by Navigator » Thu Dec 11, 2025 6:01 pm
Trevor wrote: Sun Dec 07, 2025 6:02 pm
This doesn't necessarily have to play out the way the two previous world wars did. It'd depend on the circumstances. If China launches a Pearl-Harbor style attack, then yes, we'd be out for blood with China falling into nationalistic fervor.
Trevor wrote: Sun Dec 07, 2025 6:02 pm
If things break out in the South China Sea over miscalculation, rather than a mass assault that galvinzes both sides, our public isn't likely to have much enthusiasm for the war. Yes, we'd mobilize and build up to some degree, but we're spending far more on a social safety net than was the case in 1940 and certainly 1914. Unless the conflict is seen as a matter of survival, people won't tolerate it being dismantled, and to fight a total war, this would be a necessity. Europe's found mobilization impossible for this reason and if we fight China for unclear reasons... people might sign up to fight regardless because they have no other way to support themselves, but this is a poor long-term motivation. This is also a dynamic that could lead to civil war.
If Japan had started their attacks in the Pacific by just going after the Dutch East Indies and Malaya/Singapore, there would indeed have been little enthusiasm in the US for WW2. You could maybe add the Philippines to the list, and I am not sure if it would have made a big difference, though Americans would have died as a result. But then we grabbed the Philippines from the Spanish less than 50 years earlier.
The thing is that in the vast majority of cases, wars are started using military logic, not a more sensible reading of the big picture. So the Japanese felt that they needed to secure the Philippines to secure their supply lines to the oil they needed from Java/Brunei/Borneo, and that they couldn't secure the Philippines if the USN was intact to make a counter-stroke.
I believe the Chinese will also fall prey to just focusing on military logic as they plan to attack/invade Taiwan. They most probably will feel that they need to eliminate as many military assets as possible that could come to Taiwan's aid. This would include the USN and probably the Japanese Navy as well. On top of that, they will activate their sleeper cells in the US to conduct infrastructure attacks on the US homeland, in order to cause us to have to focus on the home front. They will attack the electrical grid, important bridges, and probably the water supplies for major cities.
But, agreeing with your point, if they were to just go after Taiwan, and Taiwan only, any kind of war enthusiasm on our part would be pretty small.
We will shortly see which option they do with.
[quote=Trevor post_id=92884 time=1765144977 user_id=2033]
This doesn't necessarily have to play out the way the two previous world wars did. It'd depend on the circumstances. If China launches a Pearl-Harbor style attack, then yes, we'd be out for blood with China falling into nationalistic fervor.
[/quote]
[quote=Trevor post_id=92884 time=1765144977 user_id=2033]
If things break out in the South China Sea over miscalculation, rather than a mass assault that galvinzes both sides, our public isn't likely to have much enthusiasm for the war. Yes, we'd mobilize and build up to some degree, but we're spending far more on a social safety net than was the case in 1940 and certainly 1914. Unless the conflict is seen as a matter of survival, people won't tolerate it being dismantled, and to fight a total war, this would be a necessity. Europe's found mobilization impossible for this reason and if we fight China for unclear reasons... people might sign up to fight regardless because they have no other way to support themselves, but this is a poor long-term motivation. This is also a dynamic that could lead to civil war.
[/quote]
If Japan had started their attacks in the Pacific by just going after the Dutch East Indies and Malaya/Singapore, there would indeed have been little enthusiasm in the US for WW2. You could maybe add the Philippines to the list, and I am not sure if it would have made a big difference, though Americans would have died as a result. But then we grabbed the Philippines from the Spanish less than 50 years earlier.
The thing is that in the vast majority of cases, wars are started using military logic, not a more sensible reading of the big picture. So the Japanese felt that they needed to secure the Philippines to secure their supply lines to the oil they needed from Java/Brunei/Borneo, and that they couldn't secure the Philippines if the USN was intact to make a counter-stroke.
I believe the Chinese will also fall prey to just focusing on military logic as they plan to attack/invade Taiwan. They most probably will feel that they need to eliminate as many military assets as possible that could come to Taiwan's aid. This would include the USN and probably the Japanese Navy as well. On top of that, they will activate their sleeper cells in the US to conduct infrastructure attacks on the US homeland, in order to cause us to have to focus on the home front. They will attack the electrical grid, important bridges, and probably the water supplies for major cities.
But, agreeing with your point, if they were to just go after Taiwan, and Taiwan only, any kind of war enthusiasm on our part would be pretty small.
We will shortly see which option they do with.