Obviously it wouldn’t be fun, but how do the two super powers stack up militarily(?) speaking? What other countries would get involved, and who would they side with.
I’m talking about a full blown war here, not just a crisis or conflict.
I’m told that there are so many Chinese, that if they all jumped off a stool simultaneously, the earth would shift on its axis. (Pretty big stool I realise)
So, when they rock, everyone in the USA had better roll!
US (actually UN) and Chinese troops have already faced each other in combat, during that little “police action” known as the Korean conflict. In that one, superior technology eventually won out over numerical superiority (although in the initial stages the Chinese onslaught forced a rapid retreat).
While China can field an immense number of troops, its military is neither organized nor equipped for a major campaign at any great distance from its borders. In terms of naval or air capability it is not even close to matching the capabilities of the US.
That said, one can presume that any campaign mounted by the US on or near China’s borders would be a hard-fought one; it is unlikely in the extreme that the US would consider a major land war against China, no matter what the provocation.
As far as potential allies go, IMO the only one with significant military power that might take China’s side would be Russia, but it is questionable whether they would choose to be drawn into such a conflict.
The great equalizers, of course, are nuclear weapons, but here again, the probable number available to China, and China’s ability to deliver them outside its own region, is severely limited.
Let’s assume nukes stay out of it. That’s not a fair assumption but I assume the OP is more concerned about conventional war. (If nukes were included China doesn’t actually have very many but how many do you really need?)
Anyway, China in no way stacks up to the US in terms of quality of equipment. We have better planes, ships, tanks and whatever. We also almost certainly have better trained pilots, seamen, tankers and whatever.
However, China has the largest population in the world and (I think) the worlds largest standing army in terms of raw numbers.
In short, invading them would be extremely difficult short of a full, all out WWII type committment to war and even then I don’t know if it could work. China, on the other hand, couldn’t even come close to touching the United States proper (not including nukes). They might go after Japan and almost certainly Taiwan to hurt the US indirectly but that’s about it.
Basically I imagine the US would fly around endlessly bombing their country till they got tired of it. I doubt we could effectively do much else.
You could try stealing their stool…
That would effectively disarm them, plus, with nowhere to sit down they would tire more quickly.
A lot would depend on where we fight. The probability that the Chinese would invade the USA is essentially zero (slightly above that for USA = Okinawa, Guam and/or Hawaii). The probability that the USA would invade China is less than zero; it’s not something we’d do without massive provocation. (They’d pretty much have to nuke or drop a bio package on Oahu to get us to invade them.)
China would be expected to invade Taiwan, though, and possibly also use North Korea to invade South Korea. They might also launch attacks on Japan, though that would be much harder to justify diplomatically.
What we might see, in the worst case, is both nations pouring more and more men and materiel into a very nasty scorched-earth war over Taiwan. This assumes that China gets a solid foothold but doesn’t conquer the whole island quickly.
Taiwan is always the subtext of any dispute between the USA and the PRC – they want it back in the worst way, especially since it’s now the last piece of “China” they don’t control. (Although someone said – and now I can’t remember who – that China isn’t really expansionist by nature, it always wants to govern only “the whole of China,” but the definition of China can be pretty expandable under some regimes.)
Ok, I guess I’m showing off my ignorance here, but how is it that Japan was able to capture and occupy a large piece of China, but we (who have a military many times more advanced and more powerful than what Japan had) look at them and say “Oh, no, they’re too big! We can’t fight them!” Is the U.S. weaker and somehow less than the Japanese empire? Were we made soft by ruling economically instead of by force?
Not that I advocate being bent on world conquest. It’s just that the US defeated Japan (yes with A-bombs, but it would have happened anyway even without them) 50 years ago, and has progressed so much since then. How is it that they were able to do so much, but we quake in our boots at the thought of China or Russia?
Quite a few, I’d think, to disable a country the size of the U.S. Especially since we are at the forefront of nuke technology, and most of our military equipment is radiation hardened. I would assume also that our troops have at least a basic training in fighting under nuclear warfare conditions. People are way too scared of nuclear weapons. All they are is really big bombs. There’s nothing you can do with a nuke that you can’t do with a squadron of conventional bombers or a bunch of conventional missiles. The only trick is that you need less hardware to get the same job done.
Count me among those who are “way too scared of nuclear weapons”, Joe_Cool.
Here are some things you can accomplish with nuclear weapons that you can’t do with a squad of conventional bombers:
- Render a large area uninhabitable for 50+ years
- Cause cancer two or three generations removed from the actual conflict
- Vaporize Opal
- For all intents and purposes, destroy a country the size of the United States in less than an hour (sure, I’m talking Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War with ICBM’s, but is there any concievable way that could be accomplished with a squadron of Bear bombers? Or, for that matter, B-52’s? Or B-2’s?)
- Break the taboo against using nuclear weapons in combat that has existed since Nagasaki, which would probably lead to destroying a couple of cities every time a border conflict got a little too hot and lead to even more destructive and horrible wars in the future.
And put me in the “yes” column for being glad we’ve gone soft from ruling economically instead of militarily. Let’s say we did mount some kind of huge military operation and invade Manchuria to start our own little East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Let’s say we had as much success as the Japanese did, or more even. What the hell are we going to do with it then? I’m sure that neither the Chinese people inside our occupied zone nor the half billion or so left outside our occupied zone are going to just roll over and quit. The United States would then be saddled with the burden of occupying a country on the other side of the largest ocean on the planet with almost an order of magnitude more people who don’t want to be occupied in the worst way. How many soldiers will that take? A million? Two million? More? Who will be left in the U.S. to actually live here and reap the “benefits” of our occupation?
“A curious game” says the computer from the Matthew Broderick classic Wargames, “The only way to win is not to play.”
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As stated above… China has little to gain by attacking the US “head on” and vice versa. We have no intention of ruling over China and I don’t think they have any intention of ruling over the US. That being said, it’s hard to imagine what a war would be like between the two countries since it’s hard to imagine how they would engage each other directly.
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Allies for China? I don’t Russia would jump to the aid of China under almost any conditions… they have enough problems of their own. Depending on the circumstances Europe should stand up for the US… but you never know who your friends are until something actually happen.
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I’ve been to Taiwan and that’s certainly a place where a conflict could start. It’s not a big island and although we have provided defenses to Taiwan and have signed some sort of defense treaty with them I don’t think we would risk US lives defending it against China. It seems China could have taken Taiwan in a blink of an eye years ago if they really wanted to. Why they haven’t is a bit of a mystery to even some Taiwanese people.
“Is the U.S. weaker and somehow less than the Japanese empire? Were we made soft by ruling economically instead of by force?”
No.
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It’s not that we got weaker, but that the Chinese have gotten stronger. When the Japanese occupation of China occurred, China was not unified but divided among dozens or even hundreds of warlords who were essentially autonomous of the purported central government. Add to that the Communist forces wandering around the countryside in rebellion against that same “government”. In other words, there was no single Chinese government or army to confront the Japanese forces coherently. Why would warlord A send troops to fight the Japanese hundreds of miles away in the territory of warlord Z when the Japanese were nowhere near his (A’s) territory??
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The Japanese at the height of their power never occupied all or even a majority of China. Here’s a map that shows, among other things, the extent of Japanese conquest. Note how much of China lies outside that boundary.
This is overrated.
Nagasaki today (yes, it’s 55 years later…but they didn’t all just move back in last week):
http://www.shs.kyushu-u.ac.jp/ohki/tourist/Landscape.gif
FWIW, I still wouldn’t want to see nukes flying. Points 4 and 5 are the most important ones, IMO.
Not really. China never has, and still doesn’t have, the ability to take Taiwan by force.
Let me qualify that. China could bomb and/or nuke Taiwan into oblivion but they want Taiwan intact and not some burned out hulk. Taiwan is an economic powerhouse that would benefit China greatly were it in their hands (assuming they didn’t screw it up which they probably would). Blowing the crap outta Taiwan defeats most of the purpose of taking it in the first place.
Now, in order to possess the island the Chinese would need to move MASSIVE amounts of troops across the Taiwan Strait. I remember hearing a loose rule of thumb regarding attacking a well defended position. Loosely speaking, to be assured of victory, you should outnumber you opponent 10 to 1. If Taiwan had, say, 50,000 troops defending the island China would need to move 500,000 troops in short order. A large troop transport might carry 5,000 troops so you’d need 100 of those and that’s assuming they all make it which isn’t likely. Even if the Chinese had that kind of amphibious capability (which they don’t) protecting enough of them to make a difference once they reach Taiwan would be very difficult.
It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel to the modern Taiwanese army and they’d massacre the Chinese as they tried to cross the strait (not to mention what would happen if the US was around to help).
That said China is currently working on building up their amphibious capabilities but they are years away yet from posing a credible threat to Taiwan. It really is a daunting task even against a much smaller foe. Switzerland defends themselves along the same concept. They hold no illusions about being able to stop a superpower from taking their tiny country but they will make the taking so painful that any rational calculation shows it to not be worth the trouble. To my knowledge it’s worked perfectly for Switzerland all of these years.
To truly disable the US completely and put us out of the fight you are right. However, how many cities do you suppose Americans are willing to lose in a conflict with the Chinese? LA, New York and Washington? Say 2 million dead and 10 million injured (just guesses on my part) and those cities now barren wastelands and radioactive clouds drifting across the country? That’s with the Chinese scoring only three hits!
Sorry but nukes are a bit more than really big bombs.
As to hardened military equipment you are correct to an extent. The EMP pulse from a nuke blast won’t knock out some militarty hardware. If you’re within a mile or two of the blast however than nothing is going to help you. In addition, a carrier battlegroup is a great target for a nuke. Those battlegroups are extremely tough but a nuke that gets only marginally close to them via plane or submarine will take them all out. 5,000+ soldiers and billions of dollars of equipment. How many such groups would the US risk after China whacked one or two? Even if the US stays in the war those groups would be much less effective since they would be held further back from the action.
Finally, I don’t care what you tell the average grunt about fighting in a toxic waste zone and how much practice you give him or her. Once he sees his buddy’s hair falling out and him retching blood and other such nasty things his morale is going straight out the window and I’d be surprised if he hung around instead of going AWOL. You won’t have much of an army for very long in those conditions.
Actually, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all those H-bomb explosions you’ve seen on TV, are BB pellets compared to the nuclear weapons around today, which are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times more powerful. We have never seen the wrath they contain because they were developed after the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
[url-“http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/china/”]Here’s a look at the Chinese navy.
Jane’s recently reported that at least one Project 093 nuclear attack sub is now operational, but the real stinkers are their four Kilo-class diesels. When not snorkeling, they are really quiet, and could stand to get a few good licks in before they had to come up for air or slink back home. The Chinese have illegally constructed several naval bases in the Spratly Islands, comparatively close to Hainan.
Any war with China would be largely naval in character, because there is no way the U.S. could tangle with them on their home turf without taking out their naval and air forces first. Probably the first thing the U.S. would have to do is protect Taiwan and the Straight of Malacca from Chinese efforts to sow mines.
Next would be ugly: clearing out the Spratlys to deny Chinese use of them as forward air and naval bases. The Marines would likely win half a dozen or more names to carve into their monuments. Without complete support on the part of Taiwan and the Philippines, the job might be impossible. Once penned in on the mainland, identification and destruction of mainland air and naval bases would commence. While offensively rather weak in comparison to the U.S., Chinese defenses are no laughing matter.
Throughout any conflict, whatever its nature, the U.S. will likely make every effort to hunt down and destroy as much of the PLA Navy as possible. Given a little luck and a lot of good surveillance and intelligence, the U.S. might be able to set the Chinese back twenty years in a matter of days. In particular, they’d probably want to plug China’s one ballistic missile submarine. Of course, attacking Chinese strategic forces might entail great risk: those guys are total loose cannons, and we cannot know with certitude how they might retaliate.
It’d either be really quick, or extremely long. I guess we’ll find out soon enough with that plane over there and trigger happy George W as president.
“trigger happy George W as president.”
[sick of broad presumptions about Republicans]
Is there any bloody effin’ EVIDENCE that Dubya is trigger-happy?!?
[/sick of broad presumptions about Republicans]
I remember that when Clinton was pursuing a pro-trade policy re. China, delinking trade and human rights, that many leftists were understandably unhappy about it. Now that Dubya is holding the Chinese’ feet to the fire about human rights (a motion in the UN General Assembly, IIRC), excessive territorial claims (you claim HOW many miles out to sea?!), etc., he’s condemned by the left as a hawk?!?!
Every President, Dem or GOP, has to defend US interests abroad, and every President has had to either act tough or make tough noises at some point in his administration. U.S. planes have listened in on Chinese radio communications from international airspace – not an illegal activity by any definition – under Clinton, Bush Senior, Reagan, etc., etc…
walor, you’re going to want to spend some time exploring the archive of Cecil’s columns. Here the Master discusses the inadequacy of stool-jumping as an offensive weapon.
War with China will either be long, nasty, bloody, and ugly or short, nasty, radioactive, and ugly.
I don’t think anyone really wants either alternative.
Huh? The CTBT isn’t really in force- the President signed it but the Senate has yet to ratify it.
There haven’t been above-ground nuclear tests for something like 40 years, and the last US nuclear test was in 1992, I believe. It’s awfully easy to detect an underground test via seismographs, so not only is it known when and where tests take place, but also how big they are.
Check out http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Tests/index.html
for some quite detailed information on the US testing series from 1945 to now.
And the bombs aren’t generally “hundreds of times more powerful” than the ones on TV, or Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Most strategic weapons are somewhere between 150-500 kilotons, which is only at most 25 times larger than “Fat Man”.
Many people also think Tiawan has or has the ability to quickly assemble nukes.