Posted on 09/24/2002 8:51:32 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
I apologize, I should have stated the obvious:
I was addressing the specific flavor of asymmetic warfare that this thread presented, the surrogate attack by a small foreign group representing another foreign group.
I other words, imagine all the mideastern nut jobs taking flying lessons in China and sneaking in for years undocumented; or scraming daily messages from mosques about the destruction of Chinese society...
I find that inconceiveable.
Internal dissent, resistance, assasination and intrigue is a whole other thing.
It is difficult to imagine a war in Baghdad where a cruise missile is following a street map and destroys a military headquarters while regular civilians are going about their everyday business undisturbed...
This book from the Chinese makes the same point.
However, should it ever come to war, I maintain that China will split up from its own internal pressures if Beijing and/or the upper Communist bureaucracy were destroyed or were to disappear.
The US would NOT split up. Loosing the west coast would be a severe blow to the US economy and it would in fact take a long while to recover, but it would be DECADES before China would re-form as a modern nation if it lost Beijing/Shanghai/Dalien.
The day of the warlords would return...
The truth is the Chinese are happy about our being distracted by Islamic terrorists, and perhaps even wish they had thought of it. But they didn't. Which is not to say that Islamic terrorists act entirely alone. On the contrary, they have support from a number of radical states, and those radical states in turn were the recipients of decades of "troublemaking" support by our cold war adversaries. But the Chinese didn't create, train, or fund Bin Laden.
In case everybody forgot, we did. To wage assymmetric warfare against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Successfully.
I find the book (those parts I've read so far) VERY interesting as insight into the Chinese mind. However, I find a curious flaw in their thinking, a certain lack or creativity when they try to ascribe some general pseudo-mystical advantage in doing things by the "golden mean" or by the ration of "0.618".
This is exactly the sort of brittle thinking Americans tend to avoid. If there is a war with China they will be hit by ways that don't harmonize with some bizarre (even if interesting) logic arising from Confuscus or Lao-Tzu...we read Sun-Tsu as well as Bismark, Metternich, Rommel and Zhukov.
The American way is: if you mess with us, we will take revenge on you and you WON'T do it again...
Seconded.
Also, the "yellow peril" story is rather silly. China has only 4 times the US population - and 1/10th the per capita wealth - not 20 times. And the US has as regional allies little countries like Japan (#2 economy in the world), India (#2 population in the world), plus a rich assortment of middle-weights (Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand - with Vietnam a wild card but hardly friends of China). China has - North Korea, where the people eat bark and flee *to* Chinese tyranny for a breath of fresh air.
The coalition against Chinese dominance of east Asia has half again China's population, 10 times her economy, and more like 15 times her military potential. The US navy and air force are 10 times as large and more than 10 times as effective, Japan's twice more, India equal, Taiwan and South Korea as much again between them, and the rest of the smaller ones probably as much again. The limited role of China in the region is not a result of Chinese forbearance but ordinary deterence by superior powers. The Chinese role in the region is rising, because Japan is stagnating and China's relative backwardness is decreasing - but it is a lesser power than Japan, let alone us.
They dream of more now, of "punching above their weight", as they have since early in the century. The Chinese have a long history of big mouths and high concepts in place of big defense budgets and high air cover. The US is a paper tiger, remember? Mao's guerilla warfare ideas would make conventional military power irrelevant, remember? That is why the US lost the Korean war, and then lost the cold war. The truth of the matter is fifth column "useful idiots" here at home were behind the only successes their side scored. Or in other words, -we- can defeat ourselves (and sometimes have), but they sure can't.
Unless I'm mistaken, even fleas are killed by massive amounts of radiation.
It sounds as though the DNC has an advance copy. The only thing on the list that they haven't been using for the past ten years is the cyber attack.
As for the rest: Japan, will not attack. S. Korea, in such an instance would probably be swamped by the N. Korean offensive. US Fleet...yup, if all the ships had enough men and were pulled out of every other theater...those immediately deployable are a much, much smaller force... As for population, how do you figure 4 times...lets see math: US 270 million, China 1.5 billion...more along the lines of 6 to 1 and still growing.
As for Vietnam, you are right, they did run out of logistics and the hard Vietnamese defense...after all, these guys had just beaten the US, they had plenty of experience. As for India...the Chinese handed the Indians their arse.
Not defending China here, but lets keep facts closer to reality, shall we?
Lastly...maybe I missed something...but when exactly did the US win the Korean War? The armestece is still in effect, not a peace treaty and no surrender....history!
Remember that Clinton stacked the U.S. Military with incompetent perfumed princes more interested in beret fashion and feminist/gay rights than in esprit de corps.
What happened in Serbia/Kosovo takes nothing away from what happened in Iraq in GWI, and the devastating effect of cruise missiles wiping out command bunkers and A10s taking out entire columns of tanks at a time...
Actually I will not die disappointed if nothing happens. I have an eight year old son and 22 month old daughter. I would like to see them grow up in peace. I am not a war monger.
As far as not knowing as much as I think, you may be right. Only time will tell. One thing is for sure though and that is I owe it to my family to be ready for any contengency. While others on this forum are shaking in boots and begging for the government to protect them, I have taken responsibility for my families protection. If more people would do this then maybe they wouldn't be so eager to let the government get away with as much as they are getting away with.
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