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Comment by pffft8888 | Hacker News Reader

I would expect a huge qualitative difference in our favor when it comes to war strategy and execution, not to mention that we are far ahead in our experience "managing" a war on the world stage, and that we still have an edge in military technology and war machine maintenance. China would ultimately resort to having just one option, like Russia, to use or not use their nukes, which is an end of world scenario.

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Wait, who is "we" here?

I assumed we were talking about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So... which isn't really related to Japan.

We is everyone who wants to live in a world not dominated by an authoritarian regime.

That excludes a lot of US allies countries who are living under authoritarian regimes supported by the US in asia and the middle east. Like gulf countries who US depends on to cut oil off china if the war begins.

Totally dude! so when do we start bombing Saudi Arabia?

A war with China would be a lot more like WWI than any of the wars the United States has recently fought, in that a bunch of new technologies clash for the first time. I wouldn’t be so confident about how it all works out. Yeah, I’d still give the edge to the Americans because, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of us here who just really like making War.

But you have to go back to WWII to find a war where America fought a peer or neer-peer adversary and won.

>A war with China would be a lot more like WWI than any of the wars the United States has recently fought

Where did you get this crazy idea? China and the US are separated by a huge ocean; there's no way to do trench warfare there. A war between the two would entirely be a naval and air war, not a ground war. That's a war the US would easily win.

His analogy is to the new technologies being deployed by military leaders who have no idea how they will change the field of battle. Think the first tanks, chemical weapons, squad tactics, planes, etc. All technical and new hallmarks of warfare brought to the stage during ww1

> Where did you get this crazy idea? China and the US are separated by a huge ocean; there's no way to do trench warfare there. A war between the two would entirely be a naval and air war, not a ground war. That's a war the US would easily win.

You're omitting the second part of their sentence, which makes it pretty clear they aren't talking about trench warfare.

> in that a bunch of new technologies clash for the first time.

>What's a war the US would easily win.

Not really, a US/PRC war happening off PRC coast (likely theatre) will also be against PRC land based aviation and rocketry where US is unlikely to win. The numbers game is increasingly favouring PRC is that US doesn't have the logistics to maintain a war near PRC shores going forward because PRC can take out USN sustainment fleet and turn carrier groups into single deployment assets with DAYS of endurance. US ability to generate useful sorties to actually erode PRC land based platforms and the effects they can generate that covers most of US East Asia security commitments (likely trigger) is diminishing fast.

E: over rate limit

>turn into a nuclear war

No it wouldn't, and PRC currently massively building up nuke umbrella, so US wouldn't even more against adversary that can strike back both strategically, and conventionally, especially existentially on CONUS. This US exceptionalist would salt the earth of enemies who sink a carrier wank is reserved for small/mid tier nations that US can bully with impunity. And at the end of the day without carriers, short medium term, US doesn't have the platforms to conventionally destroy PRC... because at that point they will lack "necessary" "whatever forces" to do so.

E2:

>the US has never been attacked on its own soil before in the modern age, except for 9/11, and the results there were catastrophic.

And non nuclear, on nation not particularly responsible. The broader point being US has never been attacked on it's soil because outside of single point vunerabilities like 9/11, US adversaries technically could not, hence US free to prosecute "all out", leading to exceptionalist talking point like losing a carrier will lead to nuclear war. But decision calculus change when US homeland is now permenantly vunerable to peer adversary, repeately, and at scale. This does not mean US would not be forced to escalate with full determination (again likely non nuclear) as result of homeland attacks, but change in vunerabilty means US will be more avoidant of initiating intervention that could lead to homeland exchanges, with respect to PRC this means being deterred from starting a war over TW in first place, which PRC is willing to go to existential ends for, whereas US, most likely is not.

> overestimating the Chinese military's strength

Maybe every relevant PRC platform is vapourware, but if they're remotely credible, then they don't need to match US military pound of pound but asymmetrically dismantle US power projection ability, which is what PLA modernization has focused on in past 20 years. PRC doesn't need to sink 11 carrier groups, it needs to sink 10 fast support ships at dock or and AWACs / tankers in their hangers that enables US projection, a much easier task done with concerted effort by a PRC with massive industrial base, extremely competitive S&T eco with multitude more STEM graduates, and defense budgets which in PPP terms is close to US. IMO, if anything, more people over estimate US miiltary strength vis-a-vis PRC now. Or that that PRC's goal is to build up strategic and conventional deterrance so we don't have to find out before too long.

Sinking even one US aircraft carrier would very likely turn into a nuclear war. Sinking multiple carriers definitely would; the US wouldn't stop until the enemy country is completely destroyed, using whatever force is necessary.

I guess we'll find out before too long, but you're overestimating the Chinese military's strength, and the US's determination to win at all costs. An attack on the US mainland would absolutely be met with a full-scale nuclear attack; the US has never been attacked on its own soil before in the modern age, except for 9/11, and the results there were catastrophic. A serious attack would be all-out war to the end, regardless of any long-term consequences for humanity.

> the US has never been attacked on its own soil before in the modern age, except for 9/11, and the results there were catastrophic.

except for when the Brits burned Washington DC in Aug 1814.

And there was this little thing at someplace named after a rental car company, "Alamo" I think.

You could argue that the wars with the various indigenous people were not fought on US soil, because the soil wasn't "ours" until after we beat them.

Oh, wait, you said "in the modern age". Ok, so since WWI, no one has attacked the US.

So Pearl Harbor doesn't count?

>So Pearl Harbor doesn't count?

For one thing, Hawaii wasn't a U.S state at the time. Secondly, that's still far from the mainland U.S, an attack on which would provoke a different sort of response.

The vast majority of the mainland US hasn’t experienced war in over a century, which is an extremely special geopolitical situation that hardly ever gets talked about.

The US lost against China in the Korean War.

This is not a CCP thing Americans underestimate Chinese nationalism when faced with foreign devils.

Or a virus that targets caucasians. Or knockout the GPS satellites. Or target 3-4 internet backbone nodes. Or a high altitude EMP (which would probably come from a nuke). There’s a lot of scary scenarios.

The issue the west has with China, is that China produces all the consumer goods and a decent amount of the heavy equipment. The issue China has is the west provides access to food and energy. While that’s changing, to-date the two are too entangled for war imo.

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