Speaking of dystopian scenarios, at National Interest Robert Farley outlines how a war between the U. S. and China might unfold:
China could decide to intervene in a new Korean War under two circumstances; first, if it believed that the U.S.-ROK coalition was on the verge of destroying the DPRK (as was the case in 1950), and second, if it believed that the DPRK was winning and that Chinese intervention could preempt U.S. escalation. If the former case, China’s war objectives would be to prevent the destruction of the DPRK, and to prevent the DPRK from unleashing its nuclear arsenal. In the latter, the objective would be the opposite; to secure North Korean gains (whether these amounted to the entire Korean Peninsula or not), and to eliminate any temptation on the U.S. part to escalate to nuclear weapons. In either case, U.S. and ROK planners would pay careful attention to Chinese maneuvers, and both countries would have fully mobilized for war.
Read the whole thing. To the best of my knowledge every wargaming of war between China and the U. S. has resulted in a nuclear exchange which means that Mr. Farley’s scenario is unduly optimistic.
Additionally, there are some pretty good reasons that there won’t be war between the U. S. and China. One of them is that China has a lot more to lose today than it did in 1950.
I doubt that there are many scenarios where the US would use nukes, and the US has a lot more of them. China, Russia, and the US would require nuclear weapons to conquer one another, but I do not see any of those trying to conquer the other,
In reality, nuclear weapons are defensive, and the US, Russia, and China have too few military personnel, equipment, and armaments for an offensive attack.
As far as China is concerned, no free-trader will ever approve of anything that interferes with the US-Chinese trade deficit. But please, I am willing to be entertained. We can start with the illegal Chinese oil transfer to North Korea.
The sad reality is that China needs only to let the current trends continue to become the world hegemon.
At present, they and their Russian and North Korean allies have conventional arms superiority in the Korean theater. That includes land, air and naval superiority. Their forces are in theater, whereas ours as dispersed all over Hell and back. Ten Nimitz carriers tied up at dock 10,000 miles away don’t matter. The 4th ID sleeping in their barracks 10,000 miles away don’t matter.
Moreover, any war on the Peninsula has to be an infantry war. We no longer have much infantry, and we are not very good at infantry warfare anyway. We dropped a $314 M MOAB bomb on what proved to be a platoon of lightly armed ISIS fighters. That was an act of despair. A confession that we are defeated in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Russians and their Iranian and Hezbollah allies beat ISIS in the Middle East. We were at best spectators, and that assumes that ISIS was not our creature.
Does anyone seriously believe that our current infantry, who won’t fight Third World militias, will stand and fight when confronted by Chinese or Russian or North Korean troops? Does anyone think that the American people will tolerate tens of thousands of dead American troops and hundreds of thousands crippled?
Happy New Year, Bob.