[godelmachine]

I totally disagree with the last paragraph. Shedding blood != waging war. China has never dared until now, and will never dare in the future, to engage in a heads-on conflict against the USA. It has skirmishes and conflicts with almost every neighbour. The PRC defence forces do not have the worldwide fighting experience which the US has. Nuclear deterrence acts strongly against the PRC, and they won’t do anything stupid against Taiwan as long as US Navy is positioned in their backyard.

[maxglute]

PRC fought US+UN (Nato typo) in full scale war in 50s, to stalemate, while PLA was dramatically inferior vs gap now, and when PRC didn't have nukes, while US did. So not only did they dare to fight US on much worse odds, they did so not deterred by nukes, which US planners mused about using. Shedding blood with several nuclear powers isn't nothing, there's simply no country more willing to challenge other nuclear powers / be less deterred by nukes than PRC on security issues.

IMO US global war experience doesn't amount to much relevant in peer war, in peers backyard, against peer whos spend last 20 years soley fixated on countering US. IMO most don't realize how meagre current USN (and general US posture) is in IndoPac relative to current PRC size and what PRC has in threatre (everything), and how extra meagre 7th fleet in indopac is, CVN76 (carrier group) + desron15 (destroyer squadron) is like 10-20 ships depending on deployment. Last few years PRC coast guard messing around in Senkakus, dozens of incidents every year that should on paper trigger US defense obligation, but nothing from US. USN hasn't been credible deterrent for a while. US not sending carriers through TW straight for years, current US planning has carriers operate out of PRC backyard during shooting war to hopefully figure out way to do standoff strikes. Assuming they're not sunk before that. Or assuming they can operate more than a few days since PRC missiles can hit most replenishment sites/fleets. For reference invading 90s Iraq took 5 carriers group + regional basing + french selling out Iraqi air defense. Eisenhower carrier / CVN69+DDGs aren't exactly defeating houthis right now. Current PRC is like 80x larger than Iraq then by population, 100x larger by gdp, and 100x+ more industrial output. Current one year PRC ship building is outputting cumulative US 5 year WW2 which is proxy indicator for other domains (like munitions). USN formidable against PLA 10-15 years ago, but that's also how long PRC took to close gap which they are likely to extend.

[godelmachine]

You failed to take into account US allies like Japan, Phillipines, South Korea and India which are more than ready to help us bring down PLA.

[maxglute]

It's factored in, it's 101 default assumption.

Ask how much can PRC arm Mexico, Caribbeans etc to prevent US from destroying Cuba if US really wanted to. The reasonable answer is no amount, the proposition is borderline stupid because the force balance size between US vs rest is just that lopsided. Same force balance trend in PRC vs US+co in IndoPac now. PLA growing/modernizing faster than everyone else combined, US containment partners who can't comtain are now liabilities - US still obligated to defend in PRC unfavourable ground of PRC backyard.

Trend of geopolitics indicate US allies are less than ready, and outside of theatrics, has signalled _zero_ actual formal commitment. SKR opposition drafting legistlation to prevent SKR from assisting US in TW scenario a few weeks ago. JP avoid openning up main islands for expanded US basing despite US asking for ~10 years now. All those "war games" propaganda that US can win in variety of scenarios against PRC... depends on those expanded basing (and a bunch of PLA hardware not working). Current US posture (again without expanded basing) is not sufficient. PH is more or less irrelevant. What can India do on other side of Himalayas?

Hence current US military posture (which includes allies) is not sufficient, because allies have repeatedly demonstrated through action & inaction that they are extremely unwilling to seriously help US for TW, because as import dependant islands they don't want to be PRC missile sinks, and regress into developing countries if PRC decides to do their own "operation starvation". And when PLA occasionally do leaks like cruise missile gigafactory that makes 1000 components a day i.e. a few days production will satuate all US interceptors in 1IC, every year it becomes increasingly obvious US can't prepoposition enough hardware to shift balance vs PRC, not just TW in scenario, questionable if US even able defend JP, SKR, PH etc.

[stogot]

They did in Korea