Two Theater War

[JoBri 548]

So if I heard right, John Kirby at State Department said we don't have a plan for tackling 2 theaters of war at the same time. I guess I knew that, but he called it "the old philosophy", or something like that, but they are still drawing up plans for that. Isn't it a little late to start thinking of how to take on China and Russia at the same time? 

[Mike E 11,739]

USA  outspends the rest of world combined in military.  
 

Kirby just wants China and Russia to start a two front war.  

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

51 minutes ago, Mike E said:

USA  outspends the rest of world combined in military.  
 

Kirby just wants China and Russia to start a two front war.  

And the end result of will be nukes. Insanity 

[JoBri 548]

1 hour ago, Mike E said:

USA  outspends the rest of world combined in military.  
 

Kirby just wants China and Russia to start a two front war.  

I didn't realize that, so I looked it up. Seems like China is literally getting more bang for the buck though. But I guess that is likely when you keep costs low by stealing technology

[jg121783 3,915]

3 hours ago, JoBri said:

So if I heard right, John Kirby at State Department said we don't have a plan for tackling 2 theaters of war at the same time. I guess I knew that, but he called it "the old philosophy", or something like that, but they are still drawing up plans for that. Isn't it a little late to start thinking of how to take on China and Russia at the same time? 

Personally I am not nearly as concerned about Russia as I am about China. That is where we should be putting most of our attention. Russia has issues but they would make a better ally and trading partner than an enemy. At the same time we treat Russia like our arch enemy China walks all over us.

[JoBri 548]

15 minutes ago, jg121783 said:

Personally I am not nearly as concerned about Russia as I am about China. That is where we should be putting most of our attention. Russia has issues but they would make a better ally and trading partner than an enemy. At the same time we treat Russia like our arch enemy China walks all over us.

But, Russia I see as a part of the axis of evil, walking hand in hand with Xi. 

[Mike E 11,739]

50 minutes ago, JoBri said:

Seems like China is literally getting more bang for the buck though.

We will know for sure when the shooting starts. 

[JoBri 548]

22 minutes ago, Mike E said:

We will know for sure when the shooting starts. 

Yeh, well, my wife sort of says the same thing. She is putting her confidence in our Air Force. But I don't share those sentiments. I am a former Army vet, with "eyes on" the military, since my wife is an Air Force officer here in Germany, and to tell you the truth, the modern woke military is a bunch of wusses. I don't feel a lot of confidence with either China or Russia, especially with our wishy washy President

Edited January 28, 2022 by JoBri

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

And the end result of will be nukes. Insanity 

The USA can completely cripple China’s land based icbm capability.  
 

Not Russia’s though.  

 

China’s geopolitical strategy assumes Russia will come to its aid in a nuclear exchange.  I’ve my doubts Russian middle silo operators and sub captains will in the end take orders from Xi even if Putin relays them.  

[Mike E 11,739]

13 minutes ago, JoBri said:

Yeh, well, my wife sort of says the same thing. She is putting her confidence in our Air Force. But I don't share those sentiments. I am a former Army vet, with "eyes on" the military, since my wife is an Air Force officer here in Germany, and to tell you the truth, the modern woke military is a bunch of wusses. I don't feel a lot of confidence with either China or Russia, especially with our wishy washy President

Arguably the USA military was pretty woke and weak the day before Pearl Harbor.  It didn’t work out for rest of world, which 81 years later is still under the American boot.  
 

A crippling attack on Guam and Hawaii, and US bases in Korea and Japan, which China is going to have to execute to ensure it keeps Taiwan, won’t go unanswered.  It will have a disproportionate response.  
 

My fear is not that USA will lose.
 

My fear is what the USA is going to do to win.  After 9/11 we saw permanent and profound losses of liberty, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. And let’s not forget the horrific toll of Vietnam.  
 

After war with China and/or Russia it will be even worse for us. 

[jg121783 3,915]

1 hour ago, JoBri said:

But, Russia I see as a part of the axis of evil, walking hand in hand with Xi. 

Unfortunately our policies have driven Russia to ally with China. Instead we could have had another trading partner. Russia is far from perfect but like I said were better off with them as a friend rather than an enemy.

 

58 minutes ago, JoBri said:

Yeh, well, my wife sort of says the same thing. She is putting her confidence in our Air Force. But I don't share those sentiments. I am a former Army vet, with "eyes on" the military, since my wife is an Air Force officer here in Germany, and to tell you the truth, the modern woke military is a bunch of wusses. I don't feel a lot of confidence with either China or Russia, especially with our wishy washy President

Obama drove out most of the good generals and Biden is finishing the job. Biden might talk tough (when he can talk at all) but he will let China and Russia walk all over him.

 

45 minutes ago, Mike E said:

The USA can completely cripple China’s land based icbm capability.  
 

Not Russia’s though.  

 

China’s geopolitical strategy assumes Russia will come to its aid in a nuclear exchange.  I’ve my doubts Russian middle silo operators and sub captains will in the end take orders from Xi even if Putin relays them.  

I don't know how true it is but I have read one strategic strike to three gorges dam would cripple China.

 

32 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Arguably the USA military was pretty woke and weak the day before Pearl Harbor.  It didn’t work out for rest of world, which 81 years later is still under the American boot.  
 

A crippling attack on Guam and Hawaii, and US bases in Korea and Japan, which China is going to have to execute to ensure it keeps Taiwan, won’t go unanswered.  It will have a disproportionate response.  
 

My fear is not that USA will lose.
 

My fear is what the USA is going to do to win.  After 9/11 we saw permanent and profound losses of liberty, hundreds of thousands of dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. And let’s not forget the horrific toll of Vietnam.  
 

After war with China and/or Russia it will be even worse for us. 

My fear is that in that type of war no one will win except the cockroaches that will rule the earth afterwords.

[millefleur 5,046]

1 hour ago, jg121783 said:

Unfortunately our policies have driven Russia to ally with China. Instead we could have had another trading partner. Russia is far from perfect but like I said were better off with them as a friend rather than an enemy.

It's true and was predicted years ago by John Mearsheimer, a political scientist who was saying that US policy would drive Russian towards China if we continued on the way we were. Unfortunately, the US does not see Russia as a trading partner because they view Russia more as a competitor, hence the whole argument in Germany over natural gas. The US wanted to sell Germany natural gas and got mad when Germany sided with Russia to ahead with Nord Stream 2. The US's offer comes across as greedy and makes little logistic sense (Really? how would we get gas to Germany? The Russian pipeline is a direct connection and is much closer, thus is will be significantly cheaper also) but to me it just comes across as the US pitching a fit that Russia might become stronger if they're allowed to economically prosper and have better ties with a country like Germany, so instead they step up and try to stop it.

 

1 hour ago, jg121783 said:

I don't know how true it is but I have read one strategic strike to three gorges dam would cripple China.

Why would America do that though? Companies like Apple and other manufacturing would lobby pretty heavily against obliterating ties with the country where all their factories and manufacturing is located. We've kind of backed ourselves into a corner here by having so many of our goods and technologies made in China, you can't just go blow up their dams and other infrastructure without triggering a global economic collapse. China knows that I'm pretty sure.

 

1 hour ago, jg121783 said:

My fear is that in that type of war no one will win except the cockroaches that will rule the earth afterwords.

Any kind of a bust up with China would trigger economic collapse and fallout that would be worse than war, thus nukes won't even have to be touched. I believe China played their hand well and they know that. The Russia-US standoff makes less sense to me, other than the US just preferring their influence over Russia's in Europe. I don't get what the goal is by continually having an adversarial relationship with Russia. It's clearly not culture - we're all buddy-buddy with way more oppressive nations like Saudi Arabia already, Russia seems downright progressive compared to that. I guess a bunch of it is Cold War boomer distrust between both countries. It all feels very emotional and not very rooted in logic to me.

 

China has the strongest hand here in my opinion because money is what matters in today's world, even more than nukes really. US companies are way too heavily invested in China to just let all hell break loose, there's too much at stake. That's my take.

[Mike E 11,739]

1 hour ago, millefleur said:

      .

 

China has the strongest hand here in my opinion because money is what matters in today's world,

Then why doesn’t China invade Taiwan now?

 

1 hour ago, millefleur said:

 

even more than nukes really. US companies are way too heavily invested in China to just let all hell break loose, there's too much at stake. That's my take.

Cuts both ways.  Chinese manufacturers are heavily invested in making stuff for the USA market.  

[millefleur 5,046]

53 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Then why doesn’t China invade Taiwan now?

Why would they? Is there some reason they need to rush in? They are long term planners and don't seem to be in any rush.

 

52 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Cuts both ways.  Chinese manufacturers are heavily invested in making stuff for the USA market.  

Yup, and that was Germany's strategy with Nord Stream 2 and why they wanted it: creates a two way street and gives them leverage over Russia. For whatever reason, the US doesn't get that and wants to keep intervening.

[Mike E 11,739]

20 minutes ago, millefleur said:

Why would they? Is there some reason they need to rush in? They are long term planners and don't seem to be in any rush.

same reason they are trying to fence the South China Sea.  
 

I don’t know why they are doing that either. 
 

20 minutes ago, millefleur said:

 

Yup, and that was Germany's strategy with Nord Stream 2 and why they wanted it: creates a two way street and gives them leverage over Russia. For whatever reason, the US doesn't get that and wants to keep intervening.

As I said in the other thread, I’m fine with letting Europe handling its own security issues. 
 

But as long as NATO exists, the country paying the most for security gets a say in whether its allies are ceding sovereignty to the alliance’s chief adversary