by Navigator » Tue Jan 27, 2026 6:39 pm
Xi won't accept defeat. He can't. If he does, he's dead. Plus the whole CCP with him. So we cannot even count on a change of leadership causing China to accept defeat. Only happens when CCP is overthrown. This will take some time, and EXTREME hardship in China, as in mass starvation.
As for wargames, those that model future results are completely dependent on the information loaded into them. The designers always have to make assumptions as to the actual effectiveness of different weapons systems. Then there is no real way to model the element of surprise, or other random events that tend to throw everything "off course" as far as the wargame is concerned. So I would take any wargame results with a grain of salt.
WW3 is going to spiral in almost the same way that WW1 spiraled. The Germans failed to take Paris in 1914 when their Schlieffen Plan failed. The Kaiser should have realistically admitted defeat after the Battle of the Marne, but could/would not. The war then expanded to theaters that were unanticipated, such as Ottoman empire involvement, Italian involvement, Germans entering Austria-Hungary's sphere of influence in the Balkans, then Bulgarian and later Romanian and Greek involvement. Japanese and Chinese involvement. Heck, at one point the Japanese had a naval squadron in the Mediterranean supporting French/Italian anti-German and Austrian submarine activity. Then, US and Brazilian involvement and Russian Collapse.
The thing that ended the war was mass starvation in Germany and Austria which caused a revolutionary overthrow of the Kaiser.
All of the above are examples of how WW3 is going to spiral from Taiwan specific to almost worldwide.
Xi won't accept defeat. He can't. If he does, he's dead. Plus the whole CCP with him. So we cannot even count on a change of leadership causing China to accept defeat. Only happens when CCP is overthrown. This will take some time, and EXTREME hardship in China, as in mass starvation.
As for wargames, those that model future results are completely dependent on the information loaded into them. The designers always have to make assumptions as to the actual effectiveness of different weapons systems. Then there is no real way to model the element of surprise, or other random events that tend to throw everything "off course" as far as the wargame is concerned. So I would take any wargame results with a grain of salt.
WW3 is going to spiral in almost the same way that WW1 spiraled. The Germans failed to take Paris in 1914 when their Schlieffen Plan failed. The Kaiser should have realistically admitted defeat after the Battle of the Marne, but could/would not. The war then expanded to theaters that were unanticipated, such as Ottoman empire involvement, Italian involvement, Germans entering Austria-Hungary's sphere of influence in the Balkans, then Bulgarian and later Romanian and Greek involvement. Japanese and Chinese involvement. Heck, at one point the Japanese had a naval squadron in the Mediterranean supporting French/Italian anti-German and Austrian submarine activity. Then, US and Brazilian involvement and Russian Collapse.
The thing that ended the war was mass starvation in Germany and Austria which caused a revolutionary overthrow of the Kaiser.
All of the above are examples of how WW3 is going to spiral from Taiwan specific to almost worldwide.