China v The west does the dragon have enough puff?

[ikalugin]

China is a nuclear power. That is about all what you need to know.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

China is a nuclear power. That is about all what you need to know.

Not quite even if it went nuclear the consequences for China would be horrendous.

Any person who says just nuke them or they have nuclear weapons really cant hold any argument to counter the original point.

Is nuclear war likely ? nope not a chance even if a large war was to happen the rational of people would realize that your destroying your customer base because even after war victor or not you still need to trade to survive.

And currently China is America's best customer for buying its debt.

There are other ways.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

Not quite even if it went nuclear the consequences for China would be horrendous.

Any person who says just nuke them or they have nuclear weapons really cant hold any argument to counter the original point.

Is nuclear war likely ? nope not a chance even if a large war was to happen the rational of people would realize that your destroying your customer base because even after war victor or not you still need to trade to survive.

And currently China is America's best customer for buying its debt.

There are other ways.

Yes there are other ways, which is one of the reasons we strive towards a global economy to reduce the chances of war. However if someone actually went about to sink one of our carriers rationality and reason I think would fly right out the window. Other nations are watching us and would gauge their future actions based on our present response. Therefore I think China would pay a very terrible price for such an overt act of war. Only in the aftermath is anyone going to start talking about cheap labor and I-Phones again.

[Mr Quatro]

This is good that we discuss the possibilities of China's war like stance to Taiwan and the new islands they are fortifying in the South China Sea, but we have someone else doing this everyday. The U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island.

They even study the new threat's of cyber warfare, which we as a whole should be more concerned about. Taking out one of two carriers would entail a complete and devastating warfare on us all of which nothing would ever be the same again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_War_College

The Naval War College (NWC or NAVWARCOL) is the staff college and "Home of Thought" for the United States Navy at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island.[4] The NWC educates and develops leaders, supports defining the future Navy and associated roles and missions, supports combat readiness, and strengthens global maritime partnerships.

The Naval War College is one of the senior service colleges including the Army War College, the Marine Corps War College, and the Air War College. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Defense operates the National War College.

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

Not quite even if it went nuclear the consequences for China would be horrendous.

Any person who says just nuke them or they have nuclear weapons really cant hold any argument to counter the original point.

Is nuclear war likely ? nope not a chance even if a large war was to happen the rational of people would realize that your destroying your customer base because even after war victor or not you still need to trade to survive.

And currently China is America's best customer for buying its debt.

There are other ways.

Sorry for the late reply (and the rather strong language that would follow), but this is wishful thinking. Even if both sides are fully rational (and even this is not nessesarily the case all the time) escalation of a large scale conventional war between two nuclear powers is not only posible but likely, which is why such a war has not happened since 1945.
Denying that the nuclear war could happen or overstating the damage by a limited exchange ("loss of all life on earth" etc) is dangerous as it is both delusional and undermines the bedrock of the modern security - deterence.

The economic interconnectivity/cost arguments are particularly bad, as even if discount both world wars we would see many modern conflicts, for example in the Middle East, where those considerations did not stop wars from happening.

For a practical hypotheoretical example I would suggest reading this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Commission-Re...=UTF8&qid=&sr=
(free from audible trial)


I would also suggest reading this long article on a broader and more detailed look into the US-PRC specific scenarios:
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi...2/isec_a_00320


p.s.
There are three questions you need to answer when considering this problem:
1) What kind of damage is unacceptable to the adversary?
2) Does the adversary view our capability to deal it as credible?
3) What do we do if deterence fails?
While the (1) did improve from 1950s-1960s in the sense that it is now believed that things under the Macnamara/Kurchatov criteria could work, with development and deployment of new arms, particularly by the US (2) looks bleaker, which pushes Russia and PRC to improve their forces.