China's military and Sun Tzu: What every American should know

brookesnews ^ | 01.19.04 | James Henry

[fatso]

Chinese are buying up America

[John H K]

Am I the only one around here who thinks that Sun Tzu is now overrated?

Probably. Not that he's worthless, there's definitely some value there, but Americans have a penchant for over-romanticizing mysterious-sounding Eastern wisdom. And there isn't a single "rule" in warfare that can't be broken or doesn't need to be broken at some point.

And other than the 1962 India-China war, the Chinese have been getting their asses kicked militarily for a good thousand years or so, so how great can Sun Tzu be? (And before Korea is mentioned, the Chinese forces would have collapsed had the war gone on another 6 months or so, but Eisenhower politically couldn't have kept going.)

[John H K]

ICBMs don't orbit the earth. They don't reach orbital velocity. They're suborbital and ballistic.

Orbiting nukes are banned by treaty.

[rudypoot]

China is all puff and no stuff without power projection. Sure they have a huge military in terms of numbers but they have no ability to support it outside their boarders. Don't forget that their military is stuck in the WW2/cold war era (ie slow heavy armor, antiquated tactics) If they occupy Taiwan we would own the strait to choke them out of there. The only real threat they are to the US military is the ICBMs.

Besides China wants economic domination, the military option is a no-win situation.

[HankReardon]

Treaties only apply to those that choose to obey them, not the evil communist. ICBM's do not orbit, does this take away from anything I said?

[dennisw]

Dittos on that and no one will ever serve prison time for this treasonous transfer of technology to the ChiComs. The head of Loral (Schwrtz) is free as a bird.

[HankReardon]

I give one specific name as the greatest traitor in U.S. histrory. Can you do the same? That was the question.

[John H K]

ROFL. The veil is removed and the paleocon is revealed.

I'm just curious why nobody cares about Russian and Israeli technology going to the Chinese, when what the Chinese have gotten from the US is trivial compared to the above two countries?

[John H K]

Except that the Chinese aren't even capable of occupying Taiwan in the first place.

Anyway, I'm fairly convinced that China is going to disintegrate into a long and violent civil war and warlordism before they're much of a threat to anybody.

[Cronos]

The Greeks and Romans laid siege to walled or fortified cities and the last I checked, they ruled the world at certain times during their reign.

Greeks/Romans ruled the world? No one has really ruled the world, though the US, the Brits and the Mongols came close -- the US indirectly dominating a huge chunk of the world, the Brits ruling 1/4 of the world and the mongols ruling nearly 1/3rd

[HankReardon]

Please share your info on the Russian/ Chinese transfers and especially the Israeli/Chinese transfer. I vaguely remeber what I think were ship sales to the Chinese from the Israelis, is that right? But wait! We should care astronimcally more when the the POTUS does this with weaponry and technology far more superior for illegal campaign money from a foreign government.

[HankReardon]

This is where the "move on" people came up with their name! It's time to move on, Bill Clinton is no longer president! My answer to them is should we ignore and forget the crimes committed in the past by all other criminals? Just move on? They are not president either.

[John H K]

The communist Chinese military can now hit American cities with nuclear laden ICBM's.

The communist Chinese military first had the capability to hit American cities with nuclear ICBMs back in 1981, and since then their capability to do so hasn't changed very much. The Chinese SLBM was operational in 1988. Both before Clinton, of course.

Wow, I hadn't realized it was that bad; people actually think that the Chinese couldn't hit the US with nukes AT ALL till Clinton gave them the technology? Sheesh. Buy a clue, people.

[HankReardon]

Yes, and until you direct me to corrabating evidence to the contrary I'll continue to believe it. Please enlighten me. It would be greatly appreciated.

[HankReardon]

Still waiting on that clue.

[Jeff Head]

Actually, due to the ineffectiveness of their staging and targeting technologies...it is highly doubtful that even if they had the theoretic range to reach our west coast that the Chinese could have actually hit us their with any degree of certainty prior to the 1990's. Technology transfers in those two key areas during the Clinton administration have rectified those problems.

Significant increases in manufacturing capabilities are allowing them to now build more weapons, faster, than they did before.

As regards ICBM's those are the key issues. Not that the Chinese didn't have them before, but that they are now much more effective ranged weapon systems that are much more accuracy.

[HankReardon]

I bet you've heard of Bill Gertz, the Washington Times' Pentagon correspondent. I think you'll get a lot out of his book, the main title escapes me, the subtitle was something like "The upcoming war with China." It'll bug me until I remember the title!

[HankReardon]

"The China Threat"

[HankReardon]

I'm sorry Jeff Head, I thought you were John Huang Klinton replying and somewhat conceding slightly. Thanks for the info. I would like to be directed to any evidence that China could achieve ballistic capababilties (better John?) before Clinton. Not just one of us saying it was so, solid factual, corraborated evidence.

[Dr. Marten]

"Chinese are buying up America"

So let them buy up...The same thing was said in the 80's about Japan.

They can buy all they want..it's money in our. Besides, if we ever have any confrontations with them there is this little thing called nationalization...