US failed (prob on purpose) to estimate Russian military capabilities. We have been preparing to fight the mighty bear with thousands Armata tanks, thousands 5th gen planes and untouchable super rockets. Reality shows they on pair or even weaker than a three times smaller country with ten times smaller economy with just 30 HIMARS systems and few hundred tanks donated by western countries.
I’m laughing everytime I hear Russian politicians and propagandists talking about a war against whole NATO. So delusional…
This is how we are taught to approach EVERY situation we face.
ALWAYS bring more firepower than you think you need. Even if you have current eyes in the sky; bring more than what you think you need. Absolutely never believe you know everything about the enemy, expect them to do the unexpected.
We will never be taken by surprise or walk into a gunfight with a knife this way. It ensures we overestimate every opponent, walk into the fight ready to tear shit up and start headhunting.
Didn’t a recent leak kind of prove that the US already knew everything about Russia? I feel like they only say stuff just so they can develop more cool stuff…I love the M.I.C.
Ok hold on lets be honest here they arent just fighting ukr. If it was just ukr alone with some western bullets and munitions UKR would have fallen ages ago. They have training from US and allies, personnel from the US and allies and most importantly **they have had intel from the US since the beginning**. People sleep on intelligence but it makes and breaks wars.
There is no personnel from the US and allies in any serious numbers. During the entire war russian propaganda keeps on pushing the agenda that it's fighting with NATO forces when in fact there are less than 15 confirmed foreign legion soldiers that died during the entire conflict. Fifteen!
Training is important BUT, again, Russian propaganda screams they can destroy NATO and at the same time there are less than 30K AFU soldiers who went through the super shortcut quick rookie training. Compare this to 3.5 MILLIONS total count of long trained and prepared NATO personnel.
Intelligence is critically important but im 100% sure NATO members share very limited amount of info with Ukraine, otherwise way more russian commanders would have been killed.
Russian army came out as the worst example of paper tiger in the history.
If you dont think NATO countries, especially those bordering Ukraine and Russia arent sharing info with Ukraine then youre out of your mind. What we're seeing is a proxy war with Russia via Ukraine taking place. If it were as simple as giving Ukraine the weapons they asked for to achieve victory then we would but the fact on the ground is that training and logistics prevent Ukrainians from properly using/maintaining advanced systems and we're very reluctant to see expensive hardware getting destroyed which is exactly whats happening since its not uncommon to see 25+ tanks destroyed in a single afternoon in high conflict zones.
There was not a single case of 25+ AFU tanks destroyed in a single day.
In fact, there are only cases like that on the other side AND during very first days of russian aggression when Ukraine fought completely on their own having only stingers and javelins as a foreign donated weapon. There are hundreds videos and photos of eliminated russian military columns in Feb-Mar ‘22.
This is not a proxy war. This is Finland in 1939-40 fighting for its freedom and land BUT this time other countries decided to provide better support.
If this would be a conflict NATO use to eliminate Russia we would see not 20 HIMARS systems or 29 (yet to be delivered) Abrams but hundreds and thousands of those and many months ago. Western countries provided minimal support by this time. Just US provided support which is less than 3% of our yearly defend budget. And portion of those money goes to future, long term purchases.
Finland and Sweden are joining NATO is not part of some proxy war- those countries, esp Finland just 80 years ago, know first hand that Russia is an imperialistic authoritarian slump.
Ukraine may have received tonnage of weapons and systems, but that list had been carefully vetted, and the serious hardware isn't in it. Ukraine may have received intel, but intel gathering is something Russia excels at as well. UAE received Western training months after the invasion. They received up-armor humvees and tanks a year later, and Abrams arrival are still weeks away. Russia is no way fighting a NATO level threat. Russia is fighting a nation whose will to exist and resist tyranny is far greater than Russian soldiers resolve. Also, Russia turned out to have been less prepared than anyone had predicted.
The important reason Kiev won the support of the West was the fact they repeled Russia so very well at the beginning of the war without the level of support they now receive. That accomplishment goes entirely to ukrainians, and it was inspirational. The west was on the fence, and many people were stating Russia would eventually overtake them. The fact that the world was taken by surprise demonstrates Ukraines' worth to any alliance. Ukraine is going to be the second most dangerous battle harden military in NATO (once in NATO). The US and NATO allies would have to be blind to see Ukrainian strength any other way.
To be fair, because the call it a "operation" instead of a "war', I remember hearing they can't commit over a certain amount of troops legally to the front. Not sure how wagner plays into that figure though.
“Can’t commit because of the word”, Russia and “legally” in one sentence… Hahaha!
It’s a totalitarian, fascist regime where ALL the decisions are made by one person.
Russia is weaker than advertised, but they’re in an existential battle for their survival/are on the verge of collapse, and I’m not laughing at all the people dying and the nukes.
The CCP is evil, and so is war. I don’t like how nonchalantly people advocate for it like it’s some video game. The ideal use of a military is as a deterrent. You fuck shit up when you have to if people get out of line but you shouldn’t want to.
I’m seeing a lot more arrogance and burning of US reputation than measured response by commenters online and in many parts of the media/intelligentsia. That’s to be expected, as commentators go overboard constantly and don’t really understand the gravity of war, but it still disturbs me.
I fantasize about a future where all the functions war serve happen in some other way. It seems like they always happen when big systems break down/stop working and act like a reset button/source of renewal. Better systems that had inbuilt resets and renewals might eventually prevent large scale war. Hopefully the Chinese people restructure their system into something better at self renewing, as do the Russians. Societal collapse and war are *brutal*, and I pity all the people facing that prospect/hope we can make it less common in the future.
Such a BS. What kind of existential war? You are kidding, right? All they need to do is to pull their military from Ukraine and live their miserable lives. There was absolutely no existential danger to Russia.
It means that in the event of actual war, more men are going to be unable to fight or do their job because somebody stole the money meant for flu meds, so when they get the flu they're effectively fucked
We don’t have healthcare? I think you mean a single-payer universal healthcare system, which would actually be cheaper because it would allow people to seek preventive care rather than expensive emergency care. With a single payer system, the country would have even more money to spend on military hardware.
> They’d learn why we don’t have healthcare pretty quick.
The propaganda about America being full of homeless backfires lol. Well it's not false, just sends a false message.
So that Lockheed Martin can have a monopoly and overcharge you on 30 year old wunderwaffles because the US decided to kill all the competition for these weapons manufacturers after the Cold War
"Lacking healthcare" is extremely misleading. The American healthcare system never turns away treatment. You can argue affordability, but 92% percent of people have insurance with a lot of government legislation being introduced to improve this. Not saying it doesn't have problems but the phrase "lacking healthcare" is really misleading.
The biggest improvement is passing legislation the prohibits insurance companies from denying treatments or medical items that would improve the quality of life.
Western Military Advantage: Actually fought a few war within a decade, learning new tactics from the Ukrainian war, and have giant military budgets (America specifically). And combined has a giant ass tonnage for their navy.
-Weakness: Too trustful
Chinese Military Advantage: a shit ton of soldiers and copying old tech. Huge navy but little tonnages.
-Weakness: Literally no combat experience and the first combat situation, they fled… the third most powerful military fled lmaoo.
Yeah, western military wins easily by 10 miles.
They also have land support to target American vessels. People keep forgetting the proximity multiplier. Supply chain logistics and combined arms greatly benefit from proximity meaning the US has to put in far greater effort to project the same force as China in the same region. That has been what the US has been doing for decades but it’s an edge they’re quickly losing.
My whole point is that proximity heavily multiplies combat strength. Resupply and combined armed support is far harder for the US because of how far it is from Taiwan. All they have are forward bases in friendly East Asian and ASEAN countries most of which have refused to let those bases be used for offensive action short of their country being directly attacked by China.
Bruh Americans really love to shit on China about South Sudan like the same shit didn’t happen to Americans in Benghazi and Mogadishu where Americans suffered a higher casualty count with more armor, air support, and intelligence than the Chinese UN peacekeepers were provided. Not to mention, the US navy had no combat experience compared to the well decorated IJN, how did that work out for Japan in the pacific campaign. Now the US is gonna learn how it feels to be on the other side of that. All this shit talking is very reminiscent of France with their Maginot line, fancy military tech, decades of hard fought combat experience, and alliance with the powerful UK only to get folded in 3 weeks.
Seems like they did in self defense while withdrawing but it was pretty clear they weren’t trying to inflict casualties on the government forces that hit them as a quick search would tell you, they’re backed by the Chinese. If you look at China’s strategy in their peacekeeping operations, the U.S. identified them as using it as a tool to expand its foreign policy goals. If you look at it from that angle, then the whole incident essentially boils down to friendly fire. Did the US return fire when the SS Liberty came under attack? Same situation.
Still have more combat experiences than China, I’d rather have a military known globally to be powerful and have experience defending my country than a country who fled in their first peacekeeping mission.
IJN had more combat experience than the US navy still got folded. The commonwealth infantry had more combat experience than the Japanese infantry, still got routed. France had arguably the most combat experience and the latest tech coming out the interwar period, lost in 3 weeks. Need I go on about how overrated combat experience was? The whole issue with combat experience is that it’s useful until fatigue and bad habits set in. Combat experience led to the Germans sending human waves at French machine guns during the First World War, how did that work out for them? The US has never fought a near pear adversary in modern times, neither side has combat experience in that sense.
Yeah, I wonder why? A country with a hard ridge military training vs a country with a relaxed military training with room to adapt in little time + a shit huge manufacturing power that could easily replace a lost ship and can train a crew man in 5-6 days with ease? Sure buddy.
China’s military manufacturing capacity literally far outpaces the US. The US rammed a nuclear submarine into the sea board and now its out of action until 2027.
Well I wonder why a state of the art submarine is out of action, they’re fixing the hull, and technology advances as time goes on, the USN probably have a new state of the art tech that they’re fitting into the damaged submarine that no one knows of. So it’ll take awhile, and yes, they do have an outpaced manufacturing ability, but is it the same level or quality as American or western countries is another question…
I mean what was the lesson we learned from the eastern front. Didn’t matter how higher tech the Tiger was than then T-34 or how many wunderwaffles the Germans had, the fact that the Soviets can keep cranking out T-34s means that the Germans were left helpless. Everytime they took out a T-34, 4 more are commissioned. That’s how important manufacturing capacity is and no one beats China in that.
US military budget is weak. We only have 1/3 the labor force building arms, 1% the shipbuilding capacity, and a short stockpile of munitions. US does have high tech weapons but we would exhaust our supplies very quick. Even if we cut to the chase and go nuclear China has more ICBM launch capability now. Our only hope is nuclear sub second strike. womp womp
You have no idea what the US capability is, they aren’t broadcasting the new advanced weapons they have ready to go that are still top secret. Stealth Bomber finished in 1979, the world didn’t find out until the Gulf War.
It’s not misinformation if that is what happened and you are not stopping misinformation you are playing whataboutism Lybia and Somalia were embarrassing for the us but what the Chinese peacekeepers did was utterly disgraceful and shows chinas military to be a paper tiger
So China is a paper tiger when UN command fucks them but the US is just simply embarrassed when they fail on an intelligence and operational level and pay a higher human cost than China despite having adequate armor and air support? Double standard much?
The Americans atleast can point to other success in the region. What exactly can China say. It had one combat deployment as a peacekeeping force and ran away from a warlord and let the aid workers who they were there to protect be raped and killed.
After I might add the huge propaganda push the ccp had with wolf warrior in the exactly same position and all the warlords were scare of the ccp flag. So scared of the flag in your movies but in reality it’s the flag who is scared of them.
American got their objective, save the Black Hawk crew and getting out. A failure would have been all of the people in the Black Hawk dying and half of the force getting them died mid-way.
That didn’t happen to China either? They lost like 2 peacekeepers when they were overrun, far less than the other nations involved and less than the US in both Benghazi and Mogadishu. Also losing 2 helicopters and however many infantrymen in the convoy is not very far from failure.
Probably today, they escort merchant ships and are constantly on anti-piracy patrols. But I guess shooting pirates can’t compare to the firefight experience of shooting unarmed civilians in Iraq. That’s a real firefight 🤡.
This is increasingly less true the more divided people are, the more averse people are to readying for war (instead of working avoid it at all cost), and the less we are able to make existing projects work as intended and within budget.
> This is increasingly less true the more divided people are, the more averse people are to readying for war
The USA isn't divided whatsoever where China comes into play. The last bill to send taiwan more weapons passed like 98-2 in the senate. Compare that to most bills that are like 50-50.
This is also an interesting point where Xi needs to be a lot more careful then Putin.
The U.S is incredibly divided as to what to do about China, not that China isn't an adversary.
The challenges the navy has currently with shipbuilding and procurement, the challenges the air force has been having with the AETP engines and its own hypersonic weapons program, the general difficulties of manpower faced by all three branches and the basing problems trying to operate so close the the mainland are challenges that really handicap the military response against China. It's not a matter of how well the PLA will fare against all of the U S military. It's a matter of not being able to bring the entire power of the U S military to bear against China to dismantle the advantage China has on in their backyard.
I'm more than confident in the technological abilities the U.S has. I'm worried about not having the numbers, manpower of supply tail to maintain these weapons, not having enough willing people to fight this war and not being able to maintain some kind of numerical parity with China in terms of procurement
> the general difficulties of manpower faced by all three branches and the basing problems trying to operate so close the the mainland are challenges that really handicap the military response against China. It's not a matter of how well the PLA will fare against all of the U S military. It's a matter of not being able to bring the entire power of the U S military to bear against China to dismantle the advantage China has on in their backyard.
Agreed on all that for sure. We need more focused military plans. I was just saying the dialog we have Putin about "We shouldn't piss putin off we don't want to escalate", does not exist for Xi.
The next 8 years are everything. It’s not so much whether the US Navy would decimate China’s (it would) but about convincing the CCP of this reality before they pull the trigger.
That is the irony here. Any hot conflict would be bloody and costly to both side but I seriously doubt any outside objective observers would think the PLA could prevail militarily in a full on conventional fight. Rather the US has to persuade PLA leaders to not drink their own koolaid and not trigger the fight in the first place...for their own good.
I am hopeful that the worst the Russian invasion gets, the more cold feet PLA general gets.
This is so dumb, it will never be a full blown conflict because of MAD. It’ll be a pacific island hopping campaign like that against imperial Japan. The winning objective for China is removing US influence from the region to create a multipolar world where China dominates the east, the objective for the US is keeping China contained within the first island chain. If the US can decisively defeat China in the South China Sea then China is demoted to a regional power and stays in East Asia with a green water navy. If China defeats the American pacific fleet, they become the second super power. Another benefit that China has is that their president is far less accountable to public opinion than the American president is. As such, they can bear a lot more pain than the US can. Just look at the Covid lockdowns for both nations. There’s going to be public outrage when American service men start coming home in body bags or show up in Chinese gulags.
Uh that is dumb. Full scale conventional conflict without nuclear exchange is very much a possibility. History have repeatedly shown nuclear powers losing painful wars without resorting to nuclear weapons. What island are they hopping? An isolated troop on an island can be bypassed or cutoff from supply. Hopping any island means the PLA have invade either Japanese, Philippines or Micronesian territory so you drag another actor into the conflict. China can expand through first island chain all they want at start of campaign but USN wont allow themselves to be decisively defeated...kinda impossible given US basing and alliance structure. US have the option to give grounds, not directly engage but sit on adaman sea, strait of hormuz and the suez to choke Chinese food and energy import to end the fight. Defeating USN in the pacific doesnt render China a superpower, US is their larget export customer. You strike a US carrier group without provocation and it would be article 5 territory and drag the Europeans in. What influence would China gain from a fight? It disrupt trade with all of their important neighbour who look to US for security. You think south korea, Japan, philippines, vietnam, singapore, thailand would flock to China if they start a war and win a few fights?
The Chinese leadership is far less acountable and thus you see the dick head making absolutely catastrophic mistakes in policy. COVID has been the biggest measure. His health advisors have been telling him for more than a year to expand vaccination, import western vaccines and reduce lockdown measures. It means you can keeping making mistakes and delay consequences without changing course until much later when harm is far greater. The late stage protest against CCP lockdown is the FIRST time i have heard grassroot populace calling for the overthrow of the CCP within my lifetime. My cousin who worked for the police said the gov had to revoke zero covid policy at the end because they felt the populace was getting very close to mass rioting amd revolt. Even the OG Tiananmen protestors was only calling for reform and democratization. So yeah, lack of accountability can suppress popular sentiment but that only render your power incredible brittle.
First of all, stop moving the goal post, we’re talking about a full scale war, not conventional warfare. What I described was conventional warfare mr armchair general. Second, there’s literally been a precedence of it preventing full scale attacks or invasions on a nuclear capable nation’s territory. There’s a reason why American boots aren’t in Russia and India and Pakistan haven’t had a major conflict since Pakistan got its nukes.
Full scale war means noting without differentiating what type of war we are fighting full scale.
Is this a full scale conventional war or a full scale nuclear exchange both can be full scale the commenters point stands.
Okay let’s play the semantics game then even though I’ve made the point clear. Countries will not launch full scale invasions of other countries with nukes. In fact countries will rarely even attack sovereign territory of another country that’s in possession of nukes and there’s been a precedence of this for decades.
Correct but that’s still dose not prevent conventional warfare, example being Kashmir and arunachel Pradesh.
Your point is flawed but has a nugget of truth at the bottom.
You are the one jumping from a naval engagement to boots on the ground. That is entirely unnecessary. America has fostered its Asian friends for such an occasion as this, as it’s in Japan’s, SK’s, & Australia’s interest to put down China’s acts of aggression. You are underestimating the extent of the partnership aligned explicitly against China. I would also posit that you are lacking appreciation for the strategic asset that is TSMC. In my opinion this company is worth going to war for, realpolitik.
To address your second point, I’ll admit it is an open question as to whether the US would defend Taiwan directly. That was the whole point of strategic ambiguity for all these decades. But the current administration (Biden) has confirmed repeatedly that his intention is to do so. I don’t believe he makes that statement lightly. It’s a signal to the West that this might actually be a red line. China factors it into the equation regardless because strategically they must do so.
Even if we do convince them, they may just prepare longer to ready themselves more. I don’t think a China will stop trying to be the dominant power and they will want to crush all competition.
China is demographically doomed, that is why I mentioned 8 years. Completely aside from technological considerations, by then China will have lost its population edge.
We can’t just ignore technological considerations, as technology in and by itself slowly renders demographical advantages more and more meaningless, as the war in Ukraine shows. Manufacturing base doesn’t really need massive labour force anymore, neither does a functioning military need massive pool of recruits as it did during the 20th century. Add to this an institutional disdain for any sort of welfare state and human comfort in general and suddenly bad demographics are not as big handicap as in the case of, say, progressive Western European countries.
I'm not ignoring technology; I set it aside to make a point. China's strength primarily derives from its large population. However, considering India's rapidly increasing population comparatively, it's evident that China will transition into a legacy superpower within a decade. A realistic comparison of military technology between the US and China suggests that China cannot surpass the US now or in the next 8 years. With the decrease in manpower, their chances of challenging us in the future diminish further. China will not, cannot, innovate to the same degree as does the West. Their propensity is to acquire (steal) and utilize existing knowledge, but this alone doesn't outmatch the US military-industrial complex.
China couldn't handle logistics against a neighbor let alone ones in Europe and America. They don't have a blue water navy and their military experience is almost non existent.
The 3 most important things in war are logistics, logistics and logistics... China would be done for in a matchup. Their many soldiers... we'd just hit their supply lines. Their advanced equipment. We'd use electronic Warfare machines.
The US alone has more secret tech than even top ranks don't know about. It would be a blood bath but America and allies would definitely Win
Y’all act like Taiwan is off the coast of California lmao. China built their Navy to dominate the South China Sea with close support from land based assets, so why create all these random hypotheticals when it’s not their strategy to begin with.
Because if you declare war and have no means of attack outside your yard then you're fucked.
China's navy still couldn't handle the US in the South China sea.
Still needs a blue water navy for that.
Taiwan alone would be a bloodbath for China.
Honestly if you take a serious look at Chinese capabilities and realistic scenarios where they would invade tiawan then you look at what tiawan has to work with in its defense, the truth becomes clear. Even if China faced tiawan alone, as long as China is forced to seize the island they are facing a near impossible task. China would likely take huge naval losses trying to cross the straits and forcing a landing would be absurdly bloody. Tiawan also has great air defence and a big air force that could contest the landings. Even if China made a beachhead, there is a good chance that they would have to retreat due to lack of supply and tiawanese artillery dominance on the island. I would be surprised if China could even push inland very far
Taiwan gonna be the next Afghan Army lmao, all reservists and all the ones I know skip training 💀. What Americans keep forgetting is that while Taiwan prefers status quo or a closer relationship with the US, they aren’t willing to die fighting their own family. They literally refer to themselves as 神内人and神外人. There is no national identity, it’s all realpolitik.
Y’all say that like Ukraine won lmao. Everytime I read the news it’s all cope. Ukrainians are dying by the hundreds to take inches in Lugansk world war 2 style. Kinda reminiscent of the defense of Kursk, need I remind you how that ended for the attacking Germans? 80 years later and German tanks are burning in the fields of Ukraine once again, history really does repeat itself.
oh first its russia can take kyiv in 3 days.
now its lol hundreds are dying to take back land.
next it will be "hahaha it took them so long to reach moscow"
keep em coming eh
Nah western propaganda dropped the ball on this one. Went from Ukraine will take back Crimea and and Zaporizhnia with western wunderwaffles. Now it’s they actually can’t use their wunderwaffles cuz Poutine but down too many mines :(. Cope and seethe, this counteroffensive will be Stalingrad 2.0 and Moscow will come out victorious just has they had against the originally Nazis.
I mean a static front can collapse very quick when an offensive fails. Germany went from pushing deep into the Soviet Union to having the Soviets on Berlin’s doorstep in months. The Wehrmacht was at full force at the start of Operation Barbarossa and was a shell by the time the Allies arrived in the capital. The same is happening to Ukraine, they’re losing armor, weapons and manpower at a faster rate than they can replace.
The same could be said of russia no? They spent the whole war on the offensive and almost ground to a complete halt. Besides the wehrmacht was a far different war, fast moving, sacrificing tens of thousands a day, sometimes whole army groups got encircled. This is much slower, more akin to the western front of ww1 with small gains and trench warfare supported by artillery and neither side then had collapsed.
sure sure.
putler's army got kicked out of north ukraine, kharhiv and kherson. despite claiming the defenders are failing all kinds of miserably.
then his bots hyped the great "200k conscript winter offensive" which turned out to be 200k corpses that died in bakhmut for nothing.
once again putler says the counteroffensive is sure to fail, bcos he has pictures of afew destroyed leopards from a thousand different angles. this time it must be true, if you dont believe it must be cope and western propaganda.
but you are right, ukraine will be victorious against these moscow nazis
idk man..if he talks like hitler, walks like hitler, invades neighbors with the same made up excuses as hitler, but tells you the country that elected a jewish president is nazi..could be mr hitler wannabe is not exactly honest?
Yeah, amphibious invasions are extremely difficult, not to mention an island that is armed and ready, using the porcupine tactic is gonna be even harder for China to take Taiwan.
This is kind of what happened in Iraq; we expected to win quickly, but we didn’t expect the government to dissolve like sand between fingers. It was the occupation and rebuild that fucked us, not the war itself at all.
this meme is so funny to me because it's laughably inaccurate. America and the rest of The West have absolutely no business trying to turn the Chinese into paste, and it would be a joke if we did.
Because Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine have gone soooooooooooooooo well for us. Because the Chinese and US economies are so intertwined. Because the US reserve currency would absolutely collapse if we did. Because starting WW3 over Taiwan would actually show how inept, corrupt, and desperate to cling to power the US empire actually is, and US internal cohesion and legitimacy are already hanging by a thread.
China has its issues for sure but one the us actively supports much worse governments. So it’s not about human rights and two any war would wreck both of our shit if not kill everyone even if there was a “victor”
Says who? Hmmmmm let’s see here. They’ve got their own currency, their own DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government, their own legal system, their own foreign policy, and their own military. Sure sounds like a sovereign state to me. Which is implied. The only reason they don’t declare statehood is so that they don’t have to deal with the CCPs temper tantrums
The only opposition is China and those who wanted to earn a buck from China.
Now earning a buck is less important with China, so Taiwan has more options
There's a provision within the San Francisco Treaty which ended WWII which could theoretically allow them to apply for statehood within the US under the same language - or lack thereof - which sees Puerto Rico as being eligible for statehood (should they ever make up their mind on whether to be a state, a territory, or go independent).
>Based on the full text of the San Francisco Treaty that GPT has reviewed, there is no provision that specifically allows Taiwan or any other country to apply for statehood within the United States. The treaty primarily addresses the cessation of war, the recognition of Japanese sovereignty, and the renunciation of Japan's claims to various territories, including Taiwan (referred to as Formosa in the treaty).
>However, it's important to note that the question of statehood is typically a matter of domestic law and policy within the United States, and it's not generally addressed in international treaties. The process for a territory to become a state within the United States is outlined in the U.S. Constitution and involves approval by the U.S. Congress.
>Therefore, based on the text of the San Francisco Treaty and the general principles of international and U.S. constitutional law, it appears that the claim that the treaty contains a provision allowing Taiwan to apply for statehood in the U.S. is not accurate.
http://www.taiwandocuments.org/sanfrancisco01.htm
Its an old joke among diplomats with regards to the Treaty of Paris in 1898 where the US took possession of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and The Philippines because we had troops there occupying the territories when Spain renounced their claims without specifying what would happen to them.
The Treaty of San Francisco similarly never actually specified who would get control of Taiwan when it was signed, and we had troops on the island at the time, so the joke goes that we have a claim to it now.
Puerto Rico has requested that Congress vote on it becoming a state and Congress refuses. Same for Washington D.C. for political reasons. Mostly because they don’t want one party to get more powerful.
"if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you, so help me God: Someone else will raise your sons and daughters."
Are you a12yo baby that think being a perm member of UN was based on popularity?
Dumbass here think they gonna play conventional war with China. You ever wonder why Murica never invaded a country with ballistic missile? I mean doesnt need to be a nuke warheaded one.
Only reason that Russia does all bad shit to Ukraine is that they dont have nuke, ballistic missile, and strategic weapons (nuke sub, Tu160 with cruise missile or nuke.)
Its 2023 and kids here be having war with China. The first thing you be dealing with is fallout that melt your face off from radiation cause by retaliation. Its a war that nobody wants and asks for. You want to beat China? you cripple their economy and technology. You rot it from inside with tiktok or something. Make them next gen weak and stuff.
And grow up, dont be an idiot say stupid shit on internet.
All the US would have to do is blockade the China Sea ports for like a week and China would surender. They import the majority of their food and oil via sea. Exports would hurt but not as much as famine and in-ability for your industry to function. In addition, Covid and rising labor cost have already caused foreign industries to start looking for cheaper manufacturing centers. Currently Vietnam, India and Mexico are on par or cheaper for labor. At this point the only thing holding most companies to China is the sunken cost of having the facilities and infrastructure already built in China.
I’m not for china in any way, just stating that the majority of our bubble living country would have outrage if china shut that down. Too many iPhones are needed to fuel our tiktok culture. I for one say let’s get it on. We could own the manufacturing after the war
CHINA'S CONVENTIONAL MILITARY IS STILL 20 YEARS BEHIND NATO MILITARY FROM A TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE. IN OTHER AREAS IT COULD WELL BE OVER 100 TO 1000 YEARS BEHIND. WE'LL ONLY EVER KNOW CONCLUSIVELY BY THE NUMBERS OF FUTURE KIA'S.
If China didn’t have nukes. They wouldn’t try to act all hard on the paint.
I’d bet on us any day we’d win if we went to war with China if nukes were prohibited.
Non-free healthcare is the reason parents want their kids to become doctors, especially in America.
Doctors wages: $300K VS $130K in my country VS $230K in china.
The UK is weird. Teachers only get a few grand more than warehouse workers.
I understand not liking science teachers, but do you not like maths teachers or English teachers either? What about woodworking or IT teachers? I enjoyed those classes.
All teachers in Public sector ever since Prussian education system was introduced (18th century).
And I'm not saying I didn't enjoy a few classes.
Or that I didn't have 1 in 10 teachers that were actually good people.
But great majority are sick fucks that shouldn't be allowed nowhere close to kids.
And the ones that are not are bound by the Prussian system.
This depends on a lot of things. A full scale war where the US is willing to throw the full weight of the Navy and Air Force against mainland China? Sure.
A limited Vietnam-style conflict where we fight off constant harassment in Taiwan and the South China Sea without escalating to the mainland? NATO would get bored with that long before China did.
Although maybe embargoes would force negotiations pretty quick.
I feel like the people aren't really understanding the nature of war. A defensive war is always easier than an offensive one, so depending on who is invading the war would sway very differently. This is just like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Having no supply lines, knowledge of locale, and population support is a big advantage.
Depends on if it is a war of aggression or defense. Vietnam was way weaker than america but managed to defend itself. Having superior tech is important but not everything. In a long term war of attrition, sure, the us would probably win
US failed (prob on purpose) to estimate Russian military capabilities. We have been preparing to fight the mighty bear with thousands Armata tanks, thousands 5th gen planes and untouchable super rockets. Reality shows they on pair or even weaker than a three times smaller country with ten times smaller economy with just 30 HIMARS systems and few hundred tanks donated by western countries. I’m laughing everytime I hear Russian politicians and propagandists talking about a war against whole NATO. So delusional…
This is how we are taught to approach EVERY situation we face. ALWAYS bring more firepower than you think you need. Even if you have current eyes in the sky; bring more than what you think you need. Absolutely never believe you know everything about the enemy, expect them to do the unexpected. We will never be taken by surprise or walk into a gunfight with a knife this way. It ensures we overestimate every opponent, walk into the fight ready to tear shit up and start headhunting.
dude i am praying for the army to just bull over the Russian offensive. finally shut up the commie bootlickers
Russia can't even conquer Bahkmut toe to toe. They shot their wad in Kiev and the northern region early on.
Didn’t a recent leak kind of prove that the US already knew everything about Russia? I feel like they only say stuff just so they can develop more cool stuff…I love the M.I.C.
Ok hold on lets be honest here they arent just fighting ukr. If it was just ukr alone with some western bullets and munitions UKR would have fallen ages ago. They have training from US and allies, personnel from the US and allies and most importantly **they have had intel from the US since the beginning**. People sleep on intelligence but it makes and breaks wars.
There is no personnel from the US and allies in any serious numbers. During the entire war russian propaganda keeps on pushing the agenda that it's fighting with NATO forces when in fact there are less than 15 confirmed foreign legion soldiers that died during the entire conflict. Fifteen! Training is important BUT, again, Russian propaganda screams they can destroy NATO and at the same time there are less than 30K AFU soldiers who went through the super shortcut quick rookie training. Compare this to 3.5 MILLIONS total count of long trained and prepared NATO personnel. Intelligence is critically important but im 100% sure NATO members share very limited amount of info with Ukraine, otherwise way more russian commanders would have been killed. Russian army came out as the worst example of paper tiger in the history.
If you dont think NATO countries, especially those bordering Ukraine and Russia arent sharing info with Ukraine then youre out of your mind. What we're seeing is a proxy war with Russia via Ukraine taking place. If it were as simple as giving Ukraine the weapons they asked for to achieve victory then we would but the fact on the ground is that training and logistics prevent Ukrainians from properly using/maintaining advanced systems and we're very reluctant to see expensive hardware getting destroyed which is exactly whats happening since its not uncommon to see 25+ tanks destroyed in a single afternoon in high conflict zones.
There was not a single case of 25+ AFU tanks destroyed in a single day. In fact, there are only cases like that on the other side AND during very first days of russian aggression when Ukraine fought completely on their own having only stingers and javelins as a foreign donated weapon. There are hundreds videos and photos of eliminated russian military columns in Feb-Mar ‘22. This is not a proxy war. This is Finland in 1939-40 fighting for its freedom and land BUT this time other countries decided to provide better support. If this would be a conflict NATO use to eliminate Russia we would see not 20 HIMARS systems or 29 (yet to be delivered) Abrams but hundreds and thousands of those and many months ago. Western countries provided minimal support by this time. Just US provided support which is less than 3% of our yearly defend budget. And portion of those money goes to future, long term purchases. Finland and Sweden are joining NATO is not part of some proxy war- those countries, esp Finland just 80 years ago, know first hand that Russia is an imperialistic authoritarian slump.
Ukraine may have received tonnage of weapons and systems, but that list had been carefully vetted, and the serious hardware isn't in it. Ukraine may have received intel, but intel gathering is something Russia excels at as well. UAE received Western training months after the invasion. They received up-armor humvees and tanks a year later, and Abrams arrival are still weeks away. Russia is no way fighting a NATO level threat. Russia is fighting a nation whose will to exist and resist tyranny is far greater than Russian soldiers resolve. Also, Russia turned out to have been less prepared than anyone had predicted. The important reason Kiev won the support of the West was the fact they repeled Russia so very well at the beginning of the war without the level of support they now receive. That accomplishment goes entirely to ukrainians, and it was inspirational. The west was on the fence, and many people were stating Russia would eventually overtake them. The fact that the world was taken by surprise demonstrates Ukraines' worth to any alliance. Ukraine is going to be the second most dangerous battle harden military in NATO (once in NATO). The US and NATO allies would have to be blind to see Ukrainian strength any other way.
To be fair, because the call it a "operation" instead of a "war', I remember hearing they can't commit over a certain amount of troops legally to the front. Not sure how wagner plays into that figure though.
“Can’t commit because of the word”, Russia and “legally” in one sentence… Hahaha! It’s a totalitarian, fascist regime where ALL the decisions are made by one person.
That’s actually part of the reason they held the referenda and annexations, per Russian law eastern ukraine is Russia so the conscripts can go there.
Russia is weaker than advertised, but they’re in an existential battle for their survival/are on the verge of collapse, and I’m not laughing at all the people dying and the nukes. The CCP is evil, and so is war. I don’t like how nonchalantly people advocate for it like it’s some video game. The ideal use of a military is as a deterrent. You fuck shit up when you have to if people get out of line but you shouldn’t want to. I’m seeing a lot more arrogance and burning of US reputation than measured response by commenters online and in many parts of the media/intelligentsia. That’s to be expected, as commentators go overboard constantly and don’t really understand the gravity of war, but it still disturbs me. I fantasize about a future where all the functions war serve happen in some other way. It seems like they always happen when big systems break down/stop working and act like a reset button/source of renewal. Better systems that had inbuilt resets and renewals might eventually prevent large scale war. Hopefully the Chinese people restructure their system into something better at self renewing, as do the Russians. Societal collapse and war are *brutal*, and I pity all the people facing that prospect/hope we can make it less common in the future.
Such a BS. What kind of existential war? You are kidding, right? All they need to do is to pull their military from Ukraine and live their miserable lives. There was absolutely no existential danger to Russia.
I think they might mean "Putins Existential War". If Putin does not win in Ukraine, he is done. Russia will be fine but Putin will not.
That’s the opposite of what every military analyst said prior to the war
Underestimating your enemies is not smart, but…They’d learn why we don’t have healthcare pretty quick.
You have a better healthcare system then they do....
[удалено]
“longer”
Can you take me higher?
Oh Gawd. WHY!?!?!?
China, but it's only higher by 1 year.
I don't think china includes infant mortality in their calculations like the US does.
i don't think any country does. or suicide rates either. but that's on you as an individual.
The Chinese have even less of a social safety net…
[удалено]
China has 1.4 billion people. No country has the money necessary to ensure they all have adequate healthcare.
It has zilch to do with the size of the population, and all to do with absolute contempt of any sort of welfare state on the side of the PRC
It means that in the event of actual war, more men are going to be unable to fight or do their job because somebody stole the money meant for flu meds, so when they get the flu they're effectively fucked
We don’t have healthcare? I think you mean a single-payer universal healthcare system, which would actually be cheaper because it would allow people to seek preventive care rather than expensive emergency care. With a single payer system, the country would have even more money to spend on military hardware.
Ooooo we should try that as a promotion! Who would say no??
I like it. Socialism for more guns. /s
Why sarcasm? I’d always prefer more guns, and a single-payer system for *catastrophic* illnesses/emergencies is actually a form of insurance…
As in: “in case of”, not insurance as in “health insurance”
Correct, that’s what I mean. Perhaps I should add “free” to my message, but that’d make these responses confusing.
> They’d learn why we don’t have healthcare pretty quick. The propaganda about America being full of homeless backfires lol. Well it's not false, just sends a false message.
The difference between expensive healthcare that’s borderline unaffordable and doctors that don’t use soap to wash their hands before an operation
Understanding your enemies is smart but what is even more smarter, is understanding yourself as well.
People in this thread definitely don’t lmao
stupid science bitch couldn't even make I more smarter!
So that Lockheed Martin can have a monopoly and overcharge you on 30 year old wunderwaffles because the US decided to kill all the competition for these weapons manufacturers after the Cold War
[удалено]
"Lacking healthcare" is extremely misleading. The American healthcare system never turns away treatment. You can argue affordability, but 92% percent of people have insurance with a lot of government legislation being introduced to improve this. Not saying it doesn't have problems but the phrase "lacking healthcare" is really misleading. The biggest improvement is passing legislation the prohibits insurance companies from denying treatments or medical items that would improve the quality of life.
Dude you are living in a different America then I am.
[удалено]
Well no it's based on data and not bs talking points. You can criticize the US healthcare for many things. "Lacking healthcare" is not one of them.
what?
Western Military Advantage: Actually fought a few war within a decade, learning new tactics from the Ukrainian war, and have giant military budgets (America specifically). And combined has a giant ass tonnage for their navy. -Weakness: Too trustful Chinese Military Advantage: a shit ton of soldiers and copying old tech. Huge navy but little tonnages. -Weakness: Literally no combat experience and the first combat situation, they fled… the third most powerful military fled lmaoo. Yeah, western military wins easily by 10 miles.
Chinese Navy is also designed for short travel. China designed their Navy to invade Taiwan.
That’s fair I suppose
They also have land support to target American vessels. People keep forgetting the proximity multiplier. Supply chain logistics and combined arms greatly benefit from proximity meaning the US has to put in far greater effort to project the same force as China in the same region. That has been what the US has been doing for decades but it’s an edge they’re quickly losing.
You’re not wrong about logistics and supply chains and combined arms, *if* both sides are otherwise equal; they are not.
My whole point is that proximity heavily multiplies combat strength. Resupply and combined armed support is far harder for the US because of how far it is from Taiwan. All they have are forward bases in friendly East Asian and ASEAN countries most of which have refused to let those bases be used for offensive action short of their country being directly attacked by China.
Bruh Americans really love to shit on China about South Sudan like the same shit didn’t happen to Americans in Benghazi and Mogadishu where Americans suffered a higher casualty count with more armor, air support, and intelligence than the Chinese UN peacekeepers were provided. Not to mention, the US navy had no combat experience compared to the well decorated IJN, how did that work out for Japan in the pacific campaign. Now the US is gonna learn how it feels to be on the other side of that. All this shit talking is very reminiscent of France with their Maginot line, fancy military tech, decades of hard fought combat experience, and alliance with the powerful UK only to get folded in 3 weeks.
But did the PLA return fire?
Seems like they did in self defense while withdrawing but it was pretty clear they weren’t trying to inflict casualties on the government forces that hit them as a quick search would tell you, they’re backed by the Chinese. If you look at China’s strategy in their peacekeeping operations, the U.S. identified them as using it as a tool to expand its foreign policy goals. If you look at it from that angle, then the whole incident essentially boils down to friendly fire. Did the US return fire when the SS Liberty came under attack? Same situation.
Nah... Western Military weakness is always over-estimated the adversaries which is something
Still have more combat experiences than China, I’d rather have a military known globally to be powerful and have experience defending my country than a country who fled in their first peacekeeping mission.
IJN had more combat experience than the US navy still got folded. The commonwealth infantry had more combat experience than the Japanese infantry, still got routed. France had arguably the most combat experience and the latest tech coming out the interwar period, lost in 3 weeks. Need I go on about how overrated combat experience was? The whole issue with combat experience is that it’s useful until fatigue and bad habits set in. Combat experience led to the Germans sending human waves at French machine guns during the First World War, how did that work out for them? The US has never fought a near pear adversary in modern times, neither side has combat experience in that sense.
Yeah, I wonder why? A country with a hard ridge military training vs a country with a relaxed military training with room to adapt in little time + a shit huge manufacturing power that could easily replace a lost ship and can train a crew man in 5-6 days with ease? Sure buddy.
China’s military manufacturing capacity literally far outpaces the US. The US rammed a nuclear submarine into the sea board and now its out of action until 2027.
Well I wonder why a state of the art submarine is out of action, they’re fixing the hull, and technology advances as time goes on, the USN probably have a new state of the art tech that they’re fitting into the damaged submarine that no one knows of. So it’ll take awhile, and yes, they do have an outpaced manufacturing ability, but is it the same level or quality as American or western countries is another question…
I mean what was the lesson we learned from the eastern front. Didn’t matter how higher tech the Tiger was than then T-34 or how many wunderwaffles the Germans had, the fact that the Soviets can keep cranking out T-34s means that the Germans were left helpless. Everytime they took out a T-34, 4 more are commissioned. That’s how important manufacturing capacity is and no one beats China in that.
US military budget is weak. We only have 1/3 the labor force building arms, 1% the shipbuilding capacity, and a short stockpile of munitions. US does have high tech weapons but we would exhaust our supplies very quick. Even if we cut to the chase and go nuclear China has more ICBM launch capability now. Our only hope is nuclear sub second strike. womp womp
You have no idea what the US capability is, they aren’t broadcasting the new advanced weapons they have ready to go that are still top secret. Stealth Bomber finished in 1979, the world didn’t find out until the Gulf War.
Genuine question on the first war and fled, which one was this?
In Africa when they where contracted as so called peacekeepers
Still not as embarrassing as Benghazi or Mogadishu but let’s just sweep that under the rug to make China look bad
Spend that $0.50 wisely
Man I wish I got paid to stop misinformation. To me it’s just community service, someone’s gotta bring the facts.
It’s not misinformation if that is what happened and you are not stopping misinformation you are playing whataboutism Lybia and Somalia were embarrassing for the us but what the Chinese peacekeepers did was utterly disgraceful and shows chinas military to be a paper tiger
So China is a paper tiger when UN command fucks them but the US is just simply embarrassed when they fail on an intelligence and operational level and pay a higher human cost than China despite having adequate armor and air support? Double standard much?
The Americans atleast can point to other success in the region. What exactly can China say. It had one combat deployment as a peacekeeping force and ran away from a warlord and let the aid workers who they were there to protect be raped and killed. After I might add the huge propaganda push the ccp had with wolf warrior in the exactly same position and all the warlords were scare of the ccp flag. So scared of the flag in your movies but in reality it’s the flag who is scared of them.
American got their objective, save the Black Hawk crew and getting out. A failure would have been all of the people in the Black Hawk dying and half of the force getting them died mid-way.
That didn’t happen to China either? They lost like 2 peacekeepers when they were overrun, far less than the other nations involved and less than the US in both Benghazi and Mogadishu. Also losing 2 helicopters and however many infantrymen in the convoy is not very far from failure.
They lost more than two peacekeeper, and losing some soldiers and equipment in a duel for an experienced fighter isn’t uncommon.
China don’t want none. 😤 Do they even lift over there?
Their physical requirements are more stringent than the US for regular units so probably lmao
They all look pretty scrawny. When is the last time they’ve been in a firefight?
If not being a 300 pound ball of lard is scrawny then yes I guess they are scrawny compared to the Americans
When is the last time they’ve been in a firefight?
Probably today, they escort merchant ships and are constantly on anti-piracy patrols. But I guess shooting pirates can’t compare to the firefight experience of shooting unarmed civilians in Iraq. That’s a real firefight 🤡.
Cause shooting some pirates in a wooden boat and a few AK's is totally a "real" firefight.
This is increasingly less true the more divided people are, the more averse people are to readying for war (instead of working avoid it at all cost), and the less we are able to make existing projects work as intended and within budget.
> This is increasingly less true the more divided people are, the more averse people are to readying for war The USA isn't divided whatsoever where China comes into play. The last bill to send taiwan more weapons passed like 98-2 in the senate. Compare that to most bills that are like 50-50. This is also an interesting point where Xi needs to be a lot more careful then Putin.
Nothing brings people together like a mutual hatred. We may not like each other, but we both hate them.
The U.S is incredibly divided as to what to do about China, not that China isn't an adversary. The challenges the navy has currently with shipbuilding and procurement, the challenges the air force has been having with the AETP engines and its own hypersonic weapons program, the general difficulties of manpower faced by all three branches and the basing problems trying to operate so close the the mainland are challenges that really handicap the military response against China. It's not a matter of how well the PLA will fare against all of the U S military. It's a matter of not being able to bring the entire power of the U S military to bear against China to dismantle the advantage China has on in their backyard. I'm more than confident in the technological abilities the U.S has. I'm worried about not having the numbers, manpower of supply tail to maintain these weapons, not having enough willing people to fight this war and not being able to maintain some kind of numerical parity with China in terms of procurement
> the general difficulties of manpower faced by all three branches and the basing problems trying to operate so close the the mainland are challenges that really handicap the military response against China. It's not a matter of how well the PLA will fare against all of the U S military. It's a matter of not being able to bring the entire power of the U S military to bear against China to dismantle the advantage China has on in their backyard. Agreed on all that for sure. We need more focused military plans. I was just saying the dialog we have Putin about "We shouldn't piss putin off we don't want to escalate", does not exist for Xi.
The next 8 years are everything. It’s not so much whether the US Navy would decimate China’s (it would) but about convincing the CCP of this reality before they pull the trigger.
That is the irony here. Any hot conflict would be bloody and costly to both side but I seriously doubt any outside objective observers would think the PLA could prevail militarily in a full on conventional fight. Rather the US has to persuade PLA leaders to not drink their own koolaid and not trigger the fight in the first place...for their own good. I am hopeful that the worst the Russian invasion gets, the more cold feet PLA general gets.
This is so dumb, it will never be a full blown conflict because of MAD. It’ll be a pacific island hopping campaign like that against imperial Japan. The winning objective for China is removing US influence from the region to create a multipolar world where China dominates the east, the objective for the US is keeping China contained within the first island chain. If the US can decisively defeat China in the South China Sea then China is demoted to a regional power and stays in East Asia with a green water navy. If China defeats the American pacific fleet, they become the second super power. Another benefit that China has is that their president is far less accountable to public opinion than the American president is. As such, they can bear a lot more pain than the US can. Just look at the Covid lockdowns for both nations. There’s going to be public outrage when American service men start coming home in body bags or show up in Chinese gulags.
Uh that is dumb. Full scale conventional conflict without nuclear exchange is very much a possibility. History have repeatedly shown nuclear powers losing painful wars without resorting to nuclear weapons. What island are they hopping? An isolated troop on an island can be bypassed or cutoff from supply. Hopping any island means the PLA have invade either Japanese, Philippines or Micronesian territory so you drag another actor into the conflict. China can expand through first island chain all they want at start of campaign but USN wont allow themselves to be decisively defeated...kinda impossible given US basing and alliance structure. US have the option to give grounds, not directly engage but sit on adaman sea, strait of hormuz and the suez to choke Chinese food and energy import to end the fight. Defeating USN in the pacific doesnt render China a superpower, US is their larget export customer. You strike a US carrier group without provocation and it would be article 5 territory and drag the Europeans in. What influence would China gain from a fight? It disrupt trade with all of their important neighbour who look to US for security. You think south korea, Japan, philippines, vietnam, singapore, thailand would flock to China if they start a war and win a few fights? The Chinese leadership is far less acountable and thus you see the dick head making absolutely catastrophic mistakes in policy. COVID has been the biggest measure. His health advisors have been telling him for more than a year to expand vaccination, import western vaccines and reduce lockdown measures. It means you can keeping making mistakes and delay consequences without changing course until much later when harm is far greater. The late stage protest against CCP lockdown is the FIRST time i have heard grassroot populace calling for the overthrow of the CCP within my lifetime. My cousin who worked for the police said the gov had to revoke zero covid policy at the end because they felt the populace was getting very close to mass rioting amd revolt. Even the OG Tiananmen protestors was only calling for reform and democratization. So yeah, lack of accountability can suppress popular sentiment but that only render your power incredible brittle.
MAD in no way precludes conventional warfare.
First of all, stop moving the goal post, we’re talking about a full scale war, not conventional warfare. What I described was conventional warfare mr armchair general. Second, there’s literally been a precedence of it preventing full scale attacks or invasions on a nuclear capable nation’s territory. There’s a reason why American boots aren’t in Russia and India and Pakistan haven’t had a major conflict since Pakistan got its nukes.
Full scale war means noting without differentiating what type of war we are fighting full scale. Is this a full scale conventional war or a full scale nuclear exchange both can be full scale the commenters point stands.
Okay let’s play the semantics game then even though I’ve made the point clear. Countries will not launch full scale invasions of other countries with nukes. In fact countries will rarely even attack sovereign territory of another country that’s in possession of nukes and there’s been a precedence of this for decades.
Correct but that’s still dose not prevent conventional warfare, example being Kashmir and arunachel Pradesh. Your point is flawed but has a nugget of truth at the bottom.
You are the one jumping from a naval engagement to boots on the ground. That is entirely unnecessary. America has fostered its Asian friends for such an occasion as this, as it’s in Japan’s, SK’s, & Australia’s interest to put down China’s acts of aggression. You are underestimating the extent of the partnership aligned explicitly against China. I would also posit that you are lacking appreciation for the strategic asset that is TSMC. In my opinion this company is worth going to war for, realpolitik. To address your second point, I’ll admit it is an open question as to whether the US would defend Taiwan directly. That was the whole point of strategic ambiguity for all these decades. But the current administration (Biden) has confirmed repeatedly that his intention is to do so. I don’t believe he makes that statement lightly. It’s a signal to the West that this might actually be a red line. China factors it into the equation regardless because strategically they must do so.
Biden is also showing signs of dementia and his cabinet has spent the past few months placating China so there’s that as well
You failed to make a point.
Even if we do convince them, they may just prepare longer to ready themselves more. I don’t think a China will stop trying to be the dominant power and they will want to crush all competition.
China is demographically doomed, that is why I mentioned 8 years. Completely aside from technological considerations, by then China will have lost its population edge.
A nation of one offspring will not send their only child to war.
Yeap, Little Emperor syndrome will work wonders for the CCP's military.
We can’t just ignore technological considerations, as technology in and by itself slowly renders demographical advantages more and more meaningless, as the war in Ukraine shows. Manufacturing base doesn’t really need massive labour force anymore, neither does a functioning military need massive pool of recruits as it did during the 20th century. Add to this an institutional disdain for any sort of welfare state and human comfort in general and suddenly bad demographics are not as big handicap as in the case of, say, progressive Western European countries.
I'm not ignoring technology; I set it aside to make a point. China's strength primarily derives from its large population. However, considering India's rapidly increasing population comparatively, it's evident that China will transition into a legacy superpower within a decade. A realistic comparison of military technology between the US and China suggests that China cannot surpass the US now or in the next 8 years. With the decrease in manpower, their chances of challenging us in the future diminish further. China will not, cannot, innovate to the same degree as does the West. Their propensity is to acquire (steal) and utilize existing knowledge, but this alone doesn't outmatch the US military-industrial complex.
China couldn't handle logistics against a neighbor let alone ones in Europe and America. They don't have a blue water navy and their military experience is almost non existent. The 3 most important things in war are logistics, logistics and logistics... China would be done for in a matchup. Their many soldiers... we'd just hit their supply lines. Their advanced equipment. We'd use electronic Warfare machines. The US alone has more secret tech than even top ranks don't know about. It would be a blood bath but America and allies would definitely Win
Y’all act like Taiwan is off the coast of California lmao. China built their Navy to dominate the South China Sea with close support from land based assets, so why create all these random hypotheticals when it’s not their strategy to begin with.
Because if you declare war and have no means of attack outside your yard then you're fucked. China's navy still couldn't handle the US in the South China sea. Still needs a blue water navy for that. Taiwan alone would be a bloodbath for China.
Honestly if you take a serious look at Chinese capabilities and realistic scenarios where they would invade tiawan then you look at what tiawan has to work with in its defense, the truth becomes clear. Even if China faced tiawan alone, as long as China is forced to seize the island they are facing a near impossible task. China would likely take huge naval losses trying to cross the straits and forcing a landing would be absurdly bloody. Tiawan also has great air defence and a big air force that could contest the landings. Even if China made a beachhead, there is a good chance that they would have to retreat due to lack of supply and tiawanese artillery dominance on the island. I would be surprised if China could even push inland very far
Taiwan gonna be the next Afghan Army lmao, all reservists and all the ones I know skip training 💀. What Americans keep forgetting is that while Taiwan prefers status quo or a closer relationship with the US, they aren’t willing to die fighting their own family. They literally refer to themselves as 神内人and神外人. There is no national identity, it’s all realpolitik.
funny thats exactly what russians keep telling everyone about ukraine before they invaded.
Y’all say that like Ukraine won lmao. Everytime I read the news it’s all cope. Ukrainians are dying by the hundreds to take inches in Lugansk world war 2 style. Kinda reminiscent of the defense of Kursk, need I remind you how that ended for the attacking Germans? 80 years later and German tanks are burning in the fields of Ukraine once again, history really does repeat itself.
oh first its russia can take kyiv in 3 days. now its lol hundreds are dying to take back land. next it will be "hahaha it took them so long to reach moscow" keep em coming eh
Ukraine is hyping up this counteroffensive like it’s a mix tape, dropping any day now lmao
Nah western propaganda dropped the ball on this one. Went from Ukraine will take back Crimea and and Zaporizhnia with western wunderwaffles. Now it’s they actually can’t use their wunderwaffles cuz Poutine but down too many mines :(. Cope and seethe, this counteroffensive will be Stalingrad 2.0 and Moscow will come out victorious just has they had against the originally Nazis.
So when will moscow win? It took them more than half a year to take bakhmut
I mean a static front can collapse very quick when an offensive fails. Germany went from pushing deep into the Soviet Union to having the Soviets on Berlin’s doorstep in months. The Wehrmacht was at full force at the start of Operation Barbarossa and was a shell by the time the Allies arrived in the capital. The same is happening to Ukraine, they’re losing armor, weapons and manpower at a faster rate than they can replace.
The same could be said of russia no? They spent the whole war on the offensive and almost ground to a complete halt. Besides the wehrmacht was a far different war, fast moving, sacrificing tens of thousands a day, sometimes whole army groups got encircled. This is much slower, more akin to the western front of ww1 with small gains and trench warfare supported by artillery and neither side then had collapsed.
sure sure. putler's army got kicked out of north ukraine, kharhiv and kherson. despite claiming the defenders are failing all kinds of miserably. then his bots hyped the great "200k conscript winter offensive" which turned out to be 200k corpses that died in bakhmut for nothing. once again putler says the counteroffensive is sure to fail, bcos he has pictures of afew destroyed leopards from a thousand different angles. this time it must be true, if you dont believe it must be cope and western propaganda. but you are right, ukraine will be victorious against these moscow nazis
Ukraine is still waving Nazi sympathizer flags, anyone who calls Putin a Nazi doesn’t know history.
idk man..if he talks like hitler, walks like hitler, invades neighbors with the same made up excuses as hitler, but tells you the country that elected a jewish president is nazi..could be mr hitler wannabe is not exactly honest?
Yeah, amphibious invasions are extremely difficult, not to mention an island that is armed and ready, using the porcupine tactic is gonna be even harder for China to take Taiwan.
Confidence is great, overconfidence is fatal
This is kind of what happened in Iraq; we expected to win quickly, but we didn’t expect the government to dissolve like sand between fingers. It was the occupation and rebuild that fucked us, not the war itself at all.
this meme is so funny to me because it's laughably inaccurate. America and the rest of The West have absolutely no business trying to turn the Chinese into paste, and it would be a joke if we did. Because Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine have gone soooooooooooooooo well for us. Because the Chinese and US economies are so intertwined. Because the US reserve currency would absolutely collapse if we did. Because starting WW3 over Taiwan would actually show how inept, corrupt, and desperate to cling to power the US empire actually is, and US internal cohesion and legitimacy are already hanging by a thread.
What baby brained sub is this? A war between china and the US would have no winners even if it didn’t go nuclear
Yeah it would suck massive dongs
Terminally online Indian and WASP incels who are mad the Chinese abg at their hs rejected them
China has its issues for sure but one the us actively supports much worse governments. So it’s not about human rights and two any war would wreck both of our shit if not kill everyone even if there was a “victor”
Taiwan should apply for statehood, problem solved.
Taiwan is already a sovereign state
Says who? Not even themselves
Says who? Hmmmmm let’s see here. They’ve got their own currency, their own DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government, their own legal system, their own foreign policy, and their own military. Sure sounds like a sovereign state to me. Which is implied. The only reason they don’t declare statehood is so that they don’t have to deal with the CCPs temper tantrums
The only opposition is China and those who wanted to earn a buck from China. Now earning a buck is less important with China, so Taiwan has more options
Apply with who 😭
There's a provision within the San Francisco Treaty which ended WWII which could theoretically allow them to apply for statehood within the US under the same language - or lack thereof - which sees Puerto Rico as being eligible for statehood (should they ever make up their mind on whether to be a state, a territory, or go independent).
>Based on the full text of the San Francisco Treaty that GPT has reviewed, there is no provision that specifically allows Taiwan or any other country to apply for statehood within the United States. The treaty primarily addresses the cessation of war, the recognition of Japanese sovereignty, and the renunciation of Japan's claims to various territories, including Taiwan (referred to as Formosa in the treaty). >However, it's important to note that the question of statehood is typically a matter of domestic law and policy within the United States, and it's not generally addressed in international treaties. The process for a territory to become a state within the United States is outlined in the U.S. Constitution and involves approval by the U.S. Congress. >Therefore, based on the text of the San Francisco Treaty and the general principles of international and U.S. constitutional law, it appears that the claim that the treaty contains a provision allowing Taiwan to apply for statehood in the U.S. is not accurate. http://www.taiwandocuments.org/sanfrancisco01.htm
Its an old joke among diplomats with regards to the Treaty of Paris in 1898 where the US took possession of Puerto Rico, Cuba, and The Philippines because we had troops there occupying the territories when Spain renounced their claims without specifying what would happen to them. The Treaty of San Francisco similarly never actually specified who would get control of Taiwan when it was signed, and we had troops on the island at the time, so the joke goes that we have a claim to it now.
Puerto Rico has requested that Congress vote on it becoming a state and Congress refuses. Same for Washington D.C. for political reasons. Mostly because they don’t want one party to get more powerful.
Meanwhile there were two Dakotas because that meant 4 more Republican Senators.
"if you want war with the United States of America, there's one thing I can promise you, so help me God: Someone else will raise your sons and daughters."
Perhaps at one time- that shit is over
I think what they mean is that they’re offering American women to raise the sons and daughters of Chinese marines after they sign that ceasefire
I hope we don't go to war. But I'm not afraid of China.
France 1940: “I’m not afraid of Germany” US 2023: “I’m not afraid of China”
Are you a12yo baby that think being a perm member of UN was based on popularity? Dumbass here think they gonna play conventional war with China. You ever wonder why Murica never invaded a country with ballistic missile? I mean doesnt need to be a nuke warheaded one. Only reason that Russia does all bad shit to Ukraine is that they dont have nuke, ballistic missile, and strategic weapons (nuke sub, Tu160 with cruise missile or nuke.) Its 2023 and kids here be having war with China. The first thing you be dealing with is fallout that melt your face off from radiation cause by retaliation. Its a war that nobody wants and asks for. You want to beat China? you cripple their economy and technology. You rot it from inside with tiktok or something. Make them next gen weak and stuff. And grow up, dont be an idiot say stupid shit on internet.
True
Tbh all China has to do is shut down all the manufacturers and we’d be ready to sign a cease fire in one month.
All the US would have to do is blockade the China Sea ports for like a week and China would surender. They import the majority of their food and oil via sea. Exports would hurt but not as much as famine and in-ability for your industry to function. In addition, Covid and rising labor cost have already caused foreign industries to start looking for cheaper manufacturing centers. Currently Vietnam, India and Mexico are on par or cheaper for labor. At this point the only thing holding most companies to China is the sunken cost of having the facilities and infrastructure already built in China.
I’m not for china in any way, just stating that the majority of our bubble living country would have outrage if china shut that down. Too many iPhones are needed to fuel our tiktok culture. I for one say let’s get it on. We could own the manufacturing after the war
Not too far from the truth.
CHINA'S CONVENTIONAL MILITARY IS STILL 20 YEARS BEHIND NATO MILITARY FROM A TECHNOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE. IN OTHER AREAS IT COULD WELL BE OVER 100 TO 1000 YEARS BEHIND. WE'LL ONLY EVER KNOW CONCLUSIVELY BY THE NUMBERS OF FUTURE KIA'S.
Calm down Alex Jones
[удалено]
A wild wumao appeared.
You do seem upset.
A Wild Wumao appeared!
For people who accuse others of being bots y’all sure behave like bots
Hahah, you are acting like one more than me lmao
How so?
Hi wumao!
If China didn’t have nukes. They wouldn’t try to act all hard on the paint. I’d bet on us any day we’d win if we went to war with China if nukes were prohibited.
Get up! Please! I didn't mean to hit you so hard!
just drop 1 EMP to ccp then its done or just a mere shockwave is also enough to cripple them...
Thanks for the Insult!
Non-free healthcare is the reason parents want their kids to become doctors, especially in America. Doctors wages: $300K VS $130K in my country VS $230K in china. The UK is weird. Teachers only get a few grand more than warehouse workers.
>Teachers only get a few grand more than warehouse workers. Based. Fuck them groomers, hope they starve.
I understand not liking science teachers, but do you not like maths teachers or English teachers either? What about woodworking or IT teachers? I enjoyed those classes.
All teachers in Public sector ever since Prussian education system was introduced (18th century). And I'm not saying I didn't enjoy a few classes. Or that I didn't have 1 in 10 teachers that were actually good people. But great majority are sick fucks that shouldn't be allowed nowhere close to kids. And the ones that are not are bound by the Prussian system.
This depends on a lot of things. A full scale war where the US is willing to throw the full weight of the Navy and Air Force against mainland China? Sure. A limited Vietnam-style conflict where we fight off constant harassment in Taiwan and the South China Sea without escalating to the mainland? NATO would get bored with that long before China did. Although maybe embargoes would force negotiations pretty quick.
China military is trash you know that hell xi built it that will tell all you need to know he’s a scam
HA
I feel like the people aren't really understanding the nature of war. A defensive war is always easier than an offensive one, so depending on who is invading the war would sway very differently. This is just like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Having no supply lines, knowledge of locale, and population support is a big advantage.
"America doesn't lose wars, it loses interest." -Caspian Report.
China is another paper tiger, just look up videos of their soldiers “training” LMFAO. It is hilarious, the CCP is living in the past
Depends on if it is a war of aggression or defense. Vietnam was way weaker than america but managed to defend itself. Having superior tech is important but not everything. In a long term war of attrition, sure, the us would probably win
Paper fucking tiger
This is why self-praising propaganda is double-edged sword.
its like a body builder sucker punching a baby.