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

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

[LouAvul]

I also remember (in my personal study of WW2 history) that America thought if we built up our military (post WW1) that that in itself would incite aggressor nations to draw us into war. We deliberately remained militarily weak as was evidenced by lack of bombers, tanks, artillery, etc. Heck, our primary battle rifle was the old 1903 Springfield.

We even were in the process of giving the japs a Friendship Medal shortly before Dec 7, 1941.

Sure, hope for the best. But prepare for the worst. We must cease and desist with all foreign aid and stop paying trillions to support wetbacks, deadbeats and grifters in our country.

Take that money and build an unquestionable powerhouse military. Peace through superior firepower.

[McGruff]

How many casualties I want to know.

[ansel12]

There is movement on those transformers.

Hitachi announces historic $1 billion USD manufacturing investment to power America’s energy future through production of critical grid infrastructure
https://www.hitachi.com/en-us/press/hitachi-announces-historic-1-billion-usd-manufacturing-investment-to-power-americas-energy-future/

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/reshore-electrical-equipment-backlogs-transformer-breaker-nema/749265/
“Given load growth expectations, fully reshoring transformer production could take years and cost many billions of dollars — if it’s even feasible, Boucher said.

But after years of caution, the industry is giving it a go. Not long before Cliffs announced its now-abandoned West Virginia project, Siemens Energy said it would spend $150 million to build its first high-voltage U.S. transformer factory in North Carolina, where Pennsylvania-based PTT plans a $103 million expansion of an existing transformer manufacturing facility. Last month, MGM Transformers and VanTran Transformers opened a 430,000 square-foot plant in central Texas.

These and other capacity-boosting projects could help ease electrical equipment backlogs as U.S. utilities, data center operators and other energy-hungry customers look for components wherever they can.”

[GOPJ]

04 September, 2025 Energy Trump administration-backed investment answers surging demand for transformers and high-voltage equipment needed to support AI data center expansion $457 million USD is dedicated to a new power transformer factory in Virginia, the largest such facility in the U.S., with the support of Governor Youngkin and the Commonwealth’s congressional delegation Investments will create thousands of high-paying jobs in communities throughout the U.S. and expand local supply chains Raleigh, North Carolina and Zurich, Switzerland – Sep. 4, 2025 – Hitachi Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., and global leader in electrification, today announced a historic investment of more than $1 billion USD to expand the production of critical electrical grid infrastructure in the United States. These investments, among the largest seen in the electrical industry in the U.S., include approximately $457 million USD for a new large power transformer facility in South Boston, Virginia, along with significant expansions of existing facilities throughout the country.

Thanks for sharing... I should have known President Trump would be aware of this problem and be working on it. I feel like I can exhale... Thanks ansel12 - one of my scary issues isn't so scary now.

[roving]

We don’t come to Israel’s aid at the end, so something’s going to happen to us.

[ansel12]

In recent years there is a lot of awareness and improvements along the grid protection, self sufficiency in components/storage of equipment areas, a lot of improvements, as with weapons/missiles/artillery/drone production and such, there is a lot of catching up to do, a whole lot, and it will take time, but it is definitely well started and greatly improving.

We aren’t on war footing but by having new plants and factories built and humming along we are better set for an emergency increase if the government suddenly decided to ignore profits and get a war time production rate going.

As far as electric product, with the vast increase in new transformers and grid materials being used there is more product available installed in the field that would be available for parts mining for the most critical areas of the grid if a worst case scenario happened.

The glass is half full over where we were 15 years ago (for example)

[GenXPolymath]

Easy trigger....China has 1’41 billion with a B.

[Approximately 360 million people live in the Yangtze River basin downstream of the Three Gorges Dam,]

That’s no where near half of China it would be a disaster of epic proportions but not population ending. In fact China plans to loose 600 million in a nuclear war and still exist as a people and viable reproductive group. The Han Chinese plan to lose HALF and still be one of the largest ethically pure groups.

[The Han Chinese population is over 1.4 billion, making it the world’s largest ethnic group. Approximately 1.2 billion live in mainland China, where they constitute about 92% of the population. Significant Han populations also live in Taiwan and Singapore, with smaller communities in other parts of the world. ]

Conventional weapons are useless against a mass of that size, no amounts of WWII bouncing bombs or even 20,000lb bunker busters would struggle to breach it and to do so would be to invite a nuclear strike in retaliation. They could kill 200+ million of us and we would not survive such a counter value attack as a functional population or nation. They designed it to withstand a nuclear strike. No one wants Armageddon so stop with the silly fantasy of nuclear attacks on a nation’s infrastructure. China simply has the demographics to survive a nuclear exchange, the Russians do not but they have built enough fall out shelters for all oftheir major urban populations there is a reason the Moscow subway system is the deepest in the world. They have huge nuclear blast doors on all the surface portals to seal it up as a giant bomb shelter with years of food and water already stocked in side tunnels. Two very different survival strategies, mean will out gov only has bunkers and plans for itself not the citizenry that should tell you everything you need to know about how your government looks at you and your value to it.

This is directly from the engineers who built it.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1928774/chinas-three-gorges-dam-can-survive-nuclear-attack-says-nations

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

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

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

Thanks to you both for the clarifications.

[GOPJ]

As far as electric product, with the vast increase in new transformers and grid materials being used there is more product available installed in the field that would be available for parts mining for the most critical areas of the grid if a worst case scenario happened.

Comforting...thanks for sharing.

[Hot Tabasco]

Would America lose?

Let me simplify this for you. With the amount of the US debt that China owns, the vast amount of properties being bought up by the Chinese, and the enormous amount of agricultural products imported into China, do you honestly think that China would want to go to war with us and jeopardize all of that?

Their economy is dependent on the US and they would never send it into chaos by going to war with the US.

[sten]

“would America lose?”

we’ve had a perfect record for the last 10+ years in wargaming against China.

we’ve lost all scenarios.

as for this story... a thousand missiles is NOTHING for china.

[CodeToad]

You said radioactivity. Ratio wise , our bombs are no more destructive. Fact is, contrary to popular belief, we do not use megaton bombs. Most are 150-300kt.

[curious7]

Unfortunately China had many, many miles of deep tunnels built back in the Nixon era. They even gave him and his entourage a tour. It lets their population get underground in mere minutes and walk miles outside the cities to avoid fallout. That has to be taken into account when tossing nukes at the cheir cities. One of the Nixon administration members wrote it up, IIRC. There were some articles that I read at the time.

[dfwgator]

Yep, China was convinced there was going to be a nuclear war between them and the Soviets.

[JeemBeau]

Don’t all visitors from China need the approval and endorsement of their suitability from their local Communist party to go to the U.S.?

[HYPOCRACY]

TLDR.

[Bob Wills is still the king]

“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.”
____________________________________________________________

The largest recipient of US foreign aid money is Israel. Israel has consistently been the largest since 1948.

Arguments against foreign aid are really arguments against Israel.

[Gay State Conservative]

Yes,it's my understanding that all Chinese citizens who want to leave the country must get permission from a government official. If I'm correct to believe that then that is where that official might say to a person who wants to study at Cal Tech “OK,you can go...but only if you agree to give us various bits of information we would ask of you from time to time”.

[LouAvul]

Due respect, but not my problem. Fix America. Now. Cause post Trump America is likely back to Politics-As-Usual.

We didn't adopt these foreign countries and we need to save ourselves. Otherwise it's all moot.

[Night Hides Not]

You cannot compare the destructive force of even a megaton bomb vs those dropped in 1945. That’s what I meant to convey in my original post. Apologies for not being clear enough.