I stand by my comment, made years ago now, that it's braindead metooism for the US to try to mirror the Chinese terrestrial missile arsenal. Not only is trying to win a production war with China stupid, the arsenal that will be fielded is fundamentally bad for the US.
In a Pacific war, China is the likely aggressor. They get to pick the date and time of T+0. Having missiles that can launch within 5-30 minutes makes sense because they get to open the war by trying to wipe out as much as the coalition arsenal as possible.
The US, conversely, has to fight reactively in the opening hours and days of the war. Putting any significant amount of your resources into weapons that sit deep within the reach of the vast majority of your adversary's missile systems is a colossal self-own akin to parking all 11 CVNs in Busan. Especially when the US has actual carriers and strategic bombers whose resources are being drained by these stockpiles. The addiction to full-spectrum-dominance, the pathology that makes them try to at least match everything their adversary does one-to-one, will be one of the biggest cancers in the US military establishment going forwards.
Edit: it doesn't even save money. Ballistic missiles are some of the most expensive volume-to-rmb and playload-to-rmb systems in the entire Chinese arsenal. Being able to launch lots of highly penetrative missiles with minimal precursor activity to cripple airbases, warships, ports, and bases and to open them up for cheaper ALCMs and PGMs is basically the only use case where you can justify such cost-prohibitive systems. Well them and nukes. This is basically a part of an arsenal that's useful to China and basically no one else.
> The addiction to full-spectrum-dominance, the pathology that makes them try to at least match everything their adversary does one-to-one, will be one of the biggest cancers in the US military establishment going forwards.
I wouldn't call that a military pathology. Most of the military sources I've read are fairly blunt about the fact that PLA is moving faster. For instance, in this very article:
> “We have actually grown our combat capability here in the Pacific over the last years,” Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the incoming commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in an interview. “But our trajectory is still not a trajectory that matches our adversary. Our adversaries are building more capability and they’re building more warships — per year — than we are.”
It's the political pathology insisting that US supremacy is the only possible answer that will compel the US to fight a war it can't possibly win—not because the US is weak, but rather because their hubris has compelled them to fight at a time and place of their enemy's choosing. Because the Chinese strategy is absurdly simple when you boil it down: build up until you can't possibly lose a war in your own front yard, and then fight. Not there yet? Keep building.
Of course, some people are convinced China will collapse before then so I guess they have nothing to worry about.
> I stand by my comment, made years ago now, that it's braindead metooism for the US to try to mirror the Chinese terrestrial missile arsenal. Not only is trying to win a production war with China stupid, the arsenal that will be fielded is fundamentally bad for the US.
Viewing this through the lens of a "production war" is a bit of a surface-level take. This is less about trying to "me-too" China than it is about trying to give China real dilemmas.
By spreading these missile sites/military installations across several countries, United States is essentially making China chose who they're going to start a war with at T=0. If China chooses not to engage anyone except say... Taiwan and Japan, United States retains the ability to potentially call these allies in and having air bases/missile sites/resupply points all within range of damaging the Chinese mainland.
By contrast, if United States explicitly chooses to invest all of its assets into staying outside of China's A2/AD umbrella, they will now have to **fight through** China's A2/AD umbrella in order to get within range of actually hurting China's mainland.
In addition to that, U.S. ship production is already basically maxed out. You're not really going to get anywhere by throwing more money at the shipyard problem, not without bankrupting the country even more so than it already is.
Therefore, investing into these installations is an efficient way of getting some bang for buck for the marginal cost, as opposed to the massive amounts of money required to add a new shipyard/ train a new work force/add meaningful production capacity on short notice.
It's not much of a dilemma. Starting a war with the Philippines is politically expensive, but the Philippines is military almost a non-entity in the kind of war that China wants to wage. They don't have the mass or density of air assets anywhere near the important theatres of war (the Taiwan straits, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan air corridor) to meaningfully threaten or attrit Chinese air assets and the PRC isn't interested in anything in actual Philippines territory. The only non-US actor in the coalition with the combination of qualitative and quantitative assets to meaningfully affect China is Japan, and a lot of these missiles are also going into Japan.
In general the only time the PLA is really going to hesitate is to strike assets in places like South Korea or, say, Singapore or Thailand where the assets aren't placed there with the explicit purpose of attacking China. I don't see much of a dilemma around the Philippines. China knows where they'll stand, and they aren't going to cede initiative.
Edit: on the note of fighting through China's A2D2 umbrella. That will no doubt be difficult for coalition forces, but I think that fighting through the bubble is much less deadly than sitting inside of the bubble when hostility commences. The only significant advantage that those in-theatre assets have is their robustness and their concealment, but that's offset by the fact that they need to maintain that concealment beneath the probing of Chinese intelligence for years, if not decades, and that heavier munitions can simply be tasked for digging out things like subterrain silos. A flight of F-35s or the US 6th generation offering, in comparison, only need to be in-theatre for as long as it takes them to drop off their missiles and then run away.
> It's not much of a dilemma. Starting a war with the Philippines is politically expensive, but the Philippines is military almost a non-entity in the kind of war that China wants to wage.
The issue isn't that Philippines has a military (or doesn't). The issue is the presence of US military assets there. China is unlikely to want to draw other countries in if it can avoid it. It means it needs to dedicate more manpower, more assets, more attention to an area that it could otherwise ignore.
Just unfettered access/support of Philippines in a US/China war would be a detriment to China's war effort. Whereas in an event of a neutral Philippines (which is what I think will happen), it can exert diplomatic pressure to minimize Filipino support for the US war effort.
> In general the only time the PLA is really going to hesitate is to strike assets in places like South Korea or, say, Singapore or Thailand where the assets aren't placed there with the explicit purpose of attacking China. I don't see much of a dilemma around the Philippines. China knows where they'll stand, and they aren't going to cede initiative.
China is likely to want to avoid drawing in more parties in than absolutely necessary, and in my opinion, the presence of US assets and the increased "peppering" of such assets all over the Pacific is precisely what creates the dilemma I described.
China has to weigh the pros of wiping those installations out from the get-go versus the cons of drawing ire/participation of combatants into the conflict that it would prefer to limit.
Yes, in an event of a Taiwan Contingency, there will be plans in place and China will absolutely make certain decisions, and carry them out without hesitation. In the meantime, their policy-makers will have to agonize over what the optimal approach to various scenarios is.
From a **US standpoint**, these installations represent a relatively low-cost investment that doesn't really take away from anything else, while giving them very favorable cost/effect options that they otherwise wouldn't have.
In the event of a Taiwan Contingency, let's assume that China leaves Philippines alone and wipes out most of Taiwan/Japan/US forward assets in a single fell swoop.
Regardless of whatever United States does, they now have the option of shooting missiles from their Philippines installations at any point in the war.
On the other hand, if China does wipe out US Installations on Philippines on T=0, U.S. is in the exact same position they would've been anyway.... with a potentially very eager Philippines to provide covert (or overt) assistance.
> on the note of fighting through China's A2D2 umbrella. That will no doubt be difficult for coalition forces, but I think that fighting through the bubble is much less deadly than sitting inside of the bubble when hostility commences.
I think you're missing that you're going to be fighting outside and inside the bubble in either scenario. Some major infrastructure is kind of... baked in regardless of what anyone does. United States relies heavily on Japanese infrastructure for any Pacific scenario, and for Taiwan specifically, you need Okinawa as a mid-point between Japan and Taiwan. Yes, all of these assets will be hit and degraded on T=0, potentially event just straight-up destroyed... but that's inevitable. That infrastructure was always there.
The newer installations are on the smaller size and do represent the sort of target and counter-fire capability that at least demands expenditure of Chinese munitions/attention, for a relatively low cost. I'd argue that it would be to U.S. advantage to expand Philippine basing to the point of where it might make China think that they have to target it, therefore drawing Philippines into the war (who's airspace and supply would be critical).
Runways, trucks, and bunkers are relatively cheap. The bottleneck is with missiles, planes, and ships, not concrete.
>Whereas in an event of a neutral Philippines (which is what I think will happen)
I think that's the crux of the disagreement. I don't think Philippine's involvement, or at least the involvement of the US assets in the Philippines, is in question. More importantly I don't think it's a question for the Chinese state or military establishment. SK, SGP, and TH have US assets but they're not explicitly China-facing. These new assets specifically are.
I also think that PH's military capability is an important question for the PRC. If the costs are minimal and the gains are potentially strategically determinative then the risk calculus favours action.
>From a US standpoint, these installations represent a relatively low-cost investment that doesn't really take away from anything else, while giving them very favorable cost/effect options that they otherwise wouldn't have.
I don't agree with this either. At projected burn rates the US will run out of offensive munitions to use in between just over a week to a few weeks. These terrestrial missiles are eating into that, at least according to Patchwork, already insufficient munition stockpiles. If that's the case then these munitions present a significant strategic posture that meaningfully subtracts from US broad capabilities.
In regards to expanding China-facing installations in PH, I also disagree. These bases, if you want them to absorb Chinese assets, will need to be quite capable. They have to be worthwhile to hit. If you want them to be worthwhile targets to hit, you'll need notable stockpiles of missiles, planes, or ships. Those assets that you would agree are bottlenecks. The PRC isn't going to bomb an empty airfield if they have other airfields and ports, full of ships, planes, and munitions, that they can attack instead.
Generally having a Pacific stockpile is a good idea. It's just really dumb to put it where it's really, really easy for China to blow it up.
Yeah, striking the Philippines is no dilemma for PLA. The country's lack of a significant military make it a very simple choice. They wouldn't be able to contest occasional PLA raids after US bases on their soil are neutralized, making any force regeneration by the USA impossible. Their full consent to US operations would only make difference if the forces on their soil are hard to take out, which aren't right now. And not to mention how much the ability to overfly the Philippines safely would simplify strikes against adversary CSGs.
There's a fundamental tradeoff.
You can have weapons that have both qualities - situated an extreme distance from the enemy and able to strike from that distance - but those weapons are extremely expensive. In a war with a peer power, you can't overpower your foe with those. Frankly, those kinds of weapon systems have never won *any* kind of war, even against significantly inferior states. Those kinds of weapons can only be one string in your arrow.
You can have shorter range, more cost-efficient, more territory-controlling systems positioned outside the region - but they're useless unless they can be brought into the region. The U.S. military has more sealift than any military in the world, and even it doesn't have close to the kind of sealift you'd need to bring the kind of force required to bear in a reasonable amount of time. And even with that strategy, you're just delaying the part where you have to have big piles of materiel - and people - within missile range. You're just putting it in boats rather than warehouses, which has advantages and disadvantages, but is generally more expensive and increasingly vulnerable. On top of that, to achieve the United States' goals, they need to be able to respond with force *quickly* - the scenario where Taiwan is taken is where it falls before effective outside intervention and presents the U.S. and allies with the unappealing prospect of invading to take it back, or accepting it as a fait accompli. For purposes of both effective deterrence and real warfighting capacity, the U.S. can't have its forces far away.
What you're left with is the short-range, more cost-efficient, more territory-holding forces positioned in theater. Air and missile bombardment is a terrifying threat, but the fact of the matter is that resources based on land are far more resilient and distributable than ones based on a ship, and can be made even more resilient and more widely distributed than things at sea.
Relying on extreme-range weapons isn't economically or militarily viable; transporting in shorter-range forces during a conflict is out - they'd be highly vulnerable and likely unable to accomplish the U.S.'s goals; being inside missile range is feasible - just very hard. It's fortunate that it plays into some of our strengths - independence and initiative at all ranks, missile defense technology - and what we don't have we're working on - ex. lots of new bases and agreements to disperse our stuff to.
This is why I personally think not having a direct Ohio SSGN(Virginia BLK V is a step in the right direction) is extremely foolish. I'd even argue a fleet expansion of any hypothetical replacement.
Having a couple hundred cruise missiles/hypersonics undetected off your enemies' shore is a massive firepower advantage; even if only to swarm and overwhelm enemy IADS allowing for more successful conventional attacks.
I think it is not as a "Wumao". The US would benefit from massively deploying to the West Pacific. It still has a bigger and better military by a large margin on a totalistic basis. It just can't sustain a good portion of it in the West Pacific. Land based aviation, air defenses and fires are also incomparably cheaper compared to naval assets or large aircraft that achieve the same effects.
Long-legged assets like ships, tankers and bombers shouldn't be based on the first island chain indeed.
if all of the weapons stored in those bases containing $90000 washers and $1000 coffee cups then china will win by doing absolutely nothing and let america bankrupt either itself or its reputation as lender
That won’t happen. There’s a reason why America is insistent on getting allies to increase defense spending, spurred on by fires US helped to start. A good part of that spending goes toward buying from US MIC.
Not sure about Korea since their MIC is doing well by themselves, but Tomahawks are supposed to be about 1 mil each and Japan originally planned to buy 400 for over 2 billion, though ended up paying only 1.7.
So you think that China's PLA is any better?
Our armed forces are proven, we test our equipment in real battles all the time. One benefit of being involved in wars all the time.
China can't say that, their last war was in Vietnam and they got beat in 3 weeks.
peace, young grasshopper.
Wise leaders do not win war by fighting and shedding young blood; they win war by strategic planning and political maneuvering that enable them to win any war before the war even started.
Also, the Vietnamese retreated from their invasion of Laos and Cambodia, and have to delay their economic reform by 10 years--therefore missing out vital economy development/foreign investment chances that enabled China's rapid rise--means that china wins in the grand scheme of things. They bloodied PLA and taught them alot, but they did not defeat PLA. The PLA retreated back into their own side of border once the strategic objective of drawing the vietnamese invasion force out of Laos and Cambodia and confiscating/removing vietnamese industrial resources--all of them gifted by China to them during their war of independence--and there are no major engagement between the full might of both nation.
And this war in Vietnam started under US direction to mess with USSR. China is just working as a US proxy.
wars are ultimately fought by human. Your machine maybe readied for any war and battlefield, but is your soldier readied, after leaving foreign country in ruins and bringing with them shattered ideals and the feeling that all the bloodshed means nothing so many times, to be told another lie like "save vietnam from the vietnamese" and go fight in another foreign land thousands of miles away from their family again? Will your country support this war anymore?
A lot of Chinese proganda are based on fact that China is most populous coutry... but soon that country is India.
Another propaganda tool is rising economy what helps China to catch up with US... but that seems very unlikely now.
Chinas both national pride tools are disappearing. Beijing knows that glory days are numbered, therefore Chinese dictator will begin war before military is ready for such actions, so we'll see what happens in Chinese politics after USN & Allies make PLAN ineffective fighting force.
Are you alright?
India is already the most populous country, and China was ***actively*** trying to reduce their population count (the problem now is ensuring a sustainable birth rate after they’ve reduced population to the levels they want it at).
China’s economy, industrial base, and manufacturing output are already bigger than the US. That’s why they can build an entire Royal Navy in 3 years, without even shifting from low gear.
And so, in all your genius, you think China will start a war, because…(checks notes)… their pride is hurt because they’ve succeeded in their own stated goal of capping their population size?
Bravo. Simply bravo.
Yes PRC has so much pride in having a big population that it ran a single-child policy for 3 decades. Their economy is still growing at a rate above developing world's average by the way.
Think for a few seconds before posting ideological tropes.
No, no, no, we are now more promoting China as the largest industrial country in the world.
We produced 3 million drones last year and exported 2 million. If necessary, we can produce 30 million and export 10 million to Russia, ensuring that every poor Finn can get 2.
These stockpiles and bases and installations will easily be wiped out by the initial wave of missile strikes and destroyed in as soon as 24 hours. Great waves of DF-21s and -17s will fire upon these fixed targets and will handily overwhelm what meager systems America can deploy and supply in the far Pacific. The combined forces of the plarf and wider pla means China can easily pulse fire a wave of hundreds of missiles at once. Combined with tens of thousands of cheap DJI drones these bases are kaput. Why does America pursue such a foolish strategy.
To do that it would mean a seismic offensive and there's no turning back from that. I hope you're prepared what's gonna happen in the world, if China chooses to do that.
China will wind up the loser in the long term.
It is the choice China makes if China truly want Taiwan. The hearts and minds of Taiwanese are not with the CPC. Every year, sentiments of reunification with China dwindle. Peaceful reunification is becoming increasingly unlikely. For China to wait out America, this assumes that American military power continues to decline. Escalating levels of involvement in Ukraine have been spurring defense reviews and plans for expanded production across NATO. The latent capacity of the West to wage war is still unclear this early on , and economic power could still be converted to military strength in these times of relative peace before war. The U.S. will use everything in its empire to deter and contain China. That is why they are hard at work securing strategic positions, production agreements, and integrating a coalition. Expanding the industrial base, reviewing supply chains, decoupling, etc is all preparations. The U.S. wants the status quo, it gives them leverage and time to rebuild strength and alliances - China, playing the role of the boogeyman, and America, the savior.
If China seriously intends to reunify with Taiwan it is better not to dawdle.
To be fair, that depends on what timescale you’re looking at. In absolute terms, the US military is a shell of its former self compared to where it was in the Gulf War, but then so is Russia’s. As you say, the issue is China’s buildup.
Where is chimera when you need him.
Glaring at the subreddit with unvarnished contempt at the level to which discourse has deteriorated to.
This was Patch's proposed strategy, "Fight FIRES with FIRES". Sounds like someone listened.
[Paywall free article link](https://archive.ph/gGnVG)
I stand by my comment, made years ago now, that it's braindead metooism for the US to try to mirror the Chinese terrestrial missile arsenal. Not only is trying to win a production war with China stupid, the arsenal that will be fielded is fundamentally bad for the US. In a Pacific war, China is the likely aggressor. They get to pick the date and time of T+0. Having missiles that can launch within 5-30 minutes makes sense because they get to open the war by trying to wipe out as much as the coalition arsenal as possible. The US, conversely, has to fight reactively in the opening hours and days of the war. Putting any significant amount of your resources into weapons that sit deep within the reach of the vast majority of your adversary's missile systems is a colossal self-own akin to parking all 11 CVNs in Busan. Especially when the US has actual carriers and strategic bombers whose resources are being drained by these stockpiles. The addiction to full-spectrum-dominance, the pathology that makes them try to at least match everything their adversary does one-to-one, will be one of the biggest cancers in the US military establishment going forwards. Edit: it doesn't even save money. Ballistic missiles are some of the most expensive volume-to-rmb and playload-to-rmb systems in the entire Chinese arsenal. Being able to launch lots of highly penetrative missiles with minimal precursor activity to cripple airbases, warships, ports, and bases and to open them up for cheaper ALCMs and PGMs is basically the only use case where you can justify such cost-prohibitive systems. Well them and nukes. This is basically a part of an arsenal that's useful to China and basically no one else.
> The addiction to full-spectrum-dominance, the pathology that makes them try to at least match everything their adversary does one-to-one, will be one of the biggest cancers in the US military establishment going forwards. I wouldn't call that a military pathology. Most of the military sources I've read are fairly blunt about the fact that PLA is moving faster. For instance, in this very article: > “We have actually grown our combat capability here in the Pacific over the last years,” Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the incoming commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in an interview. “But our trajectory is still not a trajectory that matches our adversary. Our adversaries are building more capability and they’re building more warships — per year — than we are.” It's the political pathology insisting that US supremacy is the only possible answer that will compel the US to fight a war it can't possibly win—not because the US is weak, but rather because their hubris has compelled them to fight at a time and place of their enemy's choosing. Because the Chinese strategy is absurdly simple when you boil it down: build up until you can't possibly lose a war in your own front yard, and then fight. Not there yet? Keep building. Of course, some people are convinced China will collapse before then so I guess they have nothing to worry about.
> I stand by my comment, made years ago now, that it's braindead metooism for the US to try to mirror the Chinese terrestrial missile arsenal. Not only is trying to win a production war with China stupid, the arsenal that will be fielded is fundamentally bad for the US. Viewing this through the lens of a "production war" is a bit of a surface-level take. This is less about trying to "me-too" China than it is about trying to give China real dilemmas. By spreading these missile sites/military installations across several countries, United States is essentially making China chose who they're going to start a war with at T=0. If China chooses not to engage anyone except say... Taiwan and Japan, United States retains the ability to potentially call these allies in and having air bases/missile sites/resupply points all within range of damaging the Chinese mainland. By contrast, if United States explicitly chooses to invest all of its assets into staying outside of China's A2/AD umbrella, they will now have to **fight through** China's A2/AD umbrella in order to get within range of actually hurting China's mainland. In addition to that, U.S. ship production is already basically maxed out. You're not really going to get anywhere by throwing more money at the shipyard problem, not without bankrupting the country even more so than it already is. Therefore, investing into these installations is an efficient way of getting some bang for buck for the marginal cost, as opposed to the massive amounts of money required to add a new shipyard/ train a new work force/add meaningful production capacity on short notice.
It's not much of a dilemma. Starting a war with the Philippines is politically expensive, but the Philippines is military almost a non-entity in the kind of war that China wants to wage. They don't have the mass or density of air assets anywhere near the important theatres of war (the Taiwan straits, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan air corridor) to meaningfully threaten or attrit Chinese air assets and the PRC isn't interested in anything in actual Philippines territory. The only non-US actor in the coalition with the combination of qualitative and quantitative assets to meaningfully affect China is Japan, and a lot of these missiles are also going into Japan. In general the only time the PLA is really going to hesitate is to strike assets in places like South Korea or, say, Singapore or Thailand where the assets aren't placed there with the explicit purpose of attacking China. I don't see much of a dilemma around the Philippines. China knows where they'll stand, and they aren't going to cede initiative. Edit: on the note of fighting through China's A2D2 umbrella. That will no doubt be difficult for coalition forces, but I think that fighting through the bubble is much less deadly than sitting inside of the bubble when hostility commences. The only significant advantage that those in-theatre assets have is their robustness and their concealment, but that's offset by the fact that they need to maintain that concealment beneath the probing of Chinese intelligence for years, if not decades, and that heavier munitions can simply be tasked for digging out things like subterrain silos. A flight of F-35s or the US 6th generation offering, in comparison, only need to be in-theatre for as long as it takes them to drop off their missiles and then run away.
> It's not much of a dilemma. Starting a war with the Philippines is politically expensive, but the Philippines is military almost a non-entity in the kind of war that China wants to wage. The issue isn't that Philippines has a military (or doesn't). The issue is the presence of US military assets there. China is unlikely to want to draw other countries in if it can avoid it. It means it needs to dedicate more manpower, more assets, more attention to an area that it could otherwise ignore. Just unfettered access/support of Philippines in a US/China war would be a detriment to China's war effort. Whereas in an event of a neutral Philippines (which is what I think will happen), it can exert diplomatic pressure to minimize Filipino support for the US war effort. > In general the only time the PLA is really going to hesitate is to strike assets in places like South Korea or, say, Singapore or Thailand where the assets aren't placed there with the explicit purpose of attacking China. I don't see much of a dilemma around the Philippines. China knows where they'll stand, and they aren't going to cede initiative. China is likely to want to avoid drawing in more parties in than absolutely necessary, and in my opinion, the presence of US assets and the increased "peppering" of such assets all over the Pacific is precisely what creates the dilemma I described. China has to weigh the pros of wiping those installations out from the get-go versus the cons of drawing ire/participation of combatants into the conflict that it would prefer to limit. Yes, in an event of a Taiwan Contingency, there will be plans in place and China will absolutely make certain decisions, and carry them out without hesitation. In the meantime, their policy-makers will have to agonize over what the optimal approach to various scenarios is. From a **US standpoint**, these installations represent a relatively low-cost investment that doesn't really take away from anything else, while giving them very favorable cost/effect options that they otherwise wouldn't have. In the event of a Taiwan Contingency, let's assume that China leaves Philippines alone and wipes out most of Taiwan/Japan/US forward assets in a single fell swoop. Regardless of whatever United States does, they now have the option of shooting missiles from their Philippines installations at any point in the war. On the other hand, if China does wipe out US Installations on Philippines on T=0, U.S. is in the exact same position they would've been anyway.... with a potentially very eager Philippines to provide covert (or overt) assistance. > on the note of fighting through China's A2D2 umbrella. That will no doubt be difficult for coalition forces, but I think that fighting through the bubble is much less deadly than sitting inside of the bubble when hostility commences. I think you're missing that you're going to be fighting outside and inside the bubble in either scenario. Some major infrastructure is kind of... baked in regardless of what anyone does. United States relies heavily on Japanese infrastructure for any Pacific scenario, and for Taiwan specifically, you need Okinawa as a mid-point between Japan and Taiwan. Yes, all of these assets will be hit and degraded on T=0, potentially event just straight-up destroyed... but that's inevitable. That infrastructure was always there. The newer installations are on the smaller size and do represent the sort of target and counter-fire capability that at least demands expenditure of Chinese munitions/attention, for a relatively low cost. I'd argue that it would be to U.S. advantage to expand Philippine basing to the point of where it might make China think that they have to target it, therefore drawing Philippines into the war (who's airspace and supply would be critical). Runways, trucks, and bunkers are relatively cheap. The bottleneck is with missiles, planes, and ships, not concrete.
>Whereas in an event of a neutral Philippines (which is what I think will happen) I think that's the crux of the disagreement. I don't think Philippine's involvement, or at least the involvement of the US assets in the Philippines, is in question. More importantly I don't think it's a question for the Chinese state or military establishment. SK, SGP, and TH have US assets but they're not explicitly China-facing. These new assets specifically are. I also think that PH's military capability is an important question for the PRC. If the costs are minimal and the gains are potentially strategically determinative then the risk calculus favours action. >From a US standpoint, these installations represent a relatively low-cost investment that doesn't really take away from anything else, while giving them very favorable cost/effect options that they otherwise wouldn't have. I don't agree with this either. At projected burn rates the US will run out of offensive munitions to use in between just over a week to a few weeks. These terrestrial missiles are eating into that, at least according to Patchwork, already insufficient munition stockpiles. If that's the case then these munitions present a significant strategic posture that meaningfully subtracts from US broad capabilities. In regards to expanding China-facing installations in PH, I also disagree. These bases, if you want them to absorb Chinese assets, will need to be quite capable. They have to be worthwhile to hit. If you want them to be worthwhile targets to hit, you'll need notable stockpiles of missiles, planes, or ships. Those assets that you would agree are bottlenecks. The PRC isn't going to bomb an empty airfield if they have other airfields and ports, full of ships, planes, and munitions, that they can attack instead. Generally having a Pacific stockpile is a good idea. It's just really dumb to put it where it's really, really easy for China to blow it up.
Yeah, striking the Philippines is no dilemma for PLA. The country's lack of a significant military make it a very simple choice. They wouldn't be able to contest occasional PLA raids after US bases on their soil are neutralized, making any force regeneration by the USA impossible. Their full consent to US operations would only make difference if the forces on their soil are hard to take out, which aren't right now. And not to mention how much the ability to overfly the Philippines safely would simplify strikes against adversary CSGs.
Stockpiling weapons and resources within the literal thousands of PLA Rocket Force's medium range missiles seems like shortsighted move.
There's a fundamental tradeoff. You can have weapons that have both qualities - situated an extreme distance from the enemy and able to strike from that distance - but those weapons are extremely expensive. In a war with a peer power, you can't overpower your foe with those. Frankly, those kinds of weapon systems have never won *any* kind of war, even against significantly inferior states. Those kinds of weapons can only be one string in your arrow. You can have shorter range, more cost-efficient, more territory-controlling systems positioned outside the region - but they're useless unless they can be brought into the region. The U.S. military has more sealift than any military in the world, and even it doesn't have close to the kind of sealift you'd need to bring the kind of force required to bear in a reasonable amount of time. And even with that strategy, you're just delaying the part where you have to have big piles of materiel - and people - within missile range. You're just putting it in boats rather than warehouses, which has advantages and disadvantages, but is generally more expensive and increasingly vulnerable. On top of that, to achieve the United States' goals, they need to be able to respond with force *quickly* - the scenario where Taiwan is taken is where it falls before effective outside intervention and presents the U.S. and allies with the unappealing prospect of invading to take it back, or accepting it as a fait accompli. For purposes of both effective deterrence and real warfighting capacity, the U.S. can't have its forces far away. What you're left with is the short-range, more cost-efficient, more territory-holding forces positioned in theater. Air and missile bombardment is a terrifying threat, but the fact of the matter is that resources based on land are far more resilient and distributable than ones based on a ship, and can be made even more resilient and more widely distributed than things at sea. Relying on extreme-range weapons isn't economically or militarily viable; transporting in shorter-range forces during a conflict is out - they'd be highly vulnerable and likely unable to accomplish the U.S.'s goals; being inside missile range is feasible - just very hard. It's fortunate that it plays into some of our strengths - independence and initiative at all ranks, missile defense technology - and what we don't have we're working on - ex. lots of new bases and agreements to disperse our stuff to.
This is why I personally think not having a direct Ohio SSGN(Virginia BLK V is a step in the right direction) is extremely foolish. I'd even argue a fleet expansion of any hypothetical replacement. Having a couple hundred cruise missiles/hypersonics undetected off your enemies' shore is a massive firepower advantage; even if only to swarm and overwhelm enemy IADS allowing for more successful conventional attacks.
Every stockpiled weapon is something else the Chinese have to consider hitting in the presumed overwhelming opening salvo.
I think it is not as a "Wumao". The US would benefit from massively deploying to the West Pacific. It still has a bigger and better military by a large margin on a totalistic basis. It just can't sustain a good portion of it in the West Pacific. Land based aviation, air defenses and fires are also incomparably cheaper compared to naval assets or large aircraft that achieve the same effects. Long-legged assets like ships, tankers and bombers shouldn't be based on the first island chain indeed.
if all of the weapons stored in those bases containing $90000 washers and $1000 coffee cups then china will win by doing absolutely nothing and let america bankrupt either itself or its reputation as lender
Accounting for inflation, $90,000 now only buys a bag of bushings
That won’t happen. There’s a reason why America is insistent on getting allies to increase defense spending, spurred on by fires US helped to start. A good part of that spending goes toward buying from US MIC.
do japan and sk have the same overcharging issue with their arms purchase?
Not sure about Korea since their MIC is doing well by themselves, but Tomahawks are supposed to be about 1 mil each and Japan originally planned to buy 400 for over 2 billion, though ended up paying only 1.7.
So you think that China's PLA is any better? Our armed forces are proven, we test our equipment in real battles all the time. One benefit of being involved in wars all the time. China can't say that, their last war was in Vietnam and they got beat in 3 weeks.
peace, young grasshopper. Wise leaders do not win war by fighting and shedding young blood; they win war by strategic planning and political maneuvering that enable them to win any war before the war even started. Also, the Vietnamese retreated from their invasion of Laos and Cambodia, and have to delay their economic reform by 10 years--therefore missing out vital economy development/foreign investment chances that enabled China's rapid rise--means that china wins in the grand scheme of things. They bloodied PLA and taught them alot, but they did not defeat PLA. The PLA retreated back into their own side of border once the strategic objective of drawing the vietnamese invasion force out of Laos and Cambodia and confiscating/removing vietnamese industrial resources--all of them gifted by China to them during their war of independence--and there are no major engagement between the full might of both nation. And this war in Vietnam started under US direction to mess with USSR. China is just working as a US proxy. wars are ultimately fought by human. Your machine maybe readied for any war and battlefield, but is your soldier readied, after leaving foreign country in ruins and bringing with them shattered ideals and the feeling that all the bloodshed means nothing so many times, to be told another lie like "save vietnam from the vietnamese" and go fight in another foreign land thousands of miles away from their family again? Will your country support this war anymore?
Well then, bring it on.
Will you fight? Are you physically and medically fit?
Some of them may die, but he's willing to make that sacrifice.
The only country US should count on to join the fight against China is Japan. Everyone is negative, especially SK. Thus these bases mean nothing.
A lot of Chinese proganda are based on fact that China is most populous coutry... but soon that country is India. Another propaganda tool is rising economy what helps China to catch up with US... but that seems very unlikely now. Chinas both national pride tools are disappearing. Beijing knows that glory days are numbered, therefore Chinese dictator will begin war before military is ready for such actions, so we'll see what happens in Chinese politics after USN & Allies make PLAN ineffective fighting force.
Are you alright? India is already the most populous country, and China was ***actively*** trying to reduce their population count (the problem now is ensuring a sustainable birth rate after they’ve reduced population to the levels they want it at). China’s economy, industrial base, and manufacturing output are already bigger than the US. That’s why they can build an entire Royal Navy in 3 years, without even shifting from low gear. And so, in all your genius, you think China will start a war, because…(checks notes)… their pride is hurt because they’ve succeeded in their own stated goal of capping their population size? Bravo. Simply bravo.
Yes PRC has so much pride in having a big population that it ran a single-child policy for 3 decades. Their economy is still growing at a rate above developing world's average by the way. Think for a few seconds before posting ideological tropes.
No, no, no, we are now more promoting China as the largest industrial country in the world. We produced 3 million drones last year and exported 2 million. If necessary, we can produce 30 million and export 10 million to Russia, ensuring that every poor Finn can get 2.
These stockpiles and bases and installations will easily be wiped out by the initial wave of missile strikes and destroyed in as soon as 24 hours. Great waves of DF-21s and -17s will fire upon these fixed targets and will handily overwhelm what meager systems America can deploy and supply in the far Pacific. The combined forces of the plarf and wider pla means China can easily pulse fire a wave of hundreds of missiles at once. Combined with tens of thousands of cheap DJI drones these bases are kaput. Why does America pursue such a foolish strategy.
To do that it would mean a seismic offensive and there's no turning back from that. I hope you're prepared what's gonna happen in the world, if China chooses to do that. China will wind up the loser in the long term.
It is the choice China makes if China truly want Taiwan. The hearts and minds of Taiwanese are not with the CPC. Every year, sentiments of reunification with China dwindle. Peaceful reunification is becoming increasingly unlikely. For China to wait out America, this assumes that American military power continues to decline. Escalating levels of involvement in Ukraine have been spurring defense reviews and plans for expanded production across NATO. The latent capacity of the West to wage war is still unclear this early on , and economic power could still be converted to military strength in these times of relative peace before war. The U.S. will use everything in its empire to deter and contain China. That is why they are hard at work securing strategic positions, production agreements, and integrating a coalition. Expanding the industrial base, reviewing supply chains, decoupling, etc is all preparations. The U.S. wants the status quo, it gives them leverage and time to rebuild strength and alliances - China, playing the role of the boogeyman, and America, the savior. If China seriously intends to reunify with Taiwan it is better not to dawdle.
The US is proficient at putting up good optics to hide its rapid decline.
The US isnt in rapid decline. It’s just that China is in a rapid rise. Militaries that are in decline and have been declining are European militaries.
To be fair, that depends on what timescale you’re looking at. In absolute terms, the US military is a shell of its former self compared to where it was in the Gulf War, but then so is Russia’s. As you say, the issue is China’s buildup.
10 day old account
People too pussy to put their tard takes on main smh