>If the US can't occupy China, how can it really win a war? Lay waste to everything of value until the enemy surrenders on terms you can accept then leave. Su

>If the US can't occupy China, how can it really win a war? Lay waste to everything of value until the enemy surrenders on terms you can accept then leave. Sure there will be resentment but traditionally this is how wars were "won" prior to 1945. The rebuilding of Europe and Japan after WW2 was the first big break from the status quo. Obviously this assumes a conventional war without nukes. Nuclear powers don't get in shooting wars with other nuclear powers (see Cuban missile crisis) so it doesn't really matter.