Poonte bro, Your's are the comments I look forward to reading on IR stuff. la poonte bro sita disagree garun.. :-) "The end of the last century has undoubtedly heralded the beginning of diminishing relevance of military might in global politics, I believe. Replaced by economic ties, the 21st century will see increasing irrelevance of militarism in the formation of alliances, hegemony and power politics. This not to say that militarism will be completely wiped out from global politics, but I foresee it playing far less significance than economic and social (include religious) issues. " Yes, this is true but not for the whole world. Its happening only in Western Europe. They have all those defense agreements and pacts and their army is trained to be a defensive army, which Mandelbaum says, "a vegetarian lion." In other parts of the world, the lion is yet to beconme a vegetarian. "From Nepal, to Palestine, to Iraq we can see that the state armies with far better training and far better equipments are hopelessly failing to quell their counterparts who are armed merely with rag-tag armory. I mean, what good is militarism in today's world if an army of over 160,000 (based in Iraq) GPS-carrying, body armour-wearing, backed by unsurpassable state-of-the-art heavy machinery, troops, finds itself helpless in even controlling -- let alone defeat -- only a few-thousand strong counterparts who are barely armed with old, worn out AK-47s, RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices)? " This one is true too.., but the rah tag armies against which the national armies are mobilized in Iraq, Palestine and Nepal are not LEGITIMATE armies, so the whole rule of warfare changes here.The GPS carrying, bullet prrof wearing army is not fighting a conventional warfare. It is fighting a dirty war. War will still be on the international agenda as it was during the time of the Peloponnesian War. "Even the old STRONG allies (France, Germany and the US, in the case of Iraq) are now facing increasing rifts between themselves because of conflicting economic interests -- their old alliance based on MILITARISM to counter the Soviet threat is all but completely irrelevant now. " This one I agree. But again, when Russia re-emrges as a military giant again in the next few years, and then who will they look towards? Of course, America. I mean, I agree there's a rift between Europe and the US now, but a powerful Russia is as much of a threat to Europe as it is to America. I totally agree with you on the Iranian example. Diplomacy is in, but diplomacy can take things upto a certain limit.. tyaspachi k? For example, if tomorrow the Iranian clerics ina bid to win legitimacy, decide to relaunch the nuclear program, then what? What options will America have? America will have to gathera coalition to attack Iran.. or just do it alone. Therefore, I strongly doubt that China's military backwardness -- as compared to the West or Russia -- may be an obstacle towards their aspirations of becoming a superpower. Then again, I suspect that it should be fairly easy to rapidly modernize one's army if it's economy is strong and it's coffers full. This is true. I agree. But given China's neighbors with historical unresolved issues, and India, another emerging regional player in its backyard, China will have to spend more on defense than developmnet, if it wants to become a superpower. And at this time/ moment China cannot spend more on defense, it has to spend on development. On hegemony: I see your point. I don't want to embarass by typing anta-santa on this because I raised this issue. So give me some time to think, and I'll get back to you, hopefully with my counter points. But good points on South East Asia.