I don't think it's unclear at all. It's uncomfortable to call out an obvious truth: We couldn't even compare. The only hope we have is basically economic mutually assured destruction. If it comes to a hot war, it better be over (without going nuclear) within weeks or at most single digit months or it's more or less over. At least from where I'm standing.
It's unclear if the US could even get production ramped up on the scale of a decade. We simply don't have the people to train the people we need. Much less the people with the skills to do the thing.
Why? There is essentially zero chance that China can mount an invasion of the mainland US or even strike at its heartland enough to disrupt an industrial ramp up, even if it takes a decade (which it won't). The US can literally wait out anyone except Canada and Mexico (which... lol) by defending its coasts, with plenty of domestic natural resources - including agriculture, metals, and oil - to supply not just its military but the entire civilian population.
It's not about "home country". The US doesn't need carrier groups to defend home country. It needs them to project power into other parts of the world.
Take Taiwan. If China invades there that represents a significant dilemma for the US. On balance, they'll likely make a token response, then fade away. Places where the US has enjoyed power (like the South China Sea) might be harder to protect.
Does the US have the stomach for wars in Taiwan, Japan or Australia?
Defending Japan is a reflex action. We have bases and troops there, as well as a mutual defense treaty.
Agreed
> It needs them to project power into other parts of the world.
China can barely project power in its own backyard while the US has nearly a century of experience projecting around the world, with eleven carrier groups to China's two. Assuming they all get destroyed by hypersonic missiles within the first few months, the US still has military bases all over the world. As far as I know, China has zero military presence in the Western hemisphere except some surveillance balloons.
China may have a short term advantage in production and cost but the US has the advantage in every other area of logistics relevant to a military.
> Take Taiwan. If China invades there that represents a significant dilemma for the US. On balance, they'll likely make a token response, then fade away. Places where the US has enjoyed power (like the South China Sea) might be harder to protect.
Absolutely but it'd be a pyrrhic victory worth little except as domestic propaganda. If the US does help defend Taiwan, the invading Chinese fleet will likely be massacred. There's little room to hide in the 80 mile wide Taiwan strait against modern anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapons. China's only real advantage will likely be air power, which doesn't win wars without lots of boots on the ground.
> Does the US have the stomach for wars in Taiwan, Japan or Australia?
I'm not sure about Taiwan, but I don't think we'd let Japan or Australia slip into war without assistance. (but what do I know? :-))
Today. China is clearly building up their ability. In a few years the situation will look different which is the real worry. Also China may not need to be as big - China isn't patrolling the ocean like the US and so it is their 2 carrier groups near Taiwan against whatever the US can afford to send
circumstantial evidence suggests that, like the usa, china has extensive military presence in western hemisphere telephony and networking equipment
Actual invasions of Japan and Australia are even harder to imagine. How would that even work? And why?
It is unlikely that China will invade Japan and certainly not Australia. I find it extremely more likely that USA will invade Mexico with some fake pretence like war on drugs.
In the most recent US wargame, China succeeded in occupying parts of Taiwan which would make artillery even more important — as attacks from the mountain regions towards Chinese occupation would keep them from establishing a secure foothold.
To be fair NATO wasn’t taking really taking defense that seriously back and maybe they had a point, although considering what happened in Ukraine that seem like a very unlikely outcome (unless Britain/France/Germany decided to stay out and not risk their air forces ..)
I guess overestimating your opponents is usually better than the opposite. OTH had Britain/France not made that mistake in the 30s much of WW2 could have been prevented.
Funny, I don't see China as having any real chance in a hypothetical war. Numbers aren't everything.
I think Yamamoto Isoroku gave the answer to this challenge: just keep a booming manufacturing industry. When he was trying to convince the Japanese government not to have a war with the US, he said that he saw so many chimneys when flying over Philadelphia. All those factories would turn into a giant war machine if a war ever broke out.
That is, the economy of scale matters. When the US had its entire supply chain domestically, replacing a special screw could cost a few cents. When we were in good terms with China, it would cost a few dollars as we had to order the replacement overseas, but well, it was still cheap. Now that we are trying to cut China off, then what will do if we'd need to get a replacement? Setting up a shop from scratch with little expertise and no supply chain to back it up? Well, such replacement would then cost a few thousand dollars and we would be screwed.
You were correct up to here. However the US has a lot of manufacturing and so is not setting things up from scratch. Most of our manufacturing is automated these days and so it doesn't appear in many of the reports people care about, but the talent is still here.
Of course just like WWII, if war breaks out it will be several years before the US can ramp up production.
This is music to my ears. I read somewhere that the average age of the technicians in the US shipyards are well over 55 years old, hence I worry that we are losing key talents. There was also a NYT article more than 10 years ago that analyzes why the US can't make Kindle even if we want. Also, when people were outraged that the air force spent more than $20K per toilet more than 10 years ago, I read somewhere that it was because our law mandated that certain percentage of the components have to come from domestic manufacturing. Unfortunately the air force had a hard time finding such components, so they chose toilet. In order to do this, they had to find a factory in the US, which caused really high unit price. And then a recent article explained why it was so expensive to replace components on weapons: usually these components are custom-made. It would be cheap if we had a vast supply chain domestically, as it would be inexpensive to set up a custom mold or tooling chain for a few such component as the cost can be amortized over millions of other regular components. Without such supply chain, we wouldn't have such luxury. Hence came my worry.
Is it? What is the theory that the US could keep up with China? That would be the US vs the globe's industrial superpower with an arguably larger real economy. It doesn't seem plausible that the US can fight a long sustained war.
The plan as far as I can see it is to make use of a large network of allies and partners as well as aiming to finish the war quickly by cutting off materials like food and industrial inputs to stall the manufacturing engine. If it turns into a slugfest where munition reserves start to matter that seems like it would favour China.
One of the big surprises out of the Ukraine war is that the US isn't in a position where it can easily bully Russia. If that is the case it is hard to see it coming out ahead vs China in any plausible conflict.
The US hasn't been fighting Russia - if they'd deployed F35s in 2022 then Moscow would be called West Alaska by now. Don't conflate "doesn't" with "can't".
What we appear to be seeing is they don't really have a lot of tools that can be used against an uncooperative nuclear-armed power; and many of those tools would probably fail against China.
What everyone worries about is being forced to fight China anyway. China is not playing nice with the US on the world stage. They are clearly supporting Russia over Ukraine (while pretending to be neutral). They are siding with Iran in the middle east. They are doing things in Africa that are against US interests (the US doesn't have a good record in Africa, but the US generally has supported democracy while China is fine with dictators which leaves lots of room for China to be worse though only time will tell). They escalating with Taiwan and the Philippians. Those are the major reasons I'm aware of to be worried about China, there is more that I didn't write.
How will this turn out - we can only guess. But there is reason to worry.
> but the US generally has supported democracy while China is fine with dictators
In the Middle East the US's #1 ally is indeed a democracy, but is currently fending off various challenges [1, 2] accusing them of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their #2 ally is an authoritarian regime run by a gentleman who can be identified with phrases like "the bone saw incident" let alone the Kingdom's long record of barbarism and human rights abuses.
The US might win a battle of who supports better causes, but it isn't a can of worms to open either. There is no particular indication that it cares about the government system or actions of the people it supports.
[0] If the US didn't do it directly, they endorsed it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide#International_Cr...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide#International_Co...
Wouldn't it be sad if this were true? Since when US was no longer a "industrial superpower"? Just 25 years ago, Chinese government officials were astound by how wealthy and advanced the US was when they visited the US. They wrote articles after articles to reflect why China was so behind, yet now China is the "globe's industrial superpower". In Oliver Stone's movie Heaven & Earth, Joan Chen's character went to the US and was totally mesmerized by the abundance in a supermarket. That was how Chinese people was amazed by the US too. And now? It's definitely great for China, but isn't it sad for the US to be behind?
>isn't it sad for the US to be behind
Or perhaps it was just inevitable for PRC, also a continental sized land power with 4x population to be ahead once they got shit together. Comparing US industrial stagnation in US lens frequently fails to grasp/comprehend that PRC industrialization at PRC scale brought forth another "weight-class" of industrial output. Last year, PRC ship building launched roughly same amount of tonnage as entire 5year US WW2 ship building program. IMO many people think US industry declined from 10 to 5, and maybe whole of system effort can bring in back to 10. Meanwhile PRC didn't just turn the industrial output dial to 11, it turned it to 20, beyond what US was ever capable of, and likely will be capable of. Same way US didn't so much leave British Empire behind in the industrial race as UK was never capable of running better than a 7 minute mile while US stalled at 5 minute mile (and now de-trained into a 6 minute mile), meanwhile PRC is now running a 3.5 minute mile. IMO ultimately, not about sadness but being realisitic about systemtic potential. Maybe US can AI/automate their way to overcome human capita disadvantage, but PRC playing that game too.
It wouldn't be sustained. The US would cripple China very quickly to ensure it wouldn't be.
> One of the big surprises out of the Ukraine war is that the US isn't in a position where it can easily bully Russia.
How do you come to that conclusion?
Just recently a US navy tanker ran aground and now they're scrambling to find some way to fuel the carrier group in the middle east because for some reason that's the only one that was available. The navy logistics group is woefully understaffed und under-equipped.
What are the priorities in actuality? Because maintaining a military at adequate readiness doesn't seem to be at the top of the list.