The other day I read once again a couple of alarming articles about China’s military rise and its aggressive positioning around the world. This has gotten to the point where the head of NASA expresses concerns over China’s mission to the Moon’s dark side, which it launched to bring back soil samples, and with the plan to put a man on the Moon by 2030.
Furthermore, China’s behavior over the South China Sea and its stand on Taiwan are talked about almost every day by the West, especially the US, as aggressive and intimidating. Even its economic assistance and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is criticized as a means to wrap countries in economic debt coercion.
So, it is normal to find a number of US-based think tanks who have studied and simulated a hypothetical US-China war. They have mostly come to the conclusion that such a war will end in US victory, albeit with a heavily damaged military power.
But what I find most amusing－if anything about war could be so－is that most of those studies recognize that China has made great stride in upgrading its military might and equipment, and providing significant training to its armed forces. So in terms of equipment and numbers it is almost on par or sometimes superior to the US, but what makes it weak in a confrontation with the US is its limited, to not say lack of, combat experience compared to the US.
What does that mean? Does it mean that the US has been the aggressive, war seeking/creating power and the more it has wars the more powerful it is? Of course not, the US has never chosen to go or create wars, it has only been defending the free and democratic world, basta!
Paris, June 20, 2024
Zeejay