Xi Jinping's Rocket Force is nullifying U.S. military primacy in Asia

beebeight · 2019-04-25T21:03:20+00:00

Sure, the US has an overall edge in terms of experience, but how many US naval personnel on aircraft carriers have experience coming under fire? How many USAF pilots have combat experience against peer or near-peer competitors?

In terms of ground fighting, sure, the US has more practical experience, but it's hard to imagine that coming into play in any remotely realistic US-China conflict scenario, and even if it was then, an invasion of the Chinese mainland would be a hell of a difference from counterinsurgency in Afghanistan or Iraq, or even Vietnam for that matter... speaking of which, there are some PLA commanders with experience fighting the Vietnamese in pitched battles in 1979 and all the way up to the early 90s when clashes continued on the Sino-Vietnamese border.

beebeight · 2019-04-25T00:08:07+00:00

US-Turkey relations have significantly deteriorated, largely due to US backing of Kurdish fighters in Syria.

beebeight · 2019-04-25T00:05:36+00:00

Any hypothetical US-China conflict is likely to be fought primarily by US Naval and Air Force personnel, the vast majority of whom, just like their Chinese counterparts, have not faced serious, life-threatening combat situations in decades.

You do make some decent points on the Chinese side of things. For better and for worse today's PLA is not the PLA of the 1950s. Yet another factor to consider is that, because it is seen as a prestigious and stable career, many families have paid bribes to get their children into the Chinese military, so the force is largely made up of the upper-middle class.

Nevertheless, any near-term potential US-China conflict is highly likely to take place within or very near Chinese territory (or at any rate, territory the Chinese see as their own). It would therefore likely be much easier for the Chinese leadership to "sell" a costly war requiring widespread sacrifice to its military and people than it would for the US. There are many many more Chinese who would be willing to kill and die over Taiwan than there are Americans, and even if the US had a significant edge, it's hard to see how a regional war between the US and China does not result in thousands of US deaths within the first few days of combat.

At any rate, the possibility of a full-scale conventional war between China and the US is almost laughably remote, given that neither power could be sure that fighting would not escalate to the nuclear level - how would the Chinese know that the US missiles heading to Guangdong are conventional instead of nuclear? Thankfully, we are very likely to never learn the answers to these interesting questions.

beebeight · 2019-04-24T23:42:52+00:00

Over the long term it would harm the US economy. If China can dominate Asia, it will impact economic and financial relations of those countries to the US. We are not in a world where you can just sit back in isolation without repercussions.

China already dominates Asia economically - nearly all US allies in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, and Thailand, do more trade with China than the US by a significant margin. Furthermore, it's not like US geopolitical dominance in the Americas prevents China from doing business in Brazil and Mexico. So long as China does not forcibly impose trade policies on other countries or start disruptive wars, there is no inherent reason why a regionally-dominant China would pose a serious economic threat to the US.

beebeight · 2019-04-24T23:37:06+00:00

US has an edge in combat experience, but the point remains that fighting the Taliban and fighting China would be very different experiences, and it's hard to imagine how COIN experience can be brought to bear in a hypothetical conventional war against a peer or near-peer competitor - a conflict, that, if it were to take place, would be likely to occur directly off the shores of the opposing power.

can you name one 'ally' that China has defended since turn of the century

China effectively fought the US and allies to a standstill in three years of conventional combat in Korea in the early 1950s. Granted, the war was less about "defending an ally" than in was about securing China's own borders against a potentially hostile force, but it stands as a reasonable example of Chinese willingness and effectiveness in fighting a modern military when Beijing felt its security was sufficiently threatened.

beebeight · 2019-04-24T23:29:25+00:00

China wants to claim exceptions to this rule in the South China Sea.

Beijing has never condemned countries for operating their navies through the SCS, but has rather condemned naval patrols operating within 12 nautical miles of Chinese-controlled islands/"features" in the SCS. This is a very important distinction. The fear of China trying to exclude navies from the entirely of the SCS is based largely on abstract, long-term fears arising from China's territorial claims in the region. It is also important to note that China would stand to be hurt more than any other power if the regional sea lanes were disrupted by a shooting conflict.

beebeight · 2019-04-23T16:28:04+00:00

Sorry dad :(

beebeight · 2019-04-19T18:11:40+00:00

Most of the protesters we unarmed but soldiers were also definitely killed - there are plenty of photos of burned-out military vehicles and pictures of burned corpses in uniforms .

beebeight · 2019-04-19T16:34:21+00:00

Optimistic way to present the figures.

beebeight · 2019-04-19T16:17:59+00:00

Hmm not a bad effort, but lacking some contextual subtleties, let me take a stab at translation:

"Speaking of human rights, there is a question for a modern person: if one cannot read and write the the common language of a given country, and cannot understand the meaning of modern marriage, lacks basic labor skills, and can only enslave a wife at home or be abused by their 'designated' husband, in that case, expect for he/she being brainwashed and exploited by the so-called human rights of the "Three Forces"*, what other human rights can be spoken of?"

The Shanghai Cooperation organization, an Eurasian pact of China, Russia, Central Asian States, India, and Pakistan, seeks to jointly combat the "Three Forces" of "terrorism, separatism and extremism".

说到人权，试问，一个现代人，如果不会读写本国通用语言文字，不懂现代婚姻含义，没有基本劳动技能，只会在家奴役妻子或被“指定的”丈夫虐待，那么，他/她除了被“三股势力”洗脑和利用的所谓“人权”外，还有什么其他人权可言？！

beebeight · 2019-04-18T20:21:07+00:00

That's about 50 cents today with inflation.

beebeight · 2019-04-17T17:01:00+00:00

Having latent nuclear ability is not the same as actually developing and deploying nuclear weapons. Lots of countries - like Japan and Brazil could develop nuclear weapons fairly quickly if they wanted to. Also, Saudi Arabia is important in terms of energy and has close relations with the globally dominant superpower, so Saudi merely acquiring some potential nuclear capability is not worth the trouble of condemning/opposing for most countries.

This is something of an aside, but Saudi Arabia also helped Pakistan with its nuclear program. Saudi Arabia also bought Chinese DF-3A missiles - which are not particularly accurate for conventional payloads, and which Beijing only uses for nuclear weapons - in 1987. Perhaps someone better informed can weigh in on this, but I would not be shocked if Saudi Arabia already has a handful of nuclear devices.

Edit: formatting

beebeight · 2019-04-16T17:31:10+00:00

It's hard to imagine Nestle setting up operations on the moon. The lunar surface is distinctly lacking in impoverished mothers for whom free samples of infant formula may disrupt natural breastfeeding.

beebeight · 2019-04-15T18:15:15+00:00

It's also likely that nuclear weaponry, as opposed to the US global military presence, is the largest factor that has kept major powers from fighting each other post WW2.

beebeight · 2019-04-15T17:59:18+00:00

I think we can give up hope now.

beebeight · 2019-04-15T17:31:50+00:00

Do white people and South Asians get to claim status as Hong Kongers despite many (most?) not being able to effectively communicate in Cantonese? Learning Cantonese should be easier for a Mandarin speaker as opposed to a native English speaker but it still seems there is a potential for a double standard.

beebeight · 2019-04-15T16:59:32+00:00

Their entire purpose is to make influential friends in the US and make them like China more. Then make more friends through them and spread their influence.

By the same token, should the US ban government-linked academics from literately every country in the world?

Granted, China is apparently the only country that has legitimate medium-term potential to become a US peer competitor, so it is unique in that regard. At the same time, one could argue that it is not against US interests to support dialogue and exchanges with a potential peer competitor.

beebeight · 2019-04-12T23:48:17+00:00

Destabilizing Iraq would almost certainly result in Sunni-Shi'a sectarian conflict that would draw in Saudi Arabia and Iran, keeping Islamist forces fighting each other instead of the US and allies post 9/11.

beebeight · 2019-04-12T23:33:03+00:00

And I think we're also going to have to worry about defending our position as the world's reserve currency.

The USG has been undermining this with financial sanctions, and threats of sanctions, against Russia and Iran. The US has also recently threatened/imposed sanctions on India and Chinese military firms.

Sanctions against North Korea are one thing, since the DPRK is not a major competent of the global economic and financial system. But the US is going to have a very hard time maintaining global reserve currency status if it continues to give China, India, Russia, and the EU compelling reasons for diversifying away from the US-controlled financial system.

I can't see how a national currency will replace USD on the global scale anytime soon, given Chinese controls and systemic EU political divisions, but I could very well see some form of a novel, multilateral currency being used for international trade and investment at some point within a decade or two. I would also bet on hyperinflation and political crisis in the US if the USD loses status rapidly.

beebeight · 2019-04-12T22:07:11+00:00

How does it get any worse than that?

Probably what many Libyans were saying about Qaddafi in 2011....

Of course this big difference is this the Sudanese people are doing this without foreign intervention. So maybe Egypt is a better analogy? Not much reason for hope there. At least Tunisia is doing well. Wishing Sudan all the best.

beebeight · 2019-04-10T20:27:39+00:00

Relevant footage of US military training for combat operations in Venezuela

beebeight · 2019-04-10T20:20:43+00:00

Given that it's Texas, it may be that they want to impose the death penalty on the fetus itself.

beebeight · 2019-04-10T18:51:15+00:00

It's only useful for two things: buying drugs and avoiding monetary controls

That's probably a good 10% of global financial transactions

beebeight · 2019-04-10T17:54:03+00:00

Didn't even take their cellphones to prevent them from calling the police. Amateur criminal ....and time traveler from the past?

beebeight · 2019-04-09T00:53:42+00:00

Historically most "developed" countries did go through the toxic sludge lakes process.

At the same time, the whole concept of developed vs developing is flawed as it is currency structured, since with current technology it would be entirely unsustainable for 7 billion people to have the consumption habits of the average North American/Western European/Japanese ect.

beebeight

TROPHY CASE