I'm just really glad we don't have to depend on the draft. Whew! What a relief!

Not in a limited war format. But a full scale declared war with China? That is the type of combat that the Air Force and Navy have been getting wood thinking about for the last 40 years. Squadrons of ATG strikes covered by ATA fighters striking hardened targets to soften them up, working their way inland over a series of weeks and months. Destruction of industrial centers, elimination of transportation systems, preventing trade and resupply, torching fuel depots - all of which would cause China to grind to a halt. aerial elimination of political and social importance. then go to work on massed troops. Ground troops wouldn't enter the picture until clean up phase for the most part. Yep, that is what the Navy and Air Force have been practicing and strategizing over for decades.



mind you - i am not advocating such action - only stating that it wouldn't be that hard if the political animals said "go do what you are trained to do" and then stood back to watch the show.

Oh you can lay waste to the place, true.
It's a quote from somewhere and I'll butcher it but I can't remember where but it went something like this.

If you did it you'd end up with a death toll, no doubt with a fair size percentage of civvies in the hundreds of thousands or millions. That's going to make any democratic government queasy.

Other factor: China has nukes, lots of them, Missile Defence Shielf is cute but it's never going to work in the event of a barrage of a few hundred warheads.

Important wartime safety tip ... if you take prisoners, you have to feed them.

Kill them all.

I'd like to think if you told the US army, instilled as they are with the geneva convention to kill tens of thousands of POWs in cold blood they'd rebel.

Gee, I wonder what else would happen? First, China would turn Hawai'i into a smoldering peice of charcoal. Next up? San Diego then Seattle. There wouldn't be a port on the west coast left. Are you ready to lose five or six carriers and all on board in one day? We have gotten so used to fighting folks on their turf, we forget that China is fully capable of wreaking havoc into the millions in our backyard. And we're supposed to risk all this for the political state of an island? Screw that.

Beating the living shit out of a pissant dictator is one thing but you are talking some serious trash now.

Hang on here.

The US is NOT the world's policeman. I know we keep trying to be, but with the group of folks who are usually level headed, I'm surprised this is even being bantered around.

Taiwan isn't ours.
Japan isn't ours.
China isn't ours.

Now, in light of that, justify invading ANYONE ... ?

Well there is the whole supporting freedom and democracy thing...

In the case of a Taiwan war, it wouldn't be an invasion. It would be the defense of Taiwan against invasion. I doubt it would result in much actual invasion of China, as jaguar's quote indicates.

i am not advocating doing anything. i was only responding to the comment that it would be impossible to do anything. personally, i think it would be ludicrous to go to war over taiwan - when economic carrots and sticks could be just effective in the long run.

Prisoners? What prisoners? Simply reduce China's government and industry centers to slag with nukes and/or heavy conventional bombing. Sink all their shipping and destroy all their aircraft. Then go home and let the local powers duke it out over the pieces. The destruction of China's industry should do much to reduce the price of oil, too.

At least, if the US were the evil empire that some here seem to think, that's the way it would be done.

I don't think there's much disagreement about that. (I'm reasonably confident that) the first military move in that situation would not be made by the US.

Bah. The whole "supporting freedom and democracy" thing was worn to death with we illegally invaded Iraq. Let someone else support it for a change, and stop sending my brothers and sisters to die defending a country that isn't their own.

Don't think that just because we aren't invading China or vice versa that there still might not be significant US casualties. They have missles, remember, and the capability of sinking a carrier that gets too close.

We're not the world's policeman, but we've set the example for what it means to live in a free country, and when another nation wants to shake loose from its "parent" country, we're morally obligated to support them, if our freedom means anything to us. I personally think that the other free countries of the world have the same obligation, but they may not agree. Defending Taiwan in its attempt to be an autonomous nation is a great reason to use our military.

This doesn't quite connect with my simultaneous wish that we would let the rest of the world stew in its own juice and quit bailing out the ungrateful bastards. So I guess I'll have to wait until the situation becomes clearer.

Edit: OC, I hear that. Except for the "illegally invading Iraq" line.

and pick through the radioactive cinders of your hometown. The destruction of china's industry would throw us into a global depression as well. Cheap oil wouldn't even rate on your agenda.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, much of the posturing over Taiwan is the result of internal Chinese politics, they're rather vicious and high-stakes these days. I cannot personally see China voluntarily invading Taiwan unless you had some kind of rogue general scenario, even if china won, china would lose and might not even survive as it is. All the big powers are far too economically interdependent to risk war, it would be a disaster for everyone, it's an unwinable game, probably the biggest hope for peace since MAD.