just kinda curious if others think what I do our country appears weak and the bullies are pushing our buttons to see what gets a response or not
Pentagon officials said Thursday that five Chinese warships that appeared near Alaska during President Barack Obama’s visit this week passed through U.S. territorial waters–and hastened to defend China’s actions as being consistent with international law.
The rush to avoid an international crisis contrasts sharply with China’s own aggression any time the U.S. approaches Chinese waters or airspace, even where Chinese claims are dubious.
That’s what I mean. Freedom of navigation doesn’t work for them in the South China Sea, but if they want to play tit-for-tat and reinforce the concept that they would like to take away with, that bolsters our argument.
A blue water confrontation for China would go about as well as us trying an amphibious assault on China.
I was about to take issue because I believed we could successfully assault and establish a beach head.
China has approximately 2,333,000 under arms and 2,333,000 reserves. They have 9,000 tanks, 5,000 AFV’s, 1,100 Fighters, 1,000 Helicopters and 200 attack helicopters.
We have approximately 1,400,000 under arms, and 1,100,00 reserves. We have 8,848 tanks, 41,000 AFV’s, 2,207 fighters, 2,700 attack aircraft, 6,196 helicopters, and 920 attack helicopters.
Our Navy could ensure that the vast majority of the 51 RO/RO vessels in the Merchant Marine would make the transit safely and supply the beachhead. I THINK we could establish air superiority over the battle field.
I think it would be bloody, but I think we could establish a beach head. Then it would just be a matter of who used the first nuke.
Numbers don’t tell the whole story. This isn’t a simple board game where you put your forces on one side, put their forces on the other, and then fight it out. Not all of our troops are combat troops.
For example tanks. We may be listed as having 8,848 tanks, but I doubt we have the trained crews to man 1/3 of that number. The numbers are just inventory. Then we need a means of getting that number across the world and starting and keeping a supply line with food, fuel, ammo, parts, maintenance, and everything that they need. I’m just using the tank number example without factoring in every other supporting arm.
Our Navy could ensure that the vast majority of the 51 RO/RO vessels in the Merchant Marine would make the transit safely and supply the beachhead.
I seriously doubt it. We would be fighting them in their home waters where they have lots of shorter ranged fast patrol craft equipped with some surprisingly modern anti-ship missiles. They might not be good for power projection but they would be hell in home waters. They have DF-21 antiship ballistic missiles and YJ-12 and YJ-18 land, sea and air launched anti-ship missiles. The YJ-12 and YJ-18 are actually more advanced and longer ranged than our decades-old Harpoon antiship missiles. Please look up those missiles.
China has been hard at work on anti-access weapons, strategies, and tactics which would make it impossible for use to fight them in their home waters without suffering heavy losses.
I THINK we could establish air superiority over the battle field.
Questionable. I doubt we could get our carriers close enough or keep them there. Even so, we would not have enough carrier born aircraft. China has been procuring and building hundreds of advanced Russian SU-17 variants. Again, it’s not a matter of a board game where you put all of our forces on one side and theirs on the other and decide who wins that way. Given modern espionage and satellite technology, there is no way we could get large forces close enough to China to invade.
This isn’t even considering the political will in the US. I can’t see any US decisionmakers signing off for that bloody of a battle .
Serious question: In an era of nuclear weapons, would an invasion of a nuclear nation be possible?
Would China nuke its own soil to repel invaders, or risk a retaliatory nuclear strike against their cities by nuking ours? At what point does a nation (not necessarily China) reach a point where it uses the “Samson Option”?
Given the above - what is the point of large conventional armies? Certainly fighter aircraft, drones, and bombers can do much more safely, with much less drama, what an on-the-ground invasion force can do.
ETA: Some research has uncovered the following:
China became the first nation to propose and pledge NFU policy when it first gained nuclear capabilities in 1964, stating “not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances”. China has repeatedly re-affirmed its no-first-use policy in recent years, doing so in 2005, 2008, 2009 and again in 2011. China has also consistently called on the United States to adopt a no-first-use policy, to reach a NFU agreement bilaterally with China, and to conclude an NFU agreement among the five nuclear weapon states. The United States has repeatedly refused these calls.
This might explain the conventional military build up in China. However, again, how much does “under any circumstances” apply when NATO forces are converging on Beijing and you’ve had 300,000,000 casualties?
Take a look at Google Earth. Locate Attu Island. They passed West of there. Draw your own conclusions. At no point did they get closer than 1000 miles from the president. The Chinese could legally get closer than that to Washington D.C. by sea.
[i]The PLAN flotilla entered the Bering Sea via international waters via a passage between the Russian Kamchatka peninsula and the American Attu island, a defense official confirmed to USNI News on Thursday.
The Aleutian Islands stretch 900 nautical miles westward from the Alaskan Peninsula to the outermost island of Attu, only 650 miles from what was then Japan’s northernmost naval base at Paramushiro in the Kurile Islands. http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_18/forgotten.htm
First, I don’t see any way anyone could invade China. Look at their forces and look at a map.
Given the above - what is the point of large conventional armies? Certainly fighter aircraft, drones, and bombers can do much more safely, with much less drama, what an on-the-ground invasion force can do.
Please forgive me, I don’t want to sound like I am lecturing anyone, especially you, who I am sure has a military background. You need ground forces to take and hold ground or hold and defend ground. Not everything can be accomplished by air strikes.
This might explain the conventional military build up in China.
China has radically modernized their conventional forces over the past decades. Their conventional forces were really out of date.
China also wants to be able to assert their control beyond their immediate area into areas they define as their first and second island chains. They are building a blue water navy and have developed a lot of land based systems, such as mobile land based ballistic anti-ship missiles, modern strike aircraft equipped with advanced anti-ship missiles, etc.
However, again, how much does “under any circumstances” apply when NATO forces are converging on Beijing and you’ve had 300,000,000 casualties?
Again, please look at NATO forces, where they are located, and what they would have to do to get to Bejing and many would get destroyed in the process of trying to set foot on mainland China. I do not see any way that it could happen.
What would be the strategic endstate? We can’t manage our mess of >400 million. There is no way we could even begin to try to manage 1.6 billion Chinese. Then add to it their demographic time bomb, fragile domestic food production, and rather unstable economy, my COA is wait them out.
Look the other than notable exceptions our military is really proficient at powerpoint, gay awareness, NCOERs, and uniform corrections. In my limited studies of military history I’ve never seen any of those being critical elements in an army that is going to be fighting this theoretical disaster. So many dead drafted hipsters that we’d have a lost generation of men like the French and Brits dealt with after WWI. This fight would even further destabilize the world.
Yes I think we could invade, we could hold ground, that we could really make a generational mess of us and them, then fight an insurgency that would make iraq look like Bolivia. Why?