Thursday, September 3, 2015

Would America Lose the Great Naval War of 2020 to China?

America now faces a very real threat to its ability to project power in the Asia-Pacific; and it’s a problem—considering how fast Beijing’s missile technology is progressing—that will likely only get worse as the years go by.
See also: Banks Are Perilously Exposed to China.

6 comments:

Chiu ChunLing said...

Every time I see someone saying that Beijing's obvious, avoidable 'mistakes' in handling (not to mention causing) their market crash are "inexplicable" I want to punch someone. There is nothing inexplicable about it if you realize what Beijing is 'forced' to do, which is sell off alarming (globally destabilizing) quantities of U.S. treasuries and related dollar denominated assets. Since doing this in a bid to collapse the dollar is the only plausible reason I've ever been able to see for their massive pile of worthless paper, it would seem obvious why Beijing's actions keep making the market crisis worse.

Which is by way of a prelude to question the utility of asking whether America would lose the Great Naval War of 2020 before dealing with the question of whether it is able to win in 2015. Beijing has never imagined that a dollar crash could be effective entirely by currency manipulation absent a clear demonstration of America's inability to dominate the global order militarily. And while Obama has managed to dramatically undermine and endanger the perception of American strength, he has yet to lose a major naval engagement. China can't keep dumping U.S. treasuries forever, they can't even maintain their current pace through the end of the year. If they are to accomplish their designs, they have to demonstrate the limits of the Pax Americana before they run out of paper (also, they need to reveal that America doesn't really have 8,000+ tons of gold in reserve).

As far as I can tell, Beijing is betting trillions of dollars that the answer to whether America is going to lose in 2020 is "No, because it's going to be permanently out of the game by the end of 2016." It would be nice to see a serious analysis of whether the Navy has a working plan for how to, for instance, help Japan retake the Senkaku Islands from a Chinese invasion. Unfortunately I think it's likely we'll get to see the consequences of a lack of such a plan before anyone comes up with one.

Anonymous said...

How many American lives with they throw away this time for American Dollar Hegemony that cannot be sustained?


Bankers are killing our people, for those who pay attention....We will never learn until we rid ourselves of bankers..and central banks...

Sign me, Neal Jensen

Anonymous said...

Keep in mind that in WWII, any time a technically superior Me262, with its 50 mph airspeed advantage, poked its nose into the air it would win a few dogfights, shoot down a few aircraft, then get followed back to its base by 50 or so technically inferior P51's and rendered scrap by 50 cal. machine gun fire. As the old saying goes "quantity has a quality of its own."

My high school English teacher was a Korea combat vet. He got a faraway look in his eyes whenever the conversation touched on the quantity of infantry that China was able to mass for any assault. It's going to be very difficult for any power to combat 1.2 billion screaming Chinamen including the masses of materiel they will be able to throw into any battle, lose, and replace without blinking an eye.

Josh said...

Yeah, Russia and China have histories of taking massive casualties to obtain an objective. And as in the example above, mass can overcome technology just as it did in the case of nazi Germany. At issue will be if China and Russia still have the manufacturing capability after the first salvos are fired. Amateurs think tactics, professionals think logistics.

http://thespiritoftruth.blogspot.com/2009/05/russias-secret-war-plans.html
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/post26.htm

Doug Rink said...

Five Chinese warships were lurking in the Bearing Sea as Obama paid a call on Alaska.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/02/us-usa-china-military-idUSKCN0R22DN20150902

tjbbpgobIII said...

The missiles of China would not be a problem if not for bill Clinton's thirst for money. Why he's not in prison used to bother me a lot, but hilleries crimes will be swept under the table also.