Why the West will always win

[Alpine Trooper]

^^ Is gunpoweder a Western technology?

I would argue for all practical purposes and its advancement that it is. Asians would probably argue that.

 

[CurtSibling]

Gunpowder is indeed an Eastern idea.

In history, most ideas did travel along trade routes and was shared/sold between cultures.

.

 

[Princeps]

I would argue for all practical purposes and its advancement that it is. Asians would probably argue that.

Actually, I think it is a Muslim invention, if you talk about practicality in warfare. Some say so.

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Your arguement is... quite frankly, laughable. No insult. The truth.

Well, how do you deifine the western world in the first place. Europe+America=West? Right?

Well, well, well well.... There are countless of examples of "western" military inferiority when facing "eastern" armies. (Middle eastern armies, Far eastern armies, Steppe armies ETC.)

Okay here I go... (oh, why do I even bother... Oh, well...)

Few examples I guess. The Parthians, despite the instability of their kingdom, poorly organized army, fought the, militarly clearly superior Romans to a standstill. Roman armies had serious difficulties defeating mobile cavalry armies, that the Parthians wielded.

Muslims of many different kind, and from many eras. Through out their history, Muslims have defeated western armies and lost to them. During the rise of the Muslim world, during the 'dark ages' their armies were some of the best in the world, in my opinion. They conquered Spain rather easily, or at least huge junk of with ease. During their height, I think, Muslims could have conquered Europe, if they would have wanted, but Europe was poor, I mean poor, and there were more wealthier lands to take and much more important things to worry about. IMO.

Mongols could have conquered, or at least destroyed huge part of Europe if they had wanted. Mongol armies, during the middle ages, destroyed all European resistance. When they faced the Polish, German and Hungarian armies, they out-flanked them, out-fooled them, out-menueovered them. They controlled the battlefield and the Europeans never had a chance. European armies were, quite frankly, pathetic when compared to the Mongol military.

Oh, what else were there. Ah, Ottomans, Huns (if you think West existed back then), Persians of many eras, Chinese... ETC ETC ETC ETC

I really am too lazy to explain everything, but you can find some nice site, and study warfare before making such ridicolous comments.

European military supeority is fairly recent. It has come with the industrialization, which was caused by specific historical circuimstances, not the myth of western, inherent cultural supeority.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

According to Diamond, that would be why Middle East had an headstart

He calls it Eurasia actually.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Just like the USA will lose the current crusade, I fear.

But at least in medieval times and onwards, we won the industrial/economic race.

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I don't believe we will lose it, we will just pull out and say "screw this".

Apparently we have also won the Nuclear Arms Race, the Space Race, the Computer Race, the Modern Weapons Race, the....I could go on and on.

.

 

[Colonel]

A couple things

First, Yes the west for atleast the next 150years will be far superior short of a nuclear holocaust seeing as no one really wins that kind of war especially one with China(although a good portion of the US populuce would survivor as China doesnt have enough to hit the amount of smaller cities there are in the US). But in military and technological terms the US will be ahead for that amount of time atleast. Once the West sees China as a true threat to the US tech & military, the West will mobilize for another cold war type situation which we have all seen the West excells at, remember the West's military dominance comes from centries of compotetion with each other, what happens when they band together to combat another region of the world.

As for medival times and the renissance, yes the Far east devolped most of the tech to begin with the middle east and the west were the ones to devolp practical military tech from it. However the far east deserves more credit then the west for tech in this time.

 

[Dann]

...I have no doubt of China's manufacturing potency...
Their products are everywhere in the UK...Mostly for only £1!..

This is what bugs me as well. The stuff that's selling on the sidewalks of Manila have to factor in shipping costs, customs duties and the vendors' profit margin, and yet it's still lower than the basic manufacturing cost (materials and labor ONLY!) of the equivalent locally manufactured product! How the hell can we compete? And this is a fellow 3rd world country we're talking about, not even the West! No wonder some people are against globalization.

Somewhat on-topic:
I would indeed argue that gunpowder is a Chinese invention, but have to concede that it was the Ottomans and then later the West that perfected advanced metallurgy and the creation of more efficient gunpowder weapons.

 

[Steph]

What he is saying, is that you cannot deny the fact that every continent of Earth has been or is largely controlled at one point or another by the "West", an accomplishment no other "Civilization" has been able to replicate.

It's true, the Mongols did not conquer America... Could it have something to do with the fact they did not knew it

 

[Steph]

He calls it Eurasia actually.

Small correction. He uses Fertile Crescent has one of the starting center of Civilization (there are a few others, link China, Mesomaerica, etc). But Fertile Crescent (Middle East) started first because of a combination of geographical / climate, etc factors that were more fabourable here than somewhere else.
However, he uses also Eurasia, as the global continent where the concept invented in Fertile Crescent and China quickly expand.
So sum up:
- Food production was invented first in Fertile Crescent / China and then expand "quickly" to Eurasia
- Food production was "reinvented" in Mexico or the Andes, but it was done much later, and did not expand so quickly to the rest of America.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

I don't believe we will lose it, we will just pull out and say "screw this".
Apparently we have also won the Nuclear Arms Race, the Space Race, the Computer Race, the Modern Weapons Race, the....I could go on and on.

Lost or not, but us CAN't withdraw from Iraq that easily - it'll be swarmed by whole lot of terrorists and whole region would burn, plus neighboors wouldn't say "thanks for leaving such a stable country on our borders". It can happen if europeans will do all dirty job like guarding and patrolling - imagine what can happen if oil $$$ flow to various terrorists cells.
And regarding Nuclear Arms Race - how it supposed to be won? In MY opinion there can be stalemate and only possible "win" can be said when enemy can't deliver his payloads in retaliation/first strike - wich is not possible nowdays and in expexted future.
Space Race - well...eh...Shuttle. As far as I know us used "Soyuz" as a delivery vessel
Computer - yes, advantage exist, especially compared to china. As for Modern Weapons - I presume you mentioned as a whole, combination of army weapons and still arguable as "Modern" term can be applied to great variety of weapons the point is that us can test their weapons in action, whyle other can't and they are presented only in shooting range or warehouses.

By the way - who can describe what "cultural advantage" term means? yet whole discussion sounds like "my cunlture is longer than yours!"