Can America Defeat China in a War in the 2020s?

https://genzconservative.com/can-america-defeat-china-in-a-war/ ^

[WTanner1776]

We are still the world’s largest economy. We spend more on our military than the next ten nations combined, and that money buys some terrific weapons. Additionally, our soldiers are better motivated and far better trained than any in the PLA, a force of terror and intimidation.

But, they will take heavy losses, both in terms of personnel and equipment. So, if we want the answer to be “can America defeat China in a war?” to remain “yes,” then we need to make further investments in our military. We cannot be like the British Empire in World War I or II, where they had a small expeditionary force at first, and losing many troops would be disastrous.

America needs to invest in its shipyards to it can repair vessels quickly and build far more of them, both for cargo transportation and for fighting. We need to train more troops and expand both the Navy and Air Force; buying more submarines, destroyers, bombers, and fighter jets. We need to sell the best and most dollar-efficient equipment possible to Taiwan, Japan, India, Australia, and South Korea so that they can fight China too. Missile defense against both cruise and ballistic weapons must be expanded. And, of course, we need to improve our cyber-security and cyber weapons so that we can defeat China in the cyber realm.

[ealgeone]

I’m sure they have plans to take out key dams and other infrastructure here as well.

[ealgeone]

Agree.

No land war with China. They have 4 people for everyone of ours....and considering how many soy boys we have that ratio may be even higher.

The sea/air battle is a bit different. Here is where we should be beefing up capability.

[BroJoeK]

snoringbear: "Btw, our super carrier fleet is now obsolete much the same as battleships were going into WWII."

Battleships were far from "obsolete" in WWII.
They were very useful in shore bombardments and against smaller ships.
That's why they kept being brought back out of mothballs for the next 50 years!
Indeed, today's latest destroyers have all the capabilities of old battleships, and much more.

But the old battleships were ineffective against aircraft & torpedoes and the ranges of their offensive weapons, while accurate, grew relatively shorter & shorter.
So they could only be used under limited circumstances, and that may also become the fait of our older aircraft carriers.

For another example, think of the old B-52 bombers -- still in service, still work perfectly well, but can only be used where threats against them are minimal.
That's the future of existing aircraft carriers.
Whether future carriers can be designed for more... ah, "challenging" environments, is yet to be seen.

A modern battleship:

[Vermont Lt]

China is as bankrupt as the US. The top 70,000 people in China have been robbing the other billion people for the past 30 years. Look up the corporate bond defaults happening there. They are a stiff breeze away from collapsing. It’s just a question of who goes first.

[DoodleBob]

Not as much as we may expect. China has one of the lowest trade-to-GDP ratios.

[Deplorable American1776]

I'm sad to say this, but no. Most electronics for our weapons are made in China and a big defense company is owned by a French company owned by China. Some of our defense suppliers are not American owned and I heard that China wants to buy General Dynamics (our biggest sub builder) and Biden supports that.

Besides, most youth were raised to hate America, so you won't get volunteers and the draft will make the Vietnam War look like a tea party.

[Wuli]

100% for armchair generals

which is about as useful as armchair psychiatrists

[kearnyirish2]

Red China is much better at destroying its own people than either the Japanese were or we’d ever be. The Japanese fought a limited war in which the destruction of the Chinese people itself was not a goal; they wanted slaves for the emperor. If extermination/total war was the goal, it would not be too difficult to destroy the clean drinking water and food for their billion+.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Neither nation can take and hold the other's territory WWII-style. On the other hand, neither nation can defend allied territories near the borders of the opponent - we can't do much to save Taiwan from invasion, just as China could not do much to save Venezuela from a determined US assault.

The nation to watch is Singapore. Not only have they become a powerful financial hub, but they have taken in over a million Chinese immigrant workers over the past decade - many of whom are no doubt PLA plants and spies. The Lee family has been on good terms with the US, but a future Singaporean prime minister backed by a China-infiltrated government could easily turn away from a relationship with the distant and ineffective US government and sign a new agreements with China allowing their "Han Chinese brothers" to build a huge PLA Navy base and other military installations.

Using Singapore as a base and an immensely powerful "colonial" outpost, China would quickly dominate Malaysia and Indonesia and be capable of interdicting all shipping traffic between Asia and the Middle East and Europe, cutting off not only Japan and South Korea but even Australia and New Zealand. They could pull off everything Japan tried to accomplish in WWII, and the US would have little ability to stop them from dominating the affairs of Asia-Pacific nations, even if China does not go so far as to actually invade and conquer those countries. Chinese Emperors have preferred tribute to conquest, in most cases.

[kearnyirish2]

Red China is in a worse position than us in the sense that much of the reserves are in US dollars; I don’t think we’d be expected to “pay to the bearer on demand” anything at all in the event of war.

[Buttons12]

David slew Goliath with a rock and sufficient will to get the job done.
We can vanquish China, one strike on a dam could do it, but would we have the will?

[kearnyirish2]

As the British found out, Singapore is difficult to defend; Red China would not be pressing Indonesia from there. Taiwan has to link its defenses against Red China with Japan and South Korea, as they are similarly exposed and certainly targets. To the south, India doesn’t seem concerned about them - and they can’t be ignored in ChiCom plans.

[snoringbear]

For the most part no argument with your comments. The future of our current carrier fleet though is indeed in doubt, as you said remains to be seen. Even now our navy is reluctant to take our carriers through the Taiwan Strait or into the South China Sea due to their vulnerability.

[JGPhila]

“America stands for a rules-based global order that prizes individual freedom and worldwide economic growth.”

---

Perhaps that was true in the past, but no longer. Now that the Left no longer makes any effort to hide its fraud and power grab, it will be less likely to care what the public thinks as the political class cozies up to China. The Pretender will not confront China and will gut our military of the troops, equipment and, most importantly, the leaders needed to fight to win.

[GOPJ]

Biden’s brings back Washington’s most important ‘norm’: “YOU don’t notice ME selling out our country to china and I won’t notice YOU selling our country out to china..”

Also knows as ‘the Biden Doctrine’...

[RoseofTexas]

No...the pentagon has been bought. Tooooooo many globalist socialists unmanly top brass cowards! Our soldiers are the only ones left with courage and love of country!

[Buttons12]

Wars are usually about resources, about money, and that’s also a smart way to avoid one.
You don’t like what the federal govt is doing to America, quit supporting it, starve the beast.
You don’t like what China’s doing, never buy anything made in China.
Sure, your little purchases don’t matter. Your kid in public school or Brainwash U. doesn’t matter.
Actually they do matter.
It’s your vote that doesn’t matter.

[BroJoeK]

GrandJediMasterYoda: "A war with China would be absolutely insane, beyond hell on earth and would last forever, no way we could win against a country with a population of 1.5 BILLION I don’t care how much more advanced we are militarily."

You do your namesake, "Master Yoda", a disservice when you talk like that, FRiend.
Master Yoda would understand instantly that there are wars, and then there are wars, and still there are other types of wars.

Nobody today can imagine a major war on the Chinese mainland -- not with our existing military, not under today's political & economic realities.
Things would have to change in very drastic ways, for examples: Chinese military invasions of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, India, etc.

Such events would create existential crises that would refocus everything we do and think.
What would be our response?
Impossible to say today, but doubtless there are wargamed contingency plans which include economic, diplomatic and military actions.
A key question is: how would we define "winning" such a war, and would "winning" be achievable?

It's unlikely we'll ever again see existential threats as clear & blatant as the Axis powers of the Second World War.
Since then, all of the world's "little Hitlers" have found more devious methods to fulfill their maniacal dreams...

[Buttons12]

How are you going to take a military of about 1.5 million and control 1.5 billion people? Look how long it took to get a handle on Iraq and Afghanistan which is still effed up.

Well, first of all, IF it came to that, don't wage a war as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which btw never attacked us on our homeland as China would.

And China is brittle. Severe damage to their infrastructure and especially to their waterways, would make their leaders extremely unpopular.

China wants to take over a world, not a nuclear wasteland. They're gambling we will play for time and hope to be eaten last.

[GOPJ]

Democrats don’t want to fight china anymore than a whore whats to fight her pimp. They’re business partners...

Washington’s deep state is back...

Speeches for sale - $10,000 a minute

100,000 bulk book buys going cheap - publishers accept kickbacks “not to print”...

insider stock tips on chinese companies? Bend over, hand over military secrets and build that fourth mansion...

DC IS FOR SALE... BIDEN AND THUGS ARE IN THE CAT BIRD SEAT...