arms race

I had a chat with a Japanese friend of mine and he was complaining about how the world was not respecting his nation - re. the Whale issue etc.. I was going to tell him to sod off and go eat some tofo but I wished him a Happy New Year instead. But it got me thinking...

Back in the 1930s when the world was reeling in from a MOA economic crisis, countries then attempted to jumpstart their economies through military expenditure and of course infrastructure development like the Hoover Dam and the autobahns. The latter - great ideas I might add, wish we could have a system of aquaducts in Australia, channeling water from our flood prone areas to our drought prone areas. But our nation in its wisdom prefers to give money to pensioners to spend on grog and at the pokie machines instead.

Anyways....

With the impending decline of the US economic might, we'll defintely see cut backs in US military expenditure and influence - in the same way ancient Rome lost its military muscle after barbarians swamped its lands. We don't have Vandal hordes swamping the US, but the cheap Chinese products will do just as well in my metaphor.

So, the nations around the region, esp. Japan, will quite likely be ramping up its military might to fill in the US vacuum.

As to whether this floodgate of military expenditure will trickle down to MST shareholders... I cannot guess :)