
China Missiles Could Overwhelm U.S. Military in Asia in ‘Hours’, Says Think Tank - eznoonze
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-19/china-could-crush-some-u-s-military-assets-in-hours
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ComputerGuru
This is a pointless exercise in creating the think tank equivalent of click
bait. So China could wipe out America’s military presence in Asia. What then?
Do we assume that somehow the rest of America’s military back home and abroad
doesn’t respond? That this inevitable retaliation does not weigh into a
decision to “wipe out” Asian-deployed forces? American forces deployed
overseas are nothing more than “ambassadors” for its military, mere pawns on
the chessboard. Imagine a newspaper headline “black queen could wipe out white
pawns” and realize how ridiculous this is.

~~~
sovande
> So China could wipe out America’s military presence in Asia. What then? Do
> we assume that somehow the rest of America’s military back home and abroad
> doesn’t respond?

Yes, consider the following scenario, Using some political pretence, China
invade Taiwan in a blitzkrieg which is over in a few days. All US
communications and GPS are wiped out before the attack begins. Total chaos.
Allies are blind. Any US forces in the vicinity trying to prevent the attack
are obliterated. Next days China issue the following decree, Taiwan has joined
the motherland and all regrettable attacks on US forces have stopped and a
ceasefire is in effect. Any attack on China and Taiwan will be meet with
nuclear forces. What will US and Nato do? What did they do when Russia elbowed
itself into the Syrian conflict? That's right, nothing.

The point is, any serious attack done by China will be over before US an
allies can stop it or reply properly, unless there is a believable rapid
response force on location.

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myrandomcomment
A bunch of jerks flew planes in a building at killed ~3k people and look how
we reacted? The blood of Americans as you described would result in the same
reaction as WW2, full stop. It is the way we wired.

As an aside, the PLA trying to capture Taiwan will be a huge bloody mess. Any
attack plan would be known as the build up would be seen by everyone. The
Taiwan military is not a push over and has dug hole in every mountain. This is
a pretty realistic view here - [https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-
can-win-a-war-wi...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-
war-with-china/)

All of that being said, we should all work to find a solution that does not
involved killing lots of people. China is still trying to find its place in
the world and has a bit of a chip on its shoulder about how it was treated in
the past. I have to believe there is a path in which we are all better off.

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JanSolo
_A decade of “delayed and unpredictable funding” for the U.S. military’s
budget has seen America lose its primacy in the Western Pacific, giving the
edge to an increasingly sophisticated China, a Sydney-based think tank
warned._

So you're saying there's a 'Gap' in missile technology between the US and
China? A 'Missile Gap', perhaps? Perhaps we should have a good old-fashioned
arms-race to sort it all out?

~~~
jswizzy
How? Wall Street has control of the US defense Industry and Chinese investors
are a big part of that. The last time we had a healthy defense industry was
the mid nineties before the last supper destroyed all the small to medium size
defense contractors by forcing them to merge in mega corporations like
Raytheon and L3.

~~~
mcphage
> The last time we had a healthy defense industry was the mid nineties before
> the last supper destroyed all the small to medium size defense contractors

What was "the last supper"?

~~~
bribroder
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1997/07/04/h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1997/07/04/how-
a-dinner-led-to-a-feeding-
frenzy/13961ba2-5908-4992-8335-c3c087cdebc6/?noredirect=on)

~~~
mcphage
Thanks!

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duxup
That seems a sort of absurd scenario / click bait type story where any given
conflict would be far more complex / nuanced.

Was there an assumption that US forces stationed there right now alone could
somehow fight a battle and win vs the volume of China's forces in Asia? Seems
unlikely.

I recall a US general testifying and noting that if N. Korea chose to cross
the DMZ, just based on their sheer volume of men and material would take a
great deal of territory in a short period of time. It was not a surprise, it's
a known thing.

Even during the cold war I belive most plans expected that if the soviet union
chose to move into the rest of Europe, they could do so to some extent.

What happens after that is what would really matter.

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hajile
The cruise missiles go both ways.

The US loses some military bases. China loses their economic infrastructure
and their own internal military bases.

The US would have tens of thousands of casualties. China would have a couple
orders of magnitude more casualties.

The US would lose one trading partner. China would lose almost all of their
trading partners.

The article seems like a sensationalist attempt to justify increasing the US
military budget.

~~~
decoyworker
I've served over there and of the bases I've seen I doubt a single one would
be "destroyed" in the total sense. There are just so many, most of them are
large and spread out, and the structures are usually reinforced concrete. At
the start of this soft targets would be moved anyway. Meh.

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canistr
If I'm China, wouldn't I be concerned if the opposite were true? That my
military capabilities didn't allow me the ability to at least defend my
continent/sphere of influence from my greatest enemy?

It's one thing to go on the offensive to attack another country like the US at
their home, but it's another to have the capabilities to defend areas of
interest that are relatively close to home.

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imagetic
Is it me or is Bloomberg just total trash news?! And why on earth are they
using a wire photo of the Thunderbirds for an article about war?

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openasocket
The report they are citing ([https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/averting-crisis-
american-st...](https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/averting-crisis-american-
strategy-military-spending-and-collective-defence-in-the-indo-pacific) if you
didn't see the link) is much more interesting. Though it doesn't seem to cite
a source or give evidence for the claim that the missiles could overwhelm US
forces within hours, and there doesn't seem to be any elaboration about that
figure. Honestly I don't think they are taking into account ballistic missile
defense systems in place, the rate of fire the PLA can sustain, the risk of
escalation (depending on the scenario, some of the countries these bases
reside in could be neutral in the conflict), and the fact that the PLA will
likely want to hold on to their longer-range DF-26 missiles until they get the
opportunity to take down a carrier.

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decoyworker
Actual think-tank paper: [https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/averting-crisis-
american-st...](https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/averting-crisis-american-
strategy-military-spending-and-collective-defence-in-the-indo-pacific)

After skimming I'm not too impressed with this. It makes a lot of sweeping
assumptions, some totally inaccurate, about our readiness in the area and
seems to disapprove of them not being at peak war-time levels. More alarmist
than anything.

I might be biased since I served in Okinawa for a few years.

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maximente
looks like the principal US export (military-industrial complex + all that
entails - in this case, think tanks justifying insane defense
projects/spending) is getting some play down under

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tyingq
Are they talking about nuclear missiles? Doesn't _" mutually assured
destruction"_ still hold?

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dsfyu404ed
Exactly. Nobody knows what the threshold for opening a can of nuclear whopass
is. Who's willing to bet a billion lives on it being in a particular spot?

The US and China have far too much common economic interest to go to war short
of China doing something so absurdly aggressive that you can't not go to war
(e.g. invading Japan) I don't see that happening.

~~~
ericmay
Or maybe miscalculating (I mean here thinking the U.S. isn't willing to go to
war but turns out they are) and invading Taiwan. I'm honestly not sure how the
U.S. and allies would respond. In my opinion, with the current Chinese
administration there's no reason to think they won't continue to act in ways
that the West views as aggressive, the question is whether or not we can avoid
a war of a misstep. Certainly any military action against Japan (or the
Republic of Korea) would guarantee a U.S. military response, but what about
other countries? If you're China, it seems like the goal here would be to have
Chinese citizens immigrate to countries like Australia and subvert their
resolve through their own democracy. We see some of those actions taking place
on college campuses in Canada, for example. It's certainly interesting to chat
about.

~~~
myrandomcomment
The US is legally obligated to protect Taiwan. Also the US would have to fight
even without that because not doing so would be the end of US power in the
world. We could NOT afford NOT to fight.

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scarmig
Legal obligations are worth the paper they're written on, when it comes to war
between two major world powers. Any decision to retaliate would end up being
based on what's best geopolitically for the USA.

Giving up Taiwan, of course, would announce to the world that allies of the US
should look for other world power sponsors, because our support is paper thin.

That kind of choice is very costly, and it would take a very unique type of
President willing to piss away a century of alliance building.

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bitlax
So did the attack on Pearl Harbor.

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jorblumesea
Then what? The US builds a coalition of regional and international powers,
boxes China in and destroys them economically. China needs the world to trade
with, otherwise the CCP house of cards collapses.

~~~
openasocket
It's complicated. Any war between the US and China will likely be over
disputed territories in the South China Sea, the reunification of Taiwan,
maybe taking South Korea. The US can't invade the Chinese mainland, and China
can't project power to the US mainland. The only way such a way ends is when
both sides come to the negotiating table, where victory or defeat will be
determined by political factors. The US wins by blocking shipping. China wins
by destroying ships and bases. The political fallout from losing a carrier
would probably be enough to bring the US to the table.

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SEJeff
The official death toll of Pearl Harbor was 2,403. A Nimitz class US Navy
Aircraft carrier houses ~6,000 sailors and airmen. If a carrier was sunk in a
first strike, I'd expect a similar response to what the US responded to Pearl
Harbor with. The US still has a first strike nuclear weapons doctrine. China
does not. This would be bad for everyone so I do NOT want this, but am just
pointing out the reality of how it would escalate.

Disclaimer: I'm spit balling as a US Army Veteran here.

