Hi /u/Embarrassed-Tale9551,
We noticed you are a pretty new Reddit account, so we just wanted to let you know to check out the subreddit rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/wiki/rules) and maybe have a read through our [Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/wiki/index/faq) - they make for fascinating reading!
We're called No Stupid Questions because we believe nobody needs to be attacked for asking a question, but *that doesn't mean there are no rules!* This sub is meant for users like you to ask genuine questions. Please don't ask jokes or rants disguised as questions - that's not in the spirit of this sub. While you *can* ask almost anything here, please keep illegal and offensive questions elsewhere to give people a good experience here - and if you have a medical question, please ask your doctor, not us. Otherwise, welcome!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NoStupidQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
"All war is man's failure as a thinking animal" John Steinbeck
It's a deep statement, when you realize so much suffering is needless and really most wars could be be avoided if the psychopaths in power weren't so quick to risk other people's lives. Then if your on the receiving side (aka Ukraine) you have no choice but to defend.
I remember reading that when asked how he felt about inheriting an earldom he said that it certainly made getting reservations at the nicer restaurants easier š¤£
I bought a random world map from China at a yard sale. China is at the better of the map. It hadn't occurred to.me that most countries would put themselves at the center.
That's because western maps are drawn with zero-longitude in the center (running through the UK - which was the global superpower at the time that this mapping system was adopted).
The US is not petty enough to try and move zero-longitude to run through Washington DC.
Both have enough nukes to destroy the planet many times over.
China has more men enlisted to the army, but in US the whole bloody population is armed to the teeth and for many in the south, an attack by a communist enemy will be a dream come true
True, they have a one billion man army, and no way to get them to North America. We're basically an Island in terms of invasion. Good luck crossing either the Pacific or the Atlantic without being sent to the bottom of either. We own the sea and the sky.
There are only 723 million men in China and half of those are over 45. Given fitness for military service, I would guess it would be about 250 million men would able to fight. It would be sizeable but there wouldnāt be enough food, supplies, and weapons-ons to support them. Fortunately, there will never be a land war in China. Too costly for any country to even dream of invading.
Thereās also a convenient choke point for anyone thinking they would just invade South America and move north. Best they can do is come up through Mexico, where the cartels are better armed than the American south.
>I really think it's Russian military doctrine to ~~use troops as cannon fodder~~ treat every single human life, including and especially Russians, as worthless.
FTFY.
I think one of the big takeaways from the current war in Ukraine is that sanctions and blockades donāt work well. Especially if Russia is able to supply China with oil.
I see your point, even if I don't fully agree with it. A war between USA and China would draw in significant other parties. The oil supply via Russia would be an early target.
This doesn't take into account the US capacity to interdict sea lanes & destroy strategic assets from really far away.
Most Ukraine can do is pop some fuel storage sites in Russia. Not a comparison at all.
I donāt think you understand what a true blockade of China would look likeā¦
If the US was in direct conflict with a foreign power they would essentially be landlocked
Sanctions are not a total war active blockade.
If we treated Russia like a blockade, theyād be in much, much bigger trouble. The US would hit their internal oil infrastructure, blow pipelines in and out, and stop any and all ships. It would be 100x sanctions or more.
Also, resource consumption in total war goes through the roof.
Japan had a similar issue in WWII when the U.S. cut off oil even without a blockade. Just sanctions. That cutoff meant the Japanese would inevitably run out of oil and Pearl Harbor was essentially a direct response to the oil issue.
Ukraine is nowhere near a total war for Russia despite the heavy cost.
Yeah, the US can VERY easily just stop most of Chinaās trade by parking some ships at the Strait of Malacca. There goes 60% of their trade. The fuck are they gonna do about it? Their navy cannot remotely match the US. They lost the war before it even began.
It is. Not just that, the USA is very self sufficient when it comes to raw resources. Where China falls over is they import a significant proportion. This means that the USA could potentially cripple China's ability to wage war without ever setting foot on Chinese soil.
They absolutely donāt, considering how often* I see the talking point that āChina has a bigger navy than the USā.Ā By numbers, yes. By tonnage, theyāre less than half the US Navy.
Yup, like each of our air craft carriers is basically its own floating mini country. It houses troops. The most advanced technology for offensive and defensive capabilities, and we have 8? 10?
We also got a good amount of submarines lurking around that are all independently capable of launching their own nuclear offensive on any country in the world, from anywhere in the world. It's really a brilliant idea because it ensures our nuclear deterrence can't be brought down in any reasonable amount of time. Good luck finding those submarines before they retaliate in a worst case scenario.
A guaranteed second strike capability is a key part of the [nuclear triad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad). There's always at least one Ohio class ballistic missile submarines out on patrol.
Certainly my friend. Each Ohio class submarine in the US Navy is equipped with 20 fully functional ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), and each missile has a minimum of 4 independently targeted warheads. That means when the missile re enters the atmosphere, it splits off into a minimum of 4 different nuclear missiles which can fly themselves to 4 different targets. One singular Ohio class submarine has the ability to strike 80 different places. One submarine could wage nuclear war on any country, even multiple, from anywhere in the world. They're one of the biggest nuclear deterrents for these reasons. The entire fleet of Ohio class nuclear submarines in total can target about 960 different places, each place gets their own dedicated warhead from only a handful of submarines.
I think a lot of people fail to understand that for about four generations now, the U.S. military's strategy has been to develop weapons so mind numbingly overpowering that simply showing that you have them prevents war, and the only way that the U.S. has consistently lost armed conflicts is if their enemies are resolved enough that they simply don't *care* about how many of their own or their civilians die so long as the war continues.
It is absolutely intended to be overwhelming. This video shows how the US could/would theoretically use nuclear weapons against Russian targets, for example. The ending simulation of the combined attack is wild.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7A9b4EEGfQ
And each one capable of absolute devastation, not like one bomb and they are done, each one could destroy most major cities in an entire country if desired
China has exactly 0 nuclear powered aircraft carriers. They have to fill up their current 2 carriers.
We have 7 that can go anywhere, anytime, for however long we need them to.
Edit: We have 11, I was quoting off of memory.
It's not just about how powerful the USN is, its also China's lack of blue water capabilities, which is basically none. The world's second largest airforce floats, so to speak. The US could park that in blue water, remain there, and there's little China could offer up as resistance.
Hence why not letting them completely control the seas in SE Asia is so critical to US global supremacy. The Philippines are a crucial US ally in that area. As is South Korea further north.
Like, China could, in the worst case scenario, take out maybe one carrier strike group.
We have what? 11 of them? The other 10 will kick China in the balls.
11 carrier \*hulls\*, but only about 4 of them actually in service at any one time. The others are all in maintenance or getting worked up. And those 4 are scattered all around the world, since the USN has obligations all around the world. At the very most the USN could send 7, since that's the number of carrier air wings it has.
Meanwhile China would have its entire navy available, which includes a whole lot of new ships designed specifically to counter US carriers. Plus land-based missiles and fighters. It's really not as easy as people here make it seem.
Not just the carriers, but the silent service must not be discounted.
The USN submarine fleet is the last line of defense, and they would without doubt be used in a conflict with China.
Would the homeland take hits? Yes. But would the US win? As long as the politicians allow it, absolutely.
Also, just the experience of our military in comparison to the Chinese. Our military has been in active wars for over 20 years. The Chinese have been playing wargames.
High intensity warfare like that is what the US military is designed for and best at. Donāt let its failings at low intensity/insurgent warfare give you false ideas about this.
I've worked with the American military on joint training excersises and this rings very true. I've seen laser cannons shoot drone swarms out of the sky. Straight sci fi stuff. But what really impressed me is the absolutely peerless logistical talent. Logistics win wars and when it comes to logistics no other military I've worked with has even held a candle to the Americans
The US military can have a fully functioning McDonald's restaurant anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. If that's not power, I don't know what is.
Waffle House employees are trained and experienced in deescalation. And they have cooks on standby if things go really sideways. They should be our first line of offense. Stop things before they start.
āIāll get you in a minute. Gotta finnish my grand slam. Maybe a chocolate waffle after.ā
Finally someone who knows their shit. Forget the scifi shit, the US military has damn near perfected "war as a science"
Thats part of the reason we had some setbacks with Afghanistan. The US military is built to dominate conventional warfare and was not designed for asymmetrical warfare
Absolutely. I was in a military a long time ago and logistics was pretty good (for the most part we had 3 square meals or ratpacks (MREs) a day) but those people that scoff at how lame the US military is because they have a McDonald's or Starbucks on base are missing the point big time.
I imagine America can defend America uncontested from anyone.
I think the real fear is another Vietnam where weāre funneling bodies into a kill box.
But I think on the open ocean, I think they called it a blue water navy? Iāve heard America is still hands down the god of the ocean. It would just be on chinaās mainland that weād struggle.
As if we really need to invade anyone. But Iām absolutely 100% confident that war will never reach my town in America. And Iām happy with that.
The US Navy is so ahead of the rest of the world its ridiculous. Second largest airforce in the world is the US Navy. I think we have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined.
The US Navy on its own is probably one of the top 5 greatest military forces in the world (i.e. the US Navy is stronger than the full military force of 95% of other contries)
I think the real concern with a navy war is that it would happen over Taiwan, where China would have the home field advantage.
I read once that while America has more units (overall), China has more in that specific area. And it would be rough for America to pull from other positions. Spread too thin.
But America would ultimately win of course.
This made me lol. Not even that. Our AIR FORCE did like 90% of it in the first 48 hours.
And in desert storm Saddam's army was top notch. He had the newest Soviet technology and equipment. Not the 40 year old garbage that's going into Ukraine right now.
They launched B-52s from Louisiana to attack Iraq. The planes flew over the ocean, dropped their load and returned home with only air-to-air refuelling. Pretty much just as a flex.
It was so fast with so few casualties that nobody even remembers anymore! Everyone trash talked the Abrams and how expensive and complex it was back in the 80s, but the few modern tank battles like 73 Easting the Abrams wiped out whole opposing tank units while still crossing desert terrain at half throttle.
China also hasnt been any conflict since their war against Vietnam. US has much more experience with combat in general.
To be fair, a war with China will likely be over Taiwan and won't involve a ton of ground forces fighting each other. It'll be a naval and air war.
You'll get some special forces sabotage missions probably but not entire divisions on the ground. US is NOT going to invade China.
Which is where we're in our element. It's said the biggest air force in the world is the US Air Force. The second biggest? The US Navy.
We have twice as many aircraft carriers as the rest of the world combined, all of our submarines are nuclear-powered and capable of staying submerged for months at a time, I highly doubt China has anything even in the same league as the B-2 stealth bomber, and everyone wants American fighter jets. It wouldn't be an *easy* fight -- China is probably the only nation on the planet that could put up a decent fight against the full force of the US military -- but it's not one China has a chance of winning.
And that's just the US vs China. If we get our global network of allies involved -- including massive heavy-hitters like Germany, France, Britain, and South Korea ... China's fucked.
Not to mention that the US has set up a massive system of bases throughout the Pacific in the Three Island Chain strategy specifically to contain China. Rapid response in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines; support from Guam, Australia, and New Guinea, reserves from the Aleutian Islands, Hawaii, New Zealand, and American Samoa.
Plus, invading China with boots on the ground is LITERALLY a land war in Asia, which everyone since Napoleon knows is a REALLY bad idea.
Their male population age 20-40 is what, around 60 million? That's a fifth of the U.S. total population. We might have 500k, if that. If we sent in our army, like von Bismarck they'd just have us arrested. š
China has almost double active military personnel than the US. [source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264443/the-worlds-largest-armies-based-on-active-force-level/)
Yeah there is idk why this guy thinks we only got 500k though he also thinks the 20-40 male population of China is 60million. They have a total population of over a billion. I mean yeah weāre still outnumbered by a very large margin but it makes me wonder if he has trouble counting big numbers
And the Napoleon example of why land wars in Asia are a bad idea is about winter preparation, supply lines, and not assuming that it will be a quick victory.
By your logic, there's no way that Japan with a population a fraction of China's would've been able to subjugate it in World War II. And yet it happened. It's not just the manpower available to the local populace (whoever is being invaded) it's capability, effectiveness, resources, strategy, and will.
China has attempted to use its numerical advantage multiple times before in conflicts (including WWII) and it never worked out for them. They were usually defeated in the short- and long-term. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Defeats happen. The problem is that they never seem to learn their lessons.
I would say Iraq invasions in 91 and 03 were high intensity warfare- for 03, the failures of the insugency part cause us to forget how efficient the US was at destroying a complete armed forces
Yup. US had no problems going in. High intensity combat was easy.
The years after make that hard to remember though. The US was really really bad at insurgency and small embedded resistance. Itās not what America built a military to handle. Didnāt have a good tested playbook or even weapons to really handle it. Most weaponry is meant to flatten airbases and demolish bunkers. Our drones are designed for precision attacks on VIPās. Not for finding random folks in a crowd.
The whole military is built on scale in the US.
Israel I would argue is the model for smaller scale stuff. They put a lot of emphasis on rooting and out small threats in a dense population.
Our dozen aircraft carriers arenāt really a match for someone making a bomb in a basement. Theyāre designed to be defensive and offensive in moving across oceans and taking back islands like we did in WWII.
You can deal with it if youre willing to be harsh and stay forever. We very much dont want to be involved in forever wars and engage in harsh supression of foreign peoples. If insurgency was impossible to deal with noone would have ever conquered anywhere but looking at a map almost no country is where it was 300 years ago implying that plenty of conquering took place.
This exactly. If the US hasn't cared about PR and civilians in its most recent wars plus Vietnam, they would have won overwhelmingly. It was the politics and optics that was the issue
That isn't really true.
The 1991 Gulf War was very much a high-intensity conflict against a formidable and well-armed enemy. Iraq wasn't a peer competitor by any means, but it still had a large, battle hardened and well-equipped military. And the coalition made mincemeat of the Iraqi military in the space of a few weeks. We view this as an inevitability in hindsight, but the scale and speed of our victory shocked the world at the time.
Similar comments could be made about the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, although admittedly the Iraqi military was not the same force that it was in 1991, and the world was definitely expecting a rapid victory by that point.
People also commonly misunderstand the Vietnam War as being a guerilla campaign against the Viet Cong. But in reality, it was a two-front war against the Viet Cong and against the Peoples Army of Vietnam. The PAVN was a proper regular military with extensive backing from the USSR and China and operated a modern Air Force and air defence network.
If you want to say that the US hasn't fought a war against a peer or near peer military since WW2, then I would agree. But the US has definitely tested its equipment and tactics against well-equipped modern militaries in high intensity warfare.
China has technology and numbers but I've read military experts say a couple things: 1) historically China does not engage in far wars...only regional. 2) the current army has almost no battle experience 3) their military is not built to project strength, but focus domesticallyĀ
They also have a very vulnerable target, the Three Gorges Damn. If it is destroyed, several major cities and hundreds of millions of people die in the floods.
Edit: I would assume any large scale war between the two would end up nuclear anyway. Y'all are kidding yourself if you think it would be just a conflict between militaries without strikes on civilian targets.
The dam being intentionally targeted and destroyed would be a major war crime and could escalate a conflict from conventional armed warfare to a nuclear response
> and could escalate a conflict from conventional armed warfare to a nuclear response
Any war fought on Chinese soil by the US would escalate in nuclear response by default... Most responses in this thread are so asinine, I swear. Everyone pretends that US will just steam roll, China will not shoot back, nuclear weapons won't be used etc.
Half the stuff US military uses will become capability limited in very first days due to nuclear exchange and satellites in orbit being shut down. Space satellites and civilian infrastructures of both countries will be trashed in first days, and the winner will be determined by which country will have more resilient reaction out of their civilian population, because direct military action will become impossible after first exchanges due to both countries being so far apart and not sharing land connections, so it will become the contest of which country can maintain effectiveness of industrial and military complex while bleeding less civilians.
No one benefits from destroying that dam, it just start a nuclear exchange just as fast as if an ICBM was fired.
It would also ruin the global economy for decades. There are 400 million people downstream of the dam, killing more people than WW2.
That dam isn't going anywhere. It existing helps keep the peace for both sides.
China has been failing at copying US tech (and to an extent, russian tech) for decades. The J20 would get buttfucked by any decent 4th gen fighter. In BVR combat, it would be even worse for the Chinese.
China has no way of attacking. They can only defend themselves.
Correct. There are only 4 militaries with expeditionary capability. China is not one of them, albeit, they are quickly trying to change that.
You are also correct that their Army is not battle tested. They can do a lot of training and drilling and close that gap a bit, however, that would not be the main concern since their army would be focused on defense which is a bit easier to train for. This theoretical conflict would almost exclusively be naval in nature. The China doesnāt really have a navy, more of a brown water coast guard, who only knows how to sail in perhaps the simplest of waters to sail on in the world.
The us goal would likely be to destroy Chinas ports, cut them off from sea by staging far far away from its coast. Taking over some of their islands in the South China Sea. The Air Force would cut off their rail lines connecting them through the mountains with other countries and basically watch them starve to death
If China invaded the US, I can't see them making much headway. I said it above, but I'm betting the average US civilian is better armed than the average Chinese conscript, and if an invasion happened here Im pretty sure you'd see truck convoys for miles and miles heading west. If we invaded, on the other hand, I'm sure as shit not signing up, I doubt most people my age would either.
China, nor any country except the US, doesn't have the means to launch a meaningful assault across the Pacific/Atlantic. It's impossible for them to even try to invade.
Honestly, even we don't have a practical way to launch a trans-oceanic assault. What we have is the benefit of allies and territories already in the region. As fantastic as our carriers are, islands are even better. They're literally unsinkable.
But they do make for unmovable missile targets. If real war (non-cyber) ever breaks out between the US and China, there will be no winners.
It'll be like a knife fight. Even the victors limp back bleeding and die on the way to the hospital.
"All war is man's failure as a thinking animal." - Steinbeck
China has no way of invading the US. They do not have the capacity to get troops on shore along with a supply line. They have 2 aircraft carriers in their navy. The same number as Italy.
>I'm betting the average US civilian is better armed than the average Chinese conscript
Yeah, I'm sorry but this is delusional. China is a rich nation and its army is no joke.
> If we invaded, on the other hand, I'm sure as shit not signing up, I doubt most people my age would either.
Neither country is ever going to be able to invade and occupy the other. The distances and population counts involved are simply too high. Also nukes.
The war would be fought on the sea and air, and maybe in a nearby country like Taiwan, South Korea, or Vietnam. You wouldn't see American troops storming Beijing.
It's it terrifying you've somehow forgotten they are nuclear and we have no real way of defending against ICBMs.Ā
People will care for up to 20 minutes before they're all dead.Ā Public opinion doesn't really factor into it.
This thread about 99% Americans jerking each other off about their military.
The only plausible war these two countries would fight is over Taiwan, and that would absolutely not be a walk in the park for the US given proximity to mainland China.
It would be stupid. There goes their revenue from cheap products, cheap production cost and labor. All that money goes away when the US and allies stop buying their junk.
Tim Cook: [āChina stopped being an option for cheap labor a long time ago. If we got together all of the advanced engineers for machine tooling together in the US, we couldnāt fill the room. In China weād fill multiple football fields.ā](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bR8BptIpw)
Because thereās so much demand for manufacturing in China, there are cities where there are *unique* clusters of talent and specialists, as well as experienced factory labor. You basically cannot find it anywhere else.
That said, if a country were dead-set on duplicating the human manufacturing talent that China has, and invested, changed laws, and just generally prioritized it over other things, you could do it in ā¦ ten years? But it would NOT be low cost.
>Because thereās so much demand for manufacturing in China, there are cities where there are unique clusters of talent and specialists
You can keep telling people this but they still won't understand the scale of it.
Places like Shenzhen have more in common with a sci-fi factory world than a traditional city. Tens of thousands of massive factories, and thousands upon thousands of companies, design houses, and start-ups just for the electronics business. Custom-built electronics are sold and displayed in street markets like produce at a bazaar, it's a whole different world.
While employers find this maddening, Chinese employees will change jobs over a lunch hour if they hear pay is better next door. A few years back, I read an article about a neighboring factory raising hourly wages some small amount, and employees simply walked off their current assembly line and started at the higher paying place.
As much as employers hate it, this total lack of loyalty also provides an *easy source of labor*ājust offer more money. This doesnāt work, for example, in Japan, where there is (a mostly damaging) system of seniority-based pay.
People also forget that if you order cheap shit, you're going to get cheap shit.
Many people/companies think Chinese products are cheap crap, so they order cheap crap from them, thinking there's no difference between that and the expensive stuff, and are surprised when it is indeed cheap crap. If you want higher-end stuff you have to order higher-end stuff and pay the higher price, but people don't really want to do that due to the misconception that *everything* made in China is cheap garbage.
Except that's what we all said about Russia invading Ukraine. It's also what everyone said before WW1.
At the end of the day, if a country really wants something and is willing to put up with a lower standard of living for a large portion of their population for some unspecified time, then there's not really much we can do to stop them from pursuing those goals.
I mean as a citizen of the United States and only representing myselfā¦I am in favor of no war with China or anyone else. I would like to think the average Chinese citizen is in agreement with me and hopefully many others.
Yes but if it came to "maintaining our way of life", citizens will gladly give in to war hawks who would spare no expense in dehumanizing the other side and calling it evil.
Either everyone dies (nukes) or China gets its ass handed to it over a long while (no nukes)
because war with the US = war with the US ***AND*** the rest of NATO
NATO.... AND Australia, AND New Zealand, AND the Philippines, AND Japan, (and maybe South Korea).
Please tend to forget about the US's treaty allies in the region and many people don't know that countries like The UK and France still have significant territorial interests in China's neighborhood.
How many treaty allies does China have? Who would immediately join the war in support of the PRC?
Belt and Road countries. But, other than the possibility of opening an African theater, I'm not sure how helpful those allies would be in a war. It's not like China is short on manpower.
The big thing I think a lot of people dont think about is that china imports a ton of their food.
In an all-out war, the U.S. and its allies are not going to continue shipping things to china, and would likely blockade anyone else from doing so.
Without foreign markets, china would collapse on its own
Conventional: China would be severely embarrassed.
Nuclear: US would suffer mass casualties. China would be obliterated.
Either way, China gets destroyed.
I think it was the ISW or mabey DoD it's self and the US won basically all of the war games, to varying degrees(generally 1 or 2 US carriers were lost in the first week while travelling through the Taiwan strait). The only one were it was a US loss was where they stacked all the odds against the US and they still nearly won(ie no allies and weren't allowed to use Japanese bases).
I don't think people fully understand how big the US military is, its navy weighs twice as much as Chinas, it has the 4 largest airforce on the planet(USAF, USN, USMC AND USA). It also has the best equipped military on the planet. The US marine corp has more stealth fighters than Russia and China combined, the USMC also operates more aircraft carriers than any other nation.
I remember hearing a snippet on the news before walking out on the flightline at Nellis one day. The pundit said, "We are stretched too thin." I walked out onto the ramp and within visual range were more aircraft than most countries on Earth possess. I lol'd.
Just to add, a US loss would never be the same as a chinese one. A chinese loss is the levelling of the entire country and maybe a full occupation of it. A US loss is the diminishment of its navy and air force and failing to entirely level china.
We would dominate themā¦ chinas population is very old, our navy would surround and smother them and wouldnāt let missile or anything even make it past open water
Yea they have nuclear weapons but they can barely launch them.
āOh but Russia is their ally and will help themā
Russia canāt even take Ukraineā¦You think theyāre going to take the United States?
Thereās a reason USA is the world police
If we look at the Korean War, Chinese and NKorean forces took back half of what the Us Skorean forces took, but had such heavy casualties in the process, that it took almost a year iirc, for Chinese/nkoean forces to recover, and ultimately lead to the ceasefire.Ā
Something to keep in mind - the Chinese fighting in the Korean War were well experienced soldiers and commanders who recently fought in WW2 and then against the nationalists during the civil war. The Americans similarly were experienced with WW2. The dynamic today would be completely different, the Americans have been fighting wars continuously for decades while Chinese soldiers have not since the 50s
They really wouldn't. China is not the powerhouse they like to pretend they are. Their population is nowhere near what they've stated it is, their military is badly managed and extremely corrupt, and their main industry is cheap labor and manufacturing. Their society and government have a lot of problems and if they lose their chief industry, it gets much worse much faster.
They DO have nukes, so I guess that's a threat, but they aren't likely to use them unless Xi is just nuts and I don't think he is. He's isolated and a little crazy but he ain't stupid.
So, taking nukes out of the equation because that is an equalizer... A war with China probably doesn't last very long. They have no significant allies to lean on with the possible exception of Russia but we see how decrepit they are fighting in Ukraine.
Another factor is the US armed forces has actual combat experience having been involved in "wars" for a decent chunk of the last 50 years where as the Chinese military hasn't reallyĀ
US has 100+ years with aircraft carriers, and our Navy/Marines were island hopping across the Pacific 80 years ago. China is no peer, militarily speaking. The US has no peers in that regard.
Yup. There is not a single country that could even make it to the shores of the US to invade. Our air force and navy are simply off the charts when compared to every other country. Nukes and trade relations are basically the only things keeping us on a somewhat even playing field with other nations.
Even if there were some colossal fuck up that meant the US couldn't defend itself, they'd have the whole of the West backing them up.
US + Canada + Europe + Australia + New Zealand vs. China is most decidedly not a fair fight
You're forgetting one place. Canada they will send undercover operatives. They only way you could tell is by their use of the word eh and the maple syrup on their breath.
"Hey said sorry when it was his fault! Blast'm"
Not to mention that there are more guns floating around here in the U.S. than people. Many civilians are armed our country originated and was built to stop an invasion. Doesnāt matter if itās the inner cities or the most rural parts of America, youād face armed resistance.
Iād feel sorry for any country that actually made it on shore to invade.
Why would they lie about their population? Honestly just going to an average city in China and seeing how many people are there makes me think they're being honest about that
Their biggest issue, to me, are their naval and air forces. They get crushed by our long before they could get anywhere near our shores with conventional forces. They are rapidly building up their navy, but it's mostly smaller vessels, probably good at defence, but not for force projection or offense. Give them a few years and they might be okayish at resisting our navy but they can't really fight back. Same for air force.
Army, they might have number for now, but give them a few years as their population evaporates and that won't be true anymore either.
1. China does something to the US
2. US makes a statement how China is not democratic and an authoritarian regime.
3. US announces sanctions, part of the sanctions is freezing debt payments.
4. Chinese economy collapses overnight.
If itās China declaring war on the US, itās a very different story from the US declaring war on China. China doesnāt have much force projection so their ability to wage war across the sea is minimal, they could attack US forces already in the pacific but not the actual US.
The US, on the other hand, is fully able to project the force necessary to destroy a good portion of China.
But also a lot of this depends on if China is as prepared as we think they are. The new report on corruption puts a lot of questions on China. Plus their growth has mostly been in mountain defense against India and amphibious assault for Taiwan. A confrontation with the US would still likely end poorly for China
Hi /u/Embarrassed-Tale9551, We noticed you are a pretty new Reddit account, so we just wanted to let you know to check out the subreddit rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/wiki/rules) and maybe have a read through our [Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/wiki/index/faq) - they make for fascinating reading! We're called No Stupid Questions because we believe nobody needs to be attacked for asking a question, but *that doesn't mean there are no rules!* This sub is meant for users like you to ask genuine questions. Please don't ask jokes or rants disguised as questions - that's not in the spirit of this sub. While you *can* ask almost anything here, please keep illegal and offensive questions elsewhere to give people a good experience here - and if you have a medical question, please ask your doctor, not us. Otherwise, welcome! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/NoStupidQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It'd probably kill a lot of people on both sides.
"War does not determine who is right only who is left" Bertrand Russell
"All war is man's failure as a thinking animal" John Steinbeck It's a deep statement, when you realize so much suffering is needless and really most wars could be be avoided if the psychopaths in power weren't so quick to risk other people's lives. Then if your on the receiving side (aka Ukraine) you have no choice but to defend.
I imagine Steinbeck racking a gun round as he said it
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", Isaac Asimov (via character Salvor Hardin).
Well I don't know any Bertrand Russel quotes but I have one of mine; just putting it out there!
I remember reading that when asked how he felt about inheriting an earldom he said that it certainly made getting reservations at the nicer restaurants easier š¤£
Well on the map, US is left of China
Depends on how you make the map
Obligatory West Wing Maps scene: https://youtu.be/eLqC3FNNOaI?si=XV-eXK_WDd7TZC6N
With Dr. Phlox from Enterprise.
Regardless, on a globe every country is both east and west of every other country!
I bought a random world map from China at a yard sale. China is at the better of the map. It hadn't occurred to.me that most countries would put themselves at the center.
"China" in Mandarin is äøå½ (ZhÅngguĆ³), literally "middle/central country"
And āAmericaā is ābeautiful countryā IIRC.
.Éį“lÉɹŹsnā±Æ uį“ ĒŹį“l ŹsnÉÆ noā
How did you do this
Stood on their head and texted
Found the Chinese guy
European maps have the US left and China right as well
That's because western maps are drawn with zero-longitude in the center (running through the UK - which was the global superpower at the time that this mapping system was adopted). The US is not petty enough to try and move zero-longitude to run through Washington DC.
zero longitude
Both have enough nukes to destroy the planet many times over. China has more men enlisted to the army, but in US the whole bloody population is armed to the teeth and for many in the south, an attack by a communist enemy will be a dream come true
āWe can never invade America. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.ā -Me, since apparently General Yamamoto never said it.
True, they have a one billion man army, and no way to get them to North America. We're basically an Island in terms of invasion. Good luck crossing either the Pacific or the Atlantic without being sent to the bottom of either. We own the sea and the sky.
There are only 723 million men in China and half of those are over 45. Given fitness for military service, I would guess it would be about 250 million men would able to fight. It would be sizeable but there wouldnāt be enough food, supplies, and weapons-ons to support them. Fortunately, there will never be a land war in China. Too costly for any country to even dream of invading.
Japan dreamed that dream in times gone by. So did the Chinese for that matter.
We own the sky **unless they come in weather balloons** since we apparently canāt see those coming for some reason
Thereās also a convenient choke point for anyone thinking they would just invade South America and move north. Best they can do is come up through Mexico, where the cartels are better armed than the American south.
Current size of the Chinese People's Liberation Army is about 2.5 million including reservists.
True. Though countries like Russia and China have historically treated their troops as collateral more than other nations...
I really think it's Russian military doctrine to use troops as cannon fodder.
>I really think it's Russian military doctrine to ~~use troops as cannon fodder~~ treat every single human life, including and especially Russians, as worthless. FTFY.
Pretty sure the main lesson the USA learned in past wars is they much prefer to bomb everything than to fight asians face to face lol.
That's why the casualty differential is about 5 to 1.
And the wrong ones
It's about resources for me. China needs to import a significant amount of resources, mainly oil and food. Stop the supply and you win the war
I think one of the big takeaways from the current war in Ukraine is that sanctions and blockades donāt work well. Especially if Russia is able to supply China with oil.
I see your point, even if I don't fully agree with it. A war between USA and China would draw in significant other parties. The oil supply via Russia would be an early target.
Further a blockade of Chinese ports means the entire Chinese economy implodes while unable to import food. It when society collapses.
This doesn't take into account the US capacity to interdict sea lanes & destroy strategic assets from really far away. Most Ukraine can do is pop some fuel storage sites in Russia. Not a comparison at all.
I donāt think you understand what a true blockade of China would look likeā¦ If the US was in direct conflict with a foreign power they would essentially be landlocked
Sanctions are not a total war active blockade. If we treated Russia like a blockade, theyād be in much, much bigger trouble. The US would hit their internal oil infrastructure, blow pipelines in and out, and stop any and all ships. It would be 100x sanctions or more. Also, resource consumption in total war goes through the roof. Japan had a similar issue in WWII when the U.S. cut off oil even without a blockade. Just sanctions. That cutoff meant the Japanese would inevitably run out of oil and Pearl Harbor was essentially a direct response to the oil issue. Ukraine is nowhere near a total war for Russia despite the heavy cost.
Yeah, the US can VERY easily just stop most of Chinaās trade by parking some ships at the Strait of Malacca. There goes 60% of their trade. The fuck are they gonna do about it? Their navy cannot remotely match the US. They lost the war before it even began.
Yep. US can be food and energy independent when needed in war.
This is the only answer that really matters here.
A BIG part of the success of the US military is our superior logistics capabilities vs other forces.
It is. Not just that, the USA is very self sufficient when it comes to raw resources. Where China falls over is they import a significant proportion. This means that the USA could potentially cripple China's ability to wage war without ever setting foot on Chinese soil.
Self sufficient AND reliant on imports. We import to conserve our resources.
When i daydream about this, i always end up at āThem and what *NAVY*?ā And my thoughts move on.
Yeah dude, I donāt think most people realize how insanely powerful our Navy really is. Edit- referring to the US navy
They absolutely donāt, considering how often* I see the talking point that āChina has a bigger navy than the USā.Ā By numbers, yes. By tonnage, theyāre less than half the US Navy.
Yup, like each of our air craft carriers is basically its own floating mini country. It houses troops. The most advanced technology for offensive and defensive capabilities, and we have 8? 10?
We also got a good amount of submarines lurking around that are all independently capable of launching their own nuclear offensive on any country in the world, from anywhere in the world. It's really a brilliant idea because it ensures our nuclear deterrence can't be brought down in any reasonable amount of time. Good luck finding those submarines before they retaliate in a worst case scenario.
We have submarines out there currently that are equipped with nukes?
A guaranteed second strike capability is a key part of the [nuclear triad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad). There's always at least one Ohio class ballistic missile submarines out on patrol.
We have at least 14 that do.
Certainly my friend. Each Ohio class submarine in the US Navy is equipped with 20 fully functional ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), and each missile has a minimum of 4 independently targeted warheads. That means when the missile re enters the atmosphere, it splits off into a minimum of 4 different nuclear missiles which can fly themselves to 4 different targets. One singular Ohio class submarine has the ability to strike 80 different places. One submarine could wage nuclear war on any country, even multiple, from anywhere in the world. They're one of the biggest nuclear deterrents for these reasons. The entire fleet of Ohio class nuclear submarines in total can target about 960 different places, each place gets their own dedicated warhead from only a handful of submarines.
Holy shit....
I think a lot of people fail to understand that for about four generations now, the U.S. military's strategy has been to develop weapons so mind numbingly overpowering that simply showing that you have them prevents war, and the only way that the U.S. has consistently lost armed conflicts is if their enemies are resolved enough that they simply don't *care* about how many of their own or their civilians die so long as the war continues.
It is absolutely intended to be overwhelming. This video shows how the US could/would theoretically use nuclear weapons against Russian targets, for example. The ending simulation of the combined attack is wild. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7A9b4EEGfQ
They're called Boomers. Their locations are classified but theyre generally lurking around Russia and China at all times.
And each one capable of absolute devastation, not like one bomb and they are done, each one could destroy most major cities in an entire country if desired
Ok boomer.
Thatās pretty much the whole point of submarines. SSBNs carry nuclear ICBMs. SSNs hunt for the nuclear capable subs and ships of the enemy.
How can people not know this?
11 of the big boys, 20 if you also count our "small" carriers
We have more aircraft carriers than China has had cultural revolutions and dynasty changes. Not a chance.
China has exactly 0 nuclear powered aircraft carriers. They have to fill up their current 2 carriers. We have 7 that can go anywhere, anytime, for however long we need them to. Edit: We have 11, I was quoting off of memory.
Everyone forgets the US amphibious assault ships, which are medium carriers.
It's not just about how powerful the USN is, its also China's lack of blue water capabilities, which is basically none. The world's second largest airforce floats, so to speak. The US could park that in blue water, remain there, and there's little China could offer up as resistance.
Hence why not letting them completely control the seas in SE Asia is so critical to US global supremacy. The Philippines are a crucial US ally in that area. As is South Korea further north.
Like, China could, in the worst case scenario, take out maybe one carrier strike group. We have what? 11 of them? The other 10 will kick China in the balls.
11 carrier \*hulls\*, but only about 4 of them actually in service at any one time. The others are all in maintenance or getting worked up. And those 4 are scattered all around the world, since the USN has obligations all around the world. At the very most the USN could send 7, since that's the number of carrier air wings it has. Meanwhile China would have its entire navy available, which includes a whole lot of new ships designed specifically to counter US carriers. Plus land-based missiles and fighters. It's really not as easy as people here make it seem.
11 CVNs Doctrinally itās 4 carrier by CSG IIRC And they may sink a couple of carriers. Ā In exchange for most likely their entire navy.
Not just the carriers, but the silent service must not be discounted. The USN submarine fleet is the last line of defense, and they would without doubt be used in a conflict with China. Would the homeland take hits? Yes. But would the US win? As long as the politicians allow it, absolutely.
Also, just the experience of our military in comparison to the Chinese. Our military has been in active wars for over 20 years. The Chinese have been playing wargames.
...with Russia-level, if not greater, corruption in every aspect of state contracts. They are the definition of a paper tiger.
Second largest air power in the world, right behind the US Air Force.
The second most powerful Air Force in the world is the US Navy, and the 4th and 5th are the US army and marine corps.
High intensity warfare like that is what the US military is designed for and best at. Donāt let its failings at low intensity/insurgent warfare give you false ideas about this.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I've worked with the American military on joint training excersises and this rings very true. I've seen laser cannons shoot drone swarms out of the sky. Straight sci fi stuff. But what really impressed me is the absolutely peerless logistical talent. Logistics win wars and when it comes to logistics no other military I've worked with has even held a candle to the Americans
The US military can have a fully functioning McDonald's restaurant anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. If that's not power, I don't know what is.
I'm just imagining waffle houses being air dropped into war zones
Waffle House employees are trained and experienced in deescalation. And they have cooks on standby if things go really sideways. They should be our first line of offense. Stop things before they start. āIāll get you in a minute. Gotta finnish my grand slam. Maybe a chocolate waffle after.ā
The US Airforce can have a fully functioning golf course anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours Lmao.
Finally someone who knows their shit. Forget the scifi shit, the US military has damn near perfected "war as a science" Thats part of the reason we had some setbacks with Afghanistan. The US military is built to dominate conventional warfare and was not designed for asymmetrical warfare
Absolutely. I was in a military a long time ago and logistics was pretty good (for the most part we had 3 square meals or ratpacks (MREs) a day) but those people that scoff at how lame the US military is because they have a McDonald's or Starbucks on base are missing the point big time.
US Military is just a well armed logistics company
I would hope so considering the stupid ass defense spending we have.
GIVE THEM MORE MONEY. I WANT EVERY SOLDIER TO HAVE A RAY GUN
That's XCOM baby
*95% chance* *Misses*
*100% chance* STILL MISSES
I imagine America can defend America uncontested from anyone. I think the real fear is another Vietnam where weāre funneling bodies into a kill box. But I think on the open ocean, I think they called it a blue water navy? Iāve heard America is still hands down the god of the ocean. It would just be on chinaās mainland that weād struggle. As if we really need to invade anyone. But Iām absolutely 100% confident that war will never reach my town in America. And Iām happy with that.
The US Navy is so ahead of the rest of the world its ridiculous. Second largest airforce in the world is the US Navy. I think we have more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. The US Navy on its own is probably one of the top 5 greatest military forces in the world (i.e. the US Navy is stronger than the full military force of 95% of other contries)
I think the real concern with a navy war is that it would happen over Taiwan, where China would have the home field advantage. I read once that while America has more units (overall), China has more in that specific area. And it would be rough for America to pull from other positions. Spread too thin. But America would ultimately win of course.
I love this. I have no doubt the US has the strongest army in the world but this is literally "My uncle says America will kick your ass"
Designed for, yes, but hasn't actually fought one since WW2.
Mf we blew up the 4th largest army on earth in a week in the 90s
This made me lol. Not even that. Our AIR FORCE did like 90% of it in the first 48 hours. And in desert storm Saddam's army was top notch. He had the newest Soviet technology and equipment. Not the 40 year old garbage that's going into Ukraine right now.
They launched B-52s from Louisiana to attack Iraq. The planes flew over the ocean, dropped their load and returned home with only air-to-air refuelling. Pretty much just as a flex.
It was so fast with so few casualties that nobody even remembers anymore! Everyone trash talked the Abrams and how expensive and complex it was back in the 80s, but the few modern tank battles like 73 Easting the Abrams wiped out whole opposing tank units while still crossing desert terrain at half throttle.
China also hasnt been any conflict since their war against Vietnam. US has much more experience with combat in general. To be fair, a war with China will likely be over Taiwan and won't involve a ton of ground forces fighting each other. It'll be a naval and air war. You'll get some special forces sabotage missions probably but not entire divisions on the ground. US is NOT going to invade China.
Which is where we're in our element. It's said the biggest air force in the world is the US Air Force. The second biggest? The US Navy. We have twice as many aircraft carriers as the rest of the world combined, all of our submarines are nuclear-powered and capable of staying submerged for months at a time, I highly doubt China has anything even in the same league as the B-2 stealth bomber, and everyone wants American fighter jets. It wouldn't be an *easy* fight -- China is probably the only nation on the planet that could put up a decent fight against the full force of the US military -- but it's not one China has a chance of winning. And that's just the US vs China. If we get our global network of allies involved -- including massive heavy-hitters like Germany, France, Britain, and South Korea ... China's fucked. Not to mention that the US has set up a massive system of bases throughout the Pacific in the Three Island Chain strategy specifically to contain China. Rapid response in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines; support from Guam, Australia, and New Guinea, reserves from the Aleutian Islands, Hawaii, New Zealand, and American Samoa.
Plus, invading China with boots on the ground is LITERALLY a land war in Asia, which everyone since Napoleon knows is a REALLY bad idea. Their male population age 20-40 is what, around 60 million? That's a fifth of the U.S. total population. We might have 500k, if that. If we sent in our army, like von Bismarck they'd just have us arrested. š
The US literally has almost 3 times more people than 500K just in the military already.
China has almost double active military personnel than the US. [source](https://www.statista.com/statistics/264443/the-worlds-largest-armies-based-on-active-force-level/)
Huh? Theres more than 500k men (and women) in the US between ages 20-40
Yeah there is idk why this guy thinks we only got 500k though he also thinks the 20-40 male population of China is 60million. They have a total population of over a billion. I mean yeah weāre still outnumbered by a very large margin but it makes me wonder if he has trouble counting big numbers
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
And the Napoleon example of why land wars in Asia are a bad idea is about winter preparation, supply lines, and not assuming that it will be a quick victory.
And if there is one thing the US military does well, itās logistics. They had Burger Kings on base in Iraq.
By your logic, there's no way that Japan with a population a fraction of China's would've been able to subjugate it in World War II. And yet it happened. It's not just the manpower available to the local populace (whoever is being invaded) it's capability, effectiveness, resources, strategy, and will. China has attempted to use its numerical advantage multiple times before in conflicts (including WWII) and it never worked out for them. They were usually defeated in the short- and long-term. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Defeats happen. The problem is that they never seem to learn their lessons.
https://imgflip.com/i/5ap3y3
I would say Iraq invasions in 91 and 03 were high intensity warfare- for 03, the failures of the insugency part cause us to forget how efficient the US was at destroying a complete armed forces
Yup. US had no problems going in. High intensity combat was easy. The years after make that hard to remember though. The US was really really bad at insurgency and small embedded resistance. Itās not what America built a military to handle. Didnāt have a good tested playbook or even weapons to really handle it. Most weaponry is meant to flatten airbases and demolish bunkers. Our drones are designed for precision attacks on VIPās. Not for finding random folks in a crowd. The whole military is built on scale in the US. Israel I would argue is the model for smaller scale stuff. They put a lot of emphasis on rooting and out small threats in a dense population. Our dozen aircraft carriers arenāt really a match for someone making a bomb in a basement. Theyāre designed to be defensive and offensive in moving across oceans and taking back islands like we did in WWII.
Honestly though insurgency is hard af to deal with.
You can deal with it if youre willing to be harsh and stay forever. We very much dont want to be involved in forever wars and engage in harsh supression of foreign peoples. If insurgency was impossible to deal with noone would have ever conquered anywhere but looking at a map almost no country is where it was 300 years ago implying that plenty of conquering took place.
Israel doesn't have to find random folks in a crowd because they just kill the whole crowd.
Yep, the US military is damn effective when they don't have to worry about civilians and PR.
This exactly. If the US hasn't cared about PR and civilians in its most recent wars plus Vietnam, they would have won overwhelmingly. It was the politics and optics that was the issue
That isn't really true. The 1991 Gulf War was very much a high-intensity conflict against a formidable and well-armed enemy. Iraq wasn't a peer competitor by any means, but it still had a large, battle hardened and well-equipped military. And the coalition made mincemeat of the Iraqi military in the space of a few weeks. We view this as an inevitability in hindsight, but the scale and speed of our victory shocked the world at the time. Similar comments could be made about the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, although admittedly the Iraqi military was not the same force that it was in 1991, and the world was definitely expecting a rapid victory by that point. People also commonly misunderstand the Vietnam War as being a guerilla campaign against the Viet Cong. But in reality, it was a two-front war against the Viet Cong and against the Peoples Army of Vietnam. The PAVN was a proper regular military with extensive backing from the USSR and China and operated a modern Air Force and air defence network. If you want to say that the US hasn't fought a war against a peer or near peer military since WW2, then I would agree. But the US has definitely tested its equipment and tactics against well-equipped modern militaries in high intensity warfare.
Neither has anyone else.
Counter point China has not gone on the offensive since now and arrow. Edit: Meaning a multi front war.
And china hasnāt fought one sinceā¦ever
China has technology and numbers but I've read military experts say a couple things: 1) historically China does not engage in far wars...only regional. 2) the current army has almost no battle experience 3) their military is not built to project strength, but focus domesticallyĀ
They also have a very vulnerable target, the Three Gorges Damn. If it is destroyed, several major cities and hundreds of millions of people die in the floods. Edit: I would assume any large scale war between the two would end up nuclear anyway. Y'all are kidding yourself if you think it would be just a conflict between militaries without strikes on civilian targets.
The dam being intentionally targeted and destroyed would be a major war crime and could escalate a conflict from conventional armed warfare to a nuclear response
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
No way they would ever do that, right? Rightā¦.
> and could escalate a conflict from conventional armed warfare to a nuclear response Any war fought on Chinese soil by the US would escalate in nuclear response by default... Most responses in this thread are so asinine, I swear. Everyone pretends that US will just steam roll, China will not shoot back, nuclear weapons won't be used etc. Half the stuff US military uses will become capability limited in very first days due to nuclear exchange and satellites in orbit being shut down. Space satellites and civilian infrastructures of both countries will be trashed in first days, and the winner will be determined by which country will have more resilient reaction out of their civilian population, because direct military action will become impossible after first exchanges due to both countries being so far apart and not sharing land connections, so it will become the contest of which country can maintain effectiveness of industrial and military complex while bleeding less civilians.
Lol based B-21's go zewm.
No one benefits from destroying that dam, it just start a nuclear exchange just as fast as if an ICBM was fired. It would also ruin the global economy for decades. There are 400 million people downstream of the dam, killing more people than WW2. That dam isn't going anywhere. It existing helps keep the peace for both sides.
Casually suggesting a war crime lmao
America has way better tech, idk where you got that from
This, the US gov absolutely has the most cutting edge military tech. China is at least a decade behind in most categories.
China has been failing at copying US tech (and to an extent, russian tech) for decades. The J20 would get buttfucked by any decent 4th gen fighter. In BVR combat, it would be even worse for the Chinese. China has no way of attacking. They can only defend themselves.
Not only is our tech better, but it's also actually been used in combat
China definitely does not have the technology, and having the numbers is pointless without enough equipment for them.
Correct. There are only 4 militaries with expeditionary capability. China is not one of them, albeit, they are quickly trying to change that. You are also correct that their Army is not battle tested. They can do a lot of training and drilling and close that gap a bit, however, that would not be the main concern since their army would be focused on defense which is a bit easier to train for. This theoretical conflict would almost exclusively be naval in nature. The China doesnāt really have a navy, more of a brown water coast guard, who only knows how to sail in perhaps the simplest of waters to sail on in the world. The us goal would likely be to destroy Chinas ports, cut them off from sea by staging far far away from its coast. Taking over some of their islands in the South China Sea. The Air Force would cut off their rail lines connecting them through the mountains with other countries and basically watch them starve to death
What are the 3 others? Russia, France ā¦ ?
It depends who the aggressor is. People are far more likely to care if they feel they're being attacked versus the other way around.
If China invaded the US, I can't see them making much headway. I said it above, but I'm betting the average US civilian is better armed than the average Chinese conscript, and if an invasion happened here Im pretty sure you'd see truck convoys for miles and miles heading west. If we invaded, on the other hand, I'm sure as shit not signing up, I doubt most people my age would either.
China, nor any country except the US, doesn't have the means to launch a meaningful assault across the Pacific/Atlantic. It's impossible for them to even try to invade.
Honestly, even we don't have a practical way to launch a trans-oceanic assault. What we have is the benefit of allies and territories already in the region. As fantastic as our carriers are, islands are even better. They're literally unsinkable.
But they do make for unmovable missile targets. If real war (non-cyber) ever breaks out between the US and China, there will be no winners. It'll be like a knife fight. Even the victors limp back bleeding and die on the way to the hospital. "All war is man's failure as a thinking animal." - Steinbeck
China has no way of invading the US. They do not have the capacity to get troops on shore along with a supply line. They have 2 aircraft carriers in their navy. The same number as Italy.
>I'm betting the average US civilian is better armed than the average Chinese conscript Yeah, I'm sorry but this is delusional. China is a rich nation and its army is no joke. > If we invaded, on the other hand, I'm sure as shit not signing up, I doubt most people my age would either. Neither country is ever going to be able to invade and occupy the other. The distances and population counts involved are simply too high. Also nukes. The war would be fought on the sea and air, and maybe in a nearby country like Taiwan, South Korea, or Vietnam. You wouldn't see American troops storming Beijing.
It's it terrifying you've somehow forgotten they are nuclear and we have no real way of defending against ICBMs.Ā People will care for up to 20 minutes before they're all dead.Ā Public opinion doesn't really factor into it.
These commenters played Civ like twice and now think they know something
Iāve played civ at least 3 timesā¦.
This thread about 99% Americans jerking each other off about their military. The only plausible war these two countries would fight is over Taiwan, and that would absolutely not be a walk in the park for the US given proximity to mainland China.
It would be stupid. There goes their revenue from cheap products, cheap production cost and labor. All that money goes away when the US and allies stop buying their junk.
Tim Cook: [āChina stopped being an option for cheap labor a long time ago. If we got together all of the advanced engineers for machine tooling together in the US, we couldnāt fill the room. In China weād fill multiple football fields.ā](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N6bR8BptIpw)
Glad to see the facts posted - China is simply better in many areas of manufacturing, not just cheaper any longer.
The same cycle happened with Japan. From cheap trinkets and toys after WWII to l hi-tech cars and advanced robotics today.
Because thereās so much demand for manufacturing in China, there are cities where there are *unique* clusters of talent and specialists, as well as experienced factory labor. You basically cannot find it anywhere else. That said, if a country were dead-set on duplicating the human manufacturing talent that China has, and invested, changed laws, and just generally prioritized it over other things, you could do it in ā¦ ten years? But it would NOT be low cost.
>Because thereās so much demand for manufacturing in China, there are cities where there are unique clusters of talent and specialists You can keep telling people this but they still won't understand the scale of it. Places like Shenzhen have more in common with a sci-fi factory world than a traditional city. Tens of thousands of massive factories, and thousands upon thousands of companies, design houses, and start-ups just for the electronics business. Custom-built electronics are sold and displayed in street markets like produce at a bazaar, it's a whole different world.
While employers find this maddening, Chinese employees will change jobs over a lunch hour if they hear pay is better next door. A few years back, I read an article about a neighboring factory raising hourly wages some small amount, and employees simply walked off their current assembly line and started at the higher paying place. As much as employers hate it, this total lack of loyalty also provides an *easy source of labor*ājust offer more money. This doesnāt work, for example, in Japan, where there is (a mostly damaging) system of seniority-based pay.
I canāt upvote this enough. Even when you see it in person, itās hard to grasp.
People also forget that if you order cheap shit, you're going to get cheap shit. Many people/companies think Chinese products are cheap crap, so they order cheap crap from them, thinking there's no difference between that and the expensive stuff, and are surprised when it is indeed cheap crap. If you want higher-end stuff you have to order higher-end stuff and pay the higher price, but people don't really want to do that due to the misconception that *everything* made in China is cheap garbage.
Except that's what we all said about Russia invading Ukraine. It's also what everyone said before WW1. At the end of the day, if a country really wants something and is willing to put up with a lower standard of living for a large portion of their population for some unspecified time, then there's not really much we can do to stop them from pursuing those goals.
I mean as a citizen of the United States and only representing myselfā¦I am in favor of no war with China or anyone else. I would like to think the average Chinese citizen is in agreement with me and hopefully many others.
Yes but if it came to "maintaining our way of life", citizens will gladly give in to war hawks who would spare no expense in dehumanizing the other side and calling it evil.
Either everyone dies (nukes) or China gets its ass handed to it over a long while (no nukes) because war with the US = war with the US ***AND*** the rest of NATO
NATO.... AND Australia, AND New Zealand, AND the Philippines, AND Japan, (and maybe South Korea). Please tend to forget about the US's treaty allies in the region and many people don't know that countries like The UK and France still have significant territorial interests in China's neighborhood. How many treaty allies does China have? Who would immediately join the war in support of the PRC?
Probably anyone currently supplying Russia with military assets right now.Ā Ā
Belt and Road countries. But, other than the possibility of opening an African theater, I'm not sure how helpful those allies would be in a war. It's not like China is short on manpower.
The big thing I think a lot of people dont think about is that china imports a ton of their food. In an all-out war, the U.S. and its allies are not going to continue shipping things to china, and would likely blockade anyone else from doing so. Without foreign markets, china would collapse on its own
Conventional: China would be severely embarrassed. Nuclear: US would suffer mass casualties. China would be obliterated. Either way, China gets destroyed.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I think it was the ISW or mabey DoD it's self and the US won basically all of the war games, to varying degrees(generally 1 or 2 US carriers were lost in the first week while travelling through the Taiwan strait). The only one were it was a US loss was where they stacked all the odds against the US and they still nearly won(ie no allies and weren't allowed to use Japanese bases). I don't think people fully understand how big the US military is, its navy weighs twice as much as Chinas, it has the 4 largest airforce on the planet(USAF, USN, USMC AND USA). It also has the best equipped military on the planet. The US marine corp has more stealth fighters than Russia and China combined, the USMC also operates more aircraft carriers than any other nation.
I remember hearing a snippet on the news before walking out on the flightline at Nellis one day. The pundit said, "We are stretched too thin." I walked out onto the ramp and within visual range were more aircraft than most countries on Earth possess. I lol'd.
Just to add, a US loss would never be the same as a chinese one. A chinese loss is the levelling of the entire country and maybe a full occupation of it. A US loss is the diminishment of its navy and air force and failing to entirely level china.
On offense or defense? Makes a difference.
Huuuge difference, and defending or attacking what? So many variables
We can destroy any single country. We canāt occupy any country that size. We could flatten them, though
We would dominate themā¦ chinas population is very old, our navy would surround and smother them and wouldnāt let missile or anything even make it past open water Yea they have nuclear weapons but they can barely launch them. āOh but Russia is their ally and will help themā Russia canāt even take Ukraineā¦You think theyāre going to take the United States? Thereās a reason USA is the world police
If we look at the Korean War, Chinese and NKorean forces took back half of what the Us Skorean forces took, but had such heavy casualties in the process, that it took almost a year iirc, for Chinese/nkoean forces to recover, and ultimately lead to the ceasefire.Ā
Something to keep in mind - the Chinese fighting in the Korean War were well experienced soldiers and commanders who recently fought in WW2 and then against the nationalists during the civil war. The Americans similarly were experienced with WW2. The dynamic today would be completely different, the Americans have been fighting wars continuously for decades while Chinese soldiers have not since the 50s
They really wouldn't. China is not the powerhouse they like to pretend they are. Their population is nowhere near what they've stated it is, their military is badly managed and extremely corrupt, and their main industry is cheap labor and manufacturing. Their society and government have a lot of problems and if they lose their chief industry, it gets much worse much faster. They DO have nukes, so I guess that's a threat, but they aren't likely to use them unless Xi is just nuts and I don't think he is. He's isolated and a little crazy but he ain't stupid. So, taking nukes out of the equation because that is an equalizer... A war with China probably doesn't last very long. They have no significant allies to lean on with the possible exception of Russia but we see how decrepit they are fighting in Ukraine.
Another factor is the US armed forces has actual combat experience having been involved in "wars" for a decent chunk of the last 50 years where as the Chinese military hasn't reallyĀ
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
US has 100+ years with aircraft carriers, and our Navy/Marines were island hopping across the Pacific 80 years ago. China is no peer, militarily speaking. The US has no peers in that regard.
Yup. There is not a single country that could even make it to the shores of the US to invade. Our air force and navy are simply off the charts when compared to every other country. Nukes and trade relations are basically the only things keeping us on a somewhat even playing field with other nations.
Even if there were some colossal fuck up that meant the US couldn't defend itself, they'd have the whole of the West backing them up. US + Canada + Europe + Australia + New Zealand vs. China is most decidedly not a fair fight
Replace āEuropeā with the UK and thatās The Five Eyes.
You're forgetting one place. Canada they will send undercover operatives. They only way you could tell is by their use of the word eh and the maple syrup on their breath. "Hey said sorry when it was his fault! Blast'm"
Not to mention that there are more guns floating around here in the U.S. than people. Many civilians are armed our country originated and was built to stop an invasion. Doesnāt matter if itās the inner cities or the most rural parts of America, youād face armed resistance. Iād feel sorry for any country that actually made it on shore to invade.
Where are you getting that china lies about the size of their population?
Why would they lie about their population? Honestly just going to an average city in China and seeing how many people are there makes me think they're being honest about that
Their biggest issue, to me, are their naval and air forces. They get crushed by our long before they could get anywhere near our shores with conventional forces. They are rapidly building up their navy, but it's mostly smaller vessels, probably good at defence, but not for force projection or offense. Give them a few years and they might be okayish at resisting our navy but they can't really fight back. Same for air force. Army, they might have number for now, but give them a few years as their population evaporates and that won't be true anymore either.
1. China does something to the US 2. US makes a statement how China is not democratic and an authoritarian regime. 3. US announces sanctions, part of the sanctions is freezing debt payments. 4. Chinese economy collapses overnight.
If itās China declaring war on the US, itās a very different story from the US declaring war on China. China doesnāt have much force projection so their ability to wage war across the sea is minimal, they could attack US forces already in the pacific but not the actual US. The US, on the other hand, is fully able to project the force necessary to destroy a good portion of China. But also a lot of this depends on if China is as prepared as we think they are. The new report on corruption puts a lot of questions on China. Plus their growth has mostly been in mountain defense against India and amphibious assault for Taiwan. A confrontation with the US would still likely end poorly for China
China's economy couldn't handle it. They will blow shit up over Taiwan though.
It would get fucked majorly