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Gee ... those are pretty big assumptions. I might suggest to your brother that overconfidence in the inabilities of his adversaries is not an optimal approach.

Not assumptions; observations. As I wrote, he is in a position to know.

The author of the simulation/study thingy is the one who was making big assumptions. There's much more to consider than simple numerical and/or technical superiority of the aircraft involved. That was my brother's point.

Manned spaceflight used to be beyond them, too.

It still is.

Now, your brother is obviously closer to the topic than I am, but I can't help wondering if he's not just a bit too dismissive of the Chinese. Especially given that any war we fight against them will be a) closer to China; and b) long.

Not so much dismissive as informed. Fear is born of ignorance. The author doesn't know many of these things, so he makes incorrect assumptions and reaches an incorrect conclusion.

I added my brother's comments to shed the light of actual knowledge on this discussion. I'll trust knowledge over speculation every single time.

I would highly recommed that your brother actually read the slides before making assumptions.

The exercise assumed that F-22 with AMRAAMs had a 100% kill ratio and the Chinese had a zero percent kill ratio.

The Chinese win because our nearest base was so far away from the Straights that they needed to hit tankers, and enough Chinese aircraft get through to take out our tankers and AWACS aircraft.

However, the purpose of the exercise was not to show how weak the US is, it was to show the need for more basing closer to Taiwan, to replace Clark AFB that we lost in 1991.