably under most circumstances." So you're fine with eating away at a person's sanity as long as "they can still perform reliably under most circumstances?" "Further, you need to realize that in the context of this debate there is no concern for rebuilding a nation or what not - it's just an epic war similar to WW2" Yeah, there was absolutely no need for nation-building after WW2. "Again, my point about the flaws of the blitzkrieg tactic is the MAJOR reason why the Germans couldn't push past Russia, not the ONLY " I didn't say it was the only, I just don't believe it was a defining factor. Even if Germany hadn't been put on the back foot by Russia, have you actually seen the size of the place? the occupying force alone wold have crippled Germany's army. "I acknowledge some technical superiority of Russian equipment, like the tank armor as you mention" ahahahahahahaha. It wasn't superior, not even remotely, the only reason it was so effective was because the Russians said "hey lets try tilting the armour" The Germans expended so much money trying to develop an ultimate tank shell and it just bounced off the Russian's armour. The Russians lost T-34s of course, but the basic premise still allowed an inferior tank to take on, and beat, a superior tank. Sometimes the key to winning is just being smart enough to know that money=/=stength. "UK Navy stopping invason of England" U-boats, anyone? "Superior RAF" Again, it wasn't superior, you know why the RAF was so good? Let me tell you why the RAF was so good. They took the cheapest, weakest and most pathetic plane they could. They stuck an (at the time) enormous engine on it. Then they glued eight machineguns to it. and they let teenagers take it for a spin. Eight machineguns at that kind of time, all facing in one direction, that was H4><. The Germans had no defence against a nippy little sod with eight machineguns. That's a bit like giving a ninja a laser. The guns didn't work at high altitude, the germans had faster and better planes and more experienced pilots, the RAF did so well because someone somewhere said "anything's better than nothing" "you aren't doing anything to further your point or position here" I am, you just haven't realised it yet. "This doesn't show over-reliance on air power being a flaw " That point was about you guys, not us. "it shows the importance of air power." Until you can develop a plane that can plant a flag, planes alone won't win wars, that's the point here, not that they aren't important. "It wouldn't be a situation like Iraq" How can you say that? This war is metaphorical, it could be fought on the moon for all you know. It's interesting to note that my opponent has yet to show how America's military is superior to all others.