I'm not even convinced that the US would win a direct war with China. It would certainly result in the sacrifice of probably 100s of millions of lives, if it be

I'm not even convinced that the US would win a direct war with China. It would certainly result in the sacrifice of probably 100s of millions of lives, if it became nuclear. I feel like MAD will continue to be a very powerful force in preventing a full scale war with China. (Unless there's an accident an unpredictable event, which is something that keeps me up at night.) Everything else needs to be tried before we jump into "let's have a full scale war with China, one that we can't even be sure of winning, and would likely end in life becoming much worse for both the average US and Chinese citizens". We've barely even started trying, so let's not just jump to the worst possible solution.