Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

John wrote: If China is in a shooting war with Russia, then the West will try to
remain neutral. If China is in a shooting war with India, then
Britain will not be able to stay neutral for long, but the US will try
to remain neutral if it can.

Thanks, but in this scenario above, why would Britain be pulled into a war involving India? The British commonwealth today is no more than a ceremonial institution, it has no practical relevance in the 21st century world. Also both Pakistan and China (Hong Kong) can use that same logic to demand British entry on their side vs India.

I will continue my life in Twinsburg. Que sera sera.

John wrote:

Navigator wrote: > All wars are decided primarily on land. Even in the Pacific in
> WW2. The Naval War there might have been dominant, but the navies
> either allowed (or failed to interdict) land force
> projection. (Japanese in Dutch East Indies, SE Asia and
> Philippines; US in island hopping, New Guinea, Philippines).

> That said, I am actually glad the Chinese are wasting such vast
> resources on building a Navy. I think the strategy is greatly
> misguided and does not play to their primary strengths. I think
> they following the path of the German Kaiser in his pre-World War
> One ideas of becoming a power with global force projection
> capability. The Imperial German fleet, while impressive, and
> certainly highly competent, was a waste of their military
> resources.

Since you've given a lot of thought to this subject, I wonder
if you have any thoughts about what America should be doing
differently, or what Trump's policies should be.

As you know, I've written articles explaining Trump's policies
in view of Generational Dynamics predictions. However, I don't
have your knowledge of military strategy.

You've identified a strategic military error that China is making.
Are there any strategic military errors that America is making?

John,

I think that Trump is right in confronting China about trade and other practices they have been allowed to get away with for so long (hacking espionage, stealing trade secrets, and so on). I am also glad that the Navy is doing Freedom of Navigation operations around these Chinese man made islands off of Vietnam and the Philippines.

I think that each branch of the US Armed Forces has made disastrous decisions in preparing for a World War. The USN is built around Carrier Battlegroups that will indeed be nuclear targets for the Chinese right off the bat. The AirForce is building the overpriced and underperforming F-35. And the Army thinks that large scale conventional warfare will never happen again (so it is focused on counter insurgency or low intensity operations).

I wrote detailed posts on each of these on my personal blog at http://www.comingstorms.com. Please look at the "Warfare" category.

In the "big picture" strategic area, I think the USA is badly mis-aligned in Asia. We should be allied with India, NOT Pakistan (and by extension Saudi Arabia). India is probably the most important ally against China. I think we should also be trying to do more to ally with Vietnam, also a long term enemy of the Chinese.

Personally, I believe the war with China will have its root causes in the coming financial meltdown. In the 2008 crisis, when China was affected, the CCP didn't say "Americans are buying less stuff, so that's why you got laid off". Instead they said "The Americans are refusing to pay for what they bought from us". The idea being to completely put the blame for economic woes on the USA. I am sure they will do the same when the next and bigger financial crisis starts.

Having said that, I agree with you that a minor incident can touch everything off. Once the Chinese start blaming America for a financial collapse, some Major or Colonel could actually start the war. After all, the Sino Japanese War was started by some hothead Japanese low level officer at the Marco Polo bridge who thought his superiors in at Kwantung Army Headquarters were a bunch of pansies. He then got backed up by his superiors due to cultural reasons. The same kind of scenario could easily happen once the Chinese officer corps thinks Americans have caused their personal financial difficulties.

Here is what I wrote on the USN's Carrier Groups:

Floating Targets
The Aircraft Carrier (or just Carrier) has been the American Navy’s pre-eminent weapon since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in World War Two. The Carrier allowed the Navy to project ship sinking power out to the limits of the range of its ship borne bomber and torpedo carrying aircraft. Instead of needing to be within sight of each other, opposing navies could now strike at each other from hundreds of miles away.

Carriers were instrumental in defeating Japan and winning World War Two. Ever since then, the Navy has continued to rely on the Carrier as its means of projecting combat power into a military theater of operations. Carrier aircraft have flown combat missions in Korea, Vietnam, and all of the modern conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

There are two big differences regarding Carriers between World War Two and now. The first is that air to air refueling wasn’t practical until the 1960s. Prior to then, aircraft had to rely on the fuel they carried internally on takeoff. Carriers were the only platforms that could provide both air cover and striking power to fleets operating in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean. Land based aircraft, particularly fighter planes, could not fly that far away from their airbases. So only Carrier aircraft could operate far out to see, or attack Japanese installations like those on islands located hundreds of miles from our nearest land bases. But since the 1960’s, due to air to air refueling, land based aircraft can reach anywhere. There may be some short term difficulty in getting the logistics set up for the Air Force to operate in a specific geographic area, but once this temporary issue is solved, the land based Air Force can operate anywhere we want it to.

The other big difference is what exists to potentially sink a Carrier. In World War Two, the only things really capable were dive and torpedo bombers (which usually operated off of other Carriers) and submarines. The submarines of World War Two were very slow, had to be within sight of the Carrier, and then had to hit the Carrier with “straight shot” dumb torpedoes. Still, while the American Navy sank twenty different Japanese Carriers during the war, eight of those were sunk by submarines, not aircraft. Today’s submarines are a vast improvement over their WW II ancestors. They are super fast, never have to surface, and carry both anti-ship missiles and wire guided torpedoes that can be steered to the target. Since the 1960’s, submarines have repeatedly gotten embarrassingly close to carriers during naval maneuvers. It would be worse in a real war.

Submarines aren’t the only serious threat to Aircraft Carriers today. The most serious threat is probably long range anti-ship missiles. These include weapons that fly at something like a thousand miles an hour a few feet above the waves, while carrying a multi ton conventional or, worse yet, nuclear warhead, and tracking the massive carrier through a combination of active and passive radar with infrared and other backups. Even more dangerous are ballistic missiles with “steerable” re-entry warheads.

What I’ve outlined here is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the arguments against the continued reliance on $10-15 billion Aircraft Carriers. But the end result for Carriers in a war with a real enemy like Russia or China is that they will most likely end up like the Battleships in Pearl Harbor, obsolete and near defenseless targets of more modern weapons.

What to Do
We need to stop building these extremely expensive massive floating targets that have marginal usefulness. To add to the arguments against the Aircraft Carrier, the most recent, the USS Gerald Ford, which has new “electronic” catapults and aircraft landing capture gear, is both a model of cost overruns and “high tech” equipment that doesn’t work. The ship is has already had $5 Billion in cost overruns and its new equipment for launching and retrieving aircraft is not working. So this now $17.5 Billion floating island is currently completely useless.

We need a strong Navy to protect the sea lanes and the shipping operating in them. Both for commerce and for the supply lines we would have to defend in a major war. That Navy should be equipped for the modern war it will have to fight, not a war with Imperial Japan that just involves bigger ships and jet aircraft.

Most of the money we are now spending on our Navy (not unlike much of it spent for the Army and Air Force) is being wasted on weapon systems designed not for battlefield efficiency but for maximizing the profit of defense contractors. We need to pressure our representatives in Congress and the appointees in the Defense Department to push for truly cost effective weapons, ships and aircraft. Our Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen need effective modern weapons. The key word being “effective”.

Navigator wrote:

John wrote:

Navigator wrote: > All wars are decided primarily on land. Even in the Pacific in
> WW2. The Naval War there might have been dominant, but the navies
> either allowed (or failed to interdict) land force
> projection. (Japanese in Dutch East Indies, SE Asia and
> Philippines; US in island hopping, New Guinea, Philippines).

> That said, I am actually glad the Chinese are wasting such vast
> resources on building a Navy. I think the strategy is greatly
> misguided and does not play to their primary strengths. I think
> they following the path of the German Kaiser in his pre-World War
> One ideas of becoming a power with global force projection
> capability. The Imperial German fleet, while impressive, and
> certainly highly competent, was a waste of their military
> resources.

Since you've given a lot of thought to this subject, I wonder
if you have any thoughts about what America should be doing
differently, or what Trump's policies should be.

As you know, I've written articles explaining Trump's policies
in view of Generational Dynamics predictions. However, I don't
have your knowledge of military strategy.

You've identified a strategic military error that China is making.
Are there any strategic military errors that America is making?

John,

I think that Trump is right in confronting China about trade and other practices they have been allowed to get away with for so long (hacking espionage, stealing trade secrets, and so on). I am also glad that the Navy is doing Freedom of Navigation operations around these Chinese man made islands off of Vietnam and the Philippines.

I think that each branch of the US Armed Forces has made disastrous decisions in preparing for a World War. The USN is built around Carrier Battlegroups that will indeed be nuclear targets for the Chinese right off the bat. The AirForce is building the overpriced and underperforming F-35. And the Army thinks that large scale conventional warfare will never happen again (so it is focused on counter insurgency or low intensity operations).

I wrote detailed posts on each of these on my personal blog at http://www.comingstorms.com. Please look at the "Warfare" category.

In the "big picture" strategic area, I think the USA is badly mis-aligned in Asia. We should be allied with India, NOT Pakistan (and by extension Saudi Arabia). India is probably the most important ally against China. I think we should also be trying to do more to ally with Vietnam, also a long term enemy of the Chinese.

Personally, I believe the war with China will have its root causes in the coming financial meltdown. In the 2008 crisis, when China was affected, the CCP didn't say "Americans are buying less stuff, so that's why you got laid off". Instead they said "The Americans are refusing to pay for what they bought from us". The idea being to completely put the blame for economic woes on the USA. I am sure they will do the same when the next and bigger financial crisis starts.

Having said that, I agree with you that a minor incident can touch everything off. Once the Chinese start blaming America for a financial collapse, some Major or Colonel could actually start the war. After all, the Sino Japanese War was started by some hothead Japanese low level officer at the Marco Polo bridge who thought his superiors in at Kwantung Army Headquarters were a bunch of pansies. He then got backed up by his superiors due to cultural reasons. The same kind of scenario could easily happen once the Chinese officer corps thinks Americans have caused their personal financial difficulties.

I don't think China will attack the US first, I think China would attack the US lasts after it has already conquered or felt it was winning the war with the India/Russia/Vietnam (and possibly Japan) alliance. Much like how Germany and Japan went to war with Britain and China first but then later when they thought they had practically won those war they attacked the US and USSR.

Point 1) If carriers are such a bad deal---how come they are on station so much. I submit that they are exactly what is needed for the (albeit unnecessary) wars we are actually fighting.

Point 2) I don't expect to see any war with China in my lifetime (another 10-15 years). Chinese aren't stupid or suicidal. Quite the contrary. Remember Nixon's problem: the Chinese were so subtle that Americans makng overtures couldn't understand what the Chinese were saying (at first). The big difference between the next world war and ***every*** previous war is that everyone will know before it starts that it is suicide. Of course it can still happen, but it takes a mentally deranged---that's why Trump is such a danger.

Point 3) Nuke war preppers are prepping for the wrong calamity. Preppers should be prepping for climate change. That involves getting well away from the coasts because as the methane hydrates start to boil out of the continental shelves there is a good chance of mile high tsunamis from underwater landslides. There are also good chances of crop failure and famine as the soil chemistry changes. You don't survive that hunkered in some backwoods hole all on your own (look up what an Okie is)---like someone (almost) said the best place to be when there is famine is in the military (or in the police). During famines, hoarders get executed.

Navigator wrote: > Most of the money we are now spending on our Navy (not unlike much
> of it spent for the Army and Air Force) is being wasted on weapon
> systems designed not for battlefield efficiency but for maximizing
> the profit of defense contractors. We need to pressure our
> representatives in Congress and the appointees in the Defense
> Department to push for truly cost effective weapons, ships and
> aircraft. Our Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen need effective modern
> weapons. The key word being “effective”.

OK, but as Don Rumsfeld said, "You go to war with the army you have,
not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time."

So you've said that China has made mistakes and the US has made
mistakes. So if the war began now, in your opinion what would happen?

John, As you have written yourself, the war will last for years.

At the start of US involvement in WW2, most of our aircraft were substandard (P-39, P-40), our tanks were substandard (M2, some M3's), and none of the torpedoes actually worked. We eventually developed and fielded great equipment, but it took a while. In most cases that development started because the British were pushing us for better equipment to buy from us, and we had a couple of years to start to get it through development before we were actually involved.

This time we will lose a lot of life and suffer greatly because the forces that we will have will be improperly or poorly equipped.

I believe that conflict with China may start with a minor event that quickly escalates. It will quickly escalate to nuclear attacks on Carrier battlegroups to remove US naval capability from the western Pacific. The Chinese would then attempt to invade Taiwan. Or they could move through Korea to get at Japan, who they indeed hate with a passion. They will probably also over extend and go after Vietnam and push against the Indians (though why they care about this border is beyond me - but it plays into the common racial ego theme so common to aggressive warfare).

This is of course a very complex conversation and I am just giving a VERY rough overview of what I think will happen.

I don't think it starts with a thermonuclear exchange against major cities. But I DO think they will go after the US power grid plus do everything possible to create civil war and contention withing the US.

Navigator wrote: > John, As you have written yourself, the war will last for years.

> At the start of US involvement in WW2, most of our aircraft were
> substandard (P-39, P-40), our tanks were substandard (M2, some
> M3's), and none of the torpedoes actually worked. We eventually
> developed and fielded great equipment, but it took a while. In
> most cases that development started because the British were
> pushing us for better equipment to buy from us, and we had a
> couple of years to start to get it through development before we
> were actually involved.

> This time we will lose a lot of life and suffer greatly because
> the forces that we will have will be improperly or poorly
> equipped.

> I believe that conflict with China may start with a minor event
> that quickly escalates. It will quickly escalate to nuclear
> attacks on Carrier battlegroups to remove US naval capability from
> the western Pacific. The Chinese would then attempt to invade
> Taiwan. Or they could move through Korea to get at Japan, who they
> indeed hate with a passion. They will probably also over extend
> and go after Vietnam and push against the Indians (though why they
> care about this border is beyond me - but it plays into the common
> racial ego theme so common to aggressive warfare).

> This is of course a very complex conversation and I am just giving
> a VERY rough overview of what I think will happen.

> I don't think it starts with a thermonuclear exchange against
> major cities. But I DO think they will go after the US power grid
> plus do everything possible to create civil war and contention
> withing the US.

OK, that all makes sense to me. Let me add a couple of additional
thoughts, and ask your opinion.

First, a lot of people talk about civil war within the US, but I just
don't see it. I expect the country to unify behind President Trump or
whoever follows him (in generational theory this is the "Regeneracy").
The fault line from the American Civil War has pretty much healed.

But China has had two major, bloody civil wars -- the Taiping
Rebellion and Mao's civil war -- along the north vs south fault line.
And as we know, there are hundreds of thousands of "mass events" in
China every year, and one of those could certainly spiral out of
control.

Mao and Chiang were able to put the civil war on hold because of the
Japanese invasion. But if China is the aggressor this time, then
China's society may be split and remain split, causing China to be
bogged down with an internal civil war. Have you looked into that at
all?

Second, it's claimed that if there's an EMP blast, then 90% of the US
population will die from starvation and disease within a year, because
the entire transportation system will be crippled. Have you looked at
that? Is that what you mean by, "go after the US power grid"?

Third, I've estimated that 3-4 billion people will die in the war,
from nuclear weapons, conventional weapons, ground war, riots, disease
and famine, leaving behind 4 billion people to hold an international
peace conference and rebuild the world. Does that make sense to you?

Fourth, I could imagine a scenario where China launches lots of
missiles, and destroys a lot of American cities and aircraft carriers,
but still loses the war because they have their hands full fighting
Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Australia, India, and probably Russia.
Does that make sense to you?

John, The Chinese carrier killer missiles are intended to destroy the carrier within battlefield conditions, the destroyed carrier does not appear to be envisaged as being in port when the missile is used against it but instead the Chinese seem to practicing ambushing the carrier in open battle. Most of the carriers' port locations are beyond range of the DF-21 and DF-26.