Zeld2.0

Many things to note in thsi thread..

Recently I read an article entitled "How we would fight China" in the June 2005 issue of The Atlantic and it brought up some interesting points.

First of all, militarily speaking, China is not as far behind as people here would like to believe. Its immediate advantage of course is its manpower - the number of people in the military age is as large as the population of the entire United States!

China, of course, does not have an aircraft carrier much less a large surface fleet - however, it has been constructing and buying many submarines, both nuclear and diesel powered ones. Now, one might say, these submarines suck.

However, keep in mind their strategy - they aren't planning anything agressive in the world right now, they have a defensive oriented strategy. If any engagement is going to occur against China, it will almost certainly occur near the coast of China, such as the Taiwan Straights or the China Sea. Submarines, while very expensive, can also be the most potent weapon against our own fleet. Imagine the impact if even one of our carriers was sunk? Plus, conventional aircraft do not typically fight submarines to begin with, and so it eliminates the advantage of air superiority with our conventional aircraft (meaning none antisubmarine warfare aircraft or helicopters).

Furthermore, being a defensive strategy, China would use such weapons as mobile minefields - should hostilities begin, submarines trailing ships could strike first as well. Furthermore, if engagement is to occur on Chinese soil or in Chinese air, ships and logistics to support those ships and/or soldiers would be key, meaning sea warfare. Naval wise, you'll have to google it up, but it was over the recent budget cuts to the Navy - military experts estimate China to have a fleet as large if not larger than ours within 12 years (including estimates of our own construction and decomissioning of ships) - that's pretty big. Who knows what they're building as well in terms of carriers and other ships.

China has also developed strategy to fighting the advantage the U.S. has in its intelligence tools and strategy. There are rumors that China has anti-satellite missiles or at least capabilities in disabling these systems. Furthermore, they have constructed information and power networks deep underground in remote areas of China to prevent a targetting of infrastructure from airpower.

Keep in mind that China has this strategy in part due to its geographical advantage - deep in its west, in the heart of central Asia, it is 3000 miles from its coast. For our ships and planes to get in range of their facilities there, our ships would certainly have to be along the coast of China - meaning in range of their submarines and missiles. Which brings me to another point - China has bolstered its intercontinental and surface to surface missile forces. China need only test a missile launched from deep inland China hitting a moving dummy target ship off its coast to send a pretty bold message. All these talks of missile tests and so on are in essence part of that.

The ultimate question, of course, isn't how we would fight China - it would almost certainly be more of a conventional war than these current wars - but it is how one would end it. Barring the nuclear option, neither country can realistically achieve a total victory - total victory meaning a destruction of the government in power. Landing troops on Chinese soil in a conventional WW2-esque war would be extremely costly, perhaps more than we could afford. And at the same time, simplly bombing the country from air and sea is not going to bring about government change.

However, keep in mind that business in the U.S. loves China. It is where our business and investments are going. It is just how things are. The reason I think war with China won't occur in a large military sense within the next fear years at least is because of this - too much is at stake for both countries. Unlike the Cold War, we have heavily invested in each other's economies.

Also, I dont think war between Taiwan and China is going to happen - all this talk is sabre-rattling. Even though many in Taiwan want to remain an independent country, it is foolish to talk of the two as though they are separate people - the aboriginal people of Taiwan are barely considered - the majority of people in Taiwan are descendents of Chinese be it from the 1600's when China sent an expedition there or the soldiers who fled from the communists in 1949. They have less interest in fighting, in essence, their own blood and would rather make money from a peaceful relationship, as they do have right now.

If you do pay attention to the news though, the U.S. and China are playing a game of global Chess, trying to coutner each others moves. China is making big moves to at least indirectly form economic and political ties with many countries in the world, from countries in the EU to countries in Africa and our own backyard (Carribean countries and South America). China is developing more and more advanced missile and nuclear technology as well as cyber warfare.

The U.S. has realigned many military forces to the West Coast. PACCOM (Pacific Command... like Central Command but with an actual sizeable military force free from politics at Washington) is in charge of creating a doctrine versus China. Its doctrine, however, is very similar to Bismark's realpolitik. Rather than get into a headlong engagement, the U.S. has tried to create alliances with countries near China, from Singapore to Japan to S. Korea. The idea of this is of course to make these countries realize they need the U.S. more than they need each other.

Either way as one can see, it's a game of global chess. A thing that stuck to me after doing discussions about this as well as reading about the idea of the China threat is that neither the liberal ideas of foreign policy of the neocon interventionalist methods of foreign policy would work on China. China only benefits from our expeditions into Afghanistan and Iraq as they can not only see our military in action and its tactics and strategies employed, but also wield world public opinion into their favor.

But in the end, I think the thing that can come out of this is rather than war, we have global stability. Turn China into a superpower that is on great terms with us and we can see an era where two major powers tied together economically can keep the peace in their part of the world - it would certainly be of great aid if China patrolled its own backyard where we have been fighting terrorists. Furthermore, similar to the Cold War in a way, we have two great powers afraid to go at war with one another, which in itself keeps the peace.