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the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars. America loves fighting so much it's had a civil war and fought a few of it's closest allies at var

the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars. America loves fighting so much it's had a civil war and fought a few of it's closest allies at various times. China is a novice at fighting. Whilst they may have lots of ships, having really good people to fight in a complex battlespace is different.

eru 2y ago
Yes. The last war China was involved in was the relatively small Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979. And the last one before that was WW2. It would be hard to count all the wars the US involved themselves in during that time. However, with regards to China Americans seem to be mostly worried about Taiwan. Taiwan is a lot closer to the coast of the PRC than it is to the coast of the US. (On the other hand, the people living in Taiwan are even closer to Taiwan than the PRC is. And they would certainly enter the fray, too.)
- MaxPock 2y ago
  Funny how you forgot the Korean war and how Chinese entry ensured a stalemate
  - eru 2y ago
    Sorry, yes, you are right. However, that was before the Sino-Vietnamese war. So the point about their last war being almost half a century ago still stands.
- gonzo41 2y ago
  For China to take Taiwan, it would represent China doing the most complex surprise invasion that even the US military couldn't probably pull off. Assaulting a beach head is up there as possible the most difficult thing you can do. In WW2 the Allies got lucky because, Radar, Missiles, and drones didn't exist yet. Taiwan has stacks of weapons, enough to repel and invasion and they also have, jungles, mountains and cities to extend the fighting into.
  - ramblenode 2y ago
    China doesn't need to take a beach in the first phase. If they gain sea superiority, they can blockade the island and eventually exhaust anti-air defenses with drones until they gain air superiority. At that point defenders wouldn't be able to mass to defend a beach.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      Bingo, PRC is not going to start amphib ops until TW has minimal weapons that can repel invasion left. They're not stupidly charging into a Normandy because they have magnitude more radars, missiles, drones etc, enough to make sure TW won't have much of theirs for long. TW is an island 16x smaller than UKR, much larger gap in MiC production vs PRC than UKR vs RU, and unabled to be resupplied via porous land borded by friendlies. TW also thoroughly covered by PRC ISR, including SAR to look through foliage, nearly every inch of which can be hit within 7 minutes with PRC rocketry. Less once PRC establishes persistent drone presence. It's why all the recent analysis depends on TW buying enough time for US+co to enter picture. The flip side of a contested amphib operation is an uncontested one, which is potentially siginifantly easier than land invasion because there's no where for defenders to hide / ambush. Crossing a shallow strait where subs can't hide is probably easier than US plowing through Iraqi desert where defenders can at least pretend to put up defense by entrenching tanks / digging trenches. It's basically untested sailing if PRC destroys TW platforms that can hit back and lock down with air supremacy. Also folks should look up TW river map, TW island is broken up into a series of bastions cut up by rivers where connections / bridges can be severed and sections attacked piece meal. If PRC's smart, they'll destroy most of TW weapon platforms that can reach out into water, bombard a few km of map squares of landing site to dust, have drones shoot everything that moves 5km out to carve a landing zone that can't be contested by large or small fires. If PRC smarter, they'd just blockade TW until world realize the only country with enough sealift to supply an island of 24m with food and water is PRC. As for taking urban centres, look at how Israel is doing in Gaza with 20x population density than TW, theoretically urban combat is suppose to be slaughter vs attacker but if you indiscrimantly bomb and starve the population until they can't put up organized high end fight, then it becomes a managable problem. And again if PRC smart and they have to land boots on ground, they'd likely just siege from outside urban centres and small fires range, and wait for factional struggle and find collaborators willing to do boots on ground enforcement in return for controlling food + water.
ramblenode 2y ago
> the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars. I don't think you can extrapolate fighting in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq to fighting China. If a war were to break out, both sides would be learning a lot of lessons very quickly.
- sanxiyn 2y ago
  US fought a war with China in Korea and they were evenly matched. Korean War is the best historical reference we have.
  - vlabakje90 2y ago
    Back when China consisted primarily of illiterate peasants (only about 20% literacy in 1949) without a significant industrial base (it took China until 2000 to overtake Germany in terms of total GDP).
- audunw 2y ago
  Logistics is under appreciated. And the logistics lessons from fighting real wars are mostly applicable in other wars even if they’re of a different nature. I don’t think China has a chance until they’ve at least had a practice run with a real conflict somewhere.
  - ramblenode 2y ago
    Certainly the US has more logistics experience in actual wars, but it's unclear whether it would matter that much in a US-China war. A US-China war would most likely be fought in the South China Sea. Most of China's supply train would be moving through China, whereas most of the US's supply train would be moving half way around the world through open ocean. It's not clear why the lack of Chinese experience fighting overseas wars or the US's experience moving materiel through uncontested ocean against non-peer adversaries would apply here. Remember, the last time the US fought a war without uncontested sea routes and naval superiority was WWII.
DeathArrow 2y ago
>the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars. But not at wining. Last war US won was WW2. Newertheless, US discovered that wars are good for making money.
smackeyacky 2y ago
What? They had their own civil war that went from the early 1900s right up until 1965 which was sporadically interrupted by the Japanese. The Chinese did nothing but fight for two thirds of the twentieth century
inglor_cz 2y ago
It certainly used to be. I am not that sure anymore. US armaments industry got a bad case of Wall Street in the 1990s and there aren't many factories left. Even though the US is indirectly involved in a big land war with Russia, plus has a lot of purchase orders from other countries, the industry is spinning up at snail's pace. Smaller countries in Europe will wait 10 or more years for their F-35s. One of the serious diseases of the developed world is bureaucracy. The US has way less of it than, say, Germany (which is almost a fatal case), and maybe it could get rid of it in times of need. Maybe. But Starship development is still being delayed by licensing, even though said licensing didn't stop the only really serious problem until today (the destruction of the concrete launch pad in Boca Chica).
- bluGill 2y ago
  The US is the worlds largest arms supplier today, and getting more orders all the time. There might not be a lot of factories, but the ones there are produce a lot of stuff.

eru 2y ago

Yes. The last war China was involved in was the relatively small Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979. And the last one before that was WW2. It would be hard to count all the wars the US involved themselves in during that time. However, with regards to China Americans seem to be mostly worried about Taiwan. Taiwan is a lot closer to the coast of the PRC than it is to the coast of the US. (On the other hand, the people living in Taiwan are even closer to Taiwan than the PRC is. And they would certainly enter the fray, too.)

MaxPock 2y ago
Funny how you forgot the Korean war and how Chinese entry ensured a stalemate
- eru 2y ago
  Sorry, yes, you are right. However, that was before the Sino-Vietnamese war. So the point about their last war being almost half a century ago still stands.
gonzo41 2y ago
For China to take Taiwan, it would represent China doing the most complex surprise invasion that even the US military couldn't probably pull off. Assaulting a beach head is up there as possible the most difficult thing you can do. In WW2 the Allies got lucky because, Radar, Missiles, and drones didn't exist yet. Taiwan has stacks of weapons, enough to repel and invasion and they also have, jungles, mountains and cities to extend the fighting into.
- ramblenode 2y ago
  China doesn't need to take a beach in the first phase. If they gain sea superiority, they can blockade the island and eventually exhaust anti-air defenses with drones until they gain air superiority. At that point defenders wouldn't be able to mass to defend a beach.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    Bingo, PRC is not going to start amphib ops until TW has minimal weapons that can repel invasion left. They're not stupidly charging into a Normandy because they have magnitude more radars, missiles, drones etc, enough to make sure TW won't have much of theirs for long. TW is an island 16x smaller than UKR, much larger gap in MiC production vs PRC than UKR vs RU, and unabled to be resupplied via porous land borded by friendlies. TW also thoroughly covered by PRC ISR, including SAR to look through foliage, nearly every inch of which can be hit within 7 minutes with PRC rocketry. Less once PRC establishes persistent drone presence. It's why all the recent analysis depends on TW buying enough time for US+co to enter picture. The flip side of a contested amphib operation is an uncontested one, which is potentially siginifantly easier than land invasion because there's no where for defenders to hide / ambush. Crossing a shallow strait where subs can't hide is probably easier than US plowing through Iraqi desert where defenders can at least pretend to put up defense by entrenching tanks / digging trenches. It's basically untested sailing if PRC destroys TW platforms that can hit back and lock down with air supremacy. Also folks should look up TW river map, TW island is broken up into a series of bastions cut up by rivers where connections / bridges can be severed and sections attacked piece meal. If PRC's smart, they'll destroy most of TW weapon platforms that can reach out into water, bombard a few km of map squares of landing site to dust, have drones shoot everything that moves 5km out to carve a landing zone that can't be contested by large or small fires. If PRC smarter, they'd just blockade TW until world realize the only country with enough sealift to supply an island of 24m with food and water is PRC. As for taking urban centres, look at how Israel is doing in Gaza with 20x population density than TW, theoretically urban combat is suppose to be slaughter vs attacker but if you indiscrimantly bomb and starve the population until they can't put up organized high end fight, then it becomes a managable problem. And again if PRC smart and they have to land boots on ground, they'd likely just siege from outside urban centres and small fires range, and wait for factional struggle and find collaborators willing to do boots on ground enforcement in return for controlling food + water.

ramblenode 2y ago

> the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars. I don't think you can extrapolate fighting in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq to fighting China. If a war were to break out, both sides would be learning a lot of lessons very quickly.

sanxiyn 2y ago
US fought a war with China in Korea and they were evenly matched. Korean War is the best historical reference we have.
- vlabakje90 2y ago
  Back when China consisted primarily of illiterate peasants (only about 20% literacy in 1949) without a significant industrial base (it took China until 2000 to overtake Germany in terms of total GDP).
audunw 2y ago
Logistics is under appreciated. And the logistics lessons from fighting real wars are mostly applicable in other wars even if they’re of a different nature. I don’t think China has a chance until they’ve at least had a practice run with a real conflict somewhere.
- ramblenode 2y ago
  Certainly the US has more logistics experience in actual wars, but it's unclear whether it would matter that much in a US-China war. A US-China war would most likely be fought in the South China Sea. Most of China's supply train would be moving through China, whereas most of the US's supply train would be moving half way around the world through open ocean. It's not clear why the lack of Chinese experience fighting overseas wars or the US's experience moving materiel through uncontested ocean against non-peer adversaries would apply here. Remember, the last time the US fought a war without uncontested sea routes and naval superiority was WWII.

DeathArrow 2y ago

>the USA is VERY competent at deploying to and fighting wars. But not at wining. Last war US won was WW2. Newertheless, US discovered that wars are good for making money.

smackeyacky 2y ago

What? They had their own civil war that went from the early 1900s right up until 1965 which was sporadically interrupted by the Japanese. The Chinese did nothing but fight for two thirds of the twentieth century

inglor_cz 2y ago

It certainly used to be. I am not that sure anymore. US armaments industry got a bad case of Wall Street in the 1990s and there aren't many factories left. Even though the US is indirectly involved in a big land war with Russia, plus has a lot of purchase orders from other countries, the industry is spinning up at snail's pace. Smaller countries in Europe will wait 10 or more years for their F-35s. One of the serious diseases of the developed world is bureaucracy. The US has way less of it than, say, Germany (which is almost a fatal case), and maybe it could get rid of it in times of need. Maybe. But Starship development is still being delayed by licensing, even though said licensing didn't stop the only really serious problem until today (the destruction of the concrete launch pad in Boca Chica).

bluGill 2y ago
The US is the worlds largest arms supplier today, and getting more orders all the time. There might not be a lot of factories, but the ones there are produce a lot of stuff.