macmanmike6100

Read this:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/...ls2/part05.htm

Let's go on an all-out bent, like we did with USSR, to contain (crush, if need be) China, just like we did with the USSR.

What do you think? Ever since I started working in China, and seeing how the people think (which the article captures very nicely...I'm serious!), I consistently come to this question:

Do you want a Chinese hegemony or an American one?

...let's hear your thoughts...
...PS: I was and still am against being in Iraq, and am against the US as "global police" but fighting China, to me, is national security for the future.

Another reason for preemptive (political, hopefully) strike?
http://www.321energy.com/editorials/...ton020905.html

And I just found a (very brief) article more toward the other direction: that China is just staying their own course, and is unlikely to want to destroy the American hegemony:
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...on_course.html

Also one regarding how foolish our military efforts are:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblo...s2/002690.html

(I argue that they most definitely want to be the next hegemony and believe that they can do it while keeping Americans as "good little consumers")

Nimetic

This is silly.

The trade relationship between the US and China is much more complicated than that which existed with the USSR. China provides (for example) not just your clothes, but most of your PC motherboards...

And then too, you need I think, to show that the decline in the of the USSR was due to the US "crushing" them. This is not entirely self evident to me.

Thirdly, there are those in other parts of the world that look at Iraq and see it as a complete mess.

And fourthly, China is a country with billions of people. Their GDP growth was 10% last quarter I hear. Perhaps the US should mop up Iraq and balance the budget before trying to take China on.

Etarip

Interesting articles, I'll have to read through them when I have some time. As I see it open war with China goes something like this:
Step 1: U.S. Attacks China.
Step 2: China calls in all the U.S. debt the're holding.
Step 3: U.S. Defaults on our debt.
Step 4: Value of the dollar plummets, U.S. can't buy oil.
Step 5: U.S. armed forces and ecomony grind to a halt for lack of oil.
Result: Win the battle, Lose the war.

And remember kids! Never fight a land war in Asia!

Hardknock

And China doesn't have to fire a single shot for all this to occur. Isn't there a statement in The Art of War that basically says, to destroy your enemy you must do it from within?

Thanks Mr. Bush.

Dragonlich

If the US attacks China, do you think it matters one bit if they'd demand the debt to be paid back? Nobody in their right mind would expect that the US would pay billions to it's enemy. Hence, step 3 is logical, but would only apply to that part which was borrowed from China. I do expect the dollar to drop in value a bit, but that'll be because of the international uncertainty about such a war, and what it'll mean to the world economy. I don't believe that the US will be unable to buy oil at all, unless there's some sort of international embargo, which is pretty unlikely.

All in all, a war with China would be bad, but I very much doubt that the US would lose in the economic arena; China isn't that big yet. And most of the economic impact would depend WHO starts the war.

Nimetic

I'm believe that I was wrong on the last stat. Most likely this was 10pct GDP growth if extrapolated from the quarter to the year. In which case, this is not extraordinary - I believe that they've had this level of growth for a while now.

.. and yeah, In terms of purchase power parity - the CIA rates China as second only to the US.

Whichever way you look at it, direct conflict with China would be a nightmare scenario.

nezmot

The thing is, the Chinese are right - the US is in decline. Would I like to see a US, or Chinese hegemony? To be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter to me - I hate hegemony wherever I see it - at least the Chinese way of doing things isn't based on one of those pyramid sales models...

Etarip

One, China is currently bearing the brunt of supporting the dollar, if they merely stop buying up our debt the dollar goes south. Second, if the U.S. shows it's willing to default on debt, much less attack countries that hold it's debt, other countries aren't going to be too enthustatic about buying up our debt or holding onto stockpiles of dollars. If other countries don't want dollars what are we going to buy oil with?

james t kirk

The United States can not even cope with a 2'nd rate 2'nd world country like Iraq.

You lost in Vietnam, you are losing in Iraq.

What in God's green earth makes you think that you can take on the Chinese?

The Chinese have a population of what, 1.3 billion people. That's about a billion more than you. They could put more peope in uniform than you have people in the USA.

You'd get your ass handed to you in a basket.

Bodyhammer86

That was because of poor leadership and the fact that we were fighting with one of our hands tied behind our back in a "limited" war. The anti-war movement back home didn't help things either.
Oddly enough, the Chinese tried using human wave tactics and tried to overwhelm vastly outnumbered UN positions during the Korean War, only to either be thrown back or held off. Plus, it also got them over a million dead on their side as well. Not to mention that we have battlefield use weapons like air fuel bombs that could easily annihilate their positions. Bottom line being, having a shitload of manpower does not mean jack shit in war.

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itch vaccine

So, the best way to solve an issue of insecurity is to go to war. No talks whatsoever? =.=

Seriously uncomfortable with the idea being brought up at all, me being a Chinese, however not from China.

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Jimellow

There are a lot of people against the war in the Middle East, and to an extent that is "justified," at least by some supporters.

Attacking China just seems crazy to me. IMO we should be attacking less and instead focusing either on peaceful negotiations or the issues within our own borders.

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raeanna74

The US is weaker than it was during the cold war. Weaker economically, militarily, and our leaders seem to me to be less focused on the greater good of the country.

The USSR fell, yes party because of the arms race, but mostly (in my opinion) because of their economic and political structure. A socialistic government works nicely in an utopia but it does not fully take into account the faults in humans.

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james t kirk

The USSR was an artificial state. You had several countries that didn't really want to be part of it.

There simply came a point in time where the people decided that they didn't like what was going on around them and you had a leader (Gorbachev) who knew that things had to change. He had a choice, try to string it out until it imploded from within (probably with a lot of civil war and dying) or be proactive and move towards peaceful change.

He chose the latter. As far as I am aware, not that many people have died in the break up of the Soviet Union. Sure, there are some people who probably lament its passing, but the majority of the people are happier reverting back to their former countries - Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, all the stans, etc. etc.

Americans like to think that they were the cause of the downfall of the Soviet Union and Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union. Talk to any Russian and tell them that and they will either laugh at you, or not have any idea of what the hell you are talking about. To them, it was an internal need for some very real fundamental change.

aKula

This post is slightly offtopic (as I will not address the main issues raised in the original post) but I'd like to further address this point.

As I understand it Etarip is correct. It is enough for investors (many who are continously reinvesting their gains) to stop buying new bonds (when their old ones expire or at all) for the dollar to be impacted dramatically. Now I'm not sure if the numbers involved are large enough to have a major effect if there were to be such an incident but it is possible and I'd guess that it would have a major effect.

I don't think a war or other escalation would be benificial to any parties actually. Not to say that I don't think pressure should be put on China to improve its human rights record, allowing North Korean refugees to pass through to a third country would be a good start.

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Toaster126

Let's not overstate things, eh?

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Overlord1191

Being able to put 100 million people in a uniform color doesn't conquer. Remember that great big ocean and that the US Navy has total superiority of the oceans. How would they get here? Plus infantry doesn't win wars anymore. Air/Sea Power does. A large army is just a lot of mouths to feed and a couple well placed cruise missile strikes will eliminate power/water supplies pretty quickly. This isn't the Roman Empire.

Also, the US did not "lose" Vietnam. All of the military objectives of holding the soviet advance were in place years after the US withdrew. Plus the US forces inflicted horrendous casualties against the North Vietnamese (nearly 10 to 1). It was years later when North Vietnam broke the truce and took South Vietnam and that was mostly the failure of the ARVN. It's pretty unfair to hold the US accountable for a military loss while we were not actually in the country at the time.

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Willravel

I don't want any superpowers. I don't want the Chinese to be a superpower, and I don't want the US to be a superpower. Neither has a record that reflects the responsibility that title entails. I'm not interested in war over ideals or some false sense of supremacy. It doesn't matter who would hypothetically win. We'd all lose in a war between nations that posses nuclear weapons. The US military can't beat insurgents in a third world country that have only light arms and no training.

guy44

Is this seriously a discussion about possibly going to war with China? Is anyone actually considering this?

Or is this like one of those "pack of wolves vs. rhinocerous" discussions?

Cause I like the latter.

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silent_jay

I believe it was LBJ who said the war in Viet Nam was to stop the spread of communism in SE Asia, and guess what? Viet Nam is a communist country, That's a loss right there. Inflicting horrendous casualties has nothing to do with winning a war, I'm more impressed the North could sustain the manpower to absorb those numbers.

The US also lost because they didn't understand it was a civil war, the NVA and VC were fighting for their country, their home, whereas the US didn't know what it was fighting for, other than what the politicians back home told them, and by the time they figured out it was a civil war, it was too late to do anything about it.

Ahh yes you see the US may not have been 'in country' when Saigon fell, but they sure played a big part in it. Let's see denying emergency aid to help the South fend off the North when it was most critical they get said aid, running from the country after 10 years of war and abandoning allies to save face. So you see there are many, many factors as to why the US lost in Viet Nam.

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dksuddeth

any military conflict with china is purely hypothetical.

1) china has more fodder (infantry) than any 3 countries combined.
2) china does not have the navy or air force to mount any invasion of the US.
3) chinas Nuke armament is about 10% of the US

the US
1) would never mount an invasion of china because of lack of ground forces
2) would spend most of its time dealing with the chinese submarine force
3) more would be gained economically by diplomatic relations with china than ANY show of force

The only possibility of actual armed conflict with china is if they were to instigate armed conflict of any US ally in the region.

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splck

This I'd like to see (not really), the US crush China....good luck with that.
How about neither, is that an option?
I would think it would be better to resolve any difference you may have diplomatically, look how attacking other countries has worked out for you guys.

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Poppinjay

I disagree. Anytime you bring back the troops by having them flee in a helicopter from the roof of your embassy while enemy forces advance, then you have to push the helicopters off the ship to make room for more people, well, that's a loss.

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host

Read the assessments of nuclear weapons and delivery systems that I've included on this post, of the U.S., Russia, and China, as of 2002..

The U.S. has gone into huge, national debt, partially as a result of an obsessive
(the results of current nuclear inventory and capabilities ceratinly show it) and costly buidup in nuclear armaments, delivery systems, and the cost of maintaining high levels of functionality and quick response.

Now that fiscal, foreign, and military policy mismanagement and the resulting burden of continuing treasury, budget, and trade deficits, aggravated by uniquely American excessive consumption rates, per capita of imported energy and othe commodities have rendered the U.S. fiat currency a candidate for near certain collapse, IMO, the only realistic response is to debate whether we've reached a "use it, or lose it" crossroads.....

My point is that the U.S. will never again be stronger, fiscally or militarily, than it is at the present moment, and potenital adversaries and competitors for rapidly rising in price energy and commodity resources, will never be weaker than at this moment.

No one has offered a realistic or practical alternative to a strategy of the U.S
dictating "terms" to the rest of the world, <b>NOW</b>....before the currency collapse, as the only available solution, unthinkable as it seems to most Americans, to avoiding rapid deterioration of the U.S. government's ability to fund even the current level of military capability and readiness.

It's over, otherwise, folks. The profligate and wasteful lifestyle, the economic growth at all costs. Unless we use our military to intimidate the rest of the world into disarming and allowing permanent U.S. weapons monitors at all existing foreign weapons development and manufacturing sites, ASAP, our decline will be inevitable, and much quicker than most people think.

Look at the numbers below and the nuclear weapons delivery capabilities. I'm sure that the rest of the world expects us to pull the only trump card left in the deck. They won't be that surprised.....from their point of view, our military buildup must have seemed awesome and dysfunctionally huge, for many years. Russia is the only adversary that even has a hope of countering our "initiative". I've asked for other proposals for alternative solutions, in other threads, but there are no realistic responses, just an aversion to consider my proposal, or to accept how dire our situation is.

Observe that no one will offer another way out. Mark my words, we will attempt to pull something like this on the rest of the world, when we are weaker and mor desperate, and when they are stronger....and....even if by some lucky quirk of fate, we prevail in those circumstances, I predict that our "victory", then will be after a much greater loss of life and devastation to the planet, than if we act now.

Look at the economic trends, energy use trends, trade imbalance trends, rising defense and intellignence budgets, and the disconnect between the trends and the lack of concern manifested in this country, and tell me, after looking at our military assets and those of China, and either propose a plan that would save the purchasing power of U.S. paper money, or accept that there is no other way out and focus on how easy it will be to neutralize and set back China, and contemplate how to persuade Russia to capitulate and cooperate in the destruction of their entire nuclear capability, or face the loss of their entire infrastructure and much of their population.

Our military capabilities already convince the world that we have this option, we only need to convince ourselves, and announce our consensus to them.
I see no other option, and we'll be surprised to find that many foreigners have expect this from us for many years now:


Several years ago, Janes described China's ICBM "arsenal" as closer to 1 percent of the size of the U.S. arsenal:
This report is just 30 days old......

macmanmike6100

i love that this generated so much discussion; personally i'm well-past this post because really, i posted because i think that some harsh rhetoric needs to be heard in response to a lot of the anti-Americanism that stems not only from many Chinese (who, while friends with me, hate America and want to see it destroyed...how terrible is that??? Then, at least, what I'm saying is no worse) but from the rest of the world.

a war with China would be horrendously devastating to the world, if only because it wouldn't really be China vs. US but one falsely-confident ideal versus another (capitalism vs. communism).

I thought I'd get personally blasted for this, and let me say that it was really nice to see that that didn't happen, and that at least some real consideration was made for this.

I still believe in the hegemonic system, however, and while I think that there will always be a hegemon, we should see that either the hegemon is bad and everybody tries to remove it (Bush II's America) or the hegemon is mostly good and nobody minds too much (but still complain, surely).

And then, of course, this is coming from someone too young to have real perspective on war at all, sheltered by the "glorious" Pax Americana. Regardless, what I really want to see are Americans standing up for themselves!! I hate the idea of arbitrary nationalistic lines but that's how the world operates right now and I'm tired of hearing about China/Russia/Europeans/whomever basking in America's recent failures, whose complaining seeps into the minds of Americans when instead Americans should be saying "despite some of the terrible things our nation has done, look at all of the great things we've done, and let's work on growing *that* part of our culture"

host

macmanmike6100, the combined U.S. federal budget and external trade debt continues to accumulate annually at a rate of at least $1.4 trillion. At minimumn, the combined existing federal treasury and external debt is $14 trillion. At 6 percent annual interest, it costs $840 billion to service the interest on the $14 trillion, and next year the combined debt will have accumulated to at least $15.4 trillion.

The total <a href="http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/us.html">U.S. GDP in 2005 was $12.5 trillion, and federal spending was at least $2.466 trillion</a>

Hoping for world peace, considering what I've outlined as far as U.S. military capability and the runaway U.S. debt accumulation, aggravated by growing competition for petroleum and other raw materials, with a Chinese currency that rises in value, as the U.S. dollar falls.....causing even higher petroleum, import costs, with no sign of any lessening of the amount that the U.S. imports, or of new signifigant discovery of supply, and the increasing "off budget" expense of financing delayed occupation aggravated by deteriorating security climates in both Iraq and Afghanistan, seems a bit unrealistic.

I'm betting that most Americans will be unwilling to accept the coming costs of peace, which probably include a doubling of the dollar price of oil, and everything that we currently buy at Wal-Mart, in a span as short as in the next 36 months. Expenditures on the military intelligence complex will fall as our already bankrupt U.S. government can no longer borrow money at rates under....say.....12 percent....
The question then will be simple....do we use the military power, before it rusts at the dock, or on the launch pad, in an attempt to force Russian and China to disarm, or be "taken out", or do we quietly fade into an Argentina style decline?

I know what we will decide....so....why wait? Every new day where we import 14 million more bbls or petroleum equivalents, borrowing an additional $980 million each day to do it....brings us closer to the day that no one will extend us the credit to do it. On that day, the U.S. will be weaker economically and less militarily powerful than it is today, and Russia and China will both be stronger and richer than they are now. There is no plan that I know of, to lessen the speed of the U.S. spiral into paper currency spending power implosion, and no plan to stop it and reverse it.

All I see is an avoidance to even pay any attention to the trend....can anybody offer an alternative, or rosier set of predictions? If not, shouldn't discussion focus on when the best time will be to threaten China and Russia into capitulating, militarily, and what to do to them if they refuse?

KnifeMissile

I'm not sure I understand your point. What, exactly, are you suggesting?
Taking everything that you've said for granted, exactly what terms are you suggesting the US give China and Russia to capitulate?

host

The "terms" would be acceptance, on short notice, of a demand by the U.S. that all long range missles and other long range offensive nuclear weapons delivery systems, under the contol of any country designated by the U.S., be deactivated, and then, under U.S. supervision, dismantled, along with existing facilities capable of maintaining or manufacturing such systems, as well as all design and R&D facilities.

Acceptance of and cooperation with a permanent presence of U.S. weapons inspectors would also be required.

Any country that refuses to accept and comply with these terms must be convinced by the U.S. that the consequence of delaying acceptance or outright resistance, would be the risk of an imminent, massive nuclear strike on military targets and on industrial infrastructure.

The best time to display a resolve and firmness that is not diluted by signs of desperation....a resolve that compliments the description of U.S. nuclear first strike capablities, that I previously posted, to project the most intimidating, and thus, persuasive impression on China, and more importantly, on Russia,
is now.

The key to avoiding massive loss of life and devastation, i.e., an "all out" nuclear war, is to convince Russia that the inevitable result of resisting the U.S. ultimatum by launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the U.S. as a response to the U.S. ultimatum, would be the near certainty that the U.S. would only be partially destroyed, while U.S. retaliatory strikes would result in Russia ceasing to exist.

I accept that the U.S. government will come to a decision very similar to what I've described, but that it will not come until the odds of avoiding a nuclear exchange with Russia are much higher than they would be....say....if the ultimatum was delivered tomorrow.

Current U.S. foreign, military, and economic growth, consumption, and federal reserve policy is unsustainable, insofar as it's effect on U.S. dollar purchasing power. The dollar buys just 40 percent of the petroleum, gold, and a number of other raw materials that it could be exchanged for, just 65 months ago.
In the next 60 months, given present budget and trade deficit trends, aggravated by rising worldwide interest rates and commodity prices, there is no reason that the dollar purchasing power could not decline by 75 percent or more....even in regard to our ability to purchase consumer staples, vs. current pricing, in stores like....Wal-Mart.

There is talk by leaders in Russia, China, Venezuela, and Iran, of plans to move away from the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This status is the only thing that creates enough foreign demand for dollars...mainly to purchase rapidly rising petroleum....mostly in dollars, by prior agreement, to keep the exchange rate of the dollar from falling off a cliff.

Acceptance of U.S. "terms", by China and Russia, North Korea....etc...would result in the U.S. being the only nuclear military power, almost guaranteeing a longer period of support for the dollar as the reserve currency, and hence, support for it's purchasing power, closer to current levels. It will be easier to attract foreign investment to the U.S., than if it is a bankrupt country with a crippled currency, perceived to be trending into an inevitable period of Chinese hegemony.

I see no other proposal that addresses the coming risks to the dollar, or to competition for diminishing natural resources and trends toward richer and more powerful China and Russia, and an inability to fund and maintain the U.S. military at current levels. What to do to save the dollar is truly our national security priority....there are three choices....ignore the crisis, as we seem to be doing now....launch an aggressive program to cut imports, at least in half, by 2010, and to balance the federal budget by 2010, via tax increases and cuts in military and intelligence agency spending.....or force worldwide nuclear and bomber/missle disarmament via issuance of an immediate and steadfast U.S. ultimatum.

I predict that we will not be led to do any of these things...except the last one....late enough in our decline that, tragically, probably Russia will refuse to blink, and many millions will die before the U.S. emerges in a shattered but functioning form to endure the climate effects of nuclear winter.

Janie

I can see how well the air/sea power is winning the Iraq war.

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Nimetic

A hegemon sounds like a pokemon...

Lebell

We are fighting the same war with China that we fought (and won) with the USSR, but few recognize it.

It is war by cultural assimulation, seeing which snake can successfully swallow and incorporate the other.

Our warriors are McDonalds, Nintendo and Religion. Theirs are cheap labor feeding shortsighted American businesses and consumers.

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Infinite_Loser

It's hard to win-- Much less fight-- A war against an abstract idea (Terrorism). This is slightly off-topic, but simply because she United States went to war with Iraq, doesn't mean everyone supports it.

Anyway, I'm all for a war with China, just so long as I don't get drafted

There was something else I wanted to add.

To say that the United States lost the Vietnam War is ridiculous. Many people seem to forget that the major factor in the withdrawal from Vietnam was the growing opposition to the war in the United States. Much like the war in Iraq today, the Vietnam war had grown increasingly unpopular domestically due in part to the unclear path of victory and the growing number of American deaths.

At the time the United States began withdrawal from Vietnam, they had won key battles and inflicted much heavier casualties on the Viet Cong than the Viet Cong had on the United States and Southern Vietnamese.

Remember, public opinion is a very powerful tool.

(Sorry for the off-topicness. I won't do it again. I promise.)

Rodney

Somebody once said (Pogo, actually): We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Frankly, a vast amount of the "imported" goods from China are either made by American firms working in China, or from Chinese firms set up in large part with American or Western capital and investors with technology.

The China that is outcompeting us is in large part the servant of our own corporations -- who aren't really "our" corporations anymore. Remember all those CEOs who say, "XYZ Corp. is now a global concern..." Well, they mean it. They may be based here, but they feel no compunction to get their work done here anymore. They'll make and develop products where it's cheapest to do so, and sell 'em here. And as our economy collapses, they'll try to develop markets in other countries -- China for one, but also Russia, India, and Brazil -- the BRIC countries.

The big buzzword in investments these days is "emerging markets." That means, countries that are likely to become consumer cultures, where the large corporations can sell their wares after the U.S. can no longer afford to do so.

Fighting China will never happen, because "our" (no longer our) corporations will never let it happen. China is them. They are China. The only way to "defeat" China is to end the free-lunch-for-the-rich that is globalization, or at least to slap some major taxes on it.

boatin

Having just seen 'An Inconvenient Truth', I think the Chinese are about to be taken care of... I'm betting the US is in better shape to deal with such global trauma than the Chinese. Of course, they have dealt with mass deaths before, so maybe they'll bounce back better.

Not sure if that's a thread jack, or not. Sorry, if it is.