A small strategic theory
I was just thinking about that China thing and here is a theory.
Lets look at US first.
- Ahead of everyone when it comes to aircraft: generation 5 while all contenders have generation 4 and 4.5.
- Slightly superior when it comes to ground forces. I think of the US army to be the best in the world but I'm not sure that its military gear is so superior. M1 Abrams demonstrated their superiority but, so far, only against outdated equipments and tactics. They also showed several weeknesses in Irak. Then, US army changed but the other did that too. Merkavas also proved that tanks can be very vulnerable to footmen (Infantry queen of the field again). The best advantage to US is their wonderful professiency when it comes to combine their forces.
- Absolutly dominant when it come to the sea. The carrier fleet has no match and the US aircraft carriers are the most magnificent war machine you can imagine.
Lets look at China.
- Quickly converting its aircraft fleet to generation 4 and 4.5 with a huge amount of older aircrafts in reserve. It could get generation 5 within ten years. In the meantime, the country acquired a top of the line air defense by colaborating with Russia and France.
- On the ground, they have enough manpower to stop anyone. They did already in the past. Their ground forces are also modernizing really fast.
- At sea (their main weak point) they are a match for any conventional fleet but no match at all for US carrier task forces. And such task force would switch the ground and air balance.
A few years ago, China succesfully shot down a satelite. Such capability seriously threatens the GPS system over the region (and with a weakened electronic US is not that much a threat). Then, for thirty years, China acquired several carriers and certainly studied them. We all expect China to built it's own carrier soon but what if we were all wrong? What if Chinese planners had come to the obvious conclusion that challenging US naval power is a waste of time and ressources? What if they had jumped to the conclusion that the best way to answer the threat of US carriers is to negate that advantage to US?
I have no clue about the chinese missile capability but if it is capable of putting any US carrier out of commission, it seriously changes the face of the world. One thing I'm convinced is that, with the time they had and the carriers the put they hand on, they have enough in their game to successfully conceive such weapon.
As a result, China doesn't become a threat to US but US is no longer a threat to China. In my opinion, this option could be the best choice. I could even suppose the next step to be an increasing collaboration between China and US on the international scene. If US is no longer a threat to China, China no longer has a need to systematicaly oppose US at the diplomatic level.
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