[DIRTYSECRET]

Interesting. So it appears they would go the blockade route-starve them. Does that mean a Berlin Airlift response? Doubt the Chicoms would stop them. Then there’s those islands they’ve built up. During the standoff the pipsqueak Philipine navy could take them over and dare the Chicoms to respond with the US there locked and loaded.

[Zhang Fei]

[Interesting. So it appears they would go the blockade route-starve them. Does that mean a Berlin Airlift response? Doubt the Chicoms would stop them. Then there’s those islands they’ve built up. During the standoff the pipsqueak Philipine navy could take them over and dare the Chicoms to respond with the US there locked and loaded.]

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I think they’re gearing up for a rerun of the Pacific War. Not so much an ideological or even historical imperative so much as all rulers being glory hounds. In democracies, that impulse is reined in by popular anger at the human and material costs imposed on the population of a major war. In a dictatorship, a ruler can ensure a consistent message that combines need (threats from other powers), payback (vis-a-vis Japan for WW2, the US for the 800K Chinese dead in WW2) and maybe civilizational glory.

A blockade gives the US plenty of time to respond. The question is how big Xi wants to bet. If it’s a Putin-level effort (6% of GDP), the operation might as well be stillborn. What made D-Day successful was scale.

[Zhang Fei]

800K Chinese dead in WW2 should read 800K Chinese dead in Korea.