Alan your again forgetting that no one apart from you and a few others give a shit about long term. Long term for most politicians is 4 years

Long term of course its not sustainable as the industry you are trying to protect in your own country will die eventually anyway. But dragging it out makes the politicians look great by saving jobs and reducing unemployed benefits in short term. Sure in long term they will be unemployed anyway and years behind on redeveloping but thats usually 2 terms away in political terms and you can blame the mess on a dying industry rather than fucked up politics....

Its not just devaluing their own currency with china, they have a lot of the world market cornered as they are pretty much the only country who can supply at the cheap enough prices to satisfy demand. China still has an internal economy so its little risk to them. regardless of a downterm or even if we have a catastrophic financial melt down, china still makes much of the goods we NEED as well as luxury goods such as electronics etc. I actually respect China for what theyve achieved despite the best efforts of the USA. They dont need to invade or make political threats "cold war" style as theyve got us beat economically! the little commies aint done bad considering all our western hatred for going "red"

The only customer base in africa is landmines, guns and "Sheffield Steel" branded machette's so they can kill each other better

Do you really think the majority of the armed forces are going to take the risk??? Of course the government would lock up as many as necessary. the armed forces discipline acts are absolute for a reason. The rules and training are designed to weed out those who cant follow orders and the regulations and laws are written to make the consequences of disobedience high enough to discourage it. Hell if your 5 minutes late for work one morning in a base in the UK chances are you will loose at least 2 days pay plus extra dutys. all for 5 minutes.....

Clearly Alan, the forces wouldnt want someone like you Most people in the forces once theyve been in a few years have things called financial commitments like a house, partner, kids etc. Its not practical or sensible to suddenly risk loosing everything for you and your family by disobeying a lawful order . Sure it may seem pointless to get blown up by an IED but the risks are still pretty low in the grand scheme of things. the current death rate is 7 per 1000 deployed which means youve got less than 1% chance of being killed on each deployment. still pretty small risks really.