Posted on 06/12/2023 4:31:02 AM PDT by Phoenix8
Correct. Wars are won by logistics. And logistics favor the side with the most industrial capacity and means to deliver it.
It’s not really a question of invasion. And even for an invasion logistics wouldn’t be that big of an issue, if the US wasn’t there to interdict Chinese logistics. China can get a very large force to Taiwans shores and Taiwan can’t prevent that. Taiwan however has the artillery and etc. to break an invasion on its beaches, if its got the will to fight.
The most likely scenario is that China will declare a blockade of Taiwan. They have the means to do that. Under some pretext of course. The US (and Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc) will have to decide whether to counter-blockade China, and/or to break the blockade on Taiwan.
Who could of predicted that outsourcing some parts for US military production to China would be bad if we went to war with China?
A military engagement does not by necessity mean a "troop invasion."
You are thinking "inside-the-box."
Laughing to keep from crying at your post.
Is their anyone surprised, except our politicians and Pentagon planners that, after we outsourced the manufacturing of our armanents to our enemies, our chickens would come home to roost? That has got to be the first in world history that leaders and planners could be so absolutely stupid.
I really hope that out in Area 51 they have developed some exotic weapons, or we may be in more peril than we can imagine.
Taiwans principal strategic asset is its location.
The chip business will be a temporary issue. The IP is out there and the chip factories can be duplicated.
What Taiwan is is a potential Chinese base across the Japan and South Korea shipping lanes to half the world. Its a place from which the East Asia trade can be throttled.
Nixon going to China, Geo. HW Bush giving them “Most Favored”status, Carter giving away the Panama Canal, Clinton selling them military secrets.
On and on and on….
Nobody at the Pentagon is freaking out. They’re all practically drooling at the prospect. War makes their jobs “essential”, and the lobbyists for the Military Industrial Complex are making them rich.
If they really dreaded war they’d have supported Trump — which they didn’t.
JFK ordered a military build-up.
“China can get a very large force to Taiwans shores and Taiwan can’t prevent that”
Using what ships? What does China have that can move millions of soldiers in a realistic amount of time?
“The most likely scenario is that China will declare a blockade of Taiwan. They have the means to do that”
That was media hype. The majority of China’s ships are still coast guard level stuff. The media claiming that China has a powerful military is the same nonsense as the missile gap myth that Kennedy found out about when he became president and saw the actual numbers.
Ain’t that the truth - the US hasn’t won a war since 1945, and even then, winning a war ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. War isn’t the goal - except for a few of those mentioned.
Your comment—“…if they did, they knew it would happen after they retired or died”.
Makes me recall a saying my Dad is fond of:
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb
Occupation rate is more like 1 in 50. That’s about what Germany needed in Western Europe, 1940-45. And an occupied Taiwan wouldn’t have a sanctuary for its partisans, its an island. And the Chinese wont be fooling around. The occupation won’t be the problem.
And China certainly has the shipping to get 1 million plus men to Taiwan. And Taiwan has a very limited ability to interdict this, not after its airforce and navy are suppressed by overwhelming numbers of Chinese aircraft and missiles.
Now, the sticking point for an invader is getting off the beaches. Taiwan has a huge mass of artillery and the usable beaches are rather limited. If this happens for real its going to be a titanic struggle on those beaches, a cataclysm that would make Tarawa and Omaha Beach look like little league games.
Too high a risk I think. There are better ways for China to win.
On my way to a new job overseas, I visited my 88 year old grand father. He took me for a walk to show me his newly planted orchard
“The part nobody is talking about is why would we need to go to war with China?”
If we go to war with China it would be because China initiated it. We are in no position to initiate it.
“It’s pathetic how stupid we can be as a country, and for how long.”
Yup.
“For decades after the Cold War, Washington was lulled into defense doldrums from which it is still not fully awakened. The mid-to-late 1990s were an era of American triumphalism, when the prospect of traditional warfare seemed remote. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and by the end of 1991 the Soviet Union had disintegrated. Most officials expected a “peace dividend”: A deflated post-Soviet Russia was seeking U.S. economic advice in shifting to a market economy, and under the Nunn-Lugar program, Moscow was cooperating in eliminating nukes. Washington hopefully brought China into the World Trade Organization, expecting Beijing to observe at least some rules in the U.S.-dominated international system — a policy supported by both political parties.”
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