Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbuna
Long gone are the days when you could send a gunboat into a harbour or up river to impose your will on others.
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Nowadays you build an armada of dozens if not hundreds of coast guard boats and send them into the territorial waters of neighbouring states to harass their fishing boats in their own waters, our you send a combat fleet and air forc einto internaitonal waters, buzild artifical islands there and then claim it to be yours due to the islands you have just created.
Gunboat policies still work. You just need more than just one boat, but many. The inti8dmation effects that chian acchieves reahc far and make prctaiclly all countries in asia, including Australia, to caution their words and deeds and to appease the mighty gunboat owner.
Whether the US would indeed will full conventional war with china over Taiwan or the South Chinese Sea, remains to be seen. I say No, it will not. The US has not risked a war against an equal enemy since WWII. And this near to China, the Chinese probably are not just equal, but already superior. They have satellites. They hav e cyber warfare capacities at least matching that of the US. They have numericla superiority and have closed the technolgoicaio gap . They have missiles. Missiles. Missiles. Missiles. Missiles. And they have, guess what - more missiles. American subs maybe still are slightly better, but they are outnumbered now. And the Chinese can what the American poublic finds much more difficult: the Chinese can digest losses and replace them.
Where the Chinese still lack is their military capacity to protect their international supply lines at sea, around the globe. They are a regional superpower, not yet a global one. But they work hard oin chaging that. Their trade agreements in Europe and Africa are in support of these strategic needs, giving them footholds on foreign beaches, so to speak.