Do not change text inside the quote tags. The rules specifically state that you can’t do that. And do not correct anyone else’s spelling and grammar until you straighten out your own spelling and grammar issues. Okay?
Even if the weapon works it has to be guided somehow, and those guidance systems are likely to be vulnerable, as will their detection systems.
The game might be changing, but its hardly over yet.
Otara
:dubious: Most of us understand that that is a good thing, not to be a dominating empire – but we do not understand that the U.S. is too nice or honest for the role. The rest of the world does not understand that either.
Well, what do you think China will be shooting at, and what do you figure the US would be shooting at? China’s options are rather limited, assuming they don’t want to go nuclear, while our options are pretty open. Assuming that unlikely war stuff happens, it seems logical to me that China would shoot at what they are capable of shooting at (namely, our Navy in the area), while, again, logically, the US would be shooting at things to hurt China without causing massive amounts of casualties, while still hurting China’s ability to continue the war…namely, infrastructure, communications and military targets.
I have no idea who these ‘hegmonists’ are who want <someone> to cling to some ‘paradigm’ of battles past…maybe you could go into some details about what you are on about.
Doubtful. Taiwan might (and probably will) VOLUNTARILY opt to rejoin the mainland, but I seriously doubt the US will sell them down the river.
-XT
I’m sure it’s logical to you. What I don’t see is why it’s logical for China, India, Indonesia or any other developing nation to follow the script for gunboat diplomacy.
Curious. You can eyeball one the next time you look in a mirror.
I suggest that you check the level of US public debt and who owns the T-bills. When the debt is no longer serviceable, and when the bankers call in the loans, think about what assets that you’d sell.
Well, follow Canada’s example. We are at least as nice and honest as you guys, but we make no pretense about imposing our values on others.
If you want to dominate, you need to be ruthless. If you are not prepared to be ruthless , don’t bother trying to dominate. You’ll only look silly. Like the nice nerd with 10 power spectacles behind the steering wheel of a 1969 Judge. Sure, you might win all the drag races, but that doesn’ty mean you are going to win the good looking girl. I know that is hard for some Americans to grasp who believe that America has some god-given right or obligation to lead the world. But the rest of us western countries are getting the good looking girls with our SUVs. As for the third world, since they cover up their girls, they just don’t know what they are missing.
Frankly, there’s plenty to go around.
Oh, to be sure. moves away slowly Er…well, you know, these days, there are many decaffeinated beverages that are just as tasty as the real thing.
moves a bit further away
Sure, sure. Whatever you say chief. It will be ok, as long as s/he doesn’t bite Yup, that’s quite true.
Good point. China will probably default on the country and take possession unless we sell Taiwan down the river. I was just saying something similar the other day to some of my hegemonist friends in fact…
Nearly there…nearly THERE…Ah! A door! Woohooo! Take care now, and thanks for the discussion. VERY interesting, and all that…
-XT
Since xtisme was disagreeing without explaining, I’ll enumerate further.
The logic xtisme seems to be assuming is that countries will shoot at things they can shoot at, and will not shoot at things they cannot shoot at. The “script” is determined by geography and military capacities — not so much by leaders’ decisions. Now, I wouldn’t assume that countries can never get creative, but certainly the US has the capacity to project military force to mainland China, and China has no reciprocal abilities.
As for treasury bills, you might want to learn how they work. The worst China could do is to stop buying them, and while that certainly would be bad news, the Sword of Damocles it ain’t.
An interesting idea but, if one were to subscribe to it as correct, one would have to ask why countries like Britain and France have nuclear weapons.
And the only logical reason is so that they can fire them at any larger country that tries to use conventional forces against their mainlands. Obviously the larger country could fire some back but not without taking unacceptable loses. It’s MAD.
As long as China has nuclear weapons any country would be extremely foolish to attack China because the Chinese might nuke them - even though that would mean getting nuked in return.
But, as I said earlier, all this is pretty much irrelevant. The power that is important these days is economic power, not military, and the economic power of the West is and will continue to become ever diluted by that of countries such as India and China and others in the future.
We are speaking here within the context of the thread. The OP is positing that the Chinese have the ability to hit and sink a US carrier. The responses in the thread are dealing with THAT scenario…or, at least mine were.
As I’ve said, I don’t believe this is a likely outcome. I’m not convinced that China could hit and sink one of our large carriers, or that they would WANT too, for that matter. I think that it would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If they DID go after one of our carriers, however, I’m pretty sure what the US conventional response would be. And I’m pretty sure what China could or couldn’t do, assuming they weren’t completely batshit crazy and resorted to nukes.
-XT
What qualifications do you have for coming to a determination that China cannot produce the missiles in question?
Again, is the fact that you’re not personally convinced that they could produce such a missile relevant? Are you a missile engineer or intelligence expert specialising in the field?
As to whether they’d want to it would depend very much on the context, wouldn’t it?
This seems muddled.
You seem to be suggesting that you somehow believe that the US military can do what it wants to the Chinese but the Chinese will never have the ability to respond in kind and, further, will never go for the nuclear option.
It’s great to have confidence but I think you might be overdoing it a bit.
Try as I might, I can’t figure out how nuclear weapons could conceivably be apropos in a thread that argues the balance of power is changing as China’s conventional power increases. If the USA should fear China’s nuclear arsenal, China should fear the American arsenal every bit as much —and in fact, the nukes aren’t changing the balance of power power right now, simply because both countries have had nuclear weapons for the best part of half a century. IOW, to answer the question, “Is the balance of power shifting, East vs. West?”, one cannot answer, “Yes, because of Chinese nukes.”
Regardless of any of that, to answer your challenge, yes, nuclear powers can go to war — without launching nukes, even. They’re certainly less likely to go to war in the first place — the only example is India and Pakistan —because each side is inclined to be nervous about the other, but it is extremely unlikely that a nuclear power would launch in response to a conventional threat that is anything short of existential. That is especially true in cases where both sides have nuclear weapons —and yet, in cases where only one side has nukes, we have yet to see the nuclear threat invoked!
So, if the US and China ever go to war, China is sure to win, because of all the debt we owe to China.
Makes sense. Because once we’re bombing China, all they have to do is demand that we repay our debt to them, and that will bring our economy to its knees.
Or, maybe, it seems to me, if I owe you a trillion dollars, and we start shooting at each other, I might just decide not to pay you your money. And then what happens? I keep the money, and you’re screwed. Unless you want to start a war over it or something, to force me to pay it back. Except we’re already, you know, fighting a war.
What’s really happened is that China has shipped a bunch of manufactured goods to America, and we’ve shipped them a bunch of IOUs. If a war starts, we’ll still have the crap we bought from China, while they’ll have a bunch of empty promises.
As for whether the Chinese can produce missiles that can take out aircraft carriers, well, if it comes to a naval war, we’ll probably find that our carriers are pretty damn vulnerable. Except we’ve known this for decades. Super-missiles are just one more vulnerability. We’ve made up for this vulnerability by not getting into shooting wars with countries that have any sort of naval capability. But in the event of full scale war, we can pretty much expect a bunch of carriers to end up on the bottom of the ocean. Except most of them will be sent there by a brand-new technology known as the torpedo, launched from a brand-new type of ship that can–get this–travel while completely underwater.
Of course, the problem with all weapons is they don’t work as well as the builders hope. This applies to Chinese super-missiles just as much as it does to American super-carriers. Hard to say how well anything works until you have to use it. And then maybe you’ll have something that would have worked if you used it with the right doctrine, but will be an expensive chunk of twisted metal if you do it wrong. Pinning your hope on game-changing super-weapons has a pretty poor track record.
So if we look at a potential war between the US and China, and who would win, the question is, what are we fighting over? Taiwan? The trouble there is that even if China can sink a couple of carriers, they have to somehow cross the ocean with landing craft. These craft will be sitting ducks. Massive death and destruction, the end result is that the US has lost a lot of naval assets, the Chinese have lost their expeditionary force, and status quo ante, except now we hate each other. Or maybe China lands, and occupies Taiwan. Except now what have they won? Taiwan the island isn’t anything special, it’s not like they have natural resources or anything, or anything worth capturing, occupying Taiwan destroys the value of Taiwan.
Or maybe there’s a squabble over North Korea, or between India and China, or whatever. But in all these scenarios, China doesn’t yet, and won’t for the foreseeable future, have the capability to project military force across the Pacific Ocean to North America, while the United States can project force to Asia. So in a US-China conventional war, the US is capable of bombing China while China cannot bomb the US. Of course, when we go nuclear then everything changes. Except I don’t think we could call a war where China nukes American cities, and the United States nukes Chinese cities, a victory for China, or the balance of power shifting from the West to the East.
In other words, the fact that China has a new missile doesn’t do a goddam thing to shift the global balance of power. China’s economic growth? Well now, that sure does shift the balance of power. China’s instability and potential for future crackup? Well now, again that could do it. But this thread is kind of silly. Wow, American carriers aren’t invulnerable? Who knew?
True.
The Chinese have had the capability to nuke the US into oblivion for some time.
Message? The US had better not mess too hard with the Chinese.
Also, the US have the capability to nuke the Chinese into oblivion.
Message? Don’t mess too hard wit the US.
Add to the pot: France Israel, GB. Possibly India and Pakistan but there’s a question about their delivery capabilities.
OTOH, for economic power the Chinese and Indians are diluting the power of the West by the day.
Get used to it.
ETA: sorry, I wasn’t reading all that well. You actually had already conceded the point I was opposing, at least in part. Please mind my mistake in reading the following.
Pop quiz:
- For how long have these various powers had these weapons?
- For which of these powers are the nuclear arsenals increasing “by the day”?
- How many of these countries began to act as great powers immediately after acquiring nuclear weapons?
- How many of countries’ acquisitions of weapons have been opposed by the United States?
[SPOILER]The answers are: 1) 50yrs, unknown but a long time, 58yrs, 36yrs, 12yrs, and 46yrs, respectively; 2) none or almost none; 3) none — in fact, the UK and France diminished as powers in the time period in which they developed nuclear weapons; 4) some but not all.
The answers you need to have point that is relevant to this thread are: 1) [some very short periods of time]; 2) some or all of them; 3) all of them; 4) all of them.[/SPOILER]
America’s power is slowly diminishing, but nuclear weapons have nothing to do with it. Nor, to go back on topic, is this missile system thingy a massive game-changer. Nor are T-bonds a big weakness.
You might want to look at how many sluggers china has in the bullpen, before you use the word oblivion. If they had such a capability then the P3 Orion debacle may have gone off somewhat differently. The fact is that the USA does not even bother to sneak around China when its spying, since there is nothing that the chinese can do.
Declan
Try harder?
I was particularly responding to this:
Which strikes me as something that originated in La-La land.
The poster seems to be suggesting that a nuclear power will sit on it’s thumbs whilst its infrastructure is destroyed by various conventional means by a power with whom it’s at war.
A non nuclear power might have no option but to think you could risk such shenanigans with a power that has a good quantity of deliverable nuclear warheads is beyond naive.
Would you want to be on the receiving end of even one?
Which US cities would you like to sacrifice to the 180 active warheads that the Federation of American Scientists estimate the Chinese have?
Are you suggesting that if the Chinese had a bigger nuclear arsenal thy would launch it against the US because of aerial reconnaissance operations?
Not sure why you think that. The USSR never did! 
There is a dramatic difference between doing a little aerial reconnaissance and launching a massive attack against a countries infrastructure. The former is very unlikely to provoke a nuclear response. The latter is extremely likely to provoke same.
China, now that it is into state Capitalism, is no longer idealogically motivated.
It doesn’t want to upset the status quo because it is doing very well out of the present economic situation.
Remember that if there were a war that didn’t actually result in China and the U.S. ending up as smoking embers all debts would be off.
All the money, all the economic power that China has attained would be gone in an instant.
As to the “super missile”, it is mostly hype and B.S…
I think that some of the posters are posting what they’d like to be the case rather then what is reality.
No matter how much you have an inferiority complex/hatred of the U.S. and the West, the countries you are talking about still have to live in the real world with all of its consequences.
Those countries know that and act accordingly, even if you choose not to.
Until they find a way to increase the range of what they do have, which to be honest is not that difficult for their tech base, the majority of North America is out of their reach.
Perferably none at all, but Peking’s nuke strategy has alway been to keep everyone honest, rather than force projection of either Russia or the USA. With your comment on blowing the states to oblivion was conflating the force levels of the old soviet union with present day china.
No, they would have previously declared an area of interest beyond the 12 mile limit and shot down anything flying in that no fly zone, and dare us to do anything about it.
[QUOTE]
Not sure why you think that. The USSR never did!
Actually the soviets did either shoot down or tried to shoot down quite a few recon flights in the fifties, you might remember a U2 flight with Gary Powers. After that, surveillance was done with deniable assets or space based.
The point was that china abrogated a force projection policy because at the time they could not compete with USA or the USSR militarily and settled for making sure any invader would suffer.
The elephant in the room that they have ignored till now is that they are venerable. Nuclear sabre rattling is an obsolete force projection strategy, especially with liquid fueled missiles.
A competent ABM shield can be swamped with an old school USSR level strike, but it will negate a china strike. There has been a lot of debate on whether or not the ABM tech even works, but any chinese general worth his or her salt has to assume it will.
Bottom line is that they are not currently confident in their own capabilities to go picking fights, thus they will never be a real power until that changes.
Declan