Quote Originally Posted by jonSlack View Post
The big-war crowd wants to write off Iraq as an aberration, preferring instead to focus on conventional war with rising powers like China
Let's suppose some American president gets it into his head that the situation in China demands "regime change", "democracy", or whatever, requiring an invasion of the Chinese mainland. With a naval supply line stretching all across the Pacific ocean, you put an expeditionary force of 150,000 troops ashore. That seems to be about all we can muster, since a draft is off the table. Okay, now what? China covers a vast area. Are we supposed to occupy the place? There's only about 1.3 billion people in China. They could lose 100,000,000 people and might then think it was safe to eliminate their one-child policy.

If I was a Chinese general, why would I even attempt to fight a "big war" in such a scenario? Better to follow a Russian strategy to retreat to the vast interior, harassing an invader along the way, threatening his supply lines. Then just wear him down through attrition. And we're not even bringing up the subject of nuclear weapons in such a war. Rather than offer decisive battle somewhere, they could just start guerilla operations when the first GI steps ashore, and stick with it. If we're having this much trouble keeping a lid on Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and the rest of these places, can you imagine what it would take for Peking, Shanghai, and the rest of Chinese coastal areas?

As Merv and Granite State point out, we (and any other Western style army) are going to see this kind of fight (at least in part) until we can show we can deal with it. It is many times cheaper to train and equip a guerilla force than build huge armored formations, a modern air force, navy, etc.

If our government intends to ignore how to fight and win a guerilla war because of THIS scenario, then somebody needs a psychiatric evaluation. Seriously, how would you fight the U.S. if it's armed forces show up on your shores for whatever reason, and you have only modest conventional abilities?

Of course, it might be better to think long and hard before you choose to get into one of these small (or not-so-small) wars in the first place, but that is a different post altogether.