As China’s economy expands, this is changing.
No, China does.
Where did you get that idea? 
Um…in what terms exactly do you mean this? Sheer numbers of platforms or combat effectiveness overall?
While I disagree with your hypothetical outcome by and large, the rest of your post IMHO is spot on. FWIW. 
-XT
**xtisme **–I was refering to numbers, but our quality is sliding down, due to wear & tear, & combat losses.
And bad decision-making.
Well, I don’t know that our quality is necessarily slipping so much as stuff is getting worn out…but it would have to slip an awefully long way to close the gap between US and Chinese mechanized forces, even with the Chinese superiorty in numbers. IIRC, the Chinese MBT is still the T-72, and they are still using the older BMP’s and such and their main line APC’s. On the aircraft front, again from memory, they still have the friggin Mig 21’s in service I think…as front line fighters! Their training is nothing like the training our crews get and their equipment is, by and large, crap…though granted, that have a hell of a lot of it. 
I’m going from memory here of course but I doubt that much of what I wrote above has changed. Oh, they probably have some relatively modern weapons systems out there (better, more up to date versions of the MIG 29, more advanced versions of the T-80, etc), but they have a LONG way to go to catch up to even Europe from a quality standpoint…let alone the US.
In a conventional war with the US they would have their heads handed to them if they attempted set piece battles…even with the massive numerical superiority they have. If they tried a forced entry assault on Taiwan (as in Lemur866’s hypothetical), there would be a hell of a lot of dead Chinese, and a lot of new wrecks on the bottom of the straits. If they attempted to help out South Korea in a force entry assault with North Korea (assuming it stayed conventional), they would probably make some head way into South Korea…and eventually their losses would become unsustainable, their logistics situation hopeless as we bombed the shit out of their infrastructure at will (B2 bombers and all that). It would be ugly, but it would be more ugly for them than us in the end…IMHO anyway. North Korea, IMHO, would fold like an empty beer can after a few weeks of trying to support a modern field army in modern comabat conditions (wrt the speed and horrific losses possible today) AND the attack on their infrastructure. Hell, they seem to be constantly on the verge of folding just trying to maintain their CIVILIAN logistics…during peace time!
I don’t think people realize the qualitative superiority of the US military in this kind of fight. They see Iraq (or Vietnam) and they think this means we are weaker than we actually are. Fighting insurgents in an urban scenerio with ROE in place to not simple wipe out everything is very different than fighting set piece battles on a modern, fluid battlefield…something our military was actually built and trained to do. The best bet for any military in the world to do to actually fight the US military today is to go out, blow up all their heavy weapons, and head for the hills to fight an insurgent action, while waging a propaganda war using our own citizens and media against us. THAT is a winning strategy IMHO…as we can see in Iraq. Drag things out long enough, don’t give the folks back home military ‘victories’ on the battlefield…just a long, drawn out morass of inconclusive small scale engagements with lots of chances for basic human error or nature to provide fodder for propaganda and you will beat the US’s of the world every day. Our strength becomes our weakness.
But fight us out in the open in set piece engagements? Even for a country like China thats suicide no matter HOW many tanks, APC’s, planes or troops they have. It just gives us more targets to kill.
Anyway, off my soapbox…thought I’d stir up the thread a bit, wasn’t really lecturing you Bosda.
-XT
I recall reading the writings of someone from the late 19th century, basically stating that the situation then in place, with all the major European powers having armies lined up along each other’s borders with more or less equal force, was as close to peace as one could reasonably expect. What he called peace was in fact a powder keg that only needed the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand to set things off.
I sensed a lot of cynicism coming from Britain during the 1980s about the heated up Cold War, very much a “here we go again” mentality as many here waxed philosophical about Mutually Assured Destruction being our ace in the hole.
Any time you have bilateral arms buildup, you are setting the stage for major conflict. Nightmare visions of nuclear winter kept the world together in the 80s, but that was largely due to the fact that both the US and Russia have cultures that fear death.
There are cultures in the world that do not fear death as much, and some of them are in the same sort of powderkeg situation. If a nuclear WWIII were to happen in the next half century, it would begin along the India-Pakistan border.
The longer term powderkeg will be between China and the US, but I think that will shape up to be another Cold War.
I think the next world war will start in an odd spot we would never guess, like when the Falklands exploded, nearly dragging in Nato and the OAS.
XT, a most interesting post, but if you look at history, specifically WW2, you’ll see that the side with the best equipment doesn’t always win. Manufacturing, logistics, manpower, and more are also relevant.
(Vietnam doesn’t really count because the defeat was caused by the politicians).
Numbers count. Take the example of aircraft: say you’ve got a 4-ship flight of Typhoons scrambled against a Chinese attack. Sure, the Typhoons will probably down many Chinese planes, but then they’re out of missiles and have to RTB, so the rest of the attackers get through.
Manufacturing counts. The British and American equipment in WW2 was inferior to the German stuff. Tiger tank, ME262, etc. But we had so much more of it that it negated the technical advantage. Conversely, losing a tank or plane meant relatively little to the Allies, but a lot to the Germans.
Logistics counts. You may have the stuff, but you’ve got to get it there. Hitler couldn’t resupply his forces at Stalingrad. It’s far easier for China to resupply its forces near to China than for America, half a world away.
There are two big problems with the argument that China or whoever couldn’t win a war with the US due to America’s military superiority. First is that fifty years is a long time. China could upgrade itself; America could lag behind.
The second problem is that with nuclear powers like China is that if they did start to lose in a defensive war, they’d almost certainly use their nukes. And I think that a defensive war is the most likely scenario; of the major powers, it’s America that is invading countries and rattling it’s saber as a standard “diplomatic” procedure. China is far less likely to attack America than the other way around, IMHO.
I believe the Tiger tank and the Me262 were exceptions rather than the rule- British and American small arms were superior to German ones, the British aircraft were at least equal to anything the Germans had, and the Germans had no heavy bombers, whereas the US and Britain had plenty
Up until about 1943, the British would have disagreed with you most emphatically on that.
Oh yeah. Those sick, sick Jewish bastards and their insistence on eating pizza, riding busses and going to work without being killed by suicide bombers. You know, all of their “we have the right not to be killed for drinking coffee” bullshit is startin’ to get real old.
True…and training is important too. And troop morale. If you look at all those factors, the US has not only the best equipment, it has the best training regiment as well, the superior manufacturing capability and logistics support, especially outside national borders. The only thing the Chinese have, on paper, is superior numbers.
Historically, I can’t think of a single time where superior numbers alone won a war. Even in Korea the Chinese (with a military that was technologically closer to the US of the day than they currently are…and with ROE in place that forbade the US from attacking directly the Chinese infrastructure) didn’t win…they managed a rough stalemate. And it cost them something like a million casualities to do it.
Numbers don’t count unless you are willing to take horrific losses to get through. You are forgetting that those 4 planes could probably down a minimum of 8 enemy…and that naval defenses are layered. So, the Chinese lose 8 planes in the initial envelop engagement…they they have to get past the main sorte from the carrier group (the 4 out front probably being the CAP)…THEN they have to get through the escort ships air to ground envelope, etc. Once in range they can launch on the carrier…however many are left. No sure thing they are going to HIT the carrier of course…and they won’t be able to mount many of those kinds of raids with such losses. Even if they have planes out the ass, how many trained pilots do they have?
And all this assumes THEY get to pick the time of the engagement…or they can even find the carriers. If war breaks out, the first thing thats going to happen is that THEIR infrastructure is going to be pounded, THEIR air bases come under attack.
But the relative differences between, say, a Sherman and a Panther were less than those between an Abrams and anything but, say, a Type 96 (latest model Chinese tank, I think its a T-90 variant). And while its true that the Chinese have a lot of tanks, America ALSO produces and has a lot of tanks. The numerical advantage isn’t anything like the 40,000 odd Shermans vs 1500 Tigers, using your example…or the hand full of ME 262 vs the 10’s of thousands of, say, Mustangs.
Also, manufacturing wise, I think the US/NATO has, by far, the greater COMBAT manufacturing capability compared to China in the production of modern designs. Granted, China can and does produce older designs at a greater rate, but IIRC production of the Type 96 is about the same as that of the Abrams second generation variant.
Very true. Unless we are talking about the US invading China though its a moot point…and I wasn’t talking about the US invading China. I was talking about a joint Chinese/North Korean invasion of South Korea. In such a case the US’s logistics are far superior to China, despite the relatively short distances from China to North/South Korea. You are wrong in this case…it ISN’T far easier for China to resupply there, because their logistics, even if we assume its not getting ths shit blown out of it by deep US air strikes coming in from California, Japan or some of our south pacific air fields is not (yet) up to the task of the massive ammount of re-supply needed to support a modern army so far from home. For one thing they don’t have the combat air lift capability they would need on the scale they would need. They still rely on rail transport by and large for logistics. They don’t have the sea lift capability either…even if their ships could survive the US navy, which I wouldn’t bet on. While the US has been training, has to doctorine, and has been doing this for years. We are one of the few countries that CAN support a large, modern external field army. True, our own logistics would not be easy…but we DO have the transport and capability to do so. China doesn’t…not yet anyway.
-XT
And this was why I talked about war aims.
I might have overestimated China’s ability to invade South Korea, due to the US ability to crush Chinese logistics. It doesn’t matter how many tanks you have if you can’t get fuel and ammo to them, if you can’t transport the tanks to the front lines. Sometimes people have the idea that you just DRIVE tanks from the base out to the front. But that takes enormous amounts of fuel, and tanks are fragile, mobility kills are common, you can throw a tread just driving along. And columns of tanks and trucks driving towards the front are dead meat in the face of US air power.
Where things get sticky is when US troops have to take fortified Chinese positions. And that’s when we’d get our ass kicked. The example of the pacific war is apt. Digging out fortified Japanese islands was extremely difficult, even though we had essentially destroyed Japan’s ability to resupply them in any way, or move troops between islands. So a blitzkreig to Beijing is not in the cards. And if we imagine we can just chop through the PLA like we chopped through the Iraqi army, we’ll get an unpleasant surprise.
As for the contention that “the politicians” lost Vietnam, and that this was unusual, I have to disagree. EVERY war is won or lost by “the politicians”. Why do people fight wars in the first place? All wars are political in nature, fought for political reasons. Sometimes the political reason is obvious…those guys invaded our country, so if we don’t want to be slaves we’re going to have to fight them. Or, let’s invade that other country and turn those guys into our slaves. Other times it’s more complex. But people don’t fight wars just to kill people and blow stuff up, killing people and blowing stuff up are means used to accomplish political ends.
Why were we fighting in Vietnam? Why were the Vietnamese fighting in Vietnam? What did we hope to accomplish by fighting? Would continuing to fight have accomplished our goals? If continuing to fight would still not allow us to accomplish our war aims, why then should we continue to fight? Fighting and winning 100 battles is not excellence in war.
Well, no, actually, from my perspective, it’s the opposite. I don’t think there’s any shortage of scenarios in which the United States could end up at war with someone.
But for the United States to find itself at war with literally the rest of the world, as posited, would be unprecedented. This has never happened, ever, in the history of civilization. You are the one arguing that the United States is so special that it alone in the history of nations could prompt the entire world to ally against it. You are the one arguing American Exceptionalism in this thread.
I definitely agree…it would be completely infeasible, IMHO, for the US to attempt an invasion of the Chinese mainland. If we attempted that, it would be US getting OUR heads handed to us. No amount of quality could compensate for such a foolish action…we’d be swallowed whole and not even the bones would be spit back out!
I like to THINK we wouldn’t be so stupid…
Agreed. In case it didn’t come across, I agree with your main point about goals and focus in war as well.
-XT
Yes, it is a pretty comical idea, supportable only by someone who fervently hates the U.S. (“the world will attack us for being so evil!”) or fervently loves it (“the world will attack us for being so special!”).
Get over yourselves, guys. Wars are driven by economics and the nations most likely to see a geometric increase in demand are China and India, with growing populations and industries that are barely at 10% of their potential. The U.S., facing negative population growth (as do pretty much all the post-industrial democracies) and economic stability, is downright boring by comparison.
Maybe Osama bin Laden is confirmed dead, the U.S. abandons Afghanistan, tribal groups rise again and form Taliban II which engages in revenge attacks on perceived U.S. collaborators in Pakistan, who secures its borders, erupts into civil war, draws in India, which draws in China…
The U.S. will be involved in some manner in the early stages of WW3, but I don’t see them as the primary aggressor or ( :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: ) defender.
I can’t imagine that they’d hold a World War and the US stays out completely. That would be pretty hard to imagine. But as you say, the most likely scenario is that a regional war sucks in the rest of the international powers on one side of the other. This doesn’t mean that the US fights only for good, it just means that the only thing special about the United States is that we’re both a really big country and a really wealthy country. There are bigger countries and richer countries, but none that are both. Today, that is.
Although I’ll disagree with you Bryan, the US is NOT experiencing negative population growth. We’re growing. Although if we stop all immigration we’ll be flat, we don’t have negative growth like Japan or western Europe.
Hence the all-important verb “facing” in the relevant sentence.
Well, then that’s all right. I’ll put you down on the list of Canadians we don’t have to send to the Gulag during our next unprovoked invasion of Canada.
:rolleyes: First, you do realize that by your logic there has never been any World Wars, much less “another one” ? The entire world didn’t ally against Germany either.
Second, I never said that the entire world would ally against the US.
Third, I think it most likely that any alliance against America will be a defensive one against American aggression.
Or by someone who thinks America is the one that will do the attacking. I have no trouble imagining America going for world domination, for the world’s own good, of course. And I have no trouble imagining America being blindsided by the resulting alliance against us, just as so many people refused to believe the Iraqis would resent and fight against being conquered and occupied.
Well gee…there’s a shocker, ehe? I suppose its plausible that the US might fight a series of wars for an in the Middle East…and that other countries, especially China and India, may take exception to this and bring about either a general war, or more likely a limited or cold war (and/or a major trade war). I’m not seeing any plausible scenario for the US to attempt ‘world domination’, if by that you mean some hokey attempt to conquer the entire world, go to war with Europe, or some other wildly fantastic anti-American fantasy.
War’s are fought not ‘for the world’s own good’ or some other foolish strawman reason you propose, but because there is some strategic necessity. Especially the US doesn’t go to war for no reason…even including Iraq. If you want to suppose the US could or would go to war again due to oil, I’ll buy that…it could happen. There are many countries that COULD go to war for oil in fact…and there is the chance that several of them WILL go to war to control the supply if we don’t find a way out of that box.
But ‘for the worlds’ own good’? :dubious: … :rolleyes:
-XT