War With China (blog article)

[Scottty]

Jim of jim.com has been blogging about the Orwellian behavior of the modern Administrative State, where they can be deliberately doing something, while at the same time sincerely not believing themselves to be doing it, or even not understanding what you mean when you accuse them of it.

War with China « Jim's Blog

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War with China


In December Biden proposed that if elected he will go to war with China:

“I am not proposing war with China, but …”

He proposes to use the air force and navy to prevent China from oppressing dissidents, which presupposes US Navy and air force engaging and defeating the Chinese air force in the South China sea and over China. And, in the unlikely event that the US Navy and air force was not immediately sent to Davy Jones locker, what would they do with air superiority over parts over China? The Chinese are not using planes and tanks on trouble makers. They are using cops, and seldom more than one carload of cops or soldiers at a time. The only effectual thing US planes could do is blow up large concentrations of armed Chinese and blow up Chinese strong points – which is what the US has done everywhere else where the authorities or local militias have resisted color revolution.
This appears to be Cathedral policy. Has to be the most unpopular policy in history – the US navy and air force would decisively lose an airsea war in the South China sea, and the US would lose the ensuing nuclear war, because of technological decline.
My previous posts have focused on the likelihood of coup, democide, or internal war within the United States. However, as I mentioned in the previous post, it also resembles the lead up to World War I. Serbia was conducting low level war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which Germany reasonably regarded as low level war against Germany, and was incapable of not making low level war, albeit the same lack of cohesion that made it incapable of peace also made it incapable of full scale war.
If you talk to someone in the lamestream about female misconduct in the workplace, or accurately describe female nature, not only will he not notice the things you notice, he will not hear what you are saying, will not notice that you notice. And in the same way, if you talk to someone in the lamestream about American aggression against China, he will not understand what you are saying either. And if you talk about Chinese military supremacy in and near China, he will not only not agree, he will not disagree either because he will not understand what you are saying.
These are thought crimes, and progressives will not only not think them or say them, but they will not hear when other people say them. It is like the mysterious invisibility of female misconduct in the workplace. The British failed to notice that the mighty British army was humiliatingly defeated in Basra and Helmand province by handful of goat herders, and the US army that rescued them failed to notice that they needed rescue and had just been rescued.

A million people in concentration camps … What we started in our administration, but Trump stopped … We are going to be there to protect other folks … We are going to stop the Chinese from their actions. This is as far as you go, China. … We are not looking for a war, but … we are not going to back away.

We are going to use American airsea military power to protect people in China from the Chinese government. I am pretty sure the Chinese achieved airsea superiority in the South China sea during the Obama or Clinton presidencies and are continuing to extend the area where they have airsea superiority.
Biden probably does not remember this speech, he is unlikely to become president, and if he does become president, no one in the government is going to pay much attention to him. But the disturbing thing is that he could say this stuff and get no pushback on it, that no one noticed how stupid and dangerous this was.
Libya is poor and technologically backward, but the war on Libya ended with a transient American occupation, failure to impose the government that America was attempting to impose, and Americans retreating from Libya, which is now cheerfully reverting to its centuries old ways, as if Western influence had never been. The war on Libya was an attempt to impose progressivism on Libya, which is now a lot less progressive than it has been in a very long time.
The Democrats are demanding that the Chinese allow them to impose progressivism.
It is unlikely that the Chinese are going to back away from ruling China. One side or the other has to back away, or war. The intrusion into Hong Kong would have led to war. Had Obama been ineffectually at the helm, a hundred or a thousand people in the defense agencies and the State Department would have each been trying to impose superior holiness on the world more vigorously than each of the others.
You will recall that when China was vastly more oppressive, and vastly poorer and weaker, you heard no tough talk. Outrage about Chinese oppression started when China dropped most of the oppression and started on “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”, which characteristics look suspiciously like a good stiff dose of Hong Kong capitalism. Any time someone talks about China, he is required to say how totalitarian and oppressive they are, something that back in the days of communism, it was terribly impolite and disreputable to say. Rhetoric that is likely to lead to war is mandatory, and noticing facts that would make war on China a really bad idea is not socially acceptable.
The problem is not that Biden is headed to war with China. Should he become president he is just going to fall asleep. The problem is that the holiness spiral is headed to war with China.
We see with China the same inability to see as we see with women.
I don’t think this is a sinister plot by evil plotters to have war with China. Biden is a genuine peacenik. But, China has been heading right, the holiness spiral is heading left, so China is unholy, and all goodwhites must put a stop to any unholiness. So if you are a good person, you must prevent China from heading right – that China happens to be an independent nation with nuclear weapons, and those nuclear weapons probably work while our nuclear weapons probably do not, is irrelevant. “We are going to stop the Chinese”.
If you try arguing that China is obviously on the correct course, moving from desperate poverty to affluence, and terrible oppression to considerably milder oppression, that Chinese airsea war capability is likely to actually work, while ours is suffering mysterious malfunction, that China is an independent nation and we are morally required by Christian principles and the Peace of Westphalia to not butt into their internal affairs, it is not that they will be horrified by what you are saying. Rather, they will be unable to comprehend what you are saying. Crimestop shuts down their mind. Diversity cannot tolerate the existence of difference, because the existence of real difference is intolerant. China is different, so must be morally improved at gunpoint.

"It is not that they will be horrified by what you are saying. Rather, they will be unable to comprehend what you are saying. Crimestop shuts down their mind. "

 

[Deleted member 88]

I thought Biden was a China dove?

Personally I think war with China would be disastrous-the US will likely still win at this stage, but it would shatter the global economy and even if China loses-likely the CCP will collapse. Which will have further knock on effects.

And if the Chinese manage to stalemate or outright beat the US-it would spell the end of US hegemony the world over. Which would be very bad.

 

[Cherico]

I thought Biden was a China dove?

Personally I think war with China would be disastrous-the US will likely still win at this stage, but it would shatter the global economy and even if China loses-likely the CCP will collapse. Which will have further knock on effects.

And if the Chinese manage to stalemate or outright beat the US-it would spell the end of US hegemony the world over. Which would be very bad.

Its also completely unnessary, China is the single most overleveraged country in human history in both relative and abosolute terms. Their one child policy has ensured that they are running out of 20 and 30 year old's, their one aircraft carrier is a disaster and they don't have a blue water navy worthy of the name. Their the country that is the single most dependent on middle eastern crude for basically everything and they have paved over their best farm land.

This life line that they are dependent on must go through India a country it has issues with, then through a series of hostle island chains and pensulars. All we have to do to utterally cripple china is not protect their shipping after a year or so with out Oil everything else shatters at once.

 

[LordsFire]

I thought Biden was a China dove?

Personally I think war with China would be disastrous-the US will likely still win at this stage, but it would shatter the global economy and even if China loses-likely the CCP will collapse. Which will have further knock on effects.

And if the Chinese manage to stalemate or outright beat the US-it would spell the end of US hegemony the world over. Which would be very bad.

If the US tried to invade China, it would be a disaster. If Trump decided to just sink their navy and wipe their airforce out, then tell China at large 'Get rid of the CCP and I won't need to bomb Beijing flat,' the rest of the threat China represents to basically anyone else would handily resolve itself. Whether it was a general uprising, or just a particularly enterprising Flag officer in the Chinese Army, the CCP would be overthrown. A military junta scared into distancing itself from Communist trappings, or the entire nation collapsing into splinter states, either one would serve the purposes of America, from a ruthless utilitarian perspective.

And after the initial unrest was over with, it'd probably be better for the Chinese people too.

And make no mistake, while the Chinese military could inflict some losses, they would lose, and lose hard.

 

[Duke Nukem]

Going to war with China or any nuclear power is a terrible idea, Any conventional war would likely lead to us nuking each other to the stone age.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

...
You don't go to war with China kinetically if you are the US; you just ban all imports of Chinese goods to the US market and put China on the treasury blacklist.

You make a phone call to MBS and tell him that the price for US support is that Saudi Arabia no longer sells oil to China.

You let the NSA off the hook with orders to cripple China's cyberspace.

You tell the European national leaders, quietly, that they can either support the US or the US will publicly announce that NATO is done with and that the US (especially the Fed) will start treating Europe's nations as hostile powers. You also inform them that simultaneously with that, the US would reach out to individual EU members and offer them sweetheart deals tailored to their specific circumstances on the condition that they publicly repudiate the EU.

If the US decided that China needed to end and the US was seriously about it, the attack wouldn't involve carriers or F-35's; it would involve press releases and Treasury regulations.

And if the US did decide (for whatever reason) to use kinetic force then it would just interdict shipping too and from China. The Chinese navy isn't a blue water force and can't even inconvenience the US outside the range of China's land based installations; and a blockade would crash the Chinese economy over night with all of the attendant domestic social issues.

 

[LordsFire]

...
You don't go to war with China kinetically if you are the US; you just ban all imports of Chinese goods to the US market and put China on the treasury blacklist.

You make a phone call to MBS and tell him that the price for US support is that Saudi Arabia no longer sells oil to China.

You let the NSA off the hook with orders to cripple China's cyberspace.

You tell the European national leaders, quietly, that they can either support the US or the US will publicly announce that NATO is done with and that the US (especially the Fed) will start treating Europe's nations as hostile powers. You also inform them that simultaneously with that, the US would reach out to individual EU members and offer them sweetheart deals tailored to their specific circumstances on the condition that they publicly repudiate the EU.

If the US decided that China needed to end and the US was seriously about it, the attack wouldn't involve carriers or F-35's; it would involve press releases and Treasury regulations.

And if the US did decide (for whatever reason) to use kinetic force then it would just interdict shipping too and from China. The Chinese navy isn't a blue water force and can't even inconvenience the US outside the range of China's land based installations; and a blockade would crash the Chinese economy over night with all of the attendant domestic social issues.

With more than five minutes put into a post, this is a much more practical way to deal with China, overall.

Though if you do go kinetic, you do take the time to thrash their air force, or at least a significant portion of it. Don't let the enemy hold the initiative when they're in bombing range of your allies.

 

[bullethead]

This fellow (former Australian military and former counter-terrorism advisor to Petraeus and Condoleeza Rice) makes a compelling argument that we may already be at war with China:


He basically argues that China may have expanded its definition of war to include stuff like financial manipulation, controlling key tech, and obtaining certain properties, which doesn't fit the West's conception of war and allows them to sidestep the US's conventional military advantage.

 

[gral]

He basically argues that China may have expanded its definition of war to include stuff like financial manipulation

May? They certainly did. In the late 90's - early 00's, a pair of Chinese officers, teachers in one of their military academies, wrote a military treatise(I forgot the name, but an internet search makes me think it's 2001's The Science of Military Strategy), that was all about peripheral actions to weaken and bring down an enemy. Economical and internet warfare were big parts of it.

 

[Emperor Tippy]

This fellow (former Australian military and former counter-terrorism advisor to Petraeus and Condoleeza Rice) makes a compelling argument that we may already be at war with China:


He basically argues that China may have expanded its definition of war to include stuff like financial manipulation, controlling key tech, and obtaining certain properties, which doesn't fit the West's conception of war and allows them to sidestep the US's conventional military advantage.

Except he is making a mistake that I have seen alot of from military officers. The US has been engaged in economic, informational, and cyber-warfare for decades; the US just doesn't do it through DoD and the US government really doesn't talk about it much at all.

The Special Activities Division of the CIA is most widely known for their Special Operations Group (basically the US James Bonds) but the vast majority of their manpower, funding, and focus is on their primary purpose; informational shaping, propaganda, and counter propaganda. In that field they are hands down the varsity. People bitch about Russia interfering in US elections? SAD has had ensuring the election of US prefered candidates around the world as one of its primary purposes since its founding.

Cyberwarfare? Reagan signed the first EO laying out the US's philosophy to cyberwarfare and setting the NSA's strategic goals; and it wasn't defense. Since the 80's the NSA has invested massive amounts of resources into offensive cyberwarfare for the express purpose of crashing (permanently) everything with a microchip in a hostile nation. The US designed and built the entire internet and basically everything involving the microchip. Russia, China, and everyone else are playing catchup in a game that the US won thirty years ago and continues to invest more money in annually than the entire Russian military budget.

Financial/economic warfare? The US has been using that tool since the end of WW2 and under Obama we raised it to a primary weapon. Look at the response to the Iran Nuclear deal; despite the EU and all of its major governments trying to resist US sanctions, not a single European company was willing to risk said sanctions. Even China played ball with them to a large extent.

---

Kilcullen talks about the evolutionary pressures that the US has forced on hostile powers and the lessons that Russia and China (and others) have taken from US actions since '91 - but what he overlooks is that those pressures were artificial.

The US hasn't played for keeps or used its military seriously since (at least) Vietnam; realistically it hasn't done so since WW2. At the same time, the US military is designed and built to fight WW3; not to nation build, not to occupy, not for counter insurgency, not for regime protection.

Everything that the US military has been doing since 9/11 has been a tertiary mission where the objectives were entirely political and where the endeavour was never actually seen as a military operation.

Real war? The opening move is cruise missiles targeted on power plants & transformers, communications hubs, and relevant industrial targets. Simultaneous with that, stealth aircraft are rolling up the air defense network of the target as F-35's down everything that flies. Then comes the guided bombs on everything from the local police station to rail bridges to the cellphones of everyone of note (military officers, high ranking government officials, religious leaders, community organizers, etc.). At the same time, the cyberweapons start striking and you see zero day vulnerabilities being exploited in essentially every networked device in the entire nation to infect them with viruses that will do things like encrypt the entire device before literally burning out critical components.

If the US decides that a nation is a proper enemy and said enemy doesn't have a sufficiently capable nuclear arsenal to threaten the US with then that nation will be ended not in years, or months, or even weeks but in days. The enemy will have no factories left standing, no intact transportation links, no communications infrastructure, no surviving governmental or community leaders or infrastructure, no electricity, no water, and no heavy weapons.

Remove the nukes and China is just as fucked as, say, Iran.

So the lesson that those other powers have been learning isn't how to fight and win against the US, it is how to be sufficiently enraging to the US to get the US to take them seriously. Should China (or Russia) study US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader world? Absolutely. Should they think those operations are even remotely similar to what they would face in US operations against them? No, not if they are remotely sane.

The US will engage in "peacekeeping" against fourth rate powers pretty much whenever the US President feels like it and on the slimmest of justifications. The idea that the US would even contemplate the same against a real power is, however, farcical. If the US conducts active military operations against Russia, China, or any other decently capable power then it will be war.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

The PRC and their challenge against America’s superpower status is intolerable, but not for the reasons we’re being told. Nobody with any real power cares about a few Uighurs or Hong Kongers. It’s all about the damn money.

Frankly, while I agree with you, Soros is just butthurt he can't play with China's money like he did with the UK's.
Their dispute is Pox vs Cholera.

 

[Cherico]

Frankly while I agree with you, Soros is just butthurt he can't play with China's money like he did with the UK's.

I am legitemently surprised he wasnt killed for that.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

I am legitemently surprised he wasnt killed for that.

Yeah, a damn shame. Didn't help the MSM was praising him for that as a genius bussiness man move.

 

[Cherico]

Yeah, a damn shame. Didn't help the MSM was praising him for that as a genius bussiness man move.

you think they would have some compassion for all of the people he hurt but then again they don't mention the fact that he isn't welcome in Israel and is widely considered to be a traitor to us.

 

[Deleted member]

The article lost me with the claim the US was incapable of achieving air-land dominance over China, then made me laugh with the claim that China could beat the US in a nuclear exchange. This is his vaunted Chinese military:



Updated Mig-19s flying against open towed anti-air batteries that still use flag signalmen...

It calls into account the sanity of all the rest of his claims as well.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

you think they would have some compassion for all of the people he hurt but then again they don't mention the fact that he isn't welcome in Israel and is widely considered to be a traitor to us.

Yeah, funny story about him. Soros tried to convince the brits to stay in the EU. Didn't work, I can't imagine why...

Soros FAIL: The Man Who Broke the Bank of England Can't Make Them Stay

Soros took on a very active and public interest in the Leave vote in the days leading up to his victory by penning a sky–is–falling piece for The Guardian that claims to be concerned about the financial well-being of the average British voter but left out the devastating effect Soros’s own...

www.breitbart.com

 

[Emperor Tippy]

What I don't get is how he always gets a free pass from progressives. People who would ordinarily have nothing but seething hatred for billionaires are capable of making one exception for Soros, because of his alleged progressive policies. They can't see that it's all a self-serving ruse for his own benefit. No billionaire who throws money into NGOs and charities is up to any good. None of them. They are interested only in power, and having legions of online commentators who want to reflexively jump to your defense is but one of many kinds of power.

How to Start a (Wall Street-backed) Revolution - Wrong Kind of Green

"No real revolution of any kind will take place until people both understand the balance of power currently held in the world today and how to change it pragmatically rather than politically. Wall Street, a global tyranny of unprecedented proportions, will remain intact until we see them, not...

www.wrongkindofgreen.org

Srđa Popović (activist) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When Soros broke the Thai Baht, he made millions jobless and destitute for his own enrichment, and wannabe progressives will actually forgive him for this.

Soros and Thaksin Made Huge Profits After a Devastating Attack on Thai Economy

In March 1998, in the midst of the financial crisis, while thousands were losing their businesses and jobs, a Thai politician stood up for the speculator who had shorted the baht: “Soros likes t...

www.thai-truth.com

Manually-aimed AA guns are useless in modern warfare unless the target is a helicopter. Even entirely robotic systems like the modern versions of the Oerlikon GDF are of questionable effectiveness, simply because projectiles can't reach very far. Pretty much any serious anti-aircraft defense grid will incorporate a very large number of short-to-medium-range surface-to-air missiles, with perhaps a few guns to deter penetration by low-flying craft.

China has been investing heavily in things like radar decoy tech, with the hopes of confounding anti-radiation missiles completely:

China Looks to Undermine U.S. Power, With 'Assassin's Mace'

Could China wipe out an American military advantage with a simple black box? Joshua Cooper Ramo’s thought-provoking book The Age of the Unthinkable challenges all kinds of conventional thinking about everything from venture capital to military strategy. One section caught my eye in particular...

www.wired.com

One would hope that our guys are paying attention and know how to filter out the false signals and hit the real radar installations, but hey, that's just me talking nonsense as usual.

Another problem, of course, is China's significant investment in ballistic missile and ASM tech:

Assassin's Mace Could Lead to WW3 in South China Sea

The Assassin's Mace is China's newest superweapon designed to tip the balance of power in the South China Sea. Here's how this could lead to World War 3.

moneymorning.com

China's DF-100 Anti-Ship Missiles Are Ready To Sink the U.S. Navy

Set to kill America's aircraft carriers.

nationalinterest.org

DF-21 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

DF-17 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think it's funny that China is claiming that the US performed a bioweapon attack against them. Holy shit, if we didn't do it, then we would have no choice but to do it - or something like it - at some point. The PRC is simply too much of a threat. We could beat them in a hot war, but it would be costly, essentially the worst video game escort mission imaginable. Basically, we'd have to decide which of our allies in the region we'd like to keep intact, and which ones we'd like to watch evaporate off the map.

China isn't a threat.

Military conquest would be difficult but it also isn't necessary. China is incredibly constrained geographically, to actually do anything to the US it has to make it past the first island chain. They can wipe out South Korea via using North Korea but unless they are willing to nuke Taiwan (which, in the PRC's view, is nuking their own territory) it would take the entire PLAN to have a chance of forcing that landing and then either genocide or hundreds of thousands (minimum) of troops deployed in occupation for a decade plus.

Anything else means fighting Japan. Short of a nuclear first strike, that is an impossible task. Japan has the world's second most capable navy - and one that is far more capable as a blue water force than the PLAN. Japan being hostile to China means the Japanese fleet starts interdicting all vessels going to or from China; said interception being done thousands of miles away from China either in the Pacific or the Indian oceans. That means zero oil shipments to China, that means no ability to make nitrogen based fertilizers and thus the cratering of domestic food production, that fleet means no food imports from the US or Australia or Brazil, that fleet means no imports of raw materials from Africa or South America or Australia, that means no exports to Europe or the US. The only method, with any real chance of success, that China has to fight Japan in a war is to start with large scale nuclear strikes. That is also an incredibly slim reed as it relies on the US not responding, Japan not going nuclear (it can field ICBM's in literally a week or two), and the rest of the world being ok with a Chinese nuclear first strike. Otherwise they face a naval blockade that China has zero hope of ending.

That is against Japan. Against the US China is a problem resolved in a few months without shots fired.

Step 1: The US adds every chinese corporation and citizen to the US's financial blacklists. This means that no US corporate entity, individual, or financial institution is now allowed to touch China. More importantly, this means that no entity that wants to do any business with any US citizen or corporate entity is allowed to touch China. Instantly, over night, there is not a vessel owned by a non-US company that is willing to transport too or from a Chinese port. Instantly there is not a non Chinese airport or airline in the world that is willing to fly Chinese passengers. Instantly there is not a non Chinese corporation in the world that is willing to employ Chinese citizens. Instantly there is not a non-Chinese stock market in the world that is willing to allow Chinese citizens to buy or sell financial instruments on its exchange. Instantly there is not a non-Chinese bank in the world that is willing to allow Chinese citizens to move money too or from them.

Step 2: The US President calls up MBS and tells him that Saudi Arabia is no longer selling oil to China; period. If SA does so then, in addition to greatly displeasing the US, the US will add the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund to the SDN list.

Step 3: The US waits and lets economic collapse bring down China as their entire nation is unemployed and, in short order, starving.

That is the US being moderately serious with China.

The US being serious has, as step four, the NSA being told to crash Chinese cyberspace. I guarantee you that the weapons are already in place; one Presidential order and within minutes pretty much everything connected to the Internet and with a microchip in it inside of China is bricked. US cyberweapons are considered strategic weapons and the primary focus is on crashing entire nations as rapidly and completely as possible.

The US considering it a proper war throws in naval interdiction of all shipping too or from China.

China wouldn't be defeated by the US with tanks (or even planes). It would be defeated by collapsing its entire economy and taking away all its allies before letting the natural, domestic, consequences of that bring down the government.

Without petroleum imports China can't make the fertilizer that it needs to sustain its current level of food production. Remove those imports and within a year Chinese food production is able to feed perhaps three quarters of its population at even subsistence levels. Famine on its own often ends nation, famine paired with a hostile super power isn't survivable.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Except he is making a mistake that I have seen alot of from military officers. The US has been engaged in economic, informational, and cyber-warfare for decades; the US just doesn't do it through DoD and the US government really doesn't talk about it much at all.

The Special Activities Division of the CIA is most widely known for their Special Operations Group (basically the US James Bonds) but the vast majority of their manpower, funding, and focus is on their primary purpose; informational shaping, propaganda, and counter propaganda. In that field they are hands down the varsity. People bitch about Russia interfering in US elections? SAD has had ensuring the election of US prefered candidates around the world as one of its primary purposes since its founding.

Cyberwarfare? Reagan signed the first EO laying out the US's philosophy to cyberwarfare and setting the NSA's strategic goals; and it wasn't defense. Since the 80's the NSA has invested massive amounts of resources into offensive cyberwarfare for the express purpose of crashing (permanently) everything with a microchip in a hostile nation. The US designed and built the entire internet and basically everything involving the microchip. Russia, China, and everyone else are playing catchup in a game that the US won thirty years ago and continues to invest more money in annually than the entire Russian military budget.

Financial/economic warfare? The US has been using that tool since the end of WW2 and under Obama we raised it to a primary weapon. Look at the response to the Iran Nuclear deal; despite the EU and all of its major governments trying to resist US sanctions, not a single European company was willing to risk said sanctions. Even China played ball with them to a large extent.

---

Kilcullen talks about the evolutionary pressures that the US has forced on hostile powers and the lessons that Russia and China (and others) have taken from US actions since '91 - but what he overlooks is that those pressures were artificial.

The US hasn't played for keeps or used its military seriously since (at least) Vietnam; realistically it hasn't done so since WW2. At the same time, the US military is designed and built to fight WW3; not to nation build, not to occupy, not for counter insurgency, not for regime protection.

Everything that the US military has been doing since 9/11 has been a tertiary mission where the objectives were entirely political and where the endeavour was never actually seen as a military operation.

Real war? The opening move is cruise missiles targeted on power plants & transformers, communications hubs, and relevant industrial targets. Simultaneous with that, stealth aircraft are rolling up the air defense network of the target as F-35's down everything that flies. Then comes the guided bombs on everything from the local police station to rail bridges to the cellphones of everyone of note (military officers, high ranking government officials, religious leaders, community organizers, etc.). At the same time, the cyberweapons start striking and you see zero day vulnerabilities being exploited in essentially every networked device in the entire nation to infect them with viruses that will do things like encrypt the entire device before literally burning out critical components.

If the US decides that a nation is a proper enemy and said enemy doesn't have a sufficiently capable nuclear arsenal to threaten the US with then that nation will be ended not in years, or months, or even weeks but in days. The enemy will have no factories left standing, no intact transportation links, no communications infrastructure, no surviving governmental or community leaders or infrastructure, no electricity, no water, and no heavy weapons.

Remove the nukes and China is just as fucked as, say, Iran.

So the lesson that those other powers have been learning isn't how to fight and win against the US, it is how to be sufficiently enraging to the US to get the US to take them seriously. Should China (or Russia) study US operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader world? Absolutely. Should they think those operations are even remotely similar to what they would face in US operations against them? No, not if they are remotely sane.

The US will engage in "peacekeeping" against fourth rate powers pretty much whenever the US President feels like it and on the slimmest of justifications. The idea that the US would even contemplate the same against a real power is, however, farcical. If the US conducts active military operations against Russia, China, or any other decently capable power then it will be war.

I can see why whistleblowers and leakers aren't well liked by Zachowon. Any exposure of techniques or info in what you mentioned jeopardises American interests.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Thing is, Nuclear Weapons are the greatest shield against the United States-that's why every dictator worth their salt and American adversary wants them.

The US can play its games with Russia or China, but actual war is off the table-precisely because these countries have the capability to destroy the United States(they'd be destroyed too-but that's MAD).

Imagine if Saddam or Gaddafi had nukes-the US can strangle them with sanctions, back local insurgencies and uprisings, but the US won't send in the carriers if there is a risk of a mushroom cloud encompassing the invasion force.

The US is still overwhelmingly powerful in just about every regard-which is why nuclear weapons are the greatest shield against attack or attempted regime change.

 

[Terthna]

I can see why whistleblowers and leakers aren't well liked by Zachowon. Any exposure of techniques or info in what you mentioned jeopardises American interests.

As can I; but the intelligence community cannot be left unchecked, because not everything they do is necessarily in the American people's best interest. Need I remind people of how they've basically been turned into a political tool of the Democrats ever since Obama was in office? Which honestly, as far as I'm aware, has undermined their ability to effectively combat China's efforts at espionage. There are countless stories of the Chinese basically being allowed to do whatever they want, while our government, who was apparently more interested in spying on American citizens, did nothing to stop them.

Seriously; if Trump hadn't become president, there's a very real possibility that Hillary would right now be handing the Chinese our country on a silver platter, and our intelligence community would be helping her.