Posted on 11/22/2005 7:47:59 PM PST by Hoosier-Daddy
The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea. This comes as President Bush wraps up a visit to Asia, in which he sought to strengthen U.S. ties with key allies in the region.
Most Asian officials have expressed their views privately. Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has gone public, warning that the United States would lose any war with China.
"In any case, if tension between the United States and China heightens, if each side pulls the trigger, though it may not be stretched to nuclear weapons, and the wider hostilities expand, I believe America cannot win as it has a civic society that must adhere to the value of respecting lives," Mr. Ishihara said in an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Mr. Ishihara said U.S. ground forces, with the exception of the Marines, are "extremely incompetent" and would be unable to stem a Chinese conventional attack. Indeed, he asserted that China would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons against Asian and American cities—even at the risk of a massive U.S. retaliation.
The governor said the U.S. military could not counter a wave of millions of Chinese soldiers prepared to die in any onslaught against U.S. forces. After 2,000 casualties, he said, the U.S. military would be forced to withdraw.
"Therefore, we need to consider other means to counter China," he said. "The step we should be taking against China, I believe, is economic containment."
Officials acknowledge that Mr. Ishihara's views reflect the widespread skepticism of U.S. military capabilities in such countries as Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. They said the U.S.-led war in Iraq has pointed to the American weakness in low-tech warfare.
"When we can't even control parts of Anbar, they get the message loud and clear," an official said, referring to the flashpoint province in western Iraq.
As a result, Asian allies of the United States are quietly preparing to bolster their militaries independent of Washington. So far, the Bush administration has been strongly opposed to an indigenous Japanese defense capability, fearing it would lead to the expulsion of the U.S. military presence from that country.
On Nov. 16, Mr. Bush met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The two leaders discussed the realignment of the U.S. military presence in Japan and Tokyo's troop deployment in Iraq.
During his visit to Washington in early November, Mr. Ishihara met senior U.S. defense officials. They included talks with U.S. Defense Deputy Undersecretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless to discuss the realignment of the U.S. military presence in Japan.
For his part, Mr. Ishihara does not see China as evolving into a stable democracy with free elections.
"I believe such predictions are totally wrong," Mr. Ishihara said.
They did beat India in a border war in the Himalayas in 1962; that's basically it for this century.
I honestly don't know of a naval war (or even a naval battle) that China has ever been victorious in in it's history; certainly not in the last 500 years.
That used to be the winning strategy against Communist states that threatened our cities with nuclear weaponry, but then we discovered $20 toasters.....
You're in big trouble if you get your military analysis from the "media"; that's your whole problem. Their military expertise is nonexistent and they only seek out military "analysts" that will tell them what they want to hear and support the stories they want to write.
If you recall, during the Fall of 1990 it was the media and their pet so-called military "analysts" telling you that tens of thousands of Americans would die in years of trench warfare being annihilated by Soviet superweapons while liberating Kuwait.
Logistically speaking, do you really feel we could sustain a protracted war on or near the mainland of China?
In what drug-addled fantasyland do you see the US fighting on the mainland of China?
You do get bonus points for at least mentioning Logistics.
The US is, and always has been, the God of Logistics and no country in history can match our experience and ability to sustain distant large-scale operations.
You SHOULD be asking how the Chinese could remotely sustain any combat outside of China, particularly over water, logistically. The answer is they physically couldn't.
I don't think it will be about "defeating" the Chi-Coms, rather than repelling an invasion of Taiwan. It'll be a high-tech battle, and they will lose.
To successfully invade Taiwan, China would have to destroy Taiwan's air force & missile defenses AND defeat two US carrier battle groups. China has very little practical experience and expertise in air-to-air combat. Unless they improve a great deal in air-to-air combat and air defenses, their amphibious invasion force would end up as a tourist attraction for people in glass-bottom boats. As precision-guided weapons improve every year, an amphibious invasion of Taiwan becomes increasingly difficult.
But you know what I was getting at. They do not presently occupy India or any other nation, except for Tibet.
I believe "Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara" is also former Prime Minister Shintaro Ishihara. He was forced out as Prime Minister (don't remember the details, but I believe there was a hint of some sort of scandal). Bottom line - he's been demoted and does not speak for the Japanese national government. This is about equivalent to the Mayor of San Francisco commenting on Chinese military capabilities.
The U.S. has myriads of airports which could support military opps should main military airbases be targeted.
China does not possess such depth.
In short order...only kites would be in the sky over china.
Just last year...China ran some opps to showcase its new C3I/C41 encryption.
U.S. intelligence noticed how China jacked up traffic...so as to make sure U.S. intel noticed.
China is bascially insecure about its projection capability.
These chicom soldiers are not V.C. in the jungle.
Good bet they do not go days on a leaf with rice : )
China has power outage problems and is in juggling mode.
China knows full well it would fight the U.S. in darkness.
Next is China's road logistics.
If war occured....their populace would be scurrying every which way.
sizeable control forces would need to be slotted to keep much needed roadways open.
here again...China would be hard pressed to repair damaged roadnets.
all the above would bring them to a grinding halt and chaos.
With tactical help.....Little Taiwan could put China in this very same spot.
Last year or the year before if I recall.
China pushed a submarine close to some U.S. and Japanese surface assets.
Both played tag on the poor Chi com sub...and after killing it 20 times over,
let the deshelved captian crawl home for his awaiting shame ribbons or whatever redress China's military puts on theirs for screwing up.
When china stops banging pots,pans and gongs to be noticed.....then its time to be concerned : )
"Shintaro Ishihara has been described in some news accounts as a right-wing extremist, and Morita's association with him has been described as a foolish mistake. These accounts are very misleading; so nearly as I can tell, Mr. Ishihara is no more an extremist in his country than, say, Bob Dole is in ours. He is a somewhat right-of-center, charismatic and powerful member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who placed third in the race to succeed Prime Minister Sosuke Uno this past August. Ishihara has served as the Minister of Transport, and is currently a member of the Diet, Japan's legislative body."
An excellent assessment!
I'm completely familiar with the constant stream of pants-wetting panicky articles about the PLA military from the militarily uneducated and those with various axes to grind (biggest source: WingNutDaily) that regularly pollute FR, believe me.
Sadly, it seems you've bought them hook, line, and sinker.
Their military build-up could be to some extent a bluff to make China appear to be able to defeat the US Navy and Taiwan's military. If spineless left-wing presidents then are elected in both Taiwan and the US (Kerry, Hillary, etc.), then China might be able to bluff the US into staying out of a war over Taiwan and bluff Taiwan into surrender by threatening to nuke them. That may be their strategy regarding Taiwan. They certainly have been acquiring a lot of high-quality military hardware over the last ten years.
Show me the "military analysis" which you reference in post #72. Do you know what the term JDAM means? How about the term joint standoff weapon?
In the foreseeable future, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan has at least an 80% probability of ending up as a huge Chinese cluser f*** with massive casualties.
Oh the Chinese are indeed spending more money on their military and attempting to make it more effective, likely with some success; interestingly this actually involves REDUCING the total troop strength of their military. Their leadership is comprised of rather nasty people who I'm certain would like to project as much power around the globe as they could. I'm not disputing that either.
The basic problem is the monumental overhype to the degree you actually have people believing the PRC could invade and conquer Taiwan tomorrow, or that the US could conceivably lose a war with the PRC...so much overhype it's actually causing the more stupid among us (visible in many of the threads today on this horribly over-reposted story) to be defeatist.
What it's doing is massively distorting the perception of the relative strengths of the US and China (in what matters, naval and air strength, especially)...the US still spends more on defense than the next 10 countries in the world combined, and the Chinese could double their military capacity in the next year and still not appreciably make up the gap with the US.
A good example of how distorted people's perceptions are is that they don't realize the Japanese Navy, for example, could easily defeat the entire PLAN without any assistance from the US; the Japanese have built a quite capable military and have spent a lot of money on it and certainly have a far more successful military track record than the PRC. However, you don't see 20 articles about it every time the Japanese build a new ship or acquire a new weapon the same way you do with the PRC.
Sorry, cluser f*** = cluster f***.
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