Nobody in the US that is under the age of about 40-45 has personal experience of a time when the US was not "Number One". Consequently they think the US being "Number One" is a forever thing. It isn't a forever thing. Some of us who are old enough can remember the shock to the Nation's psyche when the Soviets launched the first satellite, and then again when the Soviets launched the first man in orbit.
The cycle has turned. The US is not all-powerful any more, and the sooner the leaders of the country acknowledge that, the less likely it is that the US will be sent down in flames.
But, being so self-deluded, the US will take on an adversary that has not only 4 times the number of military-age men but also has a far greater manufacturing capacity.
The outcome will mirror what happened when the all-conquering Wehrmacht took on a Soviet Union that was twice its size in population and had far greater manufacturing capacity.
>Isn't the prevailing view that nuclear arsenals have made number-of-soldiers largely irrelevant?
Sino-US theatre will be largely naval, relatively little combatants from both sides on open waters with no civilians around. I personally wouldn't rule out tactical nukes (especially on PRC's part) if things turn desperate. It's about as optimal and opportunist conditions for rationalizing using theater level nukes. The calculations for escalation spiral is more permissible compared to USSR massing troops to roll across europe, and even then NATO/USSR had plans to tactically nuke buffer states filled with civilians. Sino-US maritime war is significantly more volatile than USSR-NATO landwar specifically because it's easy to rationalize nuking each others naval groups on open ocean as long as it doesn't spread to PRC/US soil. PRC has their no first use doctrine, but doctrines change when situations turn existential. There is a report from 6 months ago by Congressional Research Service about "nonstrategic nuclear weapons" with respect to PRC and Russia, because tactical nukes has NEVER been off the table for peer warfare by major nuclear powers.
If it gets to a nuclear exchange, the US will really go down in flames. (As will everybody.)
So I don't believe that nukes will be used. Just as poison-gas wasn't used in WW2.
That means we need to look at what happens in a non-nuclear conventional war. Once again, that comes back ultimately to "God is on the side of the big battalions", as Rommel is supposed to have said. That means the nations with the most men, and the most weapons.
When the SOC releases information later this week, they achieve the Strategic Moral victory over the enemy, and flip the loyalty of Humanity. This will achieve a fairly bloodless victory for WWIV.
US' GDP per capital is more than 6x than China's GDP per capital. China has a bigger population, and when China's GDP is the same as US, its per capital GDP will still be 1/4 or 1/5 of US. Even it loses the first seat as a country, its people are still better off than others.
"Better off" is no consolation when your country is being rolled over by a more powerful adversary.
The British were richer than the Germans in 1940. That didn't prevent Dunkirk. The Americans and British were richer than the Japanese in 1941. That didn't prevent Pearl Harbor, Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.
> But, being so self-deluded, the US will take on an adversary that has not only 4 times the number of military-age men but also has a far greater manufacturing capacity.
The number of military-age men is irrelevant in modern warfare and the type of conflict that the US and China would be engaged in.
As for greater manufacturing capacity, the Japanese had excellent manufacturing capacity too. And just like Japan, China has major energy problems that will make it hugely vulnerable if there's a military conflict.
While the US has no shortage of its own problems, the image of a rising China is not quite an accurate one. Just like the Japanese in the run-up to WW2, China's growing political and military aggression in the region, which not only targets Taiwan but other countries like Japan, the Philippines, India and Australia, is a sign of China's problems, not its strength.
> The outcome will mirror what happened when the all-conquering Wehrmacht took on a Soviet Union that was twice its size in population and had far greater manufacturing capacity.
This is the strangest part of your comment. The US isn't seeking conflict with China, and the US is not trying to invade China or any other country. The US is simply pushing back against Chinese aggression and flagrant violations of international law. It has mutual defense treaties with a number of countries in the region (Japan, Philippines, South Korea) and has a huge economic interest in ensuring that freedom of navigation continues in international waters that are home to some of the world's most important shipping lanes.
The "self-deluded" US doesn't have "wolf warriors"[1], doesn't threaten on the daily peaceful, democratic neighbors with violent "reunification", isn't claiming vast international waters and the territory of other countries (as determined by international courts) as its own, doesn't respond to military partnerships between other countries with promises to punish them with "no mercy" and make sure their soldiers are the first to die[2], and so on.
If there's a war between China and the US it will be started by China. And it will almost certainly become a war between China and the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, etc. because other countries in the region know what's at stake if the CCP is allowed to take over the Eastern hemisphere.
China has fewer allies than even the Nazis. It is increasingly isolated and appears to recognize that it screwed the pooch[3] in terms of its global image. Its overlevered, house of cards economy is showing major cracks[4] as it approaches a demographic cliff caused in large part by one-child.
So yeah, the US isn't all-powerful. But don't delude yourself into believing that China is more powerful. If China was as powerful as some people appear to believe, it wouldn't be acting the way it is.
Your comment is a useful corrective to the idea that China is certain to win a conflict over Taiwan. Or even that it is more likely than not to: if a victory were seen as probable, the CCP would have initiated a conflict yesterday.
But I think your point of view goes a bit too far in the other direction and is too sanguine for the US.
China is today, by PPP, the largest economy in the world, with the US coming in second. In 1940, the US was first, with Japan coming in seventh between India and France.
It's true that contemporary China faces energy problems analogous to Showa-era Japan, but Japan's were much more severe. China has enough domestic crude production and the ability to import it from Kazakhstan and Russia to fuel its military indefinitely (albeit at significant domestic pain), while Japan had almost literally zero domestic production.
> The US isn't seeking conflict with China, and the US is not trying to invade China or any other country. The US is simply pushing back against Chinese aggression and flagrant violations of international law. It has mutual defense treaties with a number of countries in the region (Japan, Philippines, South Korea) and has a huge economic interest in ensuring that freedom of navigation continues in international waters that are home to some of the world's most important shipping lanes.
This is a weird part of your comment. It's unlikely that China would attack US warships in (what it sees as) its territorial waters out of nowhere. The more likely way a conflict would develop is it initiating some kind of aggression against Taiwan, which the US would respond to by shutting down that exact freedom of navigation in international waters in an attempt to starve China and its economy. As US warships enforced an embargo via threat, force, and even sinking Chinese and neutral civilian shipping, China would use that as justification for attacking US warships.
> And it will almost certainly become a war between China and the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Philippines, etc. because other countries in the region know what's at stake if the CCP is allowed to take over the Eastern hemisphere.
Of course all those countries would prefer a constrained China. But, if the US isolates China's economy by an ocean embargo, it's effectively started a massive depression in all those countries simultaneously. They all have some reservoir of goodwill for the USA, but how long will their elected governments be able to tolerate double digit unemployment for the sake of an island they don't even recognize as a real country?
The points about China being more isolated on the world stage than the US and having severe demographic issues are accurate.
> China is today, by PPP, the largest economy in the world, with the US coming in second.
PPP has its flaws/limitations, but I don't really see your point. China has 1.4 billion people, the US 330 million. Look at GDP per capita. This reveals one of the reasons China is getting so dangerous: its ability to escape the middle income trap is looking more and more doubtful.
It's no surprise Xi is talking about "common prosperity". If he and his CCP sycophants can't deliver on their economic promises to the Chinese people, they are going to have big internal problems. The problem is that the easy gains have already been made and now China is facing a demographic cliff while it's preciously overleveraged economy is starting to show real cracks.
> China has enough domestic crude production and the ability to import it from Kazakhstan and Russia to fuel its military indefinitely (albeit at significant domestic pain)...
I'd suggest you're a little too sanguine about China's ability to maintain its oil supplies in a major conflict.
> It's unlikely that China would attack US warships in (what it sees as) its territorial waters out of nowhere. The more likely way a conflict would develop is it initiating some kind of aggression against Taiwan, which the US would respond to by shutting down that exact freedom of navigation in international waters in an attempt to starve China and its economy. As US warships enforced an embargo via threat, force, and even sinking Chinese and neutral civilian shipping, China would use that as justification for attacking US warships.
This is the weirdest part of your comment. If China attacks and tries to invade an island of 23 million people who want nothing to do with China, which has its own democratically-elected government and produces a huge part of the world's semiconductor supply, is the region and world supposed to idly stand by?
I live in Taiwan and while I have serious doubts about Taiwan's ability to defend itself, Taiwan does have the ability to retaliate and cause pain in China.
Furthermore, it's increasingly likely that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would involve Japan[1], which has a mutual defense treaty with the US.
This really isn't just about the US. It's about the region. No country in Asia, save for North Korea, wants an imperial China free to take territory as it pleases.
In any case, the only people who would buy a rationale for the Chinese to attack US warships would be members of the CCP and some subset of the Chinese population. Incidentally, based on my experience living in the region, I suspect that a good number of Chinese, perhaps the majority, are not at all eager for imperial war, and that number will grow if they are forced to experience the hardships that come with imperial war.
If GDP per capita were relevant, then Luxembourg, Monaco, and Liechtenstein would be the dominant superpowers. And Taiwan would be able to defend itself from China without relying on the US. The ability to project force is only loosely correlated with economic measures, but overall GDP is the more relevant metric than anything "population corrected." And the core point remains: China is today a peer economically to the US, while Japan lagged far behind the US back during WW2.
> I'd suggest you're a little too sanguine about China's ability to maintain its oil supplies in a major conflict.
Is your suggestion that the US would start bombing civilian targets deep in the heart of mainland China (how?) to defend Taiwan? And Russian oil pipelines?
> If China attacks and tries to invade an island of 23 million people who want nothing to do with China, which has its own democratically-elected government and produces a huge part of the world's semiconductor supply, is the region and world supposed to idly stand by?
Is the claim here that countries never let bad things happen beyond their borders?
It's true that no country wants a China dominant in the region, but it's also true that no country wants a China cut off from their economies. Which puts them between a rock and a hard place. Do you think an iron miner in Western Australia is going to be happy with his house being foreclosed on because he can't pay the bills because it's all for the good cause of defending Taiwan's autonomy?
> In any case, the only people who would buy a rationale for the Chinese to attack US warships would be members of the CCP and some subset of the Chinese population.
Eh. I imagine the PRC intentionally having some ship full of medical supplies go through Malacca, ignoring US orders to stop, and then getting blown up. If you don't think the CCP can figure out a way to turn that into a nationalist uproar, you lack a sense of imagination.
My goal here is to dissuade anyone from the notion that a war between the US and China is in any way something with a preordained outcome or somehow costless for any involved party. It'd be a massive destruction of lives and wealth. If either country gets it into their head that such a war could be conducted quickly, cheaply, and easily, it increases the likelihood of war, which is something we should strive to avoid at all costs.
> If GDP per capita were relevant, then Luxembourg, Monaco, and Liechtenstein would be the dominant superpowers.
You're missing the forest for the trees. The point of looking at GDP per capita is to get a sense of where China's economic development is at for the average Chinese person.
As I have stated, China's behavior has a lot more to do with internal issues and challenges than external. Even Taiwan is largely a distraction that's a convenient tool for the CCP to manage internal politics.
China's economic situation is not as rosy as the CCP would like the world to believe. The CCP is well aware of this and certainly knows that if it doesn't deliver on its economic promises, which essentially boil down to "we'll escape the middle income trap", China will be in a very dangerous decline.
Time is running out to deliver on its promises, which is likely one of the primary reasons it's taking a much more belligerent and aggressive stance on the world stage. An economically and demographically healthy and confident country doesn't isolate itself the way China has.
> It's true that no country wants a China dominant in the region, but it's also true that no country wants a China cut off from their economies. Which puts them between a rock and a hard place. Do you think an iron miner in Western Australia is going to be happy with his house being foreclosed on because he can't pay the bills because it's all for the good cause of defending Taiwan's autonomy?
You seem to think that China's aggression stops at Taiwan. It doesn't and everyone in the region knows this.
You mentioned Australia. Australia already been subject to Chinese economic corruption and coercion for years. When Australia stated that the origins of COVID-19 should be investigated, China responded with a trade war[1]. Now CCP mouthpieces are issuing military threats against Australia[2].
Japan is another country that China is increasingly trying to bully. A CCP mouthpiece even put out a video this year that stated "We will use nuclear bombs first. We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time."[3]
Finally, on its other flank, China is increasingly provoking India[4].
This is simply not "normal" behavior for a country that genuinely seeks peace and stability. China's behavior is increasingly aggressive and highly irresponsible.
> My goal here is to dissuade anyone from the notion that a war between the US and China is in any way something with a preordained outcome or somehow costless for any involved party. It'd be a massive destruction of lives and wealth. If either country gets it into their head that such a war could be conducted quickly, cheaply, and easily, it increases the likelihood of war, which is something we should strive to avoid at all costs.
I don't think anybody here has raised this notion. I certainly haven't. Everybody knows that a hot conflict could very well result in massive losses for everyone involved.
Again, what I think your comments gloss over is the fact that the growing tension in Asia /the Indo-Pacific is a result of China's increasingly aggressive political, economic and military behavior. China is the one bullying its neighbors. China is the one engaged in a build-up of military capacity that is not merely defensive in nature. China is the one that claims territory that belongs to multiple other countries under international law and, in the case of India, is literally trying to grab land. China is the one that throws temper tantrums and sends "wolf warriors" to intimidate diplomats anytime other countries don't do what it wants. China is the one making violent threats against other countries through embarrassingly juvenile military propaganda[5].
The US isn't doing this stuff. European nations aren't doing this stuff. Taiwan isn't doing this stuff. Japan isn't doing this stuff. Australia isn't doing this stuff. India isn't doing this stuff. South Korea isn't doing this stuff. The Philippines isn't doing this stuff.
I feel like we're talking past each other; I agree with 90% of what you say. It's just that you're focusing on the forces drivigg China's behavior, whether China is fostering stability or not, and its broader role in the region in the 21st century, while I'm trying to anticipate exactly what would happen in a conflict over Taiwan.
Yes, China is acting as a bully. But the universal response isn't standing up to China but cowering before it. US airlines are scared to even acknowledge the existence of a place called Taiwan. When Muji accidentally labeled some hangers as "Made in Taiwan," it only took a few days before it groveled before China and begged for forgiveness. I'm 100% in agreement with you that these things are ridiculous and a sign of deep-seated insecurity on mainland China's part. But these incidents also do not make me optimistic about how regional players will react in the case of war. Businesses and the general population will be eager for the conflict to be wound down as quickly as possible, regardless of long-term strategic costs. And without a broad regional coalition strongly committed to restraining China and rolling back any gains it has made during a conflict, Taiwan is (literally) dead in the water.
Corporations are spineless. But that's not really relevant to the issue of military action.
Again, I live in Taiwan and I'm realistic about Taiwan's odds of defending itself successfully without help from the West and Japan, which I put at close to 0.
But I'm cautiously optimistic. Now that the US has removed itself from Afghanistan, there is a clear reorientation of its diplomatic and military focus to the Indo-Pacific. The US is getting closer to Taiwan, which is taking its defensive capabilities more seriously (albeit too late for comfort). Japan is basically remilitarizing and being more vocal about its willingness to counter Chinese threats. Australia is aligning itself with the US and UK to counter China. The US is even getting closer to India.
China is only going to get more dangerous as its demographic and economic situations become more precarious, but its growing isolation is the best thing under the circumstances and might be one of the only things that keeps it in check.
If it lashes out and is able to annex Taiwan, there will be significant consequences for the US and West, and the Indo-Pacific region won't be the same.
But here's my final thought: if China takes Taiwan, it will take the US down a big notch and create a lot of uncertainty for the US role globally going forward. But this event does not really pose an existential threat to the US. The US would remain a very powerful nation even after a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Certainly nobody is going to invade the US.
On the other hand, an attack on or invasion of Taiwan is an existential event for the CCP. If the CCP miscalculates in any way, it's the end of the CCP. Interestingly, even if CCP wins a battle for Taiwan, the CCP might ultimately lose the war because it's unlikely that the CCP can take Taiwan and get away with it economically and diplomatically. For a country that's already on shaky footing in these areas, it could be a case of "be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it".
This is an interesting viewpoint but somewhat at variance with my understanding. I have only started taking notice in the last few years though and I'm not studying military strategy and operations full time.
In a war in Taiwan, the US and its allies would have very long supply lines, and China very short lines. The US has to prevent an invasion in force or it loses Taiwan.*
If China can invest Taiwan with a few million troops, then the US must either destroy Taiwan, permanently losing its manufacturing capacity and making itself a pariah, or let China keep it, retain some of Taiwan's capacity through trade, and work to make China into (even more of) a pariah. The US cannot re-take the island once China is invested there without destroying it.
I don't think that Japan in WWII is a relevant analogy.
Japan in WWII had IIRC about a quarter of the manufacturing capacity of the US. China's is near parity, or larger.
Japan had and has no domestic fossil fuels (well, negligible). China is nearly self-sufficient in energy. Its current energy shortage is entirely self-inflicted, due to a desire to look "green".
The US has a long track record of obstructing the democratic process in its neighbours in Central and South America. Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, ... the list does not stop there. The US routinely ignores international law when the law is inconvenient. There is no moral high ground here.
I agree with the rest of your observations. China is over the demographic cliff and its "allies" are the likes of North Korea, Rwanda or Ivory Coast. They are lukewarm allies at best.
China has always claimed Taiwan to be a renegade province, and recent actions by international bodies (the UN acceding to China's demands to remove Taiwan from lists of countries, and similar) may encourage it to think that now is the time to strike. I had believed China's leadership to be pragmatic. In 30-50 years Taiwan will be irrelevant except symbollically because Taiwan is further off the same demographic cliff as China. The US would probably let it go without fuss then.
> The US has a long track record of obstructing the democratic process in its neighbours in Central and South America. Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, ... the list does not stop there. The US routinely ignores international law when the law is inconvenient. There is no moral high ground here.
USA in 1970-1980 had even worse moral record, which wasn't enough for Europe and Asia to not consider it the moral leader. Similarly, if today's USA actions aren't at moral high ground, China's are definitely a moral ditch, so the comparison still stands.
China is unlikely to command bigger share of world resources than USSR did at its height.
Summary: Chinese and Russian ads focus on discplined men training themselves for war. The USA ad is about a girl raised by two lesbian mothers who joins because, in her own words, "...I need my own adventures...."
There's pure comedic gold in the comments.
'Russian soldier also has two mothers: biological mom, and MOTHER RUSSIA!!!'
If these "rough men" can be put off of military service by seeing lesbians in an ad not targeted to them, how the hell are they tough enough to stay cool under enemy fire?
For every 100 men that would volunteer to endure enemy fire, how many of those 100 would volunteer to have the young girl in the video discipline them for their lack of microagression awareness? How many of those 100 will assume she will be promoted to higher paygrades than they ever will? How many of those 100 will get the impression that girls like her will be deciding which foxholes they lay in while guided Chinese smart munitions rain down? Rather than speculate I would love this study to actually be done. Randomly sample 200 men who show up in recruitment centers. Show one group of 100 the "my two moms" cartoon and the other group of 100 a video more like the Chinese or Russian one. Then see how many of each group of 100 afterwards say, "Ya' know, on second thought, training to be a carpenter or plumber ain't so bad."
China was a third world nation when Nixon opened trade in the 1970s to try to offset the Soviet Union. Ever since the globalization of trade, and the massive offshoring and loss of manufacturing, this was slowly become inevitable. There is no effective way the US could stop China from taking back Taiwan.
We just lost two wars to the local populations who simply wanted us gone. I fail to see how we could win a war against a peer in conventional military strength with our supply chains already in tatters.
The issue is not that we would go to war over Taiwan, or at least I hope not. What we would do is:
1. Seize all Chinese and Taiwanese foreign currency reserves - that's $3.7 Trillion gone in a poof.
2. Seize all Chinese and Taiwanese investment in the U.S - another several trillion in a poof.
3. Start a global trade war, and Europe would also join in, locking China out of exporting to the western democracies or participation in the dollar system. All those nations that owe debts to china because of Belt and Road? Those can't be paid, as they are transacted in dollars, and China can't touch a dollar now. From now on, China has to trade via a barter system with Russia.
China is already hated due to blowing off the CO2 targets, then throw in an unprovoked invasion and occupation of a democratic state -- the Europeans eat that stuff up.
Meanwhile, what does China get? A population of 23 million people that hate it. A destroyed economy in which 40% of its GDP vanishes overnight. Loss of all foreign currency reserves and an inability to purchase the energy and food that it needs.
Remember China is not even able to feed itself without dollars. Yes, the US will have a shortage of cheap TVs and it will hurt our supply chain, but we can migrate that supply chain to vietnam, Brazil, India, Mexico, etc. We have the rest of the world to keep outsourcing jobs to. China would have only Russia. Moreover China needs foreign coal, oil, soybeans, and pork in mass quantities every single year.
Absolutely none of that requires that even a single shot be fired. It would be ludicrous to engage in a shooting war with China.
Shortage of cheap TVs, electronic components (top 3 exporters: HK, China, Taiwan) or antibiotics (China: 90% of global market). Nothing of consequence.
No gains whatsoever. Other than proving that US is an obsolete paper tiger that is incapable of defending its allies and its overseas strategic interests. Note to the whole of SE Asia, including SK and Japan.
Trillions of dollars gone in a poof: World, it's past time to move to a more stable currency.
The British Empire failed to hold the Suez Canal in 1956. The Americans stood at ready to blow the UK fleet to smithereens and closed the deal by threatening a run on the British pound. In the aftermath, US raised to the role of global superpower and UK was relegated to the has-been rubbish pile. There is a distinct possibility that China may just walk into Taiwan with no open US opposition. Or they may think they can.
Man, will this lack of self awareness come around to bite USA hard. FWIW, WA state, of which I am a resident, only acceded to US statehood in 1889. Two years after Taiwan became a Chinese province. Before that being just a prefecture subordinated to Fokien province.
Site doesn’t work well on mobile so only skim read, but the it seems citizens voted to become a state.
Which is not even remotely close to what happened in Taiwan. Taiwan didn’t get to decide if it wanted to be a Provence. In 1887 other than some settlements on the west coast the majority of Taiwan was not under the rule of anyone and didn’t like the Chinese being there.
Fast forward to 2021 and the majority of Taiwan do not want to be part of china.
Also I’m not American, I’m from New Zealand and live in Taiwan.
Well, by that logic, it could belong to Japan as well as they actually ruled and educated people there --and, it was almost reverted to Japan after WWII, it was in consideration.
It's not so much US can lose, rather perhaps US simply can't win against PRC anymore. In Clausewitz "war is politics by other means" sense, even the worst case scenario for PRC, China still has the capability to destroy US hegemony / domestic security by attacking regional US protectorates and demonstrating US security commitiment to be meaningless at massive costs to US serenity (semi destruction / cyberwarfare). It's not a conflict US can insulate citizens againts. PRC is approaching or has exceeded in developing capabilities that could credibly threatening US military primacy, especially in her neighbourhood - US may still "defeat" PRC but at the cost of her empire. The same way most allied EU powers won WW2 but lost much of their global holdings and influence. Perhaps in US calculations, it maybe preferrable to not even try. The fallout from trying but failing to defend TW is much worse than simply not defending TW in the first place, which seems to be where recent US strategic thinking is pointing towards. Ultimately, PRC has grown to a point where even in defeat she will remain simply too powerful a regional actor. This is the point that PRC collapsist miss, PRC is too large, too developed, and too self sufficient (in context of war economy) to be constrained with-IN the region anyway.
I would also watch out for further PRC ICBM/hypersonic developments over the next few years in the realm of refining accuracy. PRC rocket force with sub 100CEP ICBMs essentially fully deters US conventionally barring huge leaps in ABM defense. There's already evaluations of using AI to calibrate bespoke missile hardware that will increase accuracy by orders of magnitude. Imagine PRC with the capability of conventionally sinking USN capital ships in ports, more or less rendering entire US military projection structure useless. Which still isn't existential for US who can always retreat to safety of fortress America, whereas for PRC, breaking out of first island chain is a matter of survival at any cost.
Paratroops taking Crete was a huge failure. The British chose not to defend in depth so as to hide they have broken the German codes.
Still the losses inflicted during that landing made Germany hesitant of using paratroopers ever again.
This is the advantage of having 1.2 firearms per capita in the US. If there are paratroopers landing in Boise, they're gonna have a bad landing and it won't be because of the parachute.
I wonder if there are others who see a war footing to "attack" China through the Taiwan proxy by reneging on the One China policy and the three communiques signed and talking of Taiwan joining the UN.
What potential is there for a war to break out and when?
Will it be localized or should those in the Bay area be concerned? Or is this just typical bluster?
Wow. That's such a strange question. How about the guys in Seattle? The residents of Kansas City? Should the good citizens of Detroit be concerned, or will the weight of the conflict land on Cleveland?
I guess the parent poster is referring to the fact that oil fields near Santa Barbara, California and the Columbia River in Oregon were attacked during WWII. But this has negligible relevance to the current US-China tensions.
When the KMT left China for Taiwan they carried a (figurative) boat load of Chinese Cultural Masterpieces with them. Those objects are still in Taiwan and China (I'm not a fan of the current administration) deserve to have them returned. Why trade those objects back to China in return for independence?
Had they left them behind, there's a good Chance Mao's PLA, red guards, or workers' unions would have destroyed 'symbols of oppression' or 'symbols of bourgeois' or 'anti-proletarian symbols'. In any event, they would have been symbols of the Four Olds [旧思想 旧文化 旧风俗 & 旧习惯)] which needed to be extirpated. They went so far as denounce, burn and destroy historic statues of emperors, buddhas, etc. So... maybe not.
It would be trivial for China and the U.S. to send each other back to the stone age with atmospheric EMP blasts. In such a scenario both countries lose.
For those who have forgotten, the US won Operation Desert Storm in the most overkill way. It was so insane and completely overwhelming. I highly recommend watching this series about it, no one has dug into history like the Operations Room channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg
This really wouldn't be a proxy war. And none of your examples are proxy wars either. Proxy wars are when you have someone else fight in your place. US troops fought in all three conflicts you've listed.
In Korea, both Chinese troops fought as well as Soviet pilots. In Vietnam, Soviet troops helped manned SAM batteries and were advisors. In Afghanistan, the only other party that could be claimed to be using the Mujahideen as a proxy were the Pakistanis, who were nominally our ally. Since US troops were fighting in all three conflicts, there was no proxy fighting in our place.
And with Taiwan, there's no realistic way the Taiwanese military could survive in the long run without direct US intervention, and it's arguable that we don't have the ability to project enough power to prevent defeat even in that case.
> In Vietnam, Soviet troops helped manned SAM batteries and were advisors
They also provided hundreds of MiG-21s, trained ~40 pilots/yr in the USSR, and,as you say, trained North Vietnamese pilots in-country[4][5]. But their direct involvement was minimal compared to the Chinese. China gave the North Vietnamese dozens of MiG-17s[0] and MiG-19 variants and instructors[4], provided air surveillance information directly to Hanoi's Air Situation Center beginning in 1964[1], rotated "over 300,000" troops (180,000 in country at peak[4]) and technical experts through North Vietnam during the war[2], many of them directly manning AAA batteries, and acted as a "safe zone" for North Vietnamese pilots to avoid American attacks[3].
Interestingly, while both the Soviets and the Chinese avoided flying combat missions directly, but the North Koreans were eager to jump into combat. However, it didn't go very well for them... they lost 3 Mig-17s in the first two engagements (against zero American losses), and then four more in the next two. They upgraded to Mig-21s and had more success, downing an F-105, an F-4C, and an F-4D while losing only one MiG-21. But they left in 1969 and don't seem to have played any sort of major role[5].
Access to water must be why TSMC is building a $12 billion facility in Phoenix — keep the strategic importance of Taiwan up when the Colorado River dries up.
Sounds like you were waiting to say this. Make ally’s with China and see where that ends up for you.
If China steps up to the war plate, it will be horrible for everyone in the world. If they do happen to topple the US, you think they’re gonna stop with Taiwan? Or do you think the rest of the world with less then 1/10th the military might will somehow fend them off. This is a global issue.
What exactly would Europe do? Europe is a museum. An economy that hasn't grown in over a decade and a people that would likely lose a war of any meaningful attrition to the vastly poorer Russia.
Europe is increasingly irrelevant to the future of geopolitics.
Europe is increasingly irrelevant to the future of geopolitics.
The West is increasingly irrelevant to the future of geopolitics.
It may not happen overnight, but it will happen. The West is broke. It is becoming weaker and poorer by the day.
It will be like Japan or Germany in WW2 in many ways. It will be unable to replace losses of war-materiel fast enough to maintain its strength. After a few years, there won't be enough fighters, bombers, ships, soldiers, etc. to maintain a workable defence.
The “west” comprises 3-4 entire continents (3 if you count South America) and over a billion people. The US alone accounts for 35% of the entire worlds military expenditure. There will never come a day, at least until man has colonized other worlds or the political and cultural map of the world is completely unrecognizable, when the “west,” taken as a whole, is geopolitically irrelevant.
This is like saying Asia will be geopolitically irrelevant. It just can’t happen due to how much of the Earths landmass and resources it takes up.
Haha, Russia only has to look at the gas knob a little and Europe starts groveling. Doubtful that Europe can muster the will to defend its lands, even the Neo Ottoman Empire is a credible military threat. Between Pax Americana fading away, the demographic crash and the shrinking of the technological gap in the AI era, Europe's strategic situation is increasingly precarious.
The cycle has turned. The US is not all-powerful any more, and the sooner the leaders of the country acknowledge that, the less likely it is that the US will be sent down in flames.
But, being so self-deluded, the US will take on an adversary that has not only 4 times the number of military-age men but also has a far greater manufacturing capacity.
The outcome will mirror what happened when the all-conquering Wehrmacht took on a Soviet Union that was twice its size in population and had far greater manufacturing capacity.