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It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. Of course I und

It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. Of course I understand wanting to be prepared even for grim scenarios such as these. Military strategists should of course continually be refining such plans. But casual discussions like this, without even so much as a disclaimer about it being a hypothetical and extremely undesirable outcome, may pave the way towards it through normalization.

ExoticPearTree 6mo ago
> It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. The last few wars started by the US were based on scenarios that looked good on paper and in reality they did not went so well. Look at the Iran war: "we're gonna kill their supreme leader and the regime will fall". Almost two months later nothing changed in any significant way despite bombing it relentlessly. Coming back to your concern, I'm pretty sure some people at the Pentagon believe the US can fight China using an expeditionary force and somehow win.
- wahern 6mo ago
  The Iran War never looked good on paper. The only people who thought it would succeed were Trump and the cast of characters he surrounded himself with. I doubt if many congressional Republican chickenhawks thought it would succeed. The only way to oust the regime is with ground troops, ripping out the Revolutionary Guard and its tentacles. For all its corruption, Iran is far from a failed state, and there aren't factions waiting in the wings, ready and willing to take over the government with force. (There are political factions, to be sure, but they're already integrated into the government, though without leverage over the Revolutionary Guard.) The only armed group remotely capable of even trying would be the Kurds, but the US and in particular Trump screwed them over in the past, multiple times. Even if they thought they could go it alone (which they couldn't), there was zero chance they were going to enter the fray without the US committing itself fully with their own invasion force (i.e. success was guaranteed), because failure would mean ethnic Kurds would be extirpated from Iran, and might induce Iraq and Syria to revisit the question of Kurdish loyalty to their own states. And, indeed, Kurdish groups took a wait and see approach, assembling some forces but waiting to see how the US played their cards.
  - Cider9986 6mo ago
    It does seem that way based on this article[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa... https://archive.ph/gaHnu https://archive.ph/gaHnu
    - wahern 6mo ago
      It's just so ridiculous. Nobody is going to be writing books about the mistakes or hubris of US intelligence, military strategists, or political scholars and analysts. Even the most diehard American proponents of regime change in Iran, at least those with any competence, could have predicted (and did predict) this outcome. This was 100% a Trump fiasco, though the whole country shares some culpability for this kind of epic failure by allowing someone like Trump to win the presidency... again. It's a little ironic that its due in part[1] to Trump's reticence to commit ground forces that we've come to this pass. I hesitate to criticize that disposition, but at the same time it's malfeasance to start a war without being willing and able to fully commit to the objective. [1] Assuming the war had to happen, which of course it didn't.
  - ExoticPearTree 6mo ago
    > The Iran War never looked good on paper. The only people who thought it would succeed were Trump and the cast of characters he surrounded himself with. Not to nitpick, but “looked good on paper” was an euphemism for “the powers that be think its doable”. Amd yes, yiu are right: Trump surrounded himself with “loyalist” this time that won’t go against hime like in the previous administration, but with the very undesirable effect of amplifying the echo chamber he lives in. And like someone said in this thread, lots of hubris. I am no expert on Iran, but all documentaries that I’ve seen about this reach the same conclusion: you don’t invade Iran using ground forces.
    - wahern 6mo ago
      An invasion likely would turn into a quagmire, but what keeps regime proponents eternally hopeful is that unlike Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc, Iran has a robust political system. The dictatorship notwithstanding, it has a vibrant parliament and, by global standards, a decent electoral system. The Ayatollah rules by following the maxim, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. If you could excise the Revolutionary Guard (a big if), you wouldn't necessarily need to change the government or its institutions. The existing liberal and moderate factions could quickly fill the vacuum, and would be happy to do so. You wouldn't get a pliant Iran, but that's for the better. So by invasion the idea would be to rapidly, physically excise the apparatus the Ayatollahs use to maintain control. The structure and identity of that group is well known. It's a large group, and you couldn't catch all the leaders, but so long as you can stop their ability to enforce their rule through execution, you give the rest of the country time to shut them out of the institutions. In theory just weeks. The problem is the very thing that makes regime change a plausibly good idea--a stable polity and modern, liberal-ish institutions--is the very thing that could result in failure. The Ayatollahs understood that a fragile, backwards system would be a weakness to their rule. Their military and bureaucracy are professional; they know how to follow orders, without being micromanaged, and even if everyone wants regime change, there's a huge collective action problem.
- bluGill 6mo ago
  The iran war - for all it was a bad idea eliminated a lot of iran's war capacity which seems to be the real goal - near as anyone can tell what they were. Regime change would be nice, but needs more than the us was ever gave indication they would do. the followon effects like the closing of the straight were obvious which is why few Iran hatehs thought it was a good idea
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - hedora 6mo ago
    The estimates I’ve seen say they lost/used 33% of their conventional capacity, 33% was rendered inoperable but recoverable. I’d guess with the ceasefire, they’re probably back to 40-50% online. The nuclear capability story is even worse: they were mostly mothballed prewar, suffered partial refinement damage and minimal stockpile loss. Refinement will be back online sometime in the next few years (unless this is a forever war), with weapons following shortly after that.
tehjoker 6mo ago
The people advocating for war against china will complain bitterly and weep the soon as their snacks and new electronic devices stop arriving by ship.
jfengel 6mo ago
A general war against China is impossible. But a "limited" war fought over Taiwan isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Which does take it into a kind of Schroedinger's realm. The US takes it seriously, so it develops technology for it, and China doesn't invade. But would China have invaded if the US hadn't prepared for that war? Quite possibly, but you can never know.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo ago
  In the quite likely scenario that Iran goes on any longer, the US will become so war exhausted that we will be unable to provide any support for Taiwan.
  - catlover76 6mo ago
    [dead]
  - carefree-bob 6mo ago
    The Iran war is a skirmish by any reasonable measure. It does not exhaust either the US Navy or the Airforce, and the Army isn't even participating. Now I understand it has a large impact because of oil prices and the closing of the strait of hormuz, but don't confuse the economic impact of the closing of shipping lanes with something that "exhausts" the US military. Remember this is the military that spent two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq, using considerably more resources. Those were actual wars, followed by occupations that lasted two decades. And that didn't exhaust the US. In terms of the Naval cost, it is occupying 15% of ships, with zero ships sunk or damaged. I believe there were 13 soldiers killed during strikes on bases in the area. Those bases have been manned for decades and have not exhausted the US Army. Let's maintain some perspective.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo ago
      I would dispute the depletion of expensive munitions, but I still believe that is largely irrelevant next to political exhaustion. I do not think most Americans would care to defend Taiwan, even against the China boogeyman. The practical realities of losing Chinese goods would be a devastating reality few are prepared to face.
jonnybgood 6mo ago
> It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. It’ll be more concerning if wasn’t discussed in such a way. War is rarely reasonable. China doesn’t find it unreasonable to go to war over Taiwan. And for what? National pride and unity? It’s completely unreasonable, but everything they’re developing militarily is exactly for that. We must approach the subject clearly and explore every possibility as a real one. These discussions are about ending wars as quickly and decisively as possible while causing the minimal amount death.
janalsncm 6mo ago
The more I read about it, the more firmly I believe it is in the U.S.’s best interest to avoid military conflict with the world’s only manufacturing superpower. Not that we could afford wars with non-superpowers either.
- bluGill 6mo ago
  the us is a manufacturing superpower. China is visible for cheap, but the us is a major power.
  - acdha 6mo ago
    We’re a fading manufacturing power and corporate profit-maximization since the 80s has made things very brittle. The most obvious example for HN is semiconductors but there are many other things which we either don’t make in sufficient quantity at all or which have significant dependencies on countries like China. In a war, it doesn’t help, if, say your factory is in Utah when it depends on Chinese rare earth until someone spends 5-10 years getting a new mining & refining supply chain online.
    - bluGill 6mo ago
      A global supply chain does not say anything about our manufacturing power.
      - acdha 6mo ago
        It does if you’ve read anything about how much of China’s advantage is colocation and integration: those long supply chains add delay and cost. Apple rather famously had problems manufacturing the MacPro in Texas not because of anything exotic but from challenges getting basic things like screws which were easily available near their factories in China.
  - greedo 6mo ago
    The days of China manufacturing cheap junk is long past. These same arguments were made against Japan. Look at a BYD EV and it will have a fit and finish comparable to any US manufacturer. In aviation, they're catching up quickly to the US, and are arguably ahead of Europe and Russia.
vdqtp3 6mo ago
> an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. Most modern military planning considers it a foregone conclusion. Whether that's accurate or not is arguable, but approaching discussions of military spending from a perspective grounded in current planning is certainly reasonable.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  So .. ICBM nuclear exchange? Or are we suddenly expecting a large conventional war between nuclear powers in which both sides decide not to bother with them?
  - defrost 6mo ago
    Military planners may believe it to be inevitable, the interesting question to chase is why they think that and who the aggressor would be and in response to what. That aside, it would likely be unconvential and ground breaking in several respects, eg: likely the first conflict with a large initial space based element, each country wanting to blind the other, with each having large constellations of satellites. Killing farout geostationary spy sats wouldn't be visible .. but fragging the entire LEO space with "sufficient shrapnel" to initiate a cascading sat failure should(?) make for an interesting global skyshow.
999900000999 6mo ago
I'm convinced War Hawks in all countries are much like WWE performers. The hype is it's own product.

ExoticPearTree 6mo ago

> It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. The last few wars started by the US were based on scenarios that looked good on paper and in reality they did not went so well. Look at the Iran war: "we're gonna kill their supreme leader and the regime will fall". Almost two months later nothing changed in any significant way despite bombing it relentlessly. Coming back to your concern, I'm pretty sure some people at the Pentagon believe the US can fight China using an expeditionary force and somehow win.

wahern 6mo ago
The Iran War never looked good on paper. The only people who thought it would succeed were Trump and the cast of characters he surrounded himself with. I doubt if many congressional Republican chickenhawks thought it would succeed. The only way to oust the regime is with ground troops, ripping out the Revolutionary Guard and its tentacles. For all its corruption, Iran is far from a failed state, and there aren't factions waiting in the wings, ready and willing to take over the government with force. (There are political factions, to be sure, but they're already integrated into the government, though without leverage over the Revolutionary Guard.) The only armed group remotely capable of even trying would be the Kurds, but the US and in particular Trump screwed them over in the past, multiple times. Even if they thought they could go it alone (which they couldn't), there was zero chance they were going to enter the fray without the US committing itself fully with their own invasion force (i.e. success was guaranteed), because failure would mean ethnic Kurds would be extirpated from Iran, and might induce Iraq and Syria to revisit the question of Kurdish loyalty to their own states. And, indeed, Kurdish groups took a wait and see approach, assembling some forces but waiting to see how the US played their cards.
- Cider9986 6mo ago
  It does seem that way based on this article[1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-wa... https://archive.ph/gaHnu https://archive.ph/gaHnu
  - wahern 6mo ago
    It's just so ridiculous. Nobody is going to be writing books about the mistakes or hubris of US intelligence, military strategists, or political scholars and analysts. Even the most diehard American proponents of regime change in Iran, at least those with any competence, could have predicted (and did predict) this outcome. This was 100% a Trump fiasco, though the whole country shares some culpability for this kind of epic failure by allowing someone like Trump to win the presidency... again. It's a little ironic that its due in part[1] to Trump's reticence to commit ground forces that we've come to this pass. I hesitate to criticize that disposition, but at the same time it's malfeasance to start a war without being willing and able to fully commit to the objective. [1] Assuming the war had to happen, which of course it didn't.
- ExoticPearTree 6mo ago
  > The Iran War never looked good on paper. The only people who thought it would succeed were Trump and the cast of characters he surrounded himself with. Not to nitpick, but “looked good on paper” was an euphemism for “the powers that be think its doable”. Amd yes, yiu are right: Trump surrounded himself with “loyalist” this time that won’t go against hime like in the previous administration, but with the very undesirable effect of amplifying the echo chamber he lives in. And like someone said in this thread, lots of hubris. I am no expert on Iran, but all documentaries that I’ve seen about this reach the same conclusion: you don’t invade Iran using ground forces.
  - wahern 6mo ago
    An invasion likely would turn into a quagmire, but what keeps regime proponents eternally hopeful is that unlike Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, etc, Iran has a robust political system. The dictatorship notwithstanding, it has a vibrant parliament and, by global standards, a decent electoral system. The Ayatollah rules by following the maxim, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. If you could excise the Revolutionary Guard (a big if), you wouldn't necessarily need to change the government or its institutions. The existing liberal and moderate factions could quickly fill the vacuum, and would be happy to do so. You wouldn't get a pliant Iran, but that's for the better. So by invasion the idea would be to rapidly, physically excise the apparatus the Ayatollahs use to maintain control. The structure and identity of that group is well known. It's a large group, and you couldn't catch all the leaders, but so long as you can stop their ability to enforce their rule through execution, you give the rest of the country time to shut them out of the institutions. In theory just weeks. The problem is the very thing that makes regime change a plausibly good idea--a stable polity and modern, liberal-ish institutions--is the very thing that could result in failure. The Ayatollahs understood that a fragile, backwards system would be a weakness to their rule. Their military and bureaucracy are professional; they know how to follow orders, without being micromanaged, and even if everyone wants regime change, there's a huge collective action problem.
bluGill 6mo ago
The iran war - for all it was a bad idea eliminated a lot of iran's war capacity which seems to be the real goal - near as anyone can tell what they were. Regime change would be nice, but needs more than the us was ever gave indication they would do. the followon effects like the closing of the straight were obvious which is why few Iran hatehs thought it was a good idea
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- hedora 6mo ago
  The estimates I’ve seen say they lost/used 33% of their conventional capacity, 33% was rendered inoperable but recoverable. I’d guess with the ceasefire, they’re probably back to 40-50% online. The nuclear capability story is even worse: they were mostly mothballed prewar, suffered partial refinement damage and minimal stockpile loss. Refinement will be back online sometime in the next few years (unless this is a forever war), with weapons following shortly after that.

tehjoker 6mo ago

The people advocating for war against china will complain bitterly and weep the soon as their snacks and new electronic devices stop arriving by ship.

jfengel 6mo ago

A general war against China is impossible. But a "limited" war fought over Taiwan isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Which does take it into a kind of Schroedinger's realm. The US takes it seriously, so it develops technology for it, and China doesn't invade. But would China have invaded if the US hadn't prepared for that war? Quite possibly, but you can never know.

0cf8612b2e1e 6mo ago
In the quite likely scenario that Iran goes on any longer, the US will become so war exhausted that we will be unable to provide any support for Taiwan.
- catlover76 6mo ago
  [dead]
- carefree-bob 6mo ago
  The Iran war is a skirmish by any reasonable measure. It does not exhaust either the US Navy or the Airforce, and the Army isn't even participating. Now I understand it has a large impact because of oil prices and the closing of the strait of hormuz, but don't confuse the economic impact of the closing of shipping lanes with something that "exhausts" the US military. Remember this is the military that spent two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq, using considerably more resources. Those were actual wars, followed by occupations that lasted two decades. And that didn't exhaust the US. In terms of the Naval cost, it is occupying 15% of ships, with zero ships sunk or damaged. I believe there were 13 soldiers killed during strikes on bases in the area. Those bases have been manned for decades and have not exhausted the US Army. Let's maintain some perspective.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo ago
    I would dispute the depletion of expensive munitions, but I still believe that is largely irrelevant next to political exhaustion. I do not think most Americans would care to defend Taiwan, even against the China boogeyman. The practical realities of losing Chinese goods would be a devastating reality few are prepared to face.

jonnybgood 6mo ago

> It concerns me how casual the article and some of the comments here discuss an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. It’ll be more concerning if wasn’t discussed in such a way. War is rarely reasonable. China doesn’t find it unreasonable to go to war over Taiwan. And for what? National pride and unity? It’s completely unreasonable, but everything they’re developing militarily is exactly for that. We must approach the subject clearly and explore every possibility as a real one. These discussions are about ending wars as quickly and decisively as possible while causing the minimal amount death.

janalsncm 6mo ago

The more I read about it, the more firmly I believe it is in the U.S.’s best interest to avoid military conflict with the world’s only manufacturing superpower. Not that we could afford wars with non-superpowers either.

bluGill 6mo ago
the us is a manufacturing superpower. China is visible for cheap, but the us is a major power.
- acdha 6mo ago
  We’re a fading manufacturing power and corporate profit-maximization since the 80s has made things very brittle. The most obvious example for HN is semiconductors but there are many other things which we either don’t make in sufficient quantity at all or which have significant dependencies on countries like China. In a war, it doesn’t help, if, say your factory is in Utah when it depends on Chinese rare earth until someone spends 5-10 years getting a new mining & refining supply chain online.
  - bluGill 6mo ago
    A global supply chain does not say anything about our manufacturing power.
    - acdha 6mo ago
      It does if you’ve read anything about how much of China’s advantage is colocation and integration: those long supply chains add delay and cost. Apple rather famously had problems manufacturing the MacPro in Texas not because of anything exotic but from challenges getting basic things like screws which were easily available near their factories in China.
- greedo 6mo ago
  The days of China manufacturing cheap junk is long past. These same arguments were made against Japan. Look at a BYD EV and it will have a fit and finish comparable to any US manufacturer. In aviation, they're catching up quickly to the US, and are arguably ahead of Europe and Russia.

vdqtp3 6mo ago

> an actual war against China, as if that were a reasonable scenario. Most modern military planning considers it a foregone conclusion. Whether that's accurate or not is arguable, but approaching discussions of military spending from a perspective grounded in current planning is certainly reasonable.

pjc50 6mo ago
So .. ICBM nuclear exchange? Or are we suddenly expecting a large conventional war between nuclear powers in which both sides decide not to bother with them?
- defrost 6mo ago
  Military planners may believe it to be inevitable, the interesting question to chase is why they think that and who the aggressor would be and in response to what. That aside, it would likely be unconvential and ground breaking in several respects, eg: likely the first conflict with a large initial space based element, each country wanting to blind the other, with each having large constellations of satellites. Killing farout geostationary spy sats wouldn't be visible .. but fragging the entire LEO space with "sufficient shrapnel" to initiate a cascading sat failure should(?) make for an interesting global skyshow.

999900000999 6mo ago

I'm convinced War Hawks in all countries are much like WWE performers. The hype is it's own product.