|
Re: Pentagon Report:War With China
I have to agree with the naysayers in this discussion. While the arguments are compelling and fascinating, I remain unconvinced that China is that close to provoking a war with the US. A Sino-American War would collapse China's economy, since we are their #1 export market and we would likely withhold payments on our huge debt to them when war broke out.
Any war over Taiwan would be a naval war, and the US Navy is larger in gross tonnage than the next 13 largest navies combined. In the Pacific alone, we operate 2 fleets, the 7th and the 3rd. We have enough firepower in the vicinity to put most of the PLAN on the bottom of the East China Sea within a matter of weeks. They would certainly hurt us, but the 7th Fleet alone would savage the PLAN, and the 3rd and 5th Fleets would shortly arrive in theater and would vastly outgun the Chinese.
I also believe that such a war would become a regional conflict in short order, with Japan and both Koreas becoming involved, which would not work in the Chinese's favor.
In any conflict, if the Chinese even whispered the word "nuclear", I have no doubt we would destroy their lauch facilities posthaste. On the odd chance that one of their missiles got off and struck US soil, our vast nuclear arsenal would mean the end of the Chinese race as a going concern.
IMHO, the Chinese do not want a war, they want to become a regional military and economic superpower, eventually rivaling the US for world hegemony. They didn't get to this point by beign rash, they are thinking 100 years down the road. Even Taiwan will come to them in the fullness of time, they believe, as did Hong Kong and Macao. They want to be able to project economic, political and military power the way the US does, and a war with the USA will set them back on that path by decades.
|
Linear Mode
