From the PDF linked above, here is the passage in question, where they see a future in 1996, which looks oddly, surprisingly like our own 2012. Hmmm..

Does anyone study the works of Karl Marx anymore? I mean not to follow his teaching, but to identify how much our leaders follow it? I mean defensively, it makes sense for the plebes in Capitalist countries to read Marx so they can know how their own leaders think.

OBTW Karl Marx invented income tax it's a communist principle. When America ever gets healthy, we will repeal the Marxist 16th Amendment which allows income tax, and military industrial paychecks that build a Terminator type future.

But even if we don't ever regain America for this current generation, at last the Air Force saw years ago that it would be so. Comforting how your tax dollars are spent huh?

Oh, do you think it'll be a felony, maybe even straight to Gitmo, if you shoot your red ryder bb gun at the future US drones? I mean, basically Americans are destined to become pashtuns in their own land, how do you like those reports of 20 people killed by a drone? Yeah because thanks to these assheads, your kids will live their whole lives in such a state, fearing the invisible drone strike.

Oh but since Chinese and US kids will be growing up with the same fears, maybe it'll help them to sympathize with each other, 100 years from now when those children consign everything about you, to the garbage can of history? I mean you just know the kids of the future, absolutely loathe us. How could they not?

[King Khan Scenario]

[...]

By this time, social scientists were well aware that much of the national wealth of Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia resided in the hands of ethnic Chinese. Yet when these four nations joined with China to jointly produce the “Harmony” fighter in 2009, based on the designs of the canceled F-22, the US government reacted with surprise. No substantive American reaction was possible. US budget deficits had risen so high and federal borrowing was so extensive that a serious recession began that year.

The Korean governments were also surprised by the Harmony fighter production plans. Fears ignited by the collaboration between the other Asian powers sparked discussions which led to the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula in 2011.

In the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, the incumbent US leadership tried to prime the economy with a federal spending surge. The attempt failed. The federal debt hit $10 trillion in early 2013, and on 2 July the stock market crashed and a depression began. While Europe was affected, Southeast Asia was such a large creditor region they escaped relatively unscathed. China’s gross domestic product passed $15 trillion in 2014, the same year the yuan became the de facto international currency standard.

Originally posted by Curio

Originally posted by Drunkenparrot
Case in point, the estimated fly away cost of the RQ-170 is estimated to be around $6 million.

Contrasted with the estimated fly away cost of over $50 million for the strategically tasked MQ-9, I think some of the more imaginative folks commenting should start to see the RQ-170's role in the big picture.

That was the key factor for me. $6 million would rank it just ahead of a paper airplane in US military budget terms

While slightly embarrassing for the US, it's not going to worry them too much. Don't forget, they lost an F-117 stealth fighter over the former Yugoslavia over 12 years ago! That was a much bigger deal. It also tells you how far ahead of the world the US tech is when you think that airplane has been retired for over 3 years now

I also assume the Chinese/Russians got their hands on that F-117? Well, if all they got out of it was the ability to (indirectly, in this case...) shoot down an unmanned drone over a decade later, the US would probably consider that acceptable.

The F-117 self-destructed so nothing could be used, this was not the case with the drone.

Originally posted by WatchRider
The F-117 self-destructed so nothing could be used, this was not the case with the drone.

Unless it vaporized, I'm sure there were some things China and especially Russia, were glad to take a look at.