Fishermen on board a small boat pass by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier at anchor off Manila, Philippines, Feb. 17, 2018.
Cary Huang, SCMP: These US-China military tussles are how next world war begins
If the final stage of geopolitical rivalry is military confrontation, the starting pistol may already have been fired
There are increasing signs that escalating tensions in the US-China relationship are spilling over to military-to-military ties.
As US-China relations deteriorate rapidly on a number of critical fronts including trade, technology, human rights and geopolitics, a series of events has inflamed military-to-military ties and increased the risk of direct military conflict between the powers. This year alone, we have seen China disinvited from the 2018 Rim of the Pacific Exercise (Rimpac); the announcement of the sale of US$330 million worth of military equipment to Taiwan; repeated patrols by US bombers and warships through the disputed South China Sea and Taiwan Strait; a near-collision between two warships in the South China Sea; and the Trump administration’s decision to sanction the Chinese military for buying Russian fighter planes and missiles.
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WNU Editor: I am more worried about China going to war against its neighbors, than going to war against the U.S.. And what IMHO has prevented a China - Asian war has been the U.S. military presence and treaty obligations.
So, what, America gets to lose another war in Asia?
ReplyDeleteSuperpowers dealing with inexorable decline, rotting from within, shouldn't pick fights with the worlds most populous country.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately there is some truth to your statement. Perhaps the editor comment held true two decades ago. Moving forward to today the current US/China trade agreements need to be renegotiated. clearly these one-sided agreements are not good for America. Clearly the Chinese had to know this. Furthermore the current agreements are so one sided in China's favor that they could have easily renegotiated the agreement and still been very profitable. Instead they doubled down on that which is/was unsustainable.
Should they decide to take this to a military conflict I see little doubt that they would prevail hence the observation "America gets to lose another war in Asia" is unfortunately spot on when it comes to a war with China in my opinion. Now do the treaty obligations and strict adherence to them at the expense of American interests and the extreme peril they place American lives in help us or hurt us in renegotiating these trade arrangements and avoiding a war we probably can't win? A cursory analysis indicates they hurt us all the way around. As such, the idea that the US "should not pick fights" unfortunately may have some validity especially on behalf of ingrates and users and abusers all for their interests in a fight with a major world power that we probably cannot win anyway.
Should China choose to fight one of its neighbors and America stays out China wins. Should America bring all of its conventional forces to bear to honor its "treaty obligation" America loses a conventional fight with China and tens of millions of Americans are killed in the process or perhaps America "wins" in which case tens of millions of Americans still die in the process.
Essentially America's leadership needs to explain to the American people why these ingrates that we have "treaty obligations" with are worth the lives of tens of millions of Americans to fight a war with a major world power that we probably cannot defeat in battle anyway. This becomes even more problematic when considering we need to renegotiate our trade arrangements and this situation undermines this.
In summary and meaning no disrespect, the editor comment may have been valid 20 years ago, perhaps even 15 years ago. Today with China and likely several other powers being stronger in terms of conventional military capabilities than America this no longer seems valid. There seems little doubt of a Chinese victory in a conventional fight with America. Should it turn nuclear America has a chance IF its nuclear arsenal actually works. This is an iffy proposition at best given the lack of maintenance and upgrades of which candidate Trump was correct to point out. In short, it would seem rather foolish to position ourselves for a fight with a major power like China relying on the assumption that our nuclear arsenal is going to work.
A nation's foreign policy needs to consider both realpolitik and moral principles as a guiding point. Unfortunately American policy is based largely upon "morals" and generally the wrong ones while ignoring realpolitik. This often makes us easy to manipulate by unscrupulous foreign powers of which candidate Trump was right to call a number of them out.