There are a lot of differences. One of the chief differences was that during World War II the United States continental homeland was pretty much untouchable, which allowed the United States and the allies access to a secure and resource rich supply chain that helped lead to victory over the Axis powers.
In an engagement with China it is likely that both sides would be able to strike each other's defense industrial base, with the added "benefit" that American missiles, aircraft, and other equipment are stationed strategically in the region in various countries (Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, and others) and as such the United States can project some amount of destruction on critical Chinese industrial facilities. I'm wondering if China in this scenario would be eager to, or hesitant to strike the United States for fear of a very rapid escalation of the war. Anyway - the point is that long range missiles, drones, and other offensive capabilities mean that supposedly "safe" manufacturing facilities are in danger, with the United States being a bit closer in range to inflict damage than China and with China having I would guess a little bit of hesitancy to strike mainland America.
In addition to some of the simple geographic differences, China has its own strategic challenges. Energy, for one. So far nobody has built a tank, plane, or ship that can run on batteries and while drone technology has continued to advance in many critical ways they don't bring the big bombs quite yet. Naturally the United States in the event of a war is going to at least consider if not outright strike Chinese energy facilities, and deny imports of oil which are critical to supply chains and conducting a war.
If China's only theater is perhaps Taiwan that's probably less of an issue, but then you've got the United States with its, in my view, inferior supply chain, operating unfettered, similar to during World War II while the Chinese supply chain both local and superior particularly for small or "low cost" components is facing both energy stress and stress from missiles or other attacks.
I don't mean to sound pro-USA here or to suggest there aren't other significant advantages or disadvantages for either the United States or China, but to just highlight that your thoughtful comment here which seems to imply that China's massive industrial capacity is akin to the United States' during World War II is not quite an apples-to-apples comparison.
> So far nobody has built a tank, plane, or ship that can run on batteries and while drone technology has continued to advance in many critical ways they don't bring the big bombs quite yet.
Ukraine is proving that the "big bombs" are useless - fpv drones can and do take out tanks, planes and ships. They don't survive long enough to deliver the "big bombs".
Russia is currently reduced to sending in unmechanised light infantry to try and take ground because everything larger doesn't survive (and the light infantry apparently survive for only 20 minutes on average). Russia's Black Sea fleet cowers in port under its anti-air defences and even then takes losses. Their long-range bombers are not being used in the long-range bombing of Ukraine's civilians, that's all down to cruise missiles, because they're too valuable to lose (and a lot of them have been destroyed on the runway by drones).
The age of WW2-era mechanised warfare is gone. It's as obsolete as the cavalry that came before it.
> Ukraine is proving that the "big bombs" are useless
Depends on the application. The drones have to be manufactured somewhere. You need electricity. Running water. Industrial facilities. The big bomb still matters there.
> The age of WW2-era mechanised warfare is gone. It's as obsolete as the cavalry that came before it.
Well the primary issue is that drones can’t hold or take land, only deny. I think mechanized infantry will continue to have a place, they’ll just be augmented by drones. But who knows you could be right depending on how things develop.
I agree and upvoted you for a good comment with a good source.
In my mind I was thinking about how humans have to actually go back to the land. In Ukraine we’ve seen what amount to drone enforced no-man’s lands where no human can really seize or make use of the land. There of course can be the case where the drones clear the land of enemy troops and drones and then your own people or soldiers move and then occupy the land.
There is a very very large ocean between China and the USA, you cant just assume the lessons from the Ukraine-Russian war will transfer. It would be a completely different beast, and as OP said, missiles might play an important role for both sides. In such a scenario we might see both powers having most of their industrial base destroyed before any of their soldiers (or drones) come into reach of each other.
Sure but neither side has a B-2 or F-35. Drones are great for blowing up a few conscripts or a parked plane but a stealth bomber carrying 80 JDAMs can level 5km^2.
Hilarious. You realize the US could nuke and flatten Iran tomorrow, right? Do you imagine that Trump was trying to conquer Iran and just couldn't do it with all the American military power? There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA.
They were trying to overthrow the regime, for the second time in a year, and failed.
> There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA.
It actually depends on what the you the outcome of the war to be: total conquest or regime change.
The US can probably achieve total conquest, but not regime change. They spent 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and left there without winning anything, especially in Afghanistan. If they wanted to erase Iraq and Afghanistan, that would have a been a totally different thing.
Russia is not using their drones in the same way that Ukraine is.
Russia cannot get conventional artillery close enough to use it properly, and Ukraine is keeping personnel away from the front line so they're hard to spot and harder to hit.
Russia is bombarding Ukraine's population centres with long-range cruise missiles. This is the failed Blitz strategy that Britain goaded Germany into during WW2 - get the enemy mad enough to bomb population centres, and not military or economic assets (Germany had almost achieved air superiority by bombing British airfields). Ukraine is leaving the population centres alone and focusing on economic and military production facilities.
Russia is losing this war. And has been for over a year.
There was lots of discussion within Russian and Ukrainian war analytics that nukes (at least tactical) are useless in this war for the following reasons:
- they would not change much on battlefield - there is no large concentrations that you can nuke - everything is dispersed
- nuking urban centers again won't change much on battlefield but would alienate China
- Russia's equipment is known to be not most reliable/maintained and worst that can happen to Russia is them trying to nuke and nukes not working
Nuking all the major population centers would pretty much destroy the ability of Ukraine to manufacture weapons in any meaningful number and it would also deprive its army of any new soldiers, no reinforcements, no food supplies and so on. I think it will change the course of the war pretty fast and pretty drastically.
You're mistaken. A significant portion of Ukraine's manufacturing now happens abroad, out of Russia's reach. Meanwhile, a large part of its domestic production is decentralized and widely distributed. (You can easily find snobbish and pejorative comments by Rheinmetall's CEO about this.)
Nuclear weapon use would lead to no meaningful military success, but it would immediately alienate the superpower Russia depends on in almost every way. China will not tolerate any nation using nuclear weapons. With its extremely dense population, it can't afford a modern wartime precedent to be set for their use.
Yeah, I was going to point out there's a few "big bombs" out there that aren't useless at all . .
Someone will break the First Use taboo, but I wouldn't put money on it being Russia, at the moment, not for Ukraine, as odd as it sounds to say that.
There are more important concerns keeping Putin from breaking First Use, but one interesting one is a genuine anxiety that the stupid thing just wouldn't work. Just lay an egg of fissionable material in Zelensky's bedroom.
I think if there is no retaliation to a nuclear strike on Ukraine, every nuclear capable country will rush towards nuclear weapons as fast as possible.
The reason being, Europe has a long term understanding they are under the nuclear umbrella of the USA which means that Europe does not need to maintain their own atomic weapons. If that long term agreement does not hold, the only way to deter Russia is to have nuclear weapons of your own since you cannot rely on deterrence from other countries.
Once everyone has nukes, Russia can no longer bully countries around because they will glass Moscow. This is a worse state than today where Russia can invade countries using conventional weapons without much consequence.
Yup. A country that starts nuking other countries in a genocidal war of conquest will not ever be seen as a threat by any other countries and will not suffer any consequences ever.
Russia has already entered this war on the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody and nobody was going to bomb them.
Because the point of the war was part of the plan to reform the Soviet Union under Russia/Putin.
The idea was to spend a few days, a couple weeks at most, taking Kyiv and the major cities, and then absorb Ukraine into a greater Russian state.
If they have to nuke Ukraine to make them do that, then that's not going to work. Absorbing a radioactive hellhole, with all the problems that will bring, isn't the plan.
Of course, the plan has gone badly wrong, and pretty much everything has gone the opposite to the way Putin wanted it do, so he could still nuke Ukraine just out of petty spite.
Good analysis. I agree that China could consider targeting the US mainland, but in every scenario other than "crazed madman" I think they'll know that kind of thing inevitably ends up with symmetrical (or worse for them) destruction. It would be easy to get public support for massive retaliation if Americans see proof that China has no qualms about blowing up their home, workplace, etc. The fringe will say "Nuke China - it worked in 1945!" and the mainstream will say "Blow up every power plant and dam we can."
When the dust settles, China's killed a bunch of Americans, America has killed even more Chinese, and we're in the same place we were before. I don't think China's that dumb, and they're not that evil, either.
In an engagement with China it is likely that both sides would be able to strike each other's defense industrial base, with the added "benefit" that American missiles, aircraft, and other equipment are stationed strategically in the region in various countries (Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, and others) and as such the United States can project some amount of destruction on critical Chinese industrial facilities. I'm wondering if China in this scenario would be eager to, or hesitant to strike the United States for fear of a very rapid escalation of the war. Anyway - the point is that long range missiles, drones, and other offensive capabilities mean that supposedly "safe" manufacturing facilities are in danger, with the United States being a bit closer in range to inflict damage than China and with China having I would guess a little bit of hesitancy to strike mainland America.
In addition to some of the simple geographic differences, China has its own strategic challenges. Energy, for one. So far nobody has built a tank, plane, or ship that can run on batteries and while drone technology has continued to advance in many critical ways they don't bring the big bombs quite yet. Naturally the United States in the event of a war is going to at least consider if not outright strike Chinese energy facilities, and deny imports of oil which are critical to supply chains and conducting a war.
If China's only theater is perhaps Taiwan that's probably less of an issue, but then you've got the United States with its, in my view, inferior supply chain, operating unfettered, similar to during World War II while the Chinese supply chain both local and superior particularly for small or "low cost" components is facing both energy stress and stress from missiles or other attacks.
I don't mean to sound pro-USA here or to suggest there aren't other significant advantages or disadvantages for either the United States or China, but to just highlight that your thoughtful comment here which seems to imply that China's massive industrial capacity is akin to the United States' during World War II is not quite an apples-to-apples comparison.