A couple of recent threads have discussed the fates of Germany and Japan in WWII. One theme is that, regardless of early victories, once the greater industrial capacity of the US and USSR were brought on-line, the Axis was doomed.
That makes me think of the current situation in which much manufacturing has been outsourced - particularly to China. If a war were to break out, it seems that China would not only be able to quickly outproduce the US in war material, she would also cripple what manufacturing and construction we do have by cutting off the supply of components currently made in factories over there. Are we looking at a very quick, humiliating capitulation?
We would be hit hard with the supply of goods cut off but it’s difficult to see what else China could do. We could take out their entire Navy and Air Force with little effort, so unless their tanks can float they can’t do anything to us. We’ll cut off their oil supply and they’ll be screwed. This war will be a pointless stupid stalemate and in the end China suffers more than we do.
China’s potentially greater military production capabilities mean little if the US can win with its existing hardware, which it almost assuredly could.
You would think it comes down to whose economy is crippled first – China’s by lack of resources like petroleum, or America’s by lack of manufactured products? I want to say China, because of the overwhelming superiority of the US Navy–unless those anti-ship ballistic missiles are for real. But I still would think the US could project long range air power to disrupt China’s economy even without going nuclear. China couldn’t do the same unless they went nuclear, in which case goodbye China. In a land war, China, but the US wouldn’t invade and China couldn’t.
While we would be cut off from Chinese manufacturing, China would be cut off from American manufacturing - plus probably the manufacturing of the Pacific Rim and Europe. We’d have the advantage in the economic war.
Barring the use of nuclear weapons, China is not able to project a significant amount of its force against the United States. So the United States would essentially be able to fight the war on its own terms.
There are a number of countries which border China which are either allies of the United States or enemies of China. We would would have plenty of places for us to establish as bases for offenses against China: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, India.
Russia would be a wild card. Would they side with America against China? China against America? Or just stay neutral and hope China and America destroy each other? Any of these are plausible.
So I foresee America reaching a point where China is contained to its own borders. We can prevent China from attacking out. The problem is that we’d have a hard time attacking in. Building up a force capable of invading China and holding Chinese territory would be a daunting task. And if we did achieve it, China would probably go nuclear to defend its homeland.
So I think we’d reach a point where we had China surrounded and then we would hold in place. It’s like the Napoleonic War between Britain and France - a whale fighting a lion. Neither side was able to attack the other so the war dragged on for fifteen years.
I don’t think it would be a particularly long war. Modern weapons require so long to build that the industrial capability to built weapons during a war is probably irrelevant if the war is between two high end powers.
For example, a jet fighter takes about five years to build. A complex air-to-air missile takes roughly two years to build. The WWII idea of building up a military in the middle of a large war, or replacing equipment used in a high end war, is no longer relevant.
This is a pointless hypothetical. The U.S. and China cannot go to war with each other unless things get to be so bad that it becomes a nuclear war. In that case, the U.S. would ‘win’ but only in the sense that we could destroy much more of China than they can the U.S. but there are still no true ‘winner’.
Ground based invasions are completely out on both sides as well even if you took the nukes off the table. The only way that China and the U.S. could go to ‘war’ with one another in the foreseeable future is a new version of a Cold War but even that is economically and mutually suicidal. The only real scenario isn’t a war at all but a series of power battles through sniping attacks in cyberspace, technology and business. Those have already happened on small scales but they won’t lead up to an actual showdown of troops because neither side can afford it.
China needs the U.S. much more than the U.S. needs China especially since they are no longer the only formerly impoverished country that can produce cheap goods on demand. China doesn’t even have a fraction of the military power needed to produce a credible threat to the U.S. and they won’t for decades if ever.
I think it’s pretty unlikely the US goes to war with China in the near future–but countries do things apparently against their own interests all the time. North Korea provokes a new South Korean president a little too much, the border heats up, the US is drawn in, and? A new Chinese premier decides he can get aggressive in the Spratlys, Japanese ships and planes engage, and? so on and so forth. In 1913 no one thought Europe was about to suffer four years of carnage–too much at stake for rational actors to behave that way.
As long as it was short, sharp and intense, the US would prevail.
Defeating China is actually easier than defeating an Iraqi or Afghan insurgency. It’s precisely the type of war the US military is tooled for.
I disagree…This seems to be the common assumption, but no matter how bad things got conventionally, it still wouldn’t be in either sides’ interest to go nuclear.
100,000 casualties would be bad, but 100 million would be far worse.
I don’t see that China would have a good defense to a land-based invasion. Our (the US’) sea and air superiority can certainly protect the ports needed for an initial landing, and then control that/those port(s) enough to enable an airlift of troops and equipment.
While China certainly has a lot of soldiers, their modern army has no experience with tactics or using their fancy toys in an actual theater. While the citizens can be even more nationalistic than Americans, I can’t envision an insurgent scenario like the Middle East. I could imagine my neighbors breaking into my house and trying to kill me in some type of revenge, though. On the other hand, I could suddenly start speaking Spanish and pretend to be from Argentina.
Of course these massive numbers of troops are spread throughout the country. Once the US gains air superiority, that effectively ends China’s ability to perform logistics, and lack of logistics is always what destroys an enemy force.
China, for all its apparent numerical superiority, doesn’t even try to position itself to resist the USA; their current doctrine is entirely regional. Within the region, no one else has the capabilities of the USA.
China’s not Vietnam, either. This isn’t jungle fighting; it’s an infrastructure war.
Ok, maybe we’re OK in a swift war. But China is obviously antsy to start flexing some muscle and I imagine something like this: China makes a move on one of the disputed islands. The US sails in. Shots are fired; a couple of ships are sunk. China backs off - but declares a cold war. She boycotts the US, stops supporting US debt, cuts off our supply of manufactured goods, steel, etc. The many US companies that depend on Chinese supplies fail, leading to massive layoffs, and, with the US government unable to fund bailouts, the economy tanks. Meanwhile, China goes on a military build-up, converting her thousands of electrics, toys, and auto-parts factories to producing weapons and ships. In a few years she would be able to dominate Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan - any country in the region - and the US would not be able to muster the firepower or will to do anything about it.
True, but the US has many allies in the region, allies that China doesn’t seem to care about pissing off right now. So we may yet live in interesting times.
I will say though that I think both sides understand very well that a full-blown conventional war, let alone a nuclear one, would be disastrous for both sides and would gain nothing.
So even if there were limited skirmishes between Chinese and US forces over, say, Taiwan, I’m sure both sides would be trying very hard to set limits and not let it escalate.
Ok, maybe we’re OK in a swift war. But China is obviously antsy to start flexing some muscle and I imagine something like this: China makes a move on one of the disputed islands. The US sails in. Shots are fired; a couple of ships are sunk. China backs off - but declares a cold war. She boycotts the US, stops supporting US debt, cuts off our supply of manufactured goods, steel, etc. The many Chinese companies that depend on US dollars fail, leading to massive layoffs and the Chinese government doesn’t care because they only care about their source of money drying up. The new Chinese middle class reverts to the impoverished state of the majority of the population and rises up against the government. The uprising is put down but the country quickly reverts to the 3rd world status of the Mao era. Then Taiwan invades. Meanwhile the US economy surges as we build factories here again and put the population to work. Before long we dominate the economy of the entire world again.
People vastly overestimate the wealth and capabilities of China - it’s sort of like how we thought Japan was going to dominate the world in the 80s. Or like how people think that China owns us because they have so much of our debt, and one day they can come collect and take California or something. Quite the opposite - China is much more dependent on us to function than we are on it.
Obviously it depends on the scenario, but the pace of modern war is such that actual war production matters very little. The issue will probably be solved decisively rather quickly. But even assuming some sort of protracted scenario, the rest of the world would be rushing in to fill the China-sized gap in the US product market, whereas the US could use its vast military superiority to isolate China from the rest of the world.
China’s land trade and internal logistical network is much more rail-dependent than in the US. And the US can blow up any target in the world with conventional attacks with ease. There are rail hubs and critical rail bridges galore - the US could shut down China’s land trade with its neighbors and a large fraction of its internal ability to move goods (and food) around almost instantaneously. China’s economy would choke and its people would starve from this alone, without ever having two military units fight each other. The US Navy could completely shut down China’s merchant fleet and international trade within days. China would be completely cut off from the rest of the world and unable to even move its internal production around the country effectively.
In comparison, the US would suffer an obvious economic impact from the war, and we’d come short on a lot of low quality goods and trinkets until the rest of the world stepped up and took over, but almost all war and logistical production and distribution is home-grown - for obvious security reasons - we’re not dependent on China to conduct war. The world economy as a whole would suffer from such a conflict, and Walmart’s stock would come up short for a few months, but the US would survive easily and China could be set back 50 years with nothing but a conventional air attack and naval blockade.