The underestimation of US realpolitik in this article seems off. Russian tactics in Ukraine are not US doctrine. Ref: Desert Storm for an example of how the US

The underestimation of US realpolitik in this article seems off. Russian tactics in Ukraine are not US doctrine. Ref: Desert Storm for an example of how the US vs a standing army can go. Never mind discounting aircraft carriers, which no other country fields in the way the US does: blue water navy, logistics, TRAINING (caps, because readiness is most important, look at stats between US carrier and anyone else, nearly 10x less error rate), and scale. If we try to strong man this argument, let's say it is over for carriers. Exocet/Harpoon equivalent missiles have 100% hit rate in this scenario. Does that make it more or less likely for China to be able to take Taiwan? I'd argue it doesn't matter because China does not have an expeditionary force. Full stop. I'd like to be wrong, but my guess is they are not trained like US. Either missiles can stop ships and Chinese landing forces are stopped by a hail of Harpoon missiles, or they can't, and US conventional warfare sinks them in the East China Sea. I would guess China has to go for culture victory, somehow convincing Taiwan that they should come back into the fold. Taiwan does not sound like they are interested. If we think US military is not working on AI drones, I'd offer US invented the best global network of drones with the highest body count. Turkey is doing a great job with their TB2, but that's no predator/reaper, and those are the drones we can see. It's more than one thing I think, and this article glosses over that. You can say many bad things about the US military, it's bloated, they overspend, etc. However, they have logistics absolutely down. It is the greatest bomb FedEx ever created on Earth. They work tirelessly whether there is a peer or not. Not a bet I would take.