What we support and defend

[carl]

The point is that you're focusing entirely on countering what they might, in a very improbable situation, do to us. Deterrence is more about what you can do to the other guy. If you're threatening my hand with a knife and I have a shotgun in your crotch, the core of the issue isn't your knife, and I don't need to be shopping for a kevlar glove. The shotgun is what makes the difference.

It is prudent to be aware of what the other guy might do to you, otherwise you tend to get surprised. Being surprised is bad. Deterrence is about what the other guy is pretty sure you can do to him. If he thinks he can surprise you, and he will if you don't figure what he can possible do to you, he will figure that his surprise will vitiate your power and there goes your deterrence. Also generally doing to him means doing it with something. If you don't have the tools, you can't deter. Like having that shotgun. If you ain't got the shotgun and just stick your finger gun in the other guys crotch, they will arrest you for being a pervert after you get out of the hospital. So I would like to have things in place to deter the Red Chinese, even if it does make them cross.

I would advise not actually placing the muzzle of the weapon against the opponents body in most cases. If he has practiced he will disarm you or turn the muzzle away from his body before you can react. Then if he has a knife he will cut and maybe kill you. Better to stand some feet back.

I think what you miss is that like the Cold War, and hypothetical conflict between the US and China is almost certainly going to be fought by proxy, through influence, and at a low, drawn-out level. Mutual Assured Destruction is a strong deterrent to large scale open conflict, on both sides.

What if it doesn't? Then what? And doesn't being prepared for the eventuality help keep it from happening, like in the Cold War?

We're not in a position to draw meaningful long-term lines, because everybody knows the lines change every 4 years. Ambiguity is what we've got, even to ourselves. It's built into our system. Might as well make the most of it.

We have drawn meaningful long term lines vis a vis Japan since the end of WWII and Taiwan since not too long after that. We have drawn a meaningful long term line about freedom of navigation, in cooperation with the Royal Navy, for much longer than that. I think you are wrong.

Ambiguity is mostly a recipe for uncertainty and that makes conflict more likely. It has its uses to a point though.

I read it as a suggestion that the enormous amount of money that would be spent on entirely new aircraft designs would be better spent on maintaining and extending the advantage we have on "the other stuff". That makes sense to me, especially given the reality of limited resources. I also doubt that the F35 is as bad as its detractors say, or as good as it's proponents say. Nothing ever is.

Oh. I read it different.

I just can't see what, on a specific level, such talk would achieve. What is certain is that we'd hand a significant propaganda and political advantage to the most militarist factions in China, give their military a step up in the domestic power struggles, and probably cause an increase in military spending on their side. How does that help us? They would also have to make a belligerent and assertive response. No choice there, they can't let themselves look weak, so they'd have to rattle their saber right back. Then we have to choose between rattling ours louder or backing down. How does it help us to go down that road?

I don't buy that the Red Chinese propagandists are dependent upon the Americans saying the wrong thing then whoa! watch out all hell will break loose. Nor do I believe that their is some kind of domestic power struggle between the mean aggressive Red Chines military and the peace loving Party in which what the Americans say this week is going to tip the balance.

But it was a beautifully crafted straw man you constructed and it must have been fun to knock him down.

Not even mentioning that the idea of lordly Americans drawing lines in the sand and telling others what they may and may not do doesn't resonate well with much of the world, even those who are in no way enchanted with China. Our little venture in Iraq didn't improve our position in that regard.

Ah yes, that old reliable "you arrogant Americans, now nobody likes you!" argument.

Scared people do dumb things. Often they do dumb aggressive things. How is that helpful?

You know how when you played crack the whip, the kid on the end went flying off? The same thing happens with extremely tangential responses and I'm the kid on the end.

Even if you could move Guan 1000 miles east, what good would it do you? Who says you have to fight over Guam?

In the very unlikely event of outright war with China, the key would be to target their vulnerability. That's not on our west coast: sure, they do a lot of business with the US and Canada and cutting that business off would hurt them very badly, but we don't need military force to do that. Their key vulnerability lies in their access to the merchandise exports and commodity imports that sustain their economic growth, which in turn allows them to maintain domestic order. Dominating the Indian Ocean and the Middle East is more important to our position re China than dominating the western Pacific.

I am a very dense fellow and it took me awhile to get there, but this response brought me to the final destination. If there was a war between the US and Red China, please God don't ever let that come to pass, it wouldn't matter much what the US wanted to do in some cases. We would have to react to what the Red Chinese did in addition to our preferred courses of action. All those air log routes would be vulnerable to interdiction and would have to be defended even if we preferred to swan about in the Indian Ocean until they cried Uncle. This has been pointed out repeatedly but you just won't acknowledge it. I only just realized that. Not such a great destination considering how long it took to get there.