Posted on 08/07/2012 7:37:14 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
What is your solution?
My prediction is Taiwan will defend itself down to the last American sailor, all the while loading container vessels with consumer goods bound for the US.
Lend-lease. Finance, arm and train China's neighbors, but stay out of it while continuing to provide a nuclear umbrella to prevent China from engaging in nuclear blackmail (since none of China's South China Sea neighbors have nukes). Once we're out of Afghanistan, some of the $100b we spend annually there can be diverted towards interest-free loans for China's neighbors, to be spent on American weaponry that will bring them up to par with China's armory.
Meanwhile:
STOP PAYING FOR CHINA’S MILITARY.
We need to dis-engage from China. Now.
Don’t we pretty much already do that?
I think direct American intervention should be highly conditional and require regional players to pony up significant forces and/or money. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Germany and Japan covered the entire cost of Desert Storm. Much like Desert Storm, any American intervention in SCS should be predicated on the strong-arming of all interested parties for either money or significant military participation. Otherwise...
I understand that a lot of people think our participation in WWI and WWII, where we lost 500,000 men, only to be jeered by the Brits for being “late” to the festivities, set the pattern for posterity regarding an aggressive American posture towards big wars far from our shores. It has to be said however, that our 19th century forebears seem not to have been particularly concerned that they missed out on the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War or any of the other big wars fought in Europe during that era.
What do you think the odds of that really happening are?
No. They arrange their own financing, which is why much of their inventory is simultaneously meager and outdated. We've also been pretty careful in terms of the kinds of things we sell them. They will need offensive weaponry to dislodge the Chinese.
Do you think they can afford our products and are willing to pay?
Unless we're willing to unleash unconventional weapons, we will not defeat them in that region.
“Unless we’re willing to unleash unconventional weapons, we will not defeat them in that region.”
The Chinese are counting on the USA to elect someone like Obama who won’t lift a finger to help our allies in the region, that’s why they’re doing this in the first place.
Can we defeat the Chinese with conventional weapons? Absolutely and they know it, too. Why do you think those bandits are so interested in stealing our technology? It’s because they know that their air force is nothing more than a bunch of targets for our F-22 fighters and they know that their navy can’t set to sea without our permission.
We have a capacity for war that is unmatched in the world but which is also utterly useless without the resolve to use it. Obama absolutely won’t use it to defeat our enemies because HE IS ONE OF THEM.
The way lend-lease worked was that many of the loans were forgiven, especially for equipment lost in battle. I'd say if the weapons are used in combat against the Chinese and lost, we write off the loan. Whether they feel they can afford the weaponry or not, it's not our territory that's at risk from Chinese annexation.
Looking a lot like the 1930s again, only this time it’s China trying to create the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
There's no question of guerrilla warfare or collateral damage from a naval war. The side with better range and firepower wins. For the next decade at least, that side is Uncle Sam, although the Chinese are closing fast, due to their massive investments in military R&D.
ok, thanks
How about this?
How about we impose tariffs or other trade restrictions so that we quit sending hundreds of billions of dollars in trade surplus to the PRC, which allows them to engage in a military build-up which is going to destabilize the region?
How about we starve them to death?
How about we go back to treating them like the communists they are?
You think Mitt will?
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