“What happens with two internally weak countries with powerful armies?”
Ideally, nothing.
But you ask a very good question. Because it increases the chance of a terrible miscalculation.
We need to prepare to fight such a war, and prepare NOW. But, we have to be careful not to be the instigator. If, hopefully, China does not make the move the whole world expects it to make, then there is no war. We cannot start it; history will be very unkind to us if we do.
As the old Romans said, if you want peace prepare for war.
“We cannot start it; history will be very unkind to us if we do.”
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And what if they start it with an EMP attack against us to make sure that we don’t interfere? In this day and age of tuned nukes and hypersonic weapons (both of which we conspicuously lack, having done ZERO nuclear modernization in 3 decades), having the no-first-use policy initiated by Clinton is suicidal. On top of that, our subs CANNOT launch a retaliatory strike if communications are cut off, and that would be a very specific goal of an EMP strike. We could literally be destroyed as a power (let alone a superpower) in less than 1/2 hour, a by-product of our arrogance. Our WW2 leaders were similarly surprised by the Japanese that they woefully and arrogantly underestimated, and I fear that now with that entire generation gone we are about to repeat that same mistake…but with nukes, not torpedo planes.
We should announce that no-first-use is an old policy that will no longer govern our actions. Of course, having ice cream grandpa as POTUS* doesn’t exactly engender confidence in our strength or resolve.