[Scape]

The Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was.

$1:

[A] pragmatic approach will allow us to accommodate China's inevitable re-emergence as a great power. The alternative will be to turn the earth of the twenty-first century into a battlefield. Whenever great powers have emerged or re-emerged on the scene (Germany and Japan in the early decades of the twentieth century, to cite two recent examples), they have tended to be particularly assertive--and therefore have thrown international affairs into violent turmoil. China will be no exception.

This is wholly legitimate. China's rulers may not be democrats in the literal sense, but they are seeking a liberated First World lifestyle for many of their 1.3 billion people--and doing so requires that they safeguard sea-lanes for the transport of energy resources from the Middle East and elsewhere. Naturally, they do not trust the United States and India to do this for them. Given the stakes, and given what history teaches us about the conflicts that emerge when great powers all pursue legitimate interests, the result is likely to be the defining military conflict of the twenty-first century: if not a big war with China, then a series of Cold War--style standoffs that stretch out over years and decades. And this will occur mostly within PACOM's area of responsibility.

I have to say that it would be deeply unfortunate and downright foolish if America and China backed themselves both into a "second Cold War," as Kaplan puts it. It could only be the result of a mutual miscalculation.

The (nominally) Communist Party's internal legitimacy rests upon its ability to improve the living standards of its people, and that economic development is therefore its first priority. And that's good for us, because we like to buy cheap and increasingly well-made Chinese products, and we hope that China's huge population will become a vital market for our own goods and services.

PACOM's immersion in Asian power dynamics gives it unusual diplomatic weight, and consequently more leverage in Washington. And PACOM will not be nearly as constrained as CENTCOM by Washington-based domestic politics. Our actions in the Pacific will not be swayed by the equivalent of the Israel lobby; Protestant evangelicals will care less about the Pacific Rim than about the fate of the Holy Land. And because of the vast economic consequences of misjudging the power balance in East Asia, American business and military interests are likely to run in tandem toward a classically conservative policy of deterring China without needlessly provoking it, thereby amplifying PACOM's authority. Our stance toward China and the Pacific, in other words, comes with a built-in stability--and this, in turn, underscores the notion of a new Cold War that is sustainable over the very long haul. Moreover, the complexity of the many political and military relationships managed by PACOM will give the command considerably greater influence than that currently exercised by CENTCOM--which, as a few military experts have disparagingly put it to me, deals only with a bunch of "third-rate Middle Eastern armies."

[figfarmer]

If you refuse to sell to China whatever China wants you will eventually be crushed.

[Zipperfish]

Why would we refuse to sell China what it wants? WE're making scads of cash off of them right now. If the US institutes protectionist measures against China, whether to protect jobs or for some spurious "national security" argument, so much the better for Canada -- it will just increase our trade.

I think that the struggles in the Middle East will turn into China/US wars-by-proxy, similar to the situation in the Cold War between the US and Russia. China has signed oil and gas deal worth potentially well over a hundred billion with Iran.

The Pentagon knows that in ten or twenty year, American military supremacy will be threatened by China. That's why they're pushing China hard now -- they won't be able to down the road.

Japan is also an interesting player. They are bringing their military back on line at a fast pace. It is likely that the US will arm Japan to act as a brake against China. It will be interesting to see if Japan decides to acqure nuclear capability -- I think they will.

The role of Russia will also be interesting. They could side with China or the US. That's why the Bush administration are apologists for Putin's more autocratic tendencies.

Canada would do well to arm itself -- there's some dark times ahead. But also we should focus on trade with China, since they have a vast appetite for resources and it also somewhat relieves Canad's trade dependency on the US.

[Tman1]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Why would we refuse to sell China what it wants? WE're making scads of cash off of them right now. If the US institutes protectionist measures against China, whether to protect jobs or for some spurious "national security" argument, so much the better for Canada -- it will just increase our trade.

I think that the struggles in the Middle East will turn into China/US wars-by-proxy, similar to the situation in the Cold War between the US and Russia. China has signed oil and gas deal worth potentially well over a hundred billion with Iran.

The Pentagon knows that in ten or twenty year, American military supremacy will be threatened by China. That's why they're pushing China hard now -- they won't be able to down the road.

Japan is also an interesting player. They are bringing their military back on line at a fast pace. It is likely that the US will arm Japan to act as a brake against China. It will be interesting to see if Japan decides to acqure nuclear capability -- I think they will.

The role of Russia will also be interesting. They could side with China or the US. That's why the Bush administration are apologists for Putin's more autocratic tendencies.

Canada would do well to arm itself -- there's some dark times ahead. But also we should focus on trade with China, since they have a vast appetite for resources and it also somewhat relieves Canad's trade dependency on the US.

It looks to me you want a new arms race. Why would we refuse to sell China what it wants? Not saying we, but do you want someone else selling them someting that they could potentially use against us..saayy an instant get rid of westerner device would you? Little humour there but you get the gist of it.

[Zipperfish]

Well, I grew up under the old arms race, and so maybe I'm partial to that state of affiars. Kind of keeps everyone in line.

As for nuclear weapons, in thirty or fifty years everyone tinpot dictator will have them, nonproliferation trwaty or not. I 'm just thinking ahead.

It's my belief that the way to peace and prosperity is through trade. I don't get paranoid that my trading partner is going to turn my videogames into missile control systems.

If China offers us better coin than the next guy for oil, gas, lumber -- damn rights wee'll sell it to them. That's capitalism.

[flyman01]

For some time now no navy or air force has posed a threat to the United States. Our only competition has been armies, whether conventional forces or guerrilla insurgencies. This will soon change. The Chinese navy is poised to push out into the Pacific—and when it does, it will very quickly encounter a U.S. Navy and Air Force unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the Asian mainland. It's not hard to imagine the result: a replay of the decades-long Cold War, with a center of gravity not in the heart of Europe but, rather, among Pacific atolls that were last in the news when the Marines stormed them in World War II. In the coming decades China will play an asymmetric back-and-forth game with us in the Pacific, taking advantage not only of its vast coastline but also of its rear base—stretching far back into Central Asia—from which it may eventually be able to lob missiles accurately at moving ships in the Pacific. In any naval encounter China will have distinct advantages over the United States, even if it lags in technological military prowess. It has the benefit, for one thing, of sheer proximity. Its military is an avid student of the competition, and a fast learner. It has growing increments of "soft" power that demonstrate a particular gift for adaptation. While stateless terrorists fill security vacuums, the Chinese fill economic ones. All over the globe, in such disparate places as the troubled Pacific Island states of Oceania, the Panama Canal zone, and out-of-the-way African nations, the Chinese are becoming masters of indirect influence—by establishing business communities and diplomatic outposts, by negotiating construction and trade agreements. Pulsing with consumer and martial energy, and boasting a peasantry that, unlike others in history, is overwhelmingly literate, China constitutes the principal conventional threat to America's liberal imperium. Now this is just all hypothetical situations. Do I think a war is near between the two? No. The US has its hands full in Iraq.

[dgthe3]

China and the US have already fought a war, in this century. It was the first cyber war. Remember when there were all those attacks against e-bay and the like? Many came from China. And American hackers retaliated. No real damage was done to either side, but it is a vision of things to come.

China is a land monster. At sea, they are nothing. They have nothing in terms of support bases in the pacific and have few nations friendly to them. In the air, like on land, they have numbers. And to them, there is nothing other than total war. The rules of war to them are written in the Art of War by Sun Tzu, not the Geneva Convention.

Ecconomically, they are linked to the west to give them money so they can buy food, oil, and weapons. This is their current weakness. They depend on outside help for everything they have. They get money from the US, oil from the mid east, other resources from Canada, weapons from Russia. The US and USSR could draw on their own resources to gain power, independant of outsiders. This is not true, and may never be true, for China

The Russians are as affraid of China as they are of the Germans, i think they would support the US and the US would support them. Russia is trying to sort out it's own problems and would like to rebuild their power, China is a serious threat to that.

[Scape]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Japan is also an interesting player. They are bringing their military back on line at a fast pace. It is likely that the US will arm Japan to act as a brake against China. It will be interesting to see if Japan decides to acqure nuclear capability -- I think they will.

Indeed

Pakistan, Japan to sign 3 pacts

[Legion]

Remember this one? Good ol china

[Scape]

Always Low Prices!

[dgthe3]

Now, as for how to fight China? Use lots of planes, bombs, bullets, tanks, ships, missiles, and men. To keep even, there needs to be a 4:1 China to America casualty ratio, about 2:1 if allies are involved. However, that is not tollerably in the West, so it would need to be at least 10:1. That is possible to achieve with conventional means, but very difficult. It also depends on where you fight. Invade China? Look at what happened to the US on Iwa Jima, Okinawa agaisnt similarly minded Japanese, or in Vietnam. But keep in mind that Korea cost the Chinese 1 000 000 men. China attacks somewhere? Good chance of holding them off, given time to prepare.

That covers conventional warefare, now onto Nuclear, Bio and Chemical warefare. China would lose a nuke fight, they don't have too many the last time i checked, at least not enough to destroy the US or Europe, but enought to hurt. The US has enough to utterly destroy and devestate China, killing every single inhabitant within a month of first strike. Of course that would kill half the world with the nuclear winter, but china would be a ratioactive wasteland, where rats and cockroaches would have a hard time surviving. If the Chinese used other 'special weapons' like bio weapons agains the US, the US would respond and see the above for what would happen.

All of this is just my opinion, so if i am wrong, just say so. I realize i could be very wrong about stuff in here or in the previous post. Thanks

[Scape]

China can strike the US now and in 10 years they will be able to guarantee a strike on the US would be M.A.D.

Right now China could hurt, but couldn't kill the US and would be turned into glass for its efforts. The fight will be in establishing supply routes and the middle east will be a war by proxy.

[Zipperfish]

Well, the geopolitical military ramifications are all very interesting, and it's fun to play our various what-if scenarios. However, what's even more interesting from my point of view is the ability of Canada, as a resource nation, to rake it in from China and the US.

China needs oil and gas, it needs lumber, it needs technology -- we have all of those in spades. Here in BC we have a significant percentage of the population that is familiar with the culture, and that have established close trade ties with Beijing and Hong Kong. In return we get cheap manufactured goods that effectively raise our standard of living.

[spikecomix]

It's true, there's tons of Asian product and malls out here. I hear that UBC is actually a very famous University overseas (not that it's a good school, I just find it odd that it would be known of!). So I think our cultural ties will help ward off an attack, however the fact that so many see a coming war really scares me

[-Mario-]

Reality is closer to fiction than you can imagine...