What is Digg?438 Comments
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -17/+110If we continue to wear down our military in a pointless operation as we are in Iraq we will become more vulnerable to attack but I think China is more likely going to ruin us economically because they can.
- rpi22, on 01/22/2008, -5/+74Step one -- Sell 1% of their 1.5 trillion U$D reserves.
Step two -- there's no step two... - wonderchemist, on 01/22/2008, -8/+68They are missing the China's Ultimate Weapon. If all 1.3 billion chinese jump at the same time, they will cause an earthquake. The chinese government knows how to focus this energy to destroy any city on earth!
- cyberdork, on 01/22/2008, -6/+49An open conflict with the US will never happen.
China is most likely waiting until it's own consumer market becomes more important to their economy than their exports to the US. In that case China could threaten to liquidate it's trillion dollar in US debt without causing much harm to it's own economy. At that point the US doesn't have much choice other than leaning back and watch China take over Taiwan.
Also, what would be the benefit for the US to defend Taiwan? They would take the biggest losses since WW2 just to defend a strategically unimportant ally. Don't forget fighting China is not like fighting Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Serbia or Iraq. - Terr01, on 01/22/2008, -2/+44It's a very weird situation. (Cliff notes version, corrections welcome.)
So during WWII the Japanese had invaded China, at which point you had the Nationalists and the Communists as domestic Chinese forces already in a sort of protracted civil war. In the end when Japan was defeated (Nagasaki, Hiroshima), the Communists had the upper hand due to how the war had played out.
The Communists drove the Nationalists to Taiwan, where the Nationalists said "This is the temporary capital. We're still the legitimate government of China. Just you wait!"
Later, during the Cold War, Taiwan became special because we had to defend it (and everywhere else) from Communists.
Now, I expect, it's because we'd be defending Democracy.
Meanwhile, Taiwan and China have this continual dance about how far Taiwanese politicians can go to making the domestic audience happy with independent noises while China is concerned with maintaining the fiction that Taiwan is just a "breakaway province". - BassMastr, on 01/22/2008, -12/+50Yeah That would make total sense. Destroy the economy of your largest customer and the fuel to your economic growth.
- Grova, on 01/22/2008, -3/+39Because the American public is “abnormally sensitive” about military casualties, according to an article in China’s Liberation Army Daily, killing U.S. airmen or other personnel would spark a “domestic anti-war cry” on the home front and possibly force early withdrawal of U.S. forces. (“The U.S. experience in Somalia is usually cited in support of this assertion,” according to the Rand report.) Wrong! The American public hates ***** wars with no "end game".Wars that don't have clear objectives that carelessly waste lives and money. But if you truely want to unite Americans and really piss them off pull some ***** like that and see what happens. As Admiral Yamamoto said after attacking Pearl. "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
- diggerman, on 01/22/2008, -23/+54Why is the US involved with protecting Taiwan? We should mind our own business
- swordedge, on 01/22/2008, -10/+41I don't believe our air force can be knocked down as fast as the report says. Military stuff is hardened against nuclear EMP's.
Oh, and like in Pearl Harbor, an attack on us without being hard to find terrorist like that would have the same result. - doctorfungi, on 01/22/2008, -13/+43You'd be kidding yourself if you think the United States hasn't had VERY advanced plans to attack China from the 50's onwards.
The fact remains, the United States is at least 20-30 years ahead of China in technology, and is still by far the most advanced military in the world. China may have a "plan" to attack the United States, but it's never going to happen because:
a) China's nuclear stockpile is nothing compared to that owned by the United States. Even then, they don't even have a proper delivery method. Mutual assured destruction doesn't even come into play, because China would simply be unable to destroy the United States with nukes (too few, missile range too short).
b) Economies. Even if the United States economy is in bad shape, the Chinese would be doomed without it. The same applies for the United States in terms of exports/imports.
c) The United States military would mop the floor with China (assuming the United States wasn't running an invade and occupy mission).
d) Your country is armed to the teeth with weaponry. - jphicks, on 01/22/2008, -5/+30Well, tell me one more time why anyone would want to be President.
- airiox, on 01/22/2008, -0/+23We saw yesterday how stupid it would be for China to attack us. Their economy is deeply entrenched with ours. Anyone who tells you China will attack us is gravely mistaken and filled with propaganda from the war mongers.
- ChromaticDragon, on 01/22/2008, -1/+22Anyone, including and especially China, who believes Somalia to be a textbook case of the American public's "abnormal sensitivity" to military casualties is simply INSANE.
Somalia wasn't so much an "oh my!! Americans are dying. We cannot have that, pull them back" as an "umm... what's Somalia? why are we there? why were our helicopters in active use?" Despite the public opinion to get out of somehwere most people had no idea why we were there nor could see any benefit from it, we still were able to threaten Somalia very directly and powerfully with utter annihilation (from warships) in order to secure the release of a captive soldier.
Sheesh. If we haven't pulled out of Iraq despite thousands of American casualties in a situation where half the population of the US don't want us to remain there, what in the WORLD makes anyone think we wouldn't respond forcefully and powerfully to a direct provocation?
Furthermore, I would consider Pearl Harbor to be a much more appropriate textbook example here. If China achieves glorious success in a flawlessly executed series of surprise attacks, they may indeed enjoy a brief period of "freedom" from US aggression. (well... despite the initial set of attacks to disable completely their nuclear capability). But the US will shift into high gear, prepare accordingly and in a few years will accept China's complete and utter unconditional surrender. - vr6vdub, on 01/22/2008, -2/+23Tankdog: Unfortunately our mission in Iraq isn't to destroy everything. If it was, we would have been out of there years ago. Don't mix guerilla warfare fighting against an occupying force with total war.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -2/+22I didn't see any mention of the troop transport submarines some say China is building. Nor the man in charge of their Armed Forces being a Navy Admiral, (a submarine Navy Admiral). Just what I heard on the grapevine.
- Spuy767, on 01/22/2008, -2/+22China's own military leader said that attacking the US directly would be futile. Reference how IAF pilot routinely kick the ***** out of opposing pilots who far outnumber them. A poorly trained rabble of magnificent size is no match for a highly trained fighting machine.
- RedHairedMan, on 01/22/2008, -0/+19Yeah, China might want to re-think that whole 'American public will run away after we kill a few of their airmen.'
Ask Japan how well that works. American public will run away from a war WE start, but we'll come after you like a rabid dog if you attack us first. I can only hope to god no one would actually let a nuke out of it's silo, because that would be the beginning of the end. - masamunecyrus, on 01/22/2008, -3/+21And conversely, the US has China by the wallet.
- doctorfungi, on 01/22/2008, -3/+20You're talking about different styles of combat. The United States has been training for a large scale conventional war since the 50's. The whole cold war geared the United States up for a major nation vs. nation conflict. This is exactly what the armed forces are structured for.
Guerrilla style tactics are something that the United States is only just adapting to. - mattmollysdad, on 01/22/2008, -2/+18I hope this post has nothing to do with our (US Air-force) as they completely left out the part that Taiwan had elections 2 weeks ago and the KMT won huge...which means that the NEW ruling party of Taiwan has NO THOUGHT OF DECLARING INDEPENDENCE FROM MAINLAND CHINA... they are even planning to have direct flights between Taipei n Beijing n Shanghai. Also the KMT believes in total restoration of a ONE CHINA... and they will do this thru investing... and as China grows so will their common interests.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -4/+19I agree with diggerman. The US doesn't need to be involved. I know the history. I just don't care. Chiang Kai-shek was equally as murderous a cutthroat as Mao. Only difference is Mao beat him in final number of dead bodies generated.
The Cold War reasoning was ***** then, it's is twice ***** now. - cozb, on 01/22/2008, -0/+14diggers, what do think military planners do for a living? Every country has plans of attack against each other.. we have them for Canada, England, etc.
- jeffsback2223, on 01/22/2008, -5/+18Shut up, Just shut up.
- Crosshare, on 01/22/2008, -2/+15Thank you, thank you, thank you. Just because half the country doesn't support unsubstantiated wars, doesn't mean we're a bunch of pussies. A flat out attack on the U.S. can stir up Patriotism faster than anything. A good number of the fresh soldiers fighting in the Iraq war signed up based off of what happened on Sept. 11th. Unfortunately they were sent to the wrong country.
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -0/+13It's true. I did SATcom for 5 yrs in the AF. I was stationed all over, including Osan AB in S. Korea. This was something we always feared there and had frequent exercises for these exact scenarios. Our military keeps it's important stuff literally buried underground in hardened facilities. Once comm is knocked out however, we really are sitting ducks. Sure they have backups and backups for backups, but most of those are old and outdated (trust me I know). Another thing that was barely mentioned but extremely important is a High-altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP) type event. For example if one of these bombs detonated 200 miles above the center of the US, the scintillation could knock out all electronic eq from coast to coast. Without going into detail about Milstar, there's very few satellite systems that could survive that kind of environment much longer then a few minutes, leaving us completely dumb, deaf and blind w/ just enough time to launch a counter-attack. It's all hypothetical and I doubt it could really happen, but you never know. It would take extensive research and a whole lot of espionage to pull off a simultaneous attack on all of our major comm hubs around the world to have any real effect. I think China would try to cripple us economically first before trying any kind of military strike. Either way we have to keep them our friends and vice versa cause I don't think either country would want to risk the consequences from the other.
- christor, on 01/22/2008, -7/+20An economy heading toward the bottom of the tank, nearly five years into an ill-conceived, poorly planned, poorly executed, costly (and fundamentally dishonest) war, a political discourse that skews toward issues like abortion, homosexuality, and the Ten Commandments, habeas corpus restricted, phones tapped, torture approved, political corruption... and ... the US is threatened by ...
the anti-war left? I could go on and on about how ridiculous this is. But I'm going to save myself some time and resort to ad hominen: You're an idiot. - ordig, on 01/22/2008, -7/+19Well, that's a dumb plan. The sucker punch strategy didn't work out so well for japan...
- DeFex, on 01/22/2008, -1/+13yeah it would be a terrible shame if we had to buy good quality stuff from somewhere else or, god forbid. make it ourselves. instead of buying instant landfill from china.
- christor, on 01/22/2008, -2/+131965 called. It wants its causus belli back.
- tattertech, on 01/22/2008, -1/+12This is news how? Countries always have plans drawn up for even unlikely scenarios, let alone one's like this...
- yellowsnowcone, on 01/22/2008, -9/+20China owns US debt. So what?
Have you ever defaulted on a loan? Who do you think hurts more in that situation? The person who lent the money, or the person who borrowed?
China is f**ked because it holds so much US debt, not the other way around. It's the Americans who should be laughing. - inactive, on 01/22/2008, -2/+12Every nation has the right to draw up plans to protect its self.
- slvrbullet87, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10@zeus the source is being old enough to remember the 90's
- Aerandir, on 01/22/2008, -1/+11I don't think so, since Godzilla is Japanese, not Chinese.
(I can't believe I actually replied to this...) - Tippis, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10They wouldn't, but just the same, they'd be bloody stupid not to plan for it, just like the US military would be stupid if it wasn't planning for a confrontation with China.
- masamunecyrus, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10The complexity of the issue is such that it wouldn't be practical to post it in a digg comment. Perhaps in a huge editorial, but I've been reading up about it over the past few weeks, actually. It's a range of issues starting from WWII and Japan to ranging from Democracy to only supporting the PRC (China) in order to defend against the Soviets, but secretly supporting the ROC (Taiwan). I might also mention the issue of the PRC essentially stealing the UN seat from Taiwan (ever wonder who got the bright idea of giving China veto power? Originally, Taiwan had it, when they were in charge of China), and then to protect the Democracy and as sort of a nod of friendship to Taiwan, after being backstabbed several dozen times, we bound ourselves by law to defend Taiwan from attack from China, as well as never officially acknowledge that Taiwan is a part of China.
If you want to actually learn about the issue in-depth, it's pretty ridiculous how complicated it is, but if you like history, it's a fascinating read. Really, you could start reading any of these articles on Wikipedia, it's amazing how much everything interconnects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republ ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Repub ...
http://zen.sandiego.edu/Jerome/1128611831/index_ht ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied_Japan
And you can start branching off from there. - pyronik, on 01/22/2008, -1/+11and how would you say they would do that, send a little accountant to the base to enforce it?
- rizzo2008, on 01/22/2008, -1/+11Guerilla warfare vs. conventional warfare. Two completely different things. The conventional war in Iraq was over in a few weeks but the insurgency has persisted for er...4 years almost?
- hydroplane, on 01/22/2008, -0/+10The only thing preventing WW3 for the last 50 years has been M.A.D ( Mutually Assured Destruction). You are just now waking up to that fact.
- jbmcb, on 01/22/2008, -5/+14Translation:
Step 1 - Screw over the US Economy
Step 2 - You've just killed the largest customer for your goods and largest trading partner
Step 3 - Retaliatory US Tariffs - your exports grind to a halt
Step 4 - You're economy tanks, along with the rest of the world's
Congratulations! You win because everybody including you looses. - Hartley1942, on 01/22/2008, -0/+9People often forget that Pearl Harbor was just one of the many attacks that took place that day/week. The Phillipines, Wake island, etc, were all attacked within a very short period of time.
- flink405, on 01/22/2008, -1/+9China should spend more of its money on cleaning up its environment, providing a better standard of living for its people, getting rid of all the corruption in its government, and giving its people a more democratic voice in China. Instead it spends huge sums of money on a military build up to take over an island (Taiwan) of democratic governed, successful people.
- rizzo2008, on 01/22/2008, -3/+11If we were deliberately attacked by an aggressor nation I believe the American public would unite behind it. Iraq, Vietnam, and every other war since WW2 has not been legitimate intervention.
- dboy3587, on 01/22/2008, -2/+10no the B-2 Bomber has never gotten shot down... nor is it obsolete. it was a F-117 nighthawk which is so 1980s, and they knew it took the same path everyday so they launched everything they had at it even though they couldn't see it on radar.
- OwdenBowden, on 01/22/2008, -14/+22In every war with China simulation ever run - Everyone loses against the Chinese. The only caveat to this is if the PEOPLE of the peoples republic of China do not support their governments actions and refrain from the fight. Then there is a possibility of victory. Either way it will be a global mess.
As for the US military. As stated above - we do not have the troops and supports in place for any global conflict. In order to go head-tohead with any nation we would need to start drafting people now so that we are ready and able for a fight. I personally feel that we should seriously consider a mandatory military service for all persons able. If we look to the examples set by other nations that do this then you can see that all able body citizens pose a threat to any invading nation. Beside - it will possible help in giving direction and opportunities to those that are less fortunate (by offering FREE college tuition to all that server or even immediate job placement in your assessed speciailty).
Finally - all of us Americans are to blame for what is taking palace in the world today as we have moved from Manufacturing and Suppling to worlds goods and wants; to being the lazy consumer relying on the Manufacturing and goods of other nations. It is a sad day when we are more concerned about Brittney Spears and if we can download songs on out phones than what they hell is happening to us in the world. We need to wake up and smell the imported coffee before it is too late and we are either speaking Chinese, Russian or some other language. - Solkre, on 01/22/2008, -0/+7Becuase if we dismantle 100% they will have dismantled 99%
- inactive, on 01/22/2008, -0/+7"In 2012, however, when Taiwan holds an election and mainland China’s leadership is expected to turn over, perhaps for the worse, the risk of conflict could increase."
2012 ? Don't tell me the world ends because of the Chinese. - fr3nch13, on 01/22/2008, -2/+9Well the US would just summon the Cloverfield monster!
- amenhotep, on 01/22/2008, -1/+7Maybe you forget that china is a nuclear power and has the ability to deliver to US soil?
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