South China Sea and China (2011-2017)

[Dayuhan]

Korea ended in a stalemate. But I suggest that the US realised then that facing a Chinese army with modern weapons and a logistic system would require the use of nuclear weapons not just to win but to survive.

Wouldn't that depend on where the Chinese army was being faced?

The world has come a long way since then and found the weaknesses in the US's armour.

For example, one bomb in the Lebanon (killing 299) Marines in 1983 sent the US packing.

In 1993 in Mogadishu after 18 dead and 73 wounded the US folded.

So we know the US has limited will to engage in conflicts that represent no significant threat to the US and involve no significant US interests. Why would the Russians, Chinese, or anyone else assume that the reaction would be the same if core interests were involved?

9/11 brought a fairly vigorous response (chaotic, incoherent, and largely unproductive, but vigorous) and would suggest to most that while you can easily mess with Americans in peripheral areas where they have little reason to be concerned, an attack on the core is likely to generate an aggressive response. Ken has commented in the past that the US rarely gets serious about foreign affairs until there's a broad perception of immediate threat, and I suspect he's right.

Only a fool will entice the US into a conventional conflict and so we see a variation on the fiendishly cunning Chinese approach of 'death by a thousand cuts' being amended to 'death by a thousand IEDS' in Afghanistan and the US is already all but defeated.

Ken, I suggest that it is delusional to believe that the US (sleeping giant) will wake up to a real existential threat and defeat it.

We won't know that until there's an existential threat on the table. As of now there isn't one. Death by a thousand cuts sounds rather miserable, but so far the US isn't being cut.