The First 48 Hours of a War With China ‘Could Be Ugly’

National Security Journal ^ | 10/18/2025 | Andrew Latham

[whyilovetexas111]

In a war with China, the U.S. must prepare to absorb a massive opening punch of over a thousand missiles and drones aimed at paralyzing its forces. The key to victory is not preventing this first strike but building a resilient force that can “fight hurt.” This requires a radical shift to strategies like Agile Combat Employment, which disperses aircraft across many smaller bases, and developing resilient command networks.

[CodeToad]

“A small salvo of nuclear missiles aimed at China’s infrastructure and a few major cities should be the first response of an attack on US forces “

There is no such thing as limited nuclear war. If you use them, you had better damned well use ALL of them at once.

[CodeToad]

“uninhabitable for decades.. .”

You mean like Hiroshima and Nagasaki which we nuked and both are vibrant cities today??

[gundog]

I can picture a Dim Administration doing the “right thing” by capitulating to the Chinese, thus saving millions of lives. Am I right, Joe? Kamala?

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

In before the zombies.....

:)

Had to look that one up.

This blog flog and its related 19FortyFive are the "creations" of a J. Beth Gorton, a name with precious little resume to accompany it. She publishes bunches of "experts," whose "official" stance, according to the blog, is "we are not a ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive’ website."

And yet, their about page pictures a smiling Joe Biden. Really? Yup. See for yourself.

About us

Freepers respond with comments to "whyilovetexas111" and mostly NEVER get a response / reply.

These threads seem wholly about directing Freeper eyes to J. Beth's pages. It's all about clicks.

[HombreSecreto]

Can’t disagree. Ukraine $$$ drying up.

China! China! China!

[4Runner]

They’re called “blog pimps” and there’s a lot of ‘em here on FR.

[Vermont Lt]

You would love that. Do you have trouble pronouncing words with Rs and Ls?

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

---- "They're called 'blog pimps' and there's a lot of ‘em here on FR."

I come to learn how many there are. Rather well spits in the face of the intent of a forum for discussion and debate.

[LouAvul]

Not if we immediately up our game. But 12 years of antiAmerican pseudo potus grifters have hurt us immeasurably.

Stop with the foreign aid. Stop with pumping billions into the coffers of wetback grifters. Stop with the waste and start building America's military.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[Jonty30]

I’ve read that China may be reluctant beyond sabre rattling to fight a war, because of the one child policy would leave millions of parents without support because they have only one child.

China may be more of a paper tiger than we think possible.

[Dartoid]

There was a time when the Viking kitties would have been unleashed on that spammer

[Night Hides Not]

You mean like Hiroshima and Nagasaki which we nuked and both are vibrant cities today??

Those two bombs were cherry bombs compared to the multi-megaton bombs in existence today. We're talking blast radii in terms of dozens of miles.

[Danie_2023]

“”Would America lose?””

***

Everyone on planet Earth would lose, because America would lauch nukes if we were losing. At that point, the death sentence for earth would be assured.

But not to worry. I don’t think that’s going to happen and even if it did, we Christians would be ‘gone’ from earth by that time. Nuclear destruction of the planet is not in the Bible, so God won’t let it happen to His flock.

Planetary destruction would not happen until, possibly, the second half of the Tribulation... right before Jesus re-appears. At which point, there will be a new earth (there will have to be, the old earth will have been destroyed and corrupted beyond repair). At least... that is what I believe.

[Gay State Conservative]

Yes,I firmly believe that every citizen of Red China who's present in this country is a spy of some sort.

Some are military spies,some are economic spies.

Stealing trade secrets from Microsoft or Nvidea...stealing military secrets from a big defense contractor or a member of the military.

Some are enthusiastic spies. "Yes,I'll spy for the glory of our Dear Leader,Mao Tse Tung".

Some are reluctant spies. "Comrade,you will get the following info for us while in the US". "But I just want to go to school". "Comrade,remember...we know where your grandmother lives".

[GOPJ]

The test is brutally simple: can the US military absorb the first punch, fight through the second, and make sure there’s still a joint force on day three that can find, fix, and finish at scale?

Excellent piece. Should be on everyone's desk at the Department of War tomorrow. And while we're at it - let's assume the population of America needs to survive the first three days too. And that means we need a Department of Defense of the Homeland. Shelters, water supplies, hardened chips and back up electrical sources. Let's make the assumption if China attacks they'll also go for killing US citizens who could assist with fighting back - or at least feeding our forces.Is there even one factory in the United States building back-up large electrical transformers - a few weeks without electricity (and safe water) and hundreds of millions of citizens will die. -

[crusty old prospector]

IBTZ is “in before the zot.” That means his/her account may not be long for this world.

[Aeneas2112]

They would definitely have some very nasty surprises for us.

It’s not the missiles and drones or even the cyberattacks that worry me *when* we fight them, it’s what we don’t know about and thus can’t prepare for.

Does anybody think they don’t have a virus that only kills caucasians (or all non ethnic Chinese)? I’d have started that research project the first day I was Chairman.

They have nearly 1000 satellites in orbit, most of them recent; it is hardly a secret that we rely heavily on ours, not the orbits those satellites are in.

They are playing a long game, they plan in decades, even centuries, we jump all over the place strategically in election cycles.

[Semper Vigilantis]

👍

[Aeneas2112]

At the very least, their population is *much* more ‘patriotic’ than most. They might not love their government, but they damn well, nearly to a man, support it in conflict with any other, and a vast majority are quite convinced that they are the legitimate sole superpower and should be running the world for their benefit.