

Why the Chinese Military Is Only a Paper Dragon - 11thEarlOfMar
http://theweek.com/article/index/264774/why-the-chinese-military-is-only-a-paper-dragon

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cowardlydragon
I've read of certain things (such as a fleet of diesel submarines to defend
against the much more expensive american naval fleet), drones, and others
where they get more bang for the buck than american investments.

... and as if our military's 640 billion in spending isn't grossly inflated by
corruption by the small number of defense contractors.

If a country has ICBMs and nuclear warheads, it is certainly NOT a paper
tiger. This kind of thinking, besides disrespectful, leads to stupid generals
conceiving of "acceptable losses" in nuclear exchange wars and other
horrifying fantasies.

And it almost happened several times in the Cold War.

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simonblack
The articles contains quite a bit of wishful thinking. The same sort of
disparagement of an prospective enemy that occurred pre WW2 when 'Made in
Japan' was a derogatory term. That soon stopped when US forces came up against
the superior Zero fighter and the very capable Japanese Navy.

Just because an army's equipment may not match yours in technology is no
reason for complacency. The US and Soviet weapons in WW2 were inferior to
German stuff, but as Stalin famously said 'Quantity has a quality all of its
own'.

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cafard
It can hardly be worse equipped than it was 60 years ago, yet then it
inflicted quite a few casualties on the US and NATO forces in Korea, and drove
them back south of the 38th Parallel.

