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China’s vast fleet is tipping the balance in the Pacific
- forkLding 8y ago“For Southeast Asian neighbors, China’s navy may be intimidating, but its prowess is limited to waters near the country’s shores.” - A retired PLA officer ^This quote from the article basically summarizes the whole article. The rest of the content is speculation or facts that prove the Chinese navy isn't as powerful as the US navy, except for anti-ship missiles.
- drenvuk 8y agoGreat. I doubt this is the beginning of WW3 but considering what's happening with Vietnam and Myanmar I'd bet that we'll have a new hegemony that Taiwan falls under if nothing changes in the next 5 years or so. Does anyone have any books on the economics of war/war of economics and such? I'm wondering where else this could go.
- throwaey23423 8y agoCaspian Report on youtube is a good start
- jvanderbot 8y agoOn China discusses lots of background, Destined for War is on this very subject and discusses economics, history, and political balance re:China
- ilaksh 8y agoWhat's happening with Vietnam and Myanmar?
- drenvuk 8y agoVietnam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sdk3wYxDzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sdk3wYxDzk https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2179378/vietnam-tested-multinationals-seeking-trade-war-detour-avoid https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/2179378/v... Myanmar http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Forty-per-cent-of-Myanmar%E2%80%99s-government-debt-held-by-China-46071.html http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Forty-per-cent-of-Myanmar%E2%... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Myanmar_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Myanmar_relation... The civil war there is complicated as heck, Myanmar is doing everything it can to get away from China but China is the only one who seems to be willing to do some partnerships because it also helps them as well. India, Bangladesh, Thailand not so much, they're happy taking the people desperate to get away from Myanmar's conflicts for cheap labor and trafficking.
- AlexCoventry 8y agoSort of tangential, but Silent Invasion is about PRC soft-power influence on Australian politics.
- godzillabrennus 8y agoAmerica needs more advancements but political nonsense has put the money into I’ll fated programs like the F:35.
- drenvuk 8y agoThat's normal in every empire, right? Enough people start siphoning off of whatever system is in place in order to fatten their wallets and then gtfo before the populace kills them or another country/invade steals everything from them. The newish breed (maybe not new but more recent) seems to be to destabilize countries which can be strip mined cleaned while everything is just barely out of control of the local government, or you just pay off the government which may just be a military junta and buddies because they understand that if they try to pull a Gadaffi they get bombed out of existence and replaced because they're not big enough.
- F-35 8y agoThing is, it’s funny to me that you imagine the money declared under fighter jet programs is actually getting spent on fighter jets. Getting emotional about government spending means you believe the government tells you the truth, which they do not. The money disappears. The line items show up on paper. Flak shows up in the news, about waste, about inefficiency. But there’s no way the shit they say they waste money on is the shit they really waste money on.
- jvanderbot 8y agoAnyone interested in understanding the balance of power in China/Pacific: I enjoyed "Destined for War", "World Order" (big section for China), and "On China". I'd welcome more suggestions.
- theoh 8y agoBefore anyone else has to go to the trouble of looking these up: "Destined for War" is a book by Graham Allison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_T._Allison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_T._Allison. The others are books by Henry Kissinger (!).
- Leary 8y ago"In the Shadow of the Thucydides Trap: International Relations Theory and the Prospects for Peace in U.S.-China Relations" https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11366-018-9581-4?author_access_token=BsSaesGqgmoiqYU6B5UWvPe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY7CRHIo139G2zhBXB10dTA9YhfVijPc_TuAxH_CpK46WZT40Qk6hF7v3fO8fYy8AwICbdIMFU3SIOzk7Jmg9tPuOh_4GlYFf2R295_PNKH3FA%3D%3D https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11366-018-9581-4?aut...
- vt240 8y agoI started reading "India and China at Sea" [1]. Seems to be really well put together. [1] : https://global.oup.com/academic/product/india-and-china-at-sea-9780199479337?lang=en&cc=in https://global.oup.com/academic/product/india-and-china-at-s...
- staunch 8y agoWhat is so worrying about China's massive military build up is that there's no benign explanation. China has long had enough conventional power to defend itself and more than enough nuclear weapons to hold up its side of MAD. It really just looks a lot like the king of China is preparing to start a war. It seems like in the best case he is preparing to take Taiwan and in the worst case he's planning to take all of Asia while perhaps his ally, the king of Russia, takes Europe. The simple fact is that if these two dictators can figure out how take out the U.S. then there's nothing stopping them from taking over the entire world. The giant has been sleeping since it declared victory in the cold war decades ago. No one can sleep well until the U.S. massively revamps its nuclear triad and either Japan or Europe create their own highly independent nuclear response capability. The future of humanity is currently relying on a single point of failure and it may already be too late.
- Balero 8y ago"No one can sleep well until the U.S. massively revamps its nuclear triad and either Japan or Europe create their own highly independent nuclear response capability. The future of humanity is currently relying on a single point of failure and it may already be too late." Both the UK and France have a completely independent nuclear response. "What is so worrying about China's massive military build up is that there's no benign explanation. China has long had enough conventional power to defend itself and more than enough nuclear weapons to hold up its side of MAD." Then there is even less explanation for the USA spending many times more on their military. "It really just looks a lot like the king of China is preparing to start a war. It seems like in the best case he is preparing to take Taiwan and in the worst case he's planning to take all of Asia while perhaps his ally, the king of Russia, takes Europe." None of these countries have kings. "he simple fact is that if these two dictators can figure out how take out the U.S. then there's nothing stopping them from taking over the entire world. The giant has been sleeping since it declared victory in the cold war decades ago." There is plenty to stop these. Russia is a waning power, with demographics working against it, and a regionally unimportant economy (smaller than Italy, which is also not going to take over the world). China, whilst growing fast, does not have the capability to project power and has a number of internal problems. This is all without mentioning it's rivals in the area, Japan, which is re-arming to a degree, and India, which is also well on the way to being a major economic and military power, if a few years behind.
- vondur 8y agoThe US still has a huge Navy compared to China, and far more allies in the region than China does. In theory, we just have to make more advanced weapon technology available to some our allies in the region. I'd support helping India modernize their military with equipment, training and joint exercises.
- stcredzero 8y agoThe US still has a huge Navy compared to China, and far more allies in the region than China does. This might well change if China takes back Taiwan. If that happens, China could engineer a situation where it's better for the local powers to cozy up to China, than to take the side of the distant US. Even though the US, as a distant hegemon, is the better option, the US might not have the power to keep China at bay any more, so the lesser of the two evils for everyone could be seen to give in. If I were in the Defense Department, I would be creating SOSUS-like arrays near Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, plus an R&D program to create a swarm of super quiet autonomous midget submarines to go along with it. Basically, take unprecedented steps to make it tremendously dangerous to invade Taiwan, even if China has air superiority. (I very much doubt we'd be able to prevent China from getting that in the long term, even temporarily.)
- empath75 8y agoJust in a practical global stability sense it would probably be best if China re assumed its historical role as regional hegemon. I actually think it would be better for the us to unburden ourselves of the need to provide security for Taiwan, japan and Korea, as long as we continue to have trade agreements. I realize that their system of government isn’t great and violates human rights on a massive scale, but in terms of foreign policy and the actual usage of their military for the past several decades, they’ve been a lot more reasonable and done far less damage than the us has.
- stcredzero 8y agoI realize that their system of government isn’t great and violates human rights on a massive scale, but in terms of foreign policy and the actual usage of their military for the past several decades, they’ve been a lot more reasonable and done far less damage than the us has. Basically, because the US geopolitical strategy has kept them in check. Give them access to the world's oceans and the global stage to play in, and one might well see a lot more of that not-so-great stuff from China.
- ilaksh 8y agoI guess it's probably not very realistic but to me the only way to get to real security that you can count on to last is to change the whole paradigm. I mean the basic premise is that the bottom line for control is deadly force. Maybe there really is no alternative but I think it's worth mentioning that as long is that is the operating mode, there is no real security for human life. You can certainly have extended periods without major wars but as long as the paradigm remains, it's always just a matter of time before the next mass killing starts. I mean as far as Taiwan goes, it's right next to China, there is a long history. The paradigm is that you have a right to whatever you can take by force. If they get to the point where they can invade successfully and don't think that it is _actually_ going to start WW3, they may feel obligated to do it. Because yes it would probably result in a large loss of life, but the international operating mode is that serious conflicts are resolved with machines designed to destroy property and lives.
- darawk 8y agoYou can't change that paradigm. Everything ultimately cashes out in force, unless you want to invent a new universe with new physics or something.
- stcredzero 8y agoWhat usually happens nowadays, is that technology greatly increases the amount of force which can be cashed out for. The start of the Nuclear age was literally applying a "new" (heretofore not yet applied to war) physics. Applying space forces actively to war could well be applying a new part of the universe to war. (Airplanes and submarines were also this.)
- shshhdhs 8y agoOk. How does that change the paradigm? It’s still a use of force ...
- albntomat0 8y agoIn potentially the same way that nuclear weapons did. No one can "win" a nuclear exchange, unlike those who thought many of the previous non-nuclear large conflicts would be over quickly (both World Wars and the US Civil War come to mind). Nuclear weapons are still use of force, but provide deterrence in a way conventional forces can not.
- woodandsteel 8y agoI don't like this development but I don't see what can be done to counter it in the long run. For over two thousand years China dominated East Asia. The American dominance since the end of WWII was due to China being flat on its back, but now that China is industrializing, it seems destined to come to an end. That's because China has a far larger population, and this is its home waters.
- em3rgent0rdr 8y ago> "I don't see what can be done to counter it in the long run" All the democracies of the world could ally.
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- chriselles 8y agoI don't see any reason to panic. In raw numbers the US Navy is technologically and numerically dominant. But China will increasingly be able to surge "mass" in terms of both technology and numbers to dominate its near shore and achieve theatre level superiority. China is building out it's military in a way that is akin to the US Reagan led 1980's. But what concerns me the most is not PLAN versus US Navy, but China/BATH versus US/FAANG+. We are not likely to see a single navy dominate the world's oceans ever again. But what about a single country dominating the world's geodigital platforms?
- T-A 8y ago> I don't see any reason to panic. These guys got pretty close: https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/11/providing-common-defense https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/11/providing-common-d...
- myroon5 8y agoWhat is the H in BATH?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- vsnf 8y agoI've never seen them referred to as BATH before, but it likely corresponds to Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei.
- yegle 8y agoHuawei
- chriselles 8y agoBullseye: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei I think they collectively represent a far bigger long term threat to relative US superiority than some Chinese warships. Something has to pay for that military capability. I wonder what scared the Soviets more? The US Navy or the Marshall Plan? Marshall plan was $100B One Belt, One Road is multi trillion. Use debt trap diplomacy, nudging, and a decent value proposition to get everyone on BATH One Platform, One Network Bye bye US Dollar. Bye bye US Navy capability and capacity.
- crag 8y agoThe other problems China has is resources and cash. As the article points out, if you include maintenance and upgrades, naval ships tend to be 3x the cost of building them. That's not cheap. And resource wise, it is reliant on outside suppliers. Which also cost. Unlike America, China's fiances aren't infinite (America is due to oil). I have no doubt China can easily afford invading Taiwan. I do have doubts about Japan though. Japan is mobilizing right now as well.
- est31 8y agoThey are busy at replacing those outside suppliers with their own technology. Their entire economic policy is revolving around the goal of becoming self-reliant.