21-Jan-13 WV-China's directive to Get Ready for War

[John]

21-Jan-13 World View -- Discussion of China's directive to 'Get Ready for War'


How would the U.S. react to a Chinese invasion of a neighbor?

** 21-Jan-13 World View -- Discussion of China's directive to 'Get Ready for War'
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 21#e130121



Contents:
China's strategy
How would the U.S. react to a Chinese invasion of a neighbor?
China's military strength
The Chinese threat


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, China, Dai Xu, Vietnam, Japan,
Neville Chamberlain

[Reality Check]

How would the U.S. react to a Chinese invasion of a neighbor?

Some Chinese military planners believe that Americans will "run like rabbits" and not honor its mutual defense treaties, if China invaded one of its neighbors. A lot of commenters believe the same thing:
...
I expressed the opinion that "President Obama would not have any choice if Congress declared war, which might happen within hours of any Chinese attack." One reader responded:

"First, yes he would. He could dither on the deployments the way France and the U.K. did after Hitler seized Bohemia and Moravia and declared Slovakia a Protectorate, then dithered some more when Hitler declared war on Poland, launching a mighty Sitzkrieg offensive in the Pacific while saving the Blitzkrieg for the media and stump circuit.

In the face of that, all Congress could do is impeach him, even while an attempt is made to repeal the 22nd Amendment so he can do nothing for even more [years].

Second, what if a declaration of war passes the House but not the Senate? Never mind the Chamberlain in the White House, Harry Reid could play his own version of Neville, and no war resolution would ever reach the floor of the Senate.

What exactly would happen if Congress "couldn't" decide?"

Dithering would be a high-risk political strategy for the President and a Democratic Senate. When Neville Chamberlain promised "Peace in our time" after meeting with Hitler, he was doing something that seemed perfectly reasonable on that day. And yet, Chamberlain has been damned by history as the man who appeased Adolf Hitler. President Obama would risk being damned as a modern day Neville Chamberlain who appeased the Chinese.

Obama's view of his place in history is a very interesting political consideration to inject into this discussion.

Obama appears to view himself as an instrument of fundamental change within the United States.

A foreign war on his watch could jeopardize that, and it would be something he would seek to avoid.

On the other hand, Obama appears to truly believe he has the correct answer to almost every question, which means he might engage in what he believed would be a very short, very one-sided military action, only to find his crystal ball regarding what China could do, or would do, was simply 100% wrong.

More likely however, Obama would seek to avoid nuclear war at all costs. This is likely what China would have to be counting on to launch a war in the next couple of years.

Obama's often stated arms control agenda indicates that he shares the very dangerous world view that using any significant number of nuclear weapons would destroy the world, so therefore they will never be used. This of course is pure fiction, but a majority of politicians in the Democratic Party appear to believe this as an article of Religious Faith.

Should China convince Obama that China was "crazy enough" ( in Obama's World View ) to use nuclear weapons to subdue say Vietnam or any non-nuclear neighbor that launched a military attack on China or China's expeditionary military forces ( regardless of the provocation or justification for such an attack on China ). Such convincing could take the form of nuking something, Like say a Vietnamese army and/or a city in Vietnam...

Then Obama's world view on nuclear weapons would lead him to avoid, at all costs, being the President who elected nuclear war. Obama would fear this far more than he would fear going down in history as the President who attempted to achieve "Peace in our Time" and was later dragged into war.

Remember, unlike England, the leader in the United States would remain in power, and have a second chance to go to war if it turned out China behaved like the Germans after the Czechoslovakia compromise that brought "Peace in Our Time". A second chance the English leader did not have without a guaranteed four year term. This is a major difference in how Obama would be viewed by history, Obama would be both the President who tried to avoid war and then was dragged into it, even if he chose "Peace in Our Time" after the first War started by China.

This of course all assumes that Obama even cares about such historical things in the conventional terms we believe Presidents do. Obama may see himself as a transformational figure such as Lenin or Mao, in which case he would care nothing at all about a "Peace in Our Time" label. If Obama's intends to change the United States from a conservative Constitutional Republic into a progressive Peoples Democracy then the "Peace in Our Time" would pale compared to his major achievements.

[biedermann]

Just in case nobody mentioned it before:
Henry Kissinger himself described in the last chapter of his book "On China" a scenario where the rise of the PRC leads to a great war. He likens this situation to the rise of Germany before WWI:
A newly powerful player began to exert itself on the international scene, upsetting the status quo. Nobody was willing to compromise, and ultimately a minor conflict escalated into the devastation of WWI.
Kissinger asserts that none of the parties involved would have chosen this path if they had known the outcome.

Personally, as a historian I am disturbed by the parallels in the present to the situation before both WWI and WWII.

PS:
Though I am a Lurker, I appreciate your work very much, Mr. Xenakis!

[ohmeohmy]

Fyi John,

Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Teh Ching, a poetry/spiritual guidance book.

[Christoph Becker]

To complete the picture one should also read Chris Martenson's report
http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/8050 ... ig-picture
and
http://www.peakprosperity.com/insider/8 ... cal-part-2

Some informations in the second part:
1. A graph according to which in 2030 China and India together will need 100% of all crude oil imports on the world market.
2. In 2013 China is bound to become the biggest car manufacturer of the world. They will build more cars than Europe.

Seen the other graphs and arguments about peak oil in Chris Martenson's report, or reading J.H. Kunstlers book "The Long Emergency", or just looking at the development of the price of oil, copper and other commodities in the last to decades, gives a another reason for war: Maximizing China's share of the remaining resources of the world, especially crude oil.

[John]

Fyi John,

Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War. Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Teh Ching, a poetry/spiritual guidance book.

Thanks for the correction.

[solomani]

Seen the other graphs and arguments about peak oil in Chris Martenson's report, or reading J.H. Kunstlers book "The Long Emergency", or just looking at the development of the price of oil, copper and other commodities in the last to decades, gives a another reason for war: Maximizing China's share of the remaining resources of the world, especially crude oil.

Depends how you see wealth. Is it limited by known resources or can it be created? Look at the USA by way of example - it will become energy self sufficient by 2020. That was unthinkable even a decade ago. Also don't count out human ingenuity. How long did oil and uranium sit under the Earth being completely useless to man?

Having said that I don't think the Chinese think that way.