South China Sea and China (2011-2017)

[Ray]

U.S. cruise missile base in Guam as a major threat to China
http://www.9abc.net/index.php/archives/24525

I am not too sure about how one rates this on the reliability scale.

Pentagon 'Hedge' Strategy Targets China
http://www.rense.com/general70/penet.htm

From Washington Times.

Pentagon Moves Cruise Missiles To Guam
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/missiles-00d.html

[Ray]

Moderator's Note

This item has been posted before on the main thread on China as a Superpower and it would be appropriate to comment there:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=4366(ends).

This would indeed indicate that there are internal problems within China as some claimed.

Rotting From Within
Investigating the massive corruption of the Chinese military.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...thin?page=full


How far this would be correct, one wonders.

[slapout9]

link to NYT article and MSNBC video of India's "China Killer" long range ICBM nuclear missille



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47111582...ew_york_times/

[Dayuhan]

In the sense that they can't use them and we can if need be; either they are ours or theirs.

And if a given party prefers to be used by neither?

As far as the other two, it was a hypothetical.

Very hypothetical indeed.

[Ken White]

are a master of understatement...

[carl]

And if a given party prefers to be used by neither?

That may not be one of the choices available. And it seems, most of the parties have picked a side already.

[Dayuhan]

That may not be one of the choices available. And it seems, most of the parties have picked a side already.

Who says there are only two sides?

You seem to there's some epic battle between China and the US for dominance of the Pacific, and thus the world, and that all others must choose one side or the other. I'm not sure that view is widely shared around the Pacific.

[carl]

Dayuhan:

Maybe you are entirely right. Maybe nothing at all is shaping up. But in the event, sides will be chosen, and there will be only two. It looks to me as if Vietnam at least has chosen one. In the event, sides will have to be chosen if the party is to have any say at all in its fate.

Speaking of Vietnam, I wonder if they are the ones who will prove to be a catalyst. The don't seem to like China much and their history indicates that they don't much like being messed with.

[Dayuhan]

Maybe you are entirely right. Maybe nothing at all is shaping up.

Something's always shaping up, but assumptions about what it's going to be are likely to be wrong.

But in the event, sides will be chosen, and there will be only two.

That would depend on the event. I suspect that if the US and China ever mixed it up a lot of countries in the region will try to stay neutral and out of it to the greatest degree possible... though I think this a most unlikely eventuality. As I've said before, I think the most probable conflict scenario in the medium/long term involving China would be China/Russia.

It looks to me as if Vietnam at least has chosen one. In the event, sides will have to be chosen if the party is to have any say at all in its fate.

The Vietnamese have chosen their own side, and it's certainly not our side. They'll work with us as long as and to the extent that they think it useful for them... as you'd expect.

Again, I think the idea that "sides will have to be chosen" is built around a fairly extreme level of assumption about the future.

Speaking of Vietnam, I wonder if they are the ones who will prove to be a catalyst. The don't seem to like China much and their history indicates that they don't much like being messed with.

A catalyst for what? I'd expect a lot of jostling there, but the Vietnamese don't want to fight the Chinese and vice versa.

Again, I see no reason whatsoever to assume that a major military confrontation between China is inevitable or even likely.