South China Sea and China (2011-2017)

[carl]

How many do they have, how well do they work, how good are the crews?

Well according to Wiki, they have 58 attack boats, including six nukes. Some of those conventional boats are Kilos. Don't know the answers to how well they work nor how good the crews are. They don't seem eager to convey that information. It would be prudent I think to plan on their knowing what they are doing.

Uh, okay -- what do you call Korea? I don't recall Japan being considered as on of those barrier islands in this discussion, I acknowledge that it could be so considered but then so could Australia...

Korea is a barrier peninsula, which is even better as a barrier than an island. My failure about Japan. I figured it is off mainland China and not far away. Its physical configuration is ideal for a barrier and it is in the first island chain as noted in the Economist article mentioned by Ray. So I just naturally included it. Australia is kind of remote to be much of a barrier to anyplace but Tasmania.

You have a rationale for all that or is it just a thought?

Well I figure it this way. There is a good chance we would let Taiwan be taken without a fight. But little chance we would let Japan and the Philippines be taken without a fight (Dayuhan, before you say anything, this is a what if). So if those two places were taken it would mean there had been a big fight and we had lost. Then would start the groveling unless we wanted to lose other places too.

Since you mention it, you seem to be determined to take things as personal attacks when none is intended...

Me? No, I see generosity and tolerance everywhere I look.

I've read most of what you've written on this topic and warfighting in general and disagree with about all of it. Somehow, "the risk of making a totalitarian police state cross with us.' is not going to keep me awake at night. Yeah, we have a history of doing that. How did that work out for them?

Well as far as the almost total disagreement goes, either I am about always wrong, which isn't so. You are about always wrong, which isn't so. Or something else that I can't think of. (Feel free to use any of those as a straight line.)

Didn't work out well for them at all. I tried to imply that with the sentence structure, but failed. I'll have to improve my sentence structure.

[JMA]

Well as far as the almost total disagreement goes, either I am about always wrong, which isn't so. You are about always wrong, which isn't so. Or something else that I can't think of. (Feel free to use any of those as a straight line.)

Carl, for what it's worth I believe Ken is playing devils advocate to help you shape your argument.