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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

The question really is if the US will continue to fight by proxy like with Ukraine or take an active role.

The CCP has been preparing for a long time. They know the real battle is one of public opinion and policy making in the US. The big resounding lesson from Ukraine is that an invasion must be swift and overwheling with careful logistical planning as well as PR and anti-sanction measures.

The worst possible thing China can do is attack a US target like a ship or a plane. It will be like pearl harbor, losing all that precious intel network capacity in the US along with US voter's opinions.

All of Europe and Asia can combine forced and will still likely lose against the US military in any conflict. But even the smallest nation can win if they manage to change americans' opinions.

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In a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, it would be very close, and it would not go well.

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/08/us-loses-half-its-f...

This is Americans saying they would lose. They just can’t actually say it.

In the scenarios, the success of the ground battle in Taiwan depends almost entirely on Taiwan’s forces.

Doesn't sound too discouraging in a world where plucky Ukraine is winning against its big bad neighbour. But, as will become clear to everyone later this year, that is not the world we live in.

> But, as will become clear to everyone later this year, that is not the world we live in.

You seem awfully confident. Not sure what analysis you are reading to give you this impression.

I don’t know how this will end exactly. But the reality of the magnitude of Ukrainian losses, both in terms of men and materiel, will assert itself.

That's not what your link says:

> Cancian explained that the Chinese missile force is devastating to the U.S. and its allies for as long as their inventory of missiles lasts.

> Cancian said submarines and bombers that can launch long-range missiles are “particularly important” for the success of the U.S. side

I don't contest that the US would have casualty but the fact that they know this alone tells you it is unlikely for the US to attack head on with fighter jets and carriers. The bases around china and inter-continental targeting capabilities are crucial in disabling their defenses. Both sides would lose millions but the US military industrial comples is unrivaled. It will basically replace important ammunition, missiles,etc... at a decent pace once it is mobilized. It will take 4weeks+ before a ground invasion in the mean time there is no scenario where China's navy won't get wiped out before a ground invasion. So it would be a matter of who can maintain their supply chain the longest without running out of soldiers and airmen.

Keep in mind, the US military practices an invasion every generation. The PLA has less battle experience and much like the US and it's voters the CCP must maintain internal support despite their economy getting decimated. On the other hand, Americans will be more squeamish about things like civilian targets which is a major weakness in the short term but the possibility of actual economic recovery if a US friendly regime takes over leadership in China will be a huge advantage in winning the war without going nuclear.

My vague one sentence summary is exactly what the article is saying.

> I don't contest that the US would have casualty but the fact that they know this alone tells you it is unlikely for the US to attack head on with fighter jets and carriers. The bases around china and inter-continental targeting capabilities are crucial in disabling their defenses.

The person quoted in the article claims this is not possible:

> Cancian said part of the reason for the heavy U.S. losses is that the U.S. cannot take down China’s defenses without first moving in close and putting themselves at risk.

There are bases in Japan and Korea as well as Taiwan. So that guys opinion needs to be backed up with an explanation of why those positions are not close enough short-medium range stealth bombers are a thing?

> will still likely lose against the US military in any conflict.

The US couldn't beat Vietnam or Afghanistan.

This comment is painfully obtuse

Is this a mean way of saying "true," or did the US win in Vietnam and Afghanistan?

The US didn't "lose": it didn't suffer a military defeat forcing any kind of surrender, it simply gave up and went home.

"Losing" a war, in this context, means you surrender to the enemy, or at least quit and sign some kind of treaty to end hostilities formally. The US has never done that. The US has never lost on the battlefield. With Vietnam, it was too unpopular and was fighting with one hand tied behind its back anyway. With Afghanistan, it won military, but gave up on trying to prop up the Afghani government and pulled out.

>The US didn't "lose": it didn't suffer a military defeat forcing any kind of surrender, it simply gave up and went home.

Giving up and going home is a loss where Taiwan is concerned as it was in Korea.

The more astute observers understand this war is already over. More Chinese people are willing to die to maintain their country's integrity than Americans willing to do the same for an island on the otherside of the planet.

The US will lose twice if it continues down this path. It will secondly earn the hate of the vast majority of Asian countries as an outsider bringing yet another uneccessary war to their neighborhoods over what the majority of Asians consider a settled topic.

What majority of Asian countries? South Korea and Japan, both nations similarly connected to the U.S. as Taiwan is? India, which has no love for China and is a Quad member? Vietnam, which is in the Quad Plus?

South Korea and Japan are a tiny minority of the Asian population and most civilians in those countries (and the rest of Asia) don't care what Taiwan's status is.

One could presume that in the event of any sort of aggressive war by a larger neighbor, smaller neighbors would be concerned. Much like how Russia's nearby Eastern European nations (e.g. Poland) are right now. Do you really think Vietnam, the Philippines, etc. wouldn't be alarmed by the outbreak of war? The disruption to shipping alone would be a massive issue.

You also completely sidestepped the issue of India, whose current government dislikes that of China.

India has its border dispute but beyond that is not interested in taking part in a Chinese civil conflict.

It's pointing out that you are making a comparison that is of little value besides demonstrating your own apparent inability to make reasonable comparisons

Nobody can "beat Afghanistan" because forcing people who have no interest in running a country the way the rest of the world runs a country to do so a black hole for money and lives.

There's a lesson about wars of occupation with ill-defined objectives in there.

> no interest in running a country the way the rest of the world runs a country

The US and Europe aren't "the world," and the actual world has plenty of theocracies.

The way Afghanistan was (90s) and is governed by the Taliban and how that authority and responsibility interacts with the local tribal authorities and governing responsibilities is a unique system outside of history books. It is not a "modern state" with the characteristic strong central government that all states have had for ~200yr or so.

Compare to Pakistan or Iran if you want.

Well in theory, it could be done, if one were willing to do it for 50-100 years. I.e. you'd have to indoctrinate the young for at least 1 generation, but probably 2-3 generations into power.

I don't see anyone having that long of a timeline wanting to do it. The US did it for 20-ish years, and clearly that wasn't long enough.

But we're beating Russia atm :D

> But the Ukrainians are beating Russia atm :D

FTFY.

Sorry I get confused with the "this is really a US war against poor, innocent Mother Russia!" crowd sometimes.

A more in-depth look is that those aggressive guerilla conflicts were different from a presumed defensive conflict over Taiwan.

Taiwan would have to initiate a defensive conflict over Taiwan. The US attacking China is not defensive.

I don't understand what you are saying. Could you reword that?

Taiwan will be in a defensive conflict if they are attacked. Who has said that the US will attack China??

Chinese policy is that Taiwan is part of China and has a separatist faction of rulers. Talking about the US attacking China, which isn't going to happen, does nobody any favors.

Militarily, the US will have to fight what would be identical to an offensive war naval and aerial against China, as they will not have the opportunity to exploit defensive positions in Taiwan.

The idea would be to keep China from landing in force (which they don't have the capability to do anyhow) and Japan is very close by.

That would again require an offensive to degrade Chinese military assets, not the defense of a position.

The Chinese are very unlikely to attempt a landing in force as the first line of attack. They are most likely to try to blockade Taiwan using air assets, naval mines, and submarines. Therefore the most likely US scenario is going to be breaking a siege, which is an offensive action.

If the siege doesn't work China will have to land forces in Taiwan, but even if we are assuming they can't get a beachhead despite holding a siege, they can still deploy and supply an estimated 300,000 troops from the air. This ought to be enough to establish a beachhead from the ground, or at least secure/improvise airfields.

For the US to be able to defend Taiwan, being able to attack and destroy Chinese naval assets is absolutely necessary. It is not possible to defend Taiwan otherwise.

The US Military can crush any other military force in the world into dust. What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or western values. That was never going to work. It never worked in Afghanistan even when the people trying it were Afhgani. It didn't work when the British tried it there, nor when the Soviets tried it there, and of course it didn't work when America tried it there. 20th century Afghani history is long list of people who attempted to impose social reform and ultimately lost.

> The US Military can crush any other military force in the world into dust.

There are no examples of this ever happening, but multiple examples of the US retreating in shame, creating opportunities for very dramatic photography as we leave our allies to die.

Outside of the retreat in Korea after the entry of China I can't think of an example where the US lost a tactical encounter after WW2. We lost wars but not due to military reasons. We were not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam or Afghanistan.

> We were not defeated on the battlefield in Vietnam or Afghanistan.

When at first you don't succeed, redefine success?

No, I think the GP comment is fair. The US is bad at counterinsurgency and occupation, because it's not comfortable with naked imperialism. I read 'on the battlefield' as specifically referring to force-on-force military conflict, which is something different.

Exactly this.

And for the people talking about Vietnam.. a lot has changed in 50 years. America got stronger while most other nations, except China, got much weaker. China is the single plausible refutation to my claim above.

The British army defeated the colonial army at every major encounter except for yorktown and lost the war. Hannibal was undefeated except for Zamma and lost the war. Battlefield success and war success are correlated but not determinative.

Iraq 1. Iraq 2. Korea (before china entered). All hot warfare in Vietnam (Tet). D-day. Battle of the bulge.

No army is perfect, can you list the retreats? We left Afghanistan after a decade? We didn’t outlast the NVA? We lost the Philippines for a few years. That’s it?

You ever read about World War II?

The US military was unable to defeat the conventional Vietnamese military. It was very much a different war to Afghanistan. The US military failed to degrade Vietnamese logistics and force generation capability to prevent North Vietnam from invading and occupying South Vietnam. There were guerilla tactics, but the NVA was very much an industrialized and mechanized military, despite failed US attempts to degrade that.

> What they can't do is force people at gunpoint to adopt American and/or modern or western values

The Soviets didn't have to do it. They were acting in support of an existing Afghan state which was fighting a war against Pakistan and US funded Mujahideen which wanted to overthrow them. Plenty of people in Afghanistan were open to modern values. The issue with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is that the USSR fell, and the issue with the American invasion is that there was no pre-existing state and that the US didn't have a compelling value proposition for Afghans to die in defence of after they pulled out.

Afghanistan is not some kind of bizarre land where everyone hates the concept of modernity. The Americans just didn't figure out how to organize an Afghan state, and didn't figure out how to win militarily either. The Soviets figured out the former, but they collapsed. Though their state survived the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan until the collapse of the USSR and the end of economic aid.

The US can easily wipe the floor with any conventional military. Even fighting multiple fronts at once.

Again, conventional warfare. Keeping countries occupied or forcing a certain regime in you favor? Totally different ball game. You can not force other people to adopt your values, even if you think they are THE GOOD VALUES(TM).

When David has the popular support and stands against your oppression, they can even beat the US Goliath.

Because vietnam and afghanistan changed US voter's minds. The loss was political boredom not military. Civilians lead even in matters of war with the US. That's why I said China will use it's intel network to win any war before it starts

> The US couldn't beat Vietnam or Afghanistan.

The US got distracted from Afghanistan for a war in Iraq.

But both of those demonstrate the limitations of outside military superiority in establishing stable rule against domestic resistance, especially (as in Vietnam) with strong outside military support.

Which, in a PRC-invasion of Taiwan, doesn't cut against the US.

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