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> Not that we would, but should the US and China engage in endless WW2 style battles of attrition, the larger economy wins that engagement. Because at the end o

> Not that we would, but should the US and China engage in endless WW2 style battles of attrition, the larger economy wins that engagement. Because at the end of the day the ability to replace assets trumps any initial tactical advantage. I don't think it is quite this simple. You could argue that the country that can sustain the higher defense budget will win [1], which is actually the United States. Reason being that China's population is 4x that of the United States, so significant parts of GDP need to just go to keeping everyone alive. [1] In the past; these days the US' technology superiority over China is so large that short-term budget changes still couldn't give China the edge.

ChuckMcM 13y ago
In response to your footnote, this was an interesting quote I read about Germany in WW2 : "Historians have generally thought of the Type XXI—along with other systems like the Me 262, V-1 and V-2 rockets, and the Tiger tank—as an example of Wunderwaffen, wonder weapons. Since 1945 many have fixated on the revolutionary military technologies that the Third Reich developed in the last two years of the war. The cultural impetus behind the concept, as implicitly or explicitly acknowledged by historians in the uneven and largely enthusiastic literature on the subject, was an irrational faith in technology to prevail in operationally or strategically complex and desperate situations. a conviction amounting to a disease, to which many in the Third Reich were prone in the latter years of the Second World War. To the extent that it shaped decision making, faith in the Wunderwaffen was a special, superficial kind of technological determinism, a confidence in the power of technology to prevail over the country’s strategic, operational, and doctrinal shortcomings" From this: http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/dd165021-2812-40ba-847f-d5b4c3e4ac4e/Innovation-for-Its-Own-Sake--The-Type-XXI-U-boat.aspx http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/dd165021-2812-40ba-847f-d... When I read it, it reasonated with a lot of the narrative I hear in policy circles about China as a military power. The reasoning goes like this; The US as an insurmountable technological edge over China, todays wars are technology heavy, therefore the US has an insurmountable military edge over China. Personally, I expect that reasoning to prevail until the Chinese are sending people to the Moon and getting them back alive. Such a situation will deny that China is just "re-using old soviet gear" and "they can't mount a complex technological development program" in one stroke (both arguments I hear from the 'paper tiger' camp). Interesting times.
mark_l_watson 13y ago
I agree if you mean that US military technology is better than China's. For technology in general, is that true? I don't know, but if you look at good journal articles on computer science topics, it seems like the US is loosing mojo, and big time. For general tech, the rest of the world combined invests so much more than we do now. This is the cost of our military spending. On the other hand, if we didn't have the world's strongest military (we spend about 50% of all money spent on military in the world), then the US dollar would probably not be the reserve currency and our economy would greatly suffer. Complicated... edit: the reason why we are losing mojo, my reasoning: in the 1970s the vast majority of ACM journal articles were from US citizens, AFAIR. Not the case today. edit 2: re: US military preserving reserve status of US dollar: I got this from a recent interview with Katherine Austin Fitts (she was in the H. Bush administration) who I personally respect.
moogleii 13y ago
I actually don't think it's quite that simple either. In total war, that might be right, but I think any opposing non-democratic power only needs to maintain a force/budget large enough to cause enough damage that will lead to war fatigue within the democratic power. Our war tech may be far superior, but I highly doubt it's superior enough for a snap victory as seen against Iraq. China has demonstrated real anti-satellite capability, as well as significant theoretical anti-ship capability (DF-21), both of which would eliminate a large portion of the US's edge (which has not demonstrated how much of an edge it has without those technologies). Even after the trudging warfare is done with, supposing the US did win decisively (which I'm a bit skeptical of), post-war financial and political costs would be quite significant as well.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

In response to your footnote, this was an interesting quote I read about Germany in WW2 : "Historians have generally thought of the Type XXI—along with other systems like the Me 262, V-1 and V-2 rockets, and the Tiger tank—as an example of Wunderwaffen, wonder weapons. Since 1945 many have fixated on the revolutionary military technologies that the Third Reich developed in the last two years of the war. The cultural impetus behind the concept, as implicitly or explicitly acknowledged by historians in the uneven and largely enthusiastic literature on the subject, was an irrational faith in technology to prevail in operationally or strategically complex and desperate situations. a conviction amounting to a disease, to which many in the Third Reich were prone in the latter years of the Second World War. To the extent that it shaped decision making, faith in the Wunderwaffen was a special, superficial kind of technological determinism, a confidence in the power of technology to prevail over the country’s strategic, operational, and doctrinal shortcomings" From this: http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/dd165021-2812-40ba-847f-d5b4c3e4ac4e/Innovation-for-Its-Own-Sake--The-Type-XXI-U-boat.aspx http://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment/dd165021-2812-40ba-847f-d... When I read it, it reasonated with a lot of the narrative I hear in policy circles about China as a military power. The reasoning goes like this; The US as an insurmountable technological edge over China, todays wars are technology heavy, therefore the US has an insurmountable military edge over China. Personally, I expect that reasoning to prevail until the Chinese are sending people to the Moon and getting them back alive. Such a situation will deny that China is just "re-using old soviet gear" and "they can't mount a complex technological development program" in one stroke (both arguments I hear from the 'paper tiger' camp). Interesting times.

mark_l_watson 13y ago

I agree if you mean that US military technology is better than China's. For technology in general, is that true? I don't know, but if you look at good journal articles on computer science topics, it seems like the US is loosing mojo, and big time. For general tech, the rest of the world combined invests so much more than we do now. This is the cost of our military spending. On the other hand, if we didn't have the world's strongest military (we spend about 50% of all money spent on military in the world), then the US dollar would probably not be the reserve currency and our economy would greatly suffer. Complicated... edit: the reason why we are losing mojo, my reasoning: in the 1970s the vast majority of ACM journal articles were from US citizens, AFAIR. Not the case today. edit 2: re: US military preserving reserve status of US dollar: I got this from a recent interview with Katherine Austin Fitts (she was in the H. Bush administration) who I personally respect.

moogleii 13y ago

I actually don't think it's quite that simple either. In total war, that might be right, but I think any opposing non-democratic power only needs to maintain a force/budget large enough to cause enough damage that will lead to war fatigue within the democratic power. Our war tech may be far superior, but I highly doubt it's superior enough for a snap victory as seen against Iraq. China has demonstrated real anti-satellite capability, as well as significant theoretical anti-ship capability (DF-21), both of which would eliminate a large portion of the US's edge (which has not demonstrated how much of an edge it has without those technologies). Even after the trudging warfare is done with, supposing the US did win decisively (which I'm a bit skeptical of), post-war financial and political costs would be quite significant as well.