We Are Going To Lose The Coming War With China

Townhall.com ^ | March 21, 2019 | Kurt Schlichter

[PIF]

Yeah I think that’s correct - there might be some sort of skirmish over something so Xi Jinping can consolidate power more, but nothing major - just too many risks.

But I was just mentioning what Bill Clinton did for the Chinese in the 1990s, not postulating what actions might happen in the present day.

[servantboy777]

>>If it were necessary for the Chinese masses to eat grass for a century in order to destroy the USA, do you doubt that the Politburo would hesitate?<<

The commies in China are in between a rock and a hard place. They do not want dissent nor the masses rising up. They’ve put down rebellion before with a strong arm, but get the masses struggling for basics and their control could become threatened.

[caww]

....."our intelligence community’s incompetence led to our spy networks in China being rolled up"........

That was caused by a "mole" who was eventually caught, but after the damage had been done......The Chinese government had been systematically picking off American spies in China, dismantling a network that had taken the C.I.A. years to build. A mole hunt was underway, and the former officer, Jerry Chun Shing Lee, was the prime suspect....Lee, 53, was arrested in January 2018 when he arrived in the U.S. on a flight from Hong Kong.

A secret FBI–CIA task force investigating the case concluded that the Chinese government penetrated the CIA's method of clandestine communication with its spies, NBC News first reported in January. The Chinese used that knowledge to arrest and execute at least 20 CIA informants

[FreedomPoster]

Is there anyone left that really does it any more? Since the Soviet threat basically disappeared almost 30 years ago. Honest question.

My concern on this is high due to the lack of a fixed-wing carrier-based ASW platform. Unless we’re dropping torpedoes from Hornets now, or something else I’ve missed. That capability seemed crucial to me during the Cold War era.

[central_va]

Helos are the primary ASW torpedo delivery system.

[FreedomPoster]

And there’s a pretty fundamental range / speed issue there compared to fixed wing.

[FreedomPoster]

I’m going to misuse the Treadhead list here since this is a good thread on an important military topic.

[central_va]

They have a decent on station time. S-3s are better for sure.

[Reily]

Does SEATO still exist?

[Jim Noble]

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you” - Lev Bronstein

[RetiredArmy]

The Book of Revelation says that a 200 Million Man Army will come from the East. Most all Bible Prophesy experts believe that to be mainly Chinese. They most all also believe the coming Rapture of the saints of Christ Jesus will severely shred America of its very best people and leave this nation seriously deplete in all sectors of this Republic. That would leave America wide as open for invasion from either the Chinese and Ruskies. So, any war with them now would not allow them to attack Israel then. I am sure that our Boomers would launch thousands of war heads towards China big cities and military targets even if they wipe our nations off the map. China may know where our fixed bases are and our cities, but they do not know where the Boomers are. I am also sure that we could pick up movement by China for such a large attack. They have fixed missiles there to attack, but not the Boomers. I think the Rapture destroys America the most. That should do it before an attack.

[Travis McGee]

And then you wind up with an ice-axe planted in your skull.

[henkster]

They dont want to go to war. But they want us to know they can.

[Jim Noble]

Does SEATO still exist?

Did it ever really exist?

[Reily]

Not when push came to shove!

It existed to take our money, like most of them do!

[Squantos]

The “space command” was not an afterthought .......

[nathanbedford]

Did you know that naval warfare is game of probability, statistics and risk management?

Precisely. That is the whole point.

Did you know that when a bumblebee beats his wings in the Amazon rainforest it makes it snow in Afghanistan?

Jim Noble has asked the relevant question in reply #67, would an American president initiate a nuclear holocaust if one or more of our carriers were sunk? A brilliant question because it transforms the discussion away from the increasingly myopic tactics of anti submarine warfare to considerations of the whole raison d'être for draining the treasury to maintain aircraft carriers. Why do we maintain these carriers at such immense expense?

To enable the United States as a superpower to contain China and control the sea lanes. Jim Noble answers his own question, I believe correctly, no president is going to initiate the destruction of the world as we know it because we lose a carrier, especially, I would add, under circumstances which we cannot prove to a skeptical public reasonably terrified of nuclear war whodunnit. If nothing else we learned that lesson after the invasion of Iraq.

There would be no public support to kill billions of people and there would be a moral imperative that invokes a final, conclusive, negative answer. That is quite a different proposition from keeping the Chinese guessing about whether we would in fact blow up the world over one carrier. We kept the Russians guessing for decades about whether we would blow up the world if they penetrated the Fulda gap. But technology changes perceptions as it changes the world.

Every time the Chinese bumblebees beat their wings and place another high-speed rocket on a gunship it causes it to rain angst in the Pentagon. Every time the Chinese advance their whizbang weapons capable of knocking out a carrier whether from undersea or outer space, the equation changes, and the Chinese know it.

The Chinese can read our commitment and they are not ignorant of American domestic politics. As time goes by they will no doubt recognize that the left has ever tightening tentacles on our military options. That reality means the carriers become a liability rather than an instrument of superpower world policy unless it is directed against third-party countries who have limited lethal capabilities. The carriers become as detrimental to our national security as a standing Army of 12 million individuals that we maintained in World War II. They become a target rather than an instrument of victory.

The Chinese might well be asking, are we better off leaving the American carriers alone to impoverish America and divert defense funds from where they might be effective?

So strategy, of course, involves "probability, statistics and risk management" but at an infinitely higher level, with infinitely more what ifs and infinitely more risks. We do not hire a commander-in-chief to be an expert in anti-submarine warfare, we expect him to pursue American national interests, keep us out of war if possible especially with the world second economy and most populous nation, win wars which are unavoidable or absolutely necessary, and, above all, keep us the hell out of nuclear war. He operates at an infinitely higher level in and infinitely higher stakes "game" than at submarine tactics.

When a commander-in-chief risk sending a super carrier into harms way he must weigh the risks and probabilities against the purpose of the mission. On the one hand we have a gunboat showing the flag and on the other hand we have nuclear destruction.

You can weigh the risks as long as your line of sight is this side of the horizon but when you are deciding the fate of nations you must lift your gaze.

[wbill]

We have not kept up with the advances of the Chinese and our military doctrine and technologies have languished

I'm paraphrasing, but a FReeper wiser than I once posted...

"When the Chinese build a weapons system, they build a weapons system that works."

"When America builds a weapons system, they need to make sure that the team building it is properly diverse, well-balanced with both male and female engineers, and that none of the female engineers has the perception that they've been harassed and that they're perfectly safe. The system, and all companies involved in the process of building it, must be environmentally sustainable and eco-conscious. It must be cost-effective, but also take into consideration any budget requirements added on local, state, and national political levels. If built in a union-friendly shop, that adds an entirely new level of complexity."

"Oh, and the weapons system also needs to work."

[UCANSEE2]

The best way to win a war is to not fire a shot

[Alas Babylon!]

To pharaphrase Bon Jovi:

Oh, ho, China's half-way there,
Oh, ho, we're livin' on a prayer!