Looking at the same question from a variety of angles. My evaluation is that the US is in an extremely weak position, due to the combination of low industrial capacity, demoralization, poor leadership, low physical quality of the recruiting pool, and a foreign policy that has left the US with allies only amongst militarily insignificant countries.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's high praise coming from you - your recent piece on the Mandela effect had me in stitches (and I couldn't help relating your hypothesis to some physicists I know over beers).
I recommend that we all stop referring to Communist China, and start referring to National Socialist China, because that's closer to what they are.
I want loopholes! And so I will try some nitpicks, not out of any sense of personal competence in this area, but just looking for less woe.
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The business of switching from manufacturing consumer and commercial goods to making war machines has changed dramatically from the Roosevelt days. Military contractors tend to be more dedicated to doing just military stuff than in days past. In the US the mindset for military contracting is completely alien to the market world because the federal government is both purchaser and investor. (I have seen this personally, as I used to be in that world.)
The US of the 1930s was super peacetime. Recall the Kellogg Briand pact, and how pacifist the American Right was. On the other hand, we had mothballed a lot of industrial capacity due to the Great Depression. Today, military equipment is what supports the US dollar as you have pointed out in past posts. This might be an anti loophole!
On the gripping hand, we have some capabilities mothballed from the Cold War days. And we have a vast reservoir of potential factory labor and cannon fodder in the form of able bodied welfare recipients and tough guys twiddling their thumbs in jail. There are also many mothballed factories on the civilian side from our policy of Subsidized Outsourcing.
Finally, America has grown mighty soft. But if war becomes existential, we could harden up substantially. If we accept that casualties are going to happen, we could take a more Total Quantity Management approach to fighter planes, for example. We could offer military service as an alternative to prison for street toughs, like we did in the old days. We could give drill sergeants real power to punish for such recruits. We also have a vast reservoir of illegal immigrants. A policy of Go Fight or Go Home would give us a foreign legion real quick.
But could we transition fast enough? Or could we recruit real allies in time, say a remilitarization of Japan or an official alliance with Vietnam?
An excellent and much needed analysis. I was oddly gratified to see that your experience at West Point mirrored my experience in ROTC - hence no military career for me either. It chafed at the time but I still managed to work for the Pentagon and can truly appreciate not having to take orders the same way as my uniformed friends must.
As other's have said, I fear that the combat effectiveness of the US military is grossly exaggerated, though I understand the reasons you mentioned in comments for doing so. Without going into discussion of equipment, which is laughably obsolete in most cases, the two most important aspects in a war, especially a long one, are morale and logistics.
Simply put, the logistics tail to maintain a US fleet or division is so long, complex and contains so many points of critical failure, that I don't see these units maintaining cohesion in the face of opposition. We can barely manage in peacetime, when we aren't shipping vast quantities of inventory to Ukraine. Speaking of San Antonio-class, an entire embarked MEU was stuck at sea last spring with nothing but MREs for two weeks because of a supply breakdown.
Which feeds into morale. The US military is almost delusionally hyper-convinced of it's own superiority in battle. This is a vicious pendulum on the field - when you enter the field of battle thinking you CANNOT lose, and then CANNOT win, or are totally outclassed, it creates panic in the short term and combat hesitancy in the long term. Americas will be thunderstruck when the first two or three carriers go down to kinetic kill vehicles, hypersonic missiles or good old fashioned SS torpedoes. The danger of nuclear escalation by a totally impotent US military structure is very high in all these scenarios.
I'll add my area of expertise to another commenters thoughts about East Asia. Vietnam will never join the US against China. They are pragmatists to the n-th degree, focused solely on survival. The Japanese are much more likely to join Russia than to remilitarize and join the US against China and Russia. They are already deeply wary of the US's commitment and capabilities - it's an open secret in Japanese military circles. No one knows better how feeble the US 7th Fleet is than Japan. They MAY remilitarize. If they do it will not be for the benefit of the US. Their long-term strategic interests lie with Russia, which can provide energy as no one else on earth can, and also provide a counterbalance to China, which Russia would need to have. This was part of Abe's life's work - a life that was suddenly and violently ended, I might add.
It sounds like the morale and logistics situation is even worse than I feared.
I didn't know that Japan was considering a reorientation to Russia. That makes sense. It would have made sense for *us* to ally with Russia against China, too. Allowing Russia to enter China's sphere is the greatest strategic mistake we could have made.
Morale is in a terminal velocity plummet. Skyrocketing suicides, largest peacetime desertion rate, Vaxx mandate discharges of the most competent and respected and mandatory degeneracy celebrations - I seriously worry about unit cohesion in garrison, let alone when deployed into combat.
Japan's been trying to resolve issues with the Russia a long time - amicably. Even when they were forced under the US umbrella, the Japanese made sure the alliance treaty wouldn't pull them into an American war with the USSR. They've been forced into the US orbit, but alone amongst all the US-aligned "powers" they've resisted the siren call of the GAE; for example, they routinely buy oil from Iran.
For Japan it's all about energy and staying ahead of China. Until the Oil Crisis of the 70s, Japan assumed America would take care of that. Crack #1.
After Tiananmen Square, the Japanese expected harsh penalties would be laid on the Chinese. Instead, to their complete shock and dismay, the US spent a decade selling/sending advanced weaponry, advanced industrial secrets, and a globe spanning industrial capacity (the one you reference in the article) to China. Crack #2.
Since 9-11, the US has been trying to get the Japanese to break their Constitution (that the US foisted on them at gunpoint in 1945) in ordered to fight wars in the Middle East. As this would disrupt energy supply, the only thing that matters to Japan, they demurred and began building up a large energy infrastructure with the Russians - natgas & oil - in the Russian Far East. Billions and billions went to develop these fields, with Japan receiving, for the first time in history, stable nearby supplies of energy. These pipelines and terminals were just coming fully online in the last few years when the US forced Japan to boycott Russian energy. The much ballyhooed privation facing the denizens of the EU is nothing compared to what the energy starved Japanese will be going through this winter. Crack #3
All Japanese leadership now knows, as the Russians do, the US cannot be trusted - "non-agreement capable", as I think Lavrov said. They are a dangerous loose cannon whose monetary polices almost sent the yen into a complete tailspin this spring. Remember, the Japanese are not bound ideologically and religiously to the GAE as the EU is. So Japan has 3 options:
1. Stay with the US, who they view as an increasingly irrational, dangerous to their sovereignty, economy, and, with the spread of transsexual theology, their culture.
2. Succumb gradually as an arch-satrapy of a Clinton-empowered Super China.
3. Partner with a Russia that has neither territorial nor economic designs on the Japanese sphere, and which needs a high tech Asian superpower to partner with. China is a positively unnatural choice for the Russians. The Russians grasp feebly at India but India is a basket-case.
They will try to quietly wind down #1 and try to spin up #3, to avoid #2.
The Japanese, who, as John Dower has pointed out, are almost uniquely unable to change course absent outside influence, will have a major crisis, likely economic. The political turmoil that follows will see the victor reach out to Russia. Secure stable, cheap energy supplies and a secured northern flank will not only protect Japan from metastasizing Chinese incursion, but will give Japan the boost it needs to reclaim it's economic vitality.
I hope it doesn't take that crisis, and I hope Russia isn't too deeply in the thrall of China by then.
Has there been any movement on the Kuril dispute lately that I missed?
Japan reorienting toward Russia has always made a ton of sense, and were they less sensitive about public face (though less so than China by far) and less under the shadow (threat) of the US umbrella, it likely would have happened sooner.
Abe's diplomatic team (everything is team based in Japan) had reached a tentative (in 2019) agreement with Russia for a sovereign, but not jurisdictional return of the southern 2 of the 4 Kuriles Japan claimed. Essentially a kind of Hong Kong deal - Japanese sovereignty would be recognized but for many decades would remain under Russian jurisdiction for the sake of the Russian islanders, then a period of handover and eventual Japanese sovereignty per treaty. That was all scuppered in 2019 when the US forced Japan into condemning Russia and withdrawing negotiating teams.
Because the negotiations were very much a personal endeavor between Abe-Putin, like Reagan-Nakasone, the issue of rapprochement is dead. This gives me dark thoughts about the motivations behind the Abe assassination.
If it comes to an international WWIII, as opposed to a domestic Civil War II going international only as other players support sides locally, the United States has a weak hand. No doubt about it. The citizen peoples of the various states within the US, however, could well have a stronger hand vis-a-vis those peoples whose castes within the US have crafted and maintaned the petrodollar system, the hyper-financialization that began even before that, the social disintegration, etc.
Personally, I view more proxy fighting ending in a North American nuclear-armed domestic conflict more as likely than a maximum-effort foreign conflagration. Having been in the financial side of US defense aviation parts manufacturing (as a small cog with avid curiosity) during the beginning and heights of COVID, the degradation in materiel available for actual warfighting (including quality) is, I believe, going to shock people. And since the petrodollar system has not absolutely imploded quite yet, there are yet still some in military leadership who want to hide the capability degradation to prevent the whole US institutional/legal infrastructure from collapsing.
I agree that civil war is as or more likely than world war. "Why not both?" may also be the correct answer. It would be easy to imagine a secession state inviting China or Russia to help it, much as the Confederacy hoped to gain help from France.
That's disturbing to hear about our defense industry, but each person who has chimed in with any insider information has all had the same theme -- "Woe, it's worse than you think."
I wouldn't. They are becoming more internationally hated, and ignored, by the day and have proven themselves agreement incapable. No one trusts them and no one likes them.
Late to the party, sorry I missed the early festivities!
One thing that you seemed to have missed re: a WWN is that there are more potential great powers than the 3 you mention. The biggest being India. Watch some presentations Peter Zeihan makes to Indian elites and watch how they salivate when he tells them they'll be an up-and-coming nation in the future. They almost whip it out to finish themselves off when he points out that in a chaotic world they'll get 1st dibs on ME oil, with China at the far end getting the leftovers.
Re: CW2-
Even if China has some leverage in DC, if they are playing for the big enchilada they'll want to see the US split in 2+ chunks. No matter how much influence they might have in DC, they are only a President Hitler, Stalin, Putin, or similar away from being booted out completely, with the US reverting back to being their biggest threat. But now with serious leadership. OTOH, a split up and weakened US would allow China the freedom to advance it's interests internationally far more than currently.
Therefore I think whichever side looks the weakest is the side that would get support from Chin/Rus, and only enough support to keep the CW going. Of course, India might jump in on the other side, with the same intent of keeping the CW going to drain China/Rus.
A further complication is that I'm not sold on the stiffness of the China/ Rus alliance. China is massively expanding it's influence in Asia, including the central Asian 'stans that are traditionally within Russia's sphere of influence. If the US was serious, it would have teamed up with Russia against China as China is the obvious threat to both. Rus is a declining power with a surplus of territory while China is a rising power with a dearth of territory. That rarely ends well for the declining power, and Russia is not the type of nation to let itself play 2nd fiddle.
If I was writing a book of fiction I'd probably have the US split up into 4 parts, with China/Rus backing Aztlan People's Republic of CA and the SW, EU backing northeast Regime, Japan backing White people's Midwest/ PNW alliance, S America backing Wakanda for no reason other than to get back at the US for fucking with them for so many decades. India would also back Wakanda just to keep it going, but would eventually say "Africa wins again" and trade it to the Regime for Guam.
In the 5th book of the trilogy I'd have Rus backstab China by joining Japan, with technology suddenly being able to negate nukes so they could invade the mainland. Then every nation destroys its enemies' infrastructure with conventional weapons, so my next trilogy could be a Mad Max scenario.
You are 100% correct about the industrial capacity, in a long war we loose.. My take is thet the naval war is a make or break event. If the US can successfully blockade China and use unrestricted submarine warfare. We can strangle thier greater production and starve them. You cannot make more steel if you cannot get iron ore. Regardless of what people believe, China is a maritime nation more than 90% of thier trade comes from the sea. This is why they are building coal and nuclear power plants because they know the oil supply is at risk. The aircraft carriers are huge targets for the CCP and we need to stop building them, ramp up SSN construction and consider building of AIP Diesel boats. The destruction of even one super carrier would be a massive propaganda victory. Based on the operation history of the USN ans idiotic social policies, I fear we may take substantial losses early on. On the plus side the CCP has now significant naval warfare history, but they are close to thier bases and the US is not.
Great points. The only thing I'd quibble about is calling the US "we." I don't identify with our ruling elites, and have little empathy with those who signed up to do it's bidding.
I've heard good arguments that large surface ships are virtually useless in a peer-vs-peer war, for the same reason that battleships were obsolete in WW2. The range at which ships can be spotted and sunk by non-capital ship assets is far greater than the range that capital ships can reach.
Planes can fly 1k+ miles, launch a missile with 1k+ mile range, return to get more missiles. Even if anti-missile tech works as advertised (which never happens) its still just a matter of how many millions of dollars do you want to spend to destroy billions of dollars of ships and kill thousands of men. Ships and missiles can be replaced far faster than capital ships.
That makes sense to me. I suppose the open question, then, becomes the match-up between Chinese missiles and US carriers, between our and their fifth generation fighters, and so on.
- Where and how is China getting its resources for this war? Thinking iron ore, hydrocarbons and a growing amount of imported food. It already imports huge quantities of raw materials, and I'm assuming its hunger for them would only increase in a total war? If its plan is to grab them quickly at the very start....well we've been here before. We know how that story ends.
- America is not alone. In fact far from it. It is an alliance structure, and some of the members of that alliance structure are significant nodes in the global industrial and economic system. Japan, the UK and other Five Eyes, the European Core, even as it it currently stands India as part of the Quad.
- China is old, as is Russia. They both have collapsing birth rates. Seems to me they better act soon or its pretty much too late.
- How are they both financing this war? Are they paying for it with US dollars?
1) Russia and the rest of the none western world which is quiet happy to trade with China (& Russia as well)
2) The UK hasn´t been a significant industrial node since the 80´s, Europe has been hollowed out deliberately by the Germans vie the Euro over the last 30 years, India will not join a US war against China/Russia and Japan has no raw resources or ability to protect it´s ports.
3) A sold-out myth based on circumstances that no longer apply.
4) They have their own fiat currencies so they can pay for it like the USA and unlike the USA they are net exporters.
Looks like jack beat me to the punch, but here's my thoughts.
1) Russia can supply most of the resources that China needs. For this reason, the grand strategy we've chosen is moronic -- we've created the very thing we feared, a World Island.
2) I agree, America will have some help from allies. But it's not clear *how much* help. And it's also not clear how much help China and Russia will get from, say, Iran, Turkey, etc. So I figured I'd just leave that out of the analysis, at least for now.
3) I agree completely. This is why I think war is imminent.
4) I have previously predicted that the petrodollar system will collapse. The war will come simultaneous with, or after, that collapse, IMO.
- On point one, the vast majority of Chinese import inputs come via the sea. As do their exports. That’s a hard problem for them to overcome. Even with the money they are splashing in these Belt Road things, sea transport still dwarfs rail/road. I think this matters, and it matters a lot. We don’t live in the Pax Mongolica era, we still live in the seaborne trade era. This is why I don’t get Jack saying Japan is a right off because of its “ports”. If it gets so bad America no longer controls the first and second island chain, then I’ll be the first to start learning Mandarin.
- Americas control of the high ground of the worlds financial and monetary system matters greatly. War is finance. This mattered during both previous World Wars for the Allies
- Both if you are really underplaying Americas current political dominance/control of vital parts of the worlds industrial centres outside its borders, while at the same time talking up China and Russia’s game. Jack mentions Iran? Come on. Turkey maybe, but it’s currently supplying Ukraine with kit, has been a competitor with Russia since Ottoman times, has vied with Iran since it’s inception, and if it really wants to be regional hegemon would be best placed backing the faraway US.
There are going to be so many grand bargains coming, so many cards being played, and in this the US and it’s alliance structure still has the most cards
Hence the BRI, which includes pipelines. Pipelines which are also vulnerable, but so are our pipelines...
Interesting side discussion all around. The one thing I'd add is that Japan is not the weak sister some might think she is. Japan has some of the most advanced subs in the world, and many of the ships in their current navy just happen to have the same name as warships of the IJN...
If Japan wanted nukes, it would have them very quickly. Unless Japan is stupid, they want nukes. Japan isn't stupid...
Everything you have said is true but subs can´t protect ports from missiles. In a real BIG war China will simple destroy the cranes and the offloading facilities. Good luck manhandling a 20t container. Also what cargo crew is going to commit suicide to dock in Japan? Japan like the west has no real air defence against missiles/rockets. Russia does and it is willing to sell (Turkey, China etc).
I´m going to answer Nathan´s points since I think he is speaking in good faith but just doesn't understand the reality and that will cover the Malacca Straights nonsense. Just busy and it will probably be slightly long & I´m lazy about something I have no control over.
TLDR: The USA cannot win a sea war against combined Russia/China in the Pacific/Indian oceans. Also I think the US submarine force is the best in the world but that still wont matter.
N subs USA 69, RF~24, UK/FR 6 each, others meh.
To joe : Malacca Straights nonsense, well why doesn´t China use some of those trillions of US $ it has to build a canal over Thailand with US money? It was estimated to cost $8-10 billion! Well everyone knows it is stupid to waste money on nonsense. Think about this, how will the US navy cut off the Malacca Straights without going to war with everyone there, use a map. This isn´t the 1840´s or even the 1940´s.
The Malacca Straights was never a chokepoint for Japan after they took control of Malaysia, Singapore & Dutch Indonesia. Also bulk shipping is around 1-3% of the cost of what you are shipping (LNG is much more for reasons, petroleum is less than 1% normally), rail is around 3-8% depending on circumstances such as ROI. Look at a map of the Malacca Straights and think ´how would I survive´, then explain why the US navy has super powers.
One major difference between the present brewing conflict and past conflicts however, that few people seem to really be accounting for, is that native populations of these powers are shrinking, not growing. China especially has an inverted population pyramid, but so does Russia and the U.S. Each successive year of the war will see fewer new bodies coming of age to replace losses and maintain economies.
I also haven't seen much analysis on the issue of India. What is the likelihood they get involved, and for which side? Thats a LOT of potential bodies, and a growing population, with an ok industrial sector.
India is very much a swing state. I'm not sure if even India knows which side it would choose if a major war broke out.
The inverted population pyramid that China is facing makes me think they'll want to fight sooner rather than later. Time isn't on their side in that regard.
Time isn't on almost anyone's side right now. Official fertility rates are dropping in most every country that isn't being paid to inflate their reported figures.
A bit of information: At this point you would think that someone would start to be worried about the Chinese and Russians potentially eating our lunch in a hot or at least "warm" conflict. Though organizations such as the US Navy are starting to mouth some platitudes at the uppermost levels, all of the counterproductive programs of a stupid, fat, lazy nation are still in place. Personnel are told to be innovative but to still follow all the rules that squash innovation and productivity.
I don't have any inside information or Pentagon access to know such things, but what you are describing definitely matches what I have heard elsewhere.... the military is now run by clown world and is in no shape for real war.
William S Lind would probably disagree re the USA having better-trained soldiers, given his schtick about the US military largely being a 2nd generation war military. I don't know about the Chinese military, but if they can control the Indian Ocean with their allies, they can just wait until their industrial advantage is overwhelming.
The other thing of course is the issue of diversity - China is much more homogeneous than the USA, and so is Russia. How many of the Hispanics coming over the southern border will want to take up arms and go off to fight China...?
My understanding is that the PLA is structurally a very poor military, but a very good domestic enforcement and industrial production institution, with many military assets being invested not in military production, but in production of goods for the domestic consumer markets over there.
The US is a poor military due to defects in the upper echelons of the officer corps and the civilian instituional controls.
Like the US, the Chinese homeland is pretty much uninvadable from the outside at the moment, unless their invader was willing to rack up a proportionally greater civilian body count greater than the An Lushan Rebellion. (The US is uninvadable due to the huge number of civilian owned weapons of mindboggling variety.)
At this point, I think two of the three potential combatants in the scenario are paper tigers in the boots on the ground arena. And the third seems mostly focused on regional dominion.
Troops that are disillusioned tend to go AWOL or just avoid the fight as much as they can.
Imagine the women, soyboys, trannies and dykes reaction to real combat. Russia and China don't have that problem which is a massive multiplier.
No one fears the US anymore, and for good reason. They all know we can be beaten quickly, they have all been preparing for this for decades and the time is right.
They have only a few more keystrokes to wipe the US dollar off the face of the planet and then it's over. (Or maybe the beginning? I'm trying to be optimistic!)
Morale is of course the topic of the second installment, which I published today. My assessment of American morale finds it to be rather poor, with limited will to fight....
Given the 'world island' concept earlier, and the role Russia is likely to play here, i think a plausible american strategy might be: "try and hold china away from taiwan, and take our russia early, then negotiate a peace with china."
Maybe you keep up a constant barrage on the straight between taiwan and china, while allowing ships to come in from the southwest side of the island; make it impossible for Chinese land troops to cross. without trying to go at china directly.
I would think american would also have help from countries near china that actively don't want china to be the global superpower - but this could be wrong
I do think America would have aid from other parts of the world, but so would China and Russia. It seemed plausible to me to assume that the world would be split between the sides and that would balance out.
I think "try to take out Russia first" is, in fact, our strategy.
Any idea how much the rest of the world matters here, in the conflict?
I got the impression that LOTS of countries would love to see the US empire ended. Depending on how it starts and the posturing, i imagine that plenty of other countries would say, look, we don't feel like helping you hold onto power, America.
India seems like they'd be the biggest question here, and could play kingmaker. I imagine if i'm India i'd rather see the us hegemony end but i really don't want china running the world. I _think_ if i'm india, what i want is this conflict to play on long enough for china to break due to domestic turmoil, so i can lead a coalition of democracies that plans to replace the us/eu hegemony, possibly offering olive branches to russia and china.
Fascinating piece. I agree with your conclusion that a manufacturing economy beats a service economy when mobilizing for war. Factories beat out burger flippers and retail space. Someone should inform the neocons in Washington. This is the first analysis I’ve seen that takes into account the kind of GDP as opposed to the level of GDP. I also think your analysis of the relative effectiveness of military spending is interesting. The difference in cost between a Chinese aircraft carrier and a US one is startling. It also seems that some of our high-level military people are very focused on issues not related to preparing to fight. It’s my understanding that other militaries concern themselves with being able to achieve military objectives.
A few questions:
• Much of your examples involve older conflicts or conflicts between non-nuclear powers. Doesn’t the possibility of a war going nuclear change the strategic calculations?
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on the location and aims of a conflict on your projected outcome.
o A US invasion of China might be impossible. Besides a huge geography and huge population, my understanding is they have hypersonic projectiles that can sink an aircraft carrier. No idea how we’d land.
o I can’t see how invading Russia would work due to the size of the place, the weather, and their nuclear stockpile. How do we maintain supply lines?
o I also don’t see how China or Russia could invade the US and occupy it. Even putting aside our nuclear arsenal, the country is 3,000 miles wide by 1,000 miles long with varied terrain and half a billion guns. The only way that works is if the communists in our government succeed in disarming the population prior to an invasion. FWIW, a former Presidential National Security Advisor I know thinks a substantial portion of US corporations, the media, and many of our government officials are already on the Chinese payroll.
• If we’re not contemplating an invasion of the homeland, then where’s the conflict geographically?
o The US can tie Russia up in Ukraine for a while. Both countries got caught in Afghanistan forever and know how to fund an insurgency against the other side. This assumes Europe can go without Russian gas and the world can go without Ukrainian wheat.
o I spoke with a former high level military officer and Presidential military advisor who thinks the US can defend Taiwan. I’m skeptical we can/would bring enough firepower to China’s border on what they consider to be an existential issue. Plus, what happens to Taiwan Semiconductor and a tech-enabled world that can no longer get the best computer chips in the world.
o China is busy getting much of South America on its side, but they seem more interested in colonizing Africa than invading S. America.
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on non-military warfare
o The Chinese already own our media and all mass communication is filtered to fit their preferred narrative.
o My understanding is the US can pull chip designs that TSMC needs and stop high-level manufacturing. But if anyone destroys those plants or stops them, I think our military might be in trouble. Not sure how much we get from TSMC and how much from Samsung, but those are the best chip-makers in the world.
o I also think most of our military equipment relies on foreign semiconductors including all missile guidance systems. As much as I’m a free market guy, I’d pay TSMC to build plants here and hand out green cards to everyone who works there from the engineers to the janitors.
o China makes 90% of our pharmaceuticals. We used to make them in PR, but someone in Congress thought they could get more taxes from the pharma Cos. and they all moved production to China. The Chinese can turn off the spigot and kill grandma (along with everyone with a heart or cholesterol problem). How much of our population is currently on anti-depressants? That level of withdrawal all at once would be startling - not to mention people who have other urgent medical conditions.
o The Russians have shown an ability to hack our electrical grid and could possibly take it down. My understanding is that we could harden the entire system for a few billion dollars which is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but no one has shown an interest in doing so probably for the Thomas Sowell reason – politicians get no credit for spending money to prevent the thing that didn’t happen.
o No idea what US capability is for non-military warfare, but the US and Russia probably have the best hackers in the world. Strange to think the whole thing could come down to a newly found backdoor in someone’s military access. Kind of the 2022 version of the enigma machine.
Just my thoughts for the day. Again, thanks for the great article.
• Much of your examples involve older conflicts or conflicts between non-nuclear powers. Doesn’t the possibility of a war going nuclear change the strategic calculations?
Yes, it does. However, my personal opinion is that nuclear weapons will be to the Third World War what poison gas weapons were in the Second World War. In WWII, everyone had poison gas in their inventory, but nobody deployed it the way they had in WWI. Somehow, even in the midst of firebombing cities and unrestricted sub warfare and so on, somehow they restrained themselves from largescale use of chemical weapons. I think it will be somewhat similar with nuclear weapons. We might see some small scale use, of course; and I could just be totally wrong and we all get blown up. Part of the reason there'll be no nukes is I don't think the war will be fought in homefronts (see below), at least not initially.
Corollary to this belief is a second belief: the really nasty stuff in WWIII will be new types of weapons not previously deployed, such as biological weapons and cyberwarfare targeting the civilian population. Nobody has caused mass starvation with cyberwar yet, so there's no taboo.
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on the location and aims of a conflict on your projected outcome.
I think the most likely scenario is imperial overreach by increasingly-desperate American leaders, leading to an unintended escalation with China or Russia. Then, in order to drum up support, one or both sides will engage in false flag attacks, to justify further escalation. The war aim for both sides is global hegemony.
o A US invasion of China might be impossible. Besides a huge geography and huge population, my understanding is they have hypersonic projectiles that can sink an aircraft carrier. No idea how we’d land.
o I can’t see how invading Russia would work due to the size of the place, the weather, and their nuclear stockpile. How do we maintain supply lines?
I actually think most of the fighting will take place outside of the home territory of the great powers. For instance, in the Korean War, the US fought China, but since the American and Chinese troops were in Korea, this wasn't "really" a war between US and China.
We might fight China in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, or India. We might Russia in one of the Baltic States, Poland, Iran, or Syria, say.
o I also don’t see how China or Russia could invade the US and occupy it. Even putting aside our nuclear arsenal, the country is 3,000 miles wide by 1,000 miles long with varied terrain and half a billion guns. The only way that works is if the communists in our government succeed in disarming the population prior to an invasion. FWIW, a former Presidential National Security Advisor I know thinks a substantial portion of US corporations, the media, and many of our government officials are already on the Chinese payroll.
They would occupy us but only after we'd already been defeated. Think "peacekeepers" sent int to oversee the "administrative downsizing" of the American empire. I'd like to believe there'd be an insurgency to resist them, but.... I agree with the NS Advisor, btw.
• If we’re not contemplating an invasion of the homeland, then where’s the conflict geographically?
See above!
o The US can tie Russia up in Ukraine for a while. Both countries got caught in Afghanistan forever and know how to fund an insurgency against the other side. This assumes Europe can go without Russian gas and the world can go without Ukrainian wheat.
Personally I don't think Europe can go without Russian gas, and I do expect to see worldwide starvation starting this winter... And refugee population movement will follow in the aftermath, sending further shocks.
o I spoke with a former high level military officer and Presidential military advisor who thinks the US can defend Taiwan. I’m skeptical we can/would bring enough firepower to China’s border on what they consider to be an existential issue. Plus, what happens to Taiwan Semiconductor and a tech-enabled world that can no longer get the best computer chips in the world.
In playtesting of my World War Next wargame (unpublished), America was not able to defend Taiwan.
o China is busy getting much of South America on its side, but they seem more interested in colonizing Africa than invading S. America.
Yes, I think because Africa is so resource rich and, perhaps, easier to exploit. In South America you always run the risk of Americans shouting "Monroe Doctrine" ruining all your plans...
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on non-military warfare
It has already begun...
o The Chinese already own our media and all mass communication is filtered to fit their preferred narrative.
Indeed.
o My understanding is the US can pull chip designs that TSMC needs and stop high-level manufacturing. But if anyone destroys those plants or stops them, I think our military might be in trouble. Not sure how much we get from TSMC and how much from Samsung, but those are the best chip-makers in the world.
My understanding is that we no longer have the know-how to make those chips ourselves. How we lost it, I don't know, but we're now second rate in chips.
o I also think most of our military equipment relies on foreign semiconductors including all missile guidance systems. As much as I’m a free market guy, I’d pay TSMC to build plants here and hand out green cards to everyone who works there from the engineers to the janitors.
Agreed.
o China makes 90% of our pharmaceuticals. We used to make them in PR, but someone in Congress thought they could get more taxes from the pharma Cos. and they all moved production to China. The Chinese can turn off the spigot and kill grandma (along with everyone with a heart or cholesterol problem). How much of our population is currently on anti-depressants? That level of withdrawal all at once would be startling - not to mention people who have other urgent medical conditions.
Agreed, this will be devastating.
o The Russians have shown an ability to hack our electrical grid and could possibly take it down. My understanding is that we could harden the entire system for a few billion dollars which is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but no one has shown an interest in doing so probably for the Thomas Sowell reason – politicians get no credit for spending money to prevent the thing that didn’t happen.
o No idea what US capability is for non-military warfare, but the US and Russia probably have the best hackers in the world. Strange to think the whole thing could come down to a newly found backdoor in someone’s military access. Kind of the 2022 version of the enigma machine.
Agreed. Referencing my comments above, this is exactly the sort of "unrestricted warfare" I expect them to undertake.
> I also think most of our military equipment relies on foreign semiconductors including all missile guidance systems. As much as I’m a free market guy, I’d pay TSMC to build plants here and hand out green cards to everyone who works there from the engineers to the janitors.
You'd also need to give them exemptions from all the bureaucratic rules that made it impossible to build semiconductors here in the first place.
> China makes 90% of our pharmaceuticals.
Well, most pharmaceuticals are over-prescribed to the point of having a negative effect on health.
> How much of our population is currently on anti-depressants? That level of withdrawal all at once would be startling
It would certainly be traumatic. Then again, if the bluehairs curl up in a ball of pain, they're not throwing sand into the country's functioning. However, in the long run everyone involved would probably be better for it.
Aug 28, 2022·edited Aug 28, 2022Liked by Tree of Woe
The exemptions would take time. Which, when we don't know what is going to happen, isn't likely going to start until missiles are flying. And would be fought tooth and nail by the paperpushers unless they were all shot or imprisoned.
Yes, but that would still take years to resolve even a disruption, much less a stoppage. In the meantime, most everyone would know *someone* going nuts and needing tons of assistance, diverting resources. Economic warfare.
The trauma would not only be to those going into withdrawal. Our whole population would be traumatized *even though most could use it long term.* Fasting and detoxing from BigPharme would solve a lot of ills, but millions would just die with shortages and the rest would struggle with the rapid change and the resultant trauma.
Some very good points and overall well done but I have two major quibbles.
1.) WWII experience shows that industrialization can be unbelievably fast. Kaiser built 5000 cargo ships in a few years from yards that largely DIDN'T EXIST on Pearl Harbor Day. The US went from building one B24 every 60 hours to one EVERY HOUR in just 2 years using factories BUILT FOR THE PURPOSE.
HOWEVER, I still agree with your basic premise BUT
2.) The idea that we would get into a land war in Asia or allow the US homeland to be invaded without using nuclear weapons is unrealistic. Leaving aside for a moment the questions of WHY WOULD WE FIGHT China & Russia, leaving aside EUR's (admittedly small) contribution (might cancel out Russia though), we simply have no hope of defeating China in a war of attrition due to population disparity ALONE. IF we had a reason to go to war with them, it goes nuclear before we lose the homeland at a minimum. Maybe even before we lose Japan. That was as true in the 50's as it is now.
1) I'd like to hope you're right, but the US economy does not seem capable of doing that anymore. We don't have the industrial capacity to build the factories to increase our industrial capacity fast enough to matter in wartime.
2) I didn't specify in any way the nature of the war. It's my personal opinion that the vast majority of the ground fighting would occur in other people's countries. We'd fight in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Poland, India, Middle East. The conquest of the US, Chinese, or Russian homeland would come at the *end* of the war, not at the beginning.
If that sounds implausible, keep in mind that in WWI, Germany was defeated, occupied, demilitarized, and stripped off its colonies and provinces, *without a single battle taking place on German soil*. That's exactly the sort of outcome I'd expect.
E.g. with its conventional forces destroyed, the US/China/Russia must choose between nuclear annihilation or an armistice that leads to an unpleasant peace in which it loses Alaska/Taiwan/Crimea, demilitarizes, and pays enormous reparations.
According to the prophecy I just read, America prevails, but is left very weak. Germany again becomes a powerhouse, and Britain is utterly destroyed. Have faith!
Interesting analysis. It seems that the only way the US does well are if extremely generous assumptions are made about US combat effectiveness.
I wrote this up a few months ago:
https://barsoom.substack.com/p/why-america-cant-win-world-war-iii
Looking at the same question from a variety of angles. My evaluation is that the US is in an extremely weak position, due to the combination of low industrial capacity, demoralization, poor leadership, low physical quality of the recruiting pool, and a foreign policy that has left the US with allies only amongst militarily insignificant countries.
That's a great essay. We seem to have reached nearly the same conclusion on different grounds.
I just signed up for your substack, thanks for linking it. Do you want to cross-recommend?
I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's high praise coming from you - your recent piece on the Mandela effect had me in stitches (and I couldn't help relating your hypothesis to some physicists I know over beers).
Sure, I'm down for a cross-recommendation!
A truly terrifying analysis!
I recommend that we all stop referring to Communist China, and start referring to National Socialist China, because that's closer to what they are.
I want loopholes! And so I will try some nitpicks, not out of any sense of personal competence in this area, but just looking for less woe.
---
The business of switching from manufacturing consumer and commercial goods to making war machines has changed dramatically from the Roosevelt days. Military contractors tend to be more dedicated to doing just military stuff than in days past. In the US the mindset for military contracting is completely alien to the market world because the federal government is both purchaser and investor. (I have seen this personally, as I used to be in that world.)
The US of the 1930s was super peacetime. Recall the Kellogg Briand pact, and how pacifist the American Right was. On the other hand, we had mothballed a lot of industrial capacity due to the Great Depression. Today, military equipment is what supports the US dollar as you have pointed out in past posts. This might be an anti loophole!
On the gripping hand, we have some capabilities mothballed from the Cold War days. And we have a vast reservoir of potential factory labor and cannon fodder in the form of able bodied welfare recipients and tough guys twiddling their thumbs in jail. There are also many mothballed factories on the civilian side from our policy of Subsidized Outsourcing.
Finally, America has grown mighty soft. But if war becomes existential, we could harden up substantially. If we accept that casualties are going to happen, we could take a more Total Quantity Management approach to fighter planes, for example. We could offer military service as an alternative to prison for street toughs, like we did in the old days. We could give drill sergeants real power to punish for such recruits. We also have a vast reservoir of illegal immigrants. A policy of Go Fight or Go Home would give us a foreign legion real quick.
But could we transition fast enough? Or could we recruit real allies in time, say a remilitarization of Japan or an official alliance with Vietnam?
---
Yes, I am grasping at straws.
I deeply appreciate that you casually dropped "on the gripping hand" without explanation. 10/10
Personally I hope your sentiments above are correct. So if you're grasping at straws, I'll grasp with you.
"deeply appreciate that you casually dropped "on the gripping hand" without explanation. 10/10"
I was going to say exactly the same thing.
Welp, The Straw Grasping is moot.
Here is how Violent the coming Rape is going to be:
Steel (million metric Tonnes), 2021 figures a la World Steel Association:
China - 1,032.8
....
USA - 85.8
Russia - 75.6
... All GDP numbers, all these other fancy "economic" indicators are scams.
What one needs to look at is the *Physical* Economy of Manufacturing, Mining, Production, etc.
With numbers like these... this is going to make Opium "Wars" Rape look like a sideshow.
Wow.
An excellent and much needed analysis. I was oddly gratified to see that your experience at West Point mirrored my experience in ROTC - hence no military career for me either. It chafed at the time but I still managed to work for the Pentagon and can truly appreciate not having to take orders the same way as my uniformed friends must.
As other's have said, I fear that the combat effectiveness of the US military is grossly exaggerated, though I understand the reasons you mentioned in comments for doing so. Without going into discussion of equipment, which is laughably obsolete in most cases, the two most important aspects in a war, especially a long one, are morale and logistics.
Simply put, the logistics tail to maintain a US fleet or division is so long, complex and contains so many points of critical failure, that I don't see these units maintaining cohesion in the face of opposition. We can barely manage in peacetime, when we aren't shipping vast quantities of inventory to Ukraine. Speaking of San Antonio-class, an entire embarked MEU was stuck at sea last spring with nothing but MREs for two weeks because of a supply breakdown.
Which feeds into morale. The US military is almost delusionally hyper-convinced of it's own superiority in battle. This is a vicious pendulum on the field - when you enter the field of battle thinking you CANNOT lose, and then CANNOT win, or are totally outclassed, it creates panic in the short term and combat hesitancy in the long term. Americas will be thunderstruck when the first two or three carriers go down to kinetic kill vehicles, hypersonic missiles or good old fashioned SS torpedoes. The danger of nuclear escalation by a totally impotent US military structure is very high in all these scenarios.
I'll add my area of expertise to another commenters thoughts about East Asia. Vietnam will never join the US against China. They are pragmatists to the n-th degree, focused solely on survival. The Japanese are much more likely to join Russia than to remilitarize and join the US against China and Russia. They are already deeply wary of the US's commitment and capabilities - it's an open secret in Japanese military circles. No one knows better how feeble the US 7th Fleet is than Japan. They MAY remilitarize. If they do it will not be for the benefit of the US. Their long-term strategic interests lie with Russia, which can provide energy as no one else on earth can, and also provide a counterbalance to China, which Russia would need to have. This was part of Abe's life's work - a life that was suddenly and violently ended, I might add.
It sounds like the morale and logistics situation is even worse than I feared.
I didn't know that Japan was considering a reorientation to Russia. That makes sense. It would have made sense for *us* to ally with Russia against China, too. Allowing Russia to enter China's sphere is the greatest strategic mistake we could have made.
Morale is in a terminal velocity plummet. Skyrocketing suicides, largest peacetime desertion rate, Vaxx mandate discharges of the most competent and respected and mandatory degeneracy celebrations - I seriously worry about unit cohesion in garrison, let alone when deployed into combat.
Japan's been trying to resolve issues with the Russia a long time - amicably. Even when they were forced under the US umbrella, the Japanese made sure the alliance treaty wouldn't pull them into an American war with the USSR. They've been forced into the US orbit, but alone amongst all the US-aligned "powers" they've resisted the siren call of the GAE; for example, they routinely buy oil from Iran.
For Japan it's all about energy and staying ahead of China. Until the Oil Crisis of the 70s, Japan assumed America would take care of that. Crack #1.
After Tiananmen Square, the Japanese expected harsh penalties would be laid on the Chinese. Instead, to their complete shock and dismay, the US spent a decade selling/sending advanced weaponry, advanced industrial secrets, and a globe spanning industrial capacity (the one you reference in the article) to China. Crack #2.
Since 9-11, the US has been trying to get the Japanese to break their Constitution (that the US foisted on them at gunpoint in 1945) in ordered to fight wars in the Middle East. As this would disrupt energy supply, the only thing that matters to Japan, they demurred and began building up a large energy infrastructure with the Russians - natgas & oil - in the Russian Far East. Billions and billions went to develop these fields, with Japan receiving, for the first time in history, stable nearby supplies of energy. These pipelines and terminals were just coming fully online in the last few years when the US forced Japan to boycott Russian energy. The much ballyhooed privation facing the denizens of the EU is nothing compared to what the energy starved Japanese will be going through this winter. Crack #3
All Japanese leadership now knows, as the Russians do, the US cannot be trusted - "non-agreement capable", as I think Lavrov said. They are a dangerous loose cannon whose monetary polices almost sent the yen into a complete tailspin this spring. Remember, the Japanese are not bound ideologically and religiously to the GAE as the EU is. So Japan has 3 options:
1. Stay with the US, who they view as an increasingly irrational, dangerous to their sovereignty, economy, and, with the spread of transsexual theology, their culture.
2. Succumb gradually as an arch-satrapy of a Clinton-empowered Super China.
3. Partner with a Russia that has neither territorial nor economic designs on the Japanese sphere, and which needs a high tech Asian superpower to partner with. China is a positively unnatural choice for the Russians. The Russians grasp feebly at India but India is a basket-case.
They will try to quietly wind down #1 and try to spin up #3, to avoid #2.
The Japanese, who, as John Dower has pointed out, are almost uniquely unable to change course absent outside influence, will have a major crisis, likely economic. The political turmoil that follows will see the victor reach out to Russia. Secure stable, cheap energy supplies and a secured northern flank will not only protect Japan from metastasizing Chinese incursion, but will give Japan the boost it needs to reclaim it's economic vitality.
I hope it doesn't take that crisis, and I hope Russia isn't too deeply in the thrall of China by then.
Has there been any movement on the Kuril dispute lately that I missed?
Japan reorienting toward Russia has always made a ton of sense, and were they less sensitive about public face (though less so than China by far) and less under the shadow (threat) of the US umbrella, it likely would have happened sooner.
Abe's diplomatic team (everything is team based in Japan) had reached a tentative (in 2019) agreement with Russia for a sovereign, but not jurisdictional return of the southern 2 of the 4 Kuriles Japan claimed. Essentially a kind of Hong Kong deal - Japanese sovereignty would be recognized but for many decades would remain under Russian jurisdiction for the sake of the Russian islanders, then a period of handover and eventual Japanese sovereignty per treaty. That was all scuppered in 2019 when the US forced Japan into condemning Russia and withdrawing negotiating teams.
Because the negotiations were very much a personal endeavor between Abe-Putin, like Reagan-Nakasone, the issue of rapprochement is dead. This gives me dark thoughts about the motivations behind the Abe assassination.
Ah, yeah, I remember hearing a little about a torpedoed deal now.
Sounds reasonable to have such thoughts with that background in mind.
If it comes to an international WWIII, as opposed to a domestic Civil War II going international only as other players support sides locally, the United States has a weak hand. No doubt about it. The citizen peoples of the various states within the US, however, could well have a stronger hand vis-a-vis those peoples whose castes within the US have crafted and maintaned the petrodollar system, the hyper-financialization that began even before that, the social disintegration, etc.
Personally, I view more proxy fighting ending in a North American nuclear-armed domestic conflict more as likely than a maximum-effort foreign conflagration. Having been in the financial side of US defense aviation parts manufacturing (as a small cog with avid curiosity) during the beginning and heights of COVID, the degradation in materiel available for actual warfighting (including quality) is, I believe, going to shock people. And since the petrodollar system has not absolutely imploded quite yet, there are yet still some in military leadership who want to hide the capability degradation to prevent the whole US institutional/legal infrastructure from collapsing.
I agree that civil war is as or more likely than world war. "Why not both?" may also be the correct answer. It would be easy to imagine a secession state inviting China or Russia to help it, much as the Confederacy hoped to gain help from France.
That's disturbing to hear about our defense industry, but each person who has chimed in with any insider information has all had the same theme -- "Woe, it's worse than you think."
We're gonna need a bigger tree
I'd picture the illegitimate people already in power calling in help more easily than secessionists. But I cannot read the future, praise be.
I wouldn't. They are becoming more internationally hated, and ignored, by the day and have proven themselves agreement incapable. No one trusts them and no one likes them.
Well, given the evidence in Chinese infiltration among them, I could imagine them getting some support from China.
China, other countries run by puppets like them, etc. Yeah.
Late to the party, sorry I missed the early festivities!
One thing that you seemed to have missed re: a WWN is that there are more potential great powers than the 3 you mention. The biggest being India. Watch some presentations Peter Zeihan makes to Indian elites and watch how they salivate when he tells them they'll be an up-and-coming nation in the future. They almost whip it out to finish themselves off when he points out that in a chaotic world they'll get 1st dibs on ME oil, with China at the far end getting the leftovers.
Re: CW2-
Even if China has some leverage in DC, if they are playing for the big enchilada they'll want to see the US split in 2+ chunks. No matter how much influence they might have in DC, they are only a President Hitler, Stalin, Putin, or similar away from being booted out completely, with the US reverting back to being their biggest threat. But now with serious leadership. OTOH, a split up and weakened US would allow China the freedom to advance it's interests internationally far more than currently.
Therefore I think whichever side looks the weakest is the side that would get support from Chin/Rus, and only enough support to keep the CW going. Of course, India might jump in on the other side, with the same intent of keeping the CW going to drain China/Rus.
A further complication is that I'm not sold on the stiffness of the China/ Rus alliance. China is massively expanding it's influence in Asia, including the central Asian 'stans that are traditionally within Russia's sphere of influence. If the US was serious, it would have teamed up with Russia against China as China is the obvious threat to both. Rus is a declining power with a surplus of territory while China is a rising power with a dearth of territory. That rarely ends well for the declining power, and Russia is not the type of nation to let itself play 2nd fiddle.
If I was writing a book of fiction I'd probably have the US split up into 4 parts, with China/Rus backing Aztlan People's Republic of CA and the SW, EU backing northeast Regime, Japan backing White people's Midwest/ PNW alliance, S America backing Wakanda for no reason other than to get back at the US for fucking with them for so many decades. India would also back Wakanda just to keep it going, but would eventually say "Africa wins again" and trade it to the Regime for Guam.
In the 5th book of the trilogy I'd have Rus backstab China by joining Japan, with technology suddenly being able to negate nukes so they could invade the mainland. Then every nation destroys its enemies' infrastructure with conventional weapons, so my next trilogy could be a Mad Max scenario.
You are 100% correct about the industrial capacity, in a long war we loose.. My take is thet the naval war is a make or break event. If the US can successfully blockade China and use unrestricted submarine warfare. We can strangle thier greater production and starve them. You cannot make more steel if you cannot get iron ore. Regardless of what people believe, China is a maritime nation more than 90% of thier trade comes from the sea. This is why they are building coal and nuclear power plants because they know the oil supply is at risk. The aircraft carriers are huge targets for the CCP and we need to stop building them, ramp up SSN construction and consider building of AIP Diesel boats. The destruction of even one super carrier would be a massive propaganda victory. Based on the operation history of the USN ans idiotic social policies, I fear we may take substantial losses early on. On the plus side the CCP has now significant naval warfare history, but they are close to thier bases and the US is not.
Great points. The only thing I'd quibble about is calling the US "we." I don't identify with our ruling elites, and have little empathy with those who signed up to do it's bidding.
I've heard good arguments that large surface ships are virtually useless in a peer-vs-peer war, for the same reason that battleships were obsolete in WW2. The range at which ships can be spotted and sunk by non-capital ship assets is far greater than the range that capital ships can reach.
Planes can fly 1k+ miles, launch a missile with 1k+ mile range, return to get more missiles. Even if anti-missile tech works as advertised (which never happens) its still just a matter of how many millions of dollars do you want to spend to destroy billions of dollars of ships and kill thousands of men. Ships and missiles can be replaced far faster than capital ships.
That makes sense to me. I suppose the open question, then, becomes the match-up between Chinese missiles and US carriers, between our and their fifth generation fighters, and so on.
I have a few quibbles:
- Where and how is China getting its resources for this war? Thinking iron ore, hydrocarbons and a growing amount of imported food. It already imports huge quantities of raw materials, and I'm assuming its hunger for them would only increase in a total war? If its plan is to grab them quickly at the very start....well we've been here before. We know how that story ends.
- America is not alone. In fact far from it. It is an alliance structure, and some of the members of that alliance structure are significant nodes in the global industrial and economic system. Japan, the UK and other Five Eyes, the European Core, even as it it currently stands India as part of the Quad.
- China is old, as is Russia. They both have collapsing birth rates. Seems to me they better act soon or its pretty much too late.
- How are they both financing this war? Are they paying for it with US dollars?
1) Russia and the rest of the none western world which is quiet happy to trade with China (& Russia as well)
2) The UK hasn´t been a significant industrial node since the 80´s, Europe has been hollowed out deliberately by the Germans vie the Euro over the last 30 years, India will not join a US war against China/Russia and Japan has no raw resources or ability to protect it´s ports.
3) A sold-out myth based on circumstances that no longer apply.
4) They have their own fiat currencies so they can pay for it like the USA and unlike the USA they are net exporters.
Looks like jack beat me to the punch, but here's my thoughts.
1) Russia can supply most of the resources that China needs. For this reason, the grand strategy we've chosen is moronic -- we've created the very thing we feared, a World Island.
2) I agree, America will have some help from allies. But it's not clear *how much* help. And it's also not clear how much help China and Russia will get from, say, Iran, Turkey, etc. So I figured I'd just leave that out of the analysis, at least for now.
3) I agree completely. This is why I think war is imminent.
4) I have previously predicted that the petrodollar system will collapse. The war will come simultaneous with, or after, that collapse, IMO.
- On point one, the vast majority of Chinese import inputs come via the sea. As do their exports. That’s a hard problem for them to overcome. Even with the money they are splashing in these Belt Road things, sea transport still dwarfs rail/road. I think this matters, and it matters a lot. We don’t live in the Pax Mongolica era, we still live in the seaborne trade era. This is why I don’t get Jack saying Japan is a right off because of its “ports”. If it gets so bad America no longer controls the first and second island chain, then I’ll be the first to start learning Mandarin.
- Americas control of the high ground of the worlds financial and monetary system matters greatly. War is finance. This mattered during both previous World Wars for the Allies
- Both if you are really underplaying Americas current political dominance/control of vital parts of the worlds industrial centres outside its borders, while at the same time talking up China and Russia’s game. Jack mentions Iran? Come on. Turkey maybe, but it’s currently supplying Ukraine with kit, has been a competitor with Russia since Ottoman times, has vied with Iran since it’s inception, and if it really wants to be regional hegemon would be best placed backing the faraway US.
There are going to be so many grand bargains coming, so many cards being played, and in this the US and it’s alliance structure still has the most cards
"Where and how is China getting its resources for this war?"
Aye.
Oil? All that steel is useless...unless you can 'move' it.
The chokepoint for that oil coming from the Middle East is the Malacca Straights.
Control that and China faces the same dilemma Japan did... trying to move steel...without oil.
Hence the BRI, which includes pipelines. Pipelines which are also vulnerable, but so are our pipelines...
Interesting side discussion all around. The one thing I'd add is that Japan is not the weak sister some might think she is. Japan has some of the most advanced subs in the world, and many of the ships in their current navy just happen to have the same name as warships of the IJN...
If Japan wanted nukes, it would have them very quickly. Unless Japan is stupid, they want nukes. Japan isn't stupid...
Everything you have said is true but subs can´t protect ports from missiles. In a real BIG war China will simple destroy the cranes and the offloading facilities. Good luck manhandling a 20t container. Also what cargo crew is going to commit suicide to dock in Japan? Japan like the west has no real air defence against missiles/rockets. Russia does and it is willing to sell (Turkey, China etc).
I´m going to answer Nathan´s points since I think he is speaking in good faith but just doesn't understand the reality and that will cover the Malacca Straights nonsense. Just busy and it will probably be slightly long & I´m lazy about something I have no control over.
TLDR: The USA cannot win a sea war against combined Russia/China in the Pacific/Indian oceans. Also I think the US submarine force is the best in the world but that still wont matter.
N subs USA 69, RF~24, UK/FR 6 each, others meh.
To joe : Malacca Straights nonsense, well why doesn´t China use some of those trillions of US $ it has to build a canal over Thailand with US money? It was estimated to cost $8-10 billion! Well everyone knows it is stupid to waste money on nonsense. Think about this, how will the US navy cut off the Malacca Straights without going to war with everyone there, use a map. This isn´t the 1840´s or even the 1940´s.
The Malacca Straights was never a chokepoint for Japan after they took control of Malaysia, Singapore & Dutch Indonesia. Also bulk shipping is around 1-3% of the cost of what you are shipping (LNG is much more for reasons, petroleum is less than 1% normally), rail is around 3-8% depending on circumstances such as ROI. Look at a map of the Malacca Straights and think ´how would I survive´, then explain why the US navy has super powers.
joe : To make it clear, explain how the US can cut off the Malacca Straights.
Interesting as usual.
One major difference between the present brewing conflict and past conflicts however, that few people seem to really be accounting for, is that native populations of these powers are shrinking, not growing. China especially has an inverted population pyramid, but so does Russia and the U.S. Each successive year of the war will see fewer new bodies coming of age to replace losses and maintain economies.
I also haven't seen much analysis on the issue of India. What is the likelihood they get involved, and for which side? Thats a LOT of potential bodies, and a growing population, with an ok industrial sector.
India is very much a swing state. I'm not sure if even India knows which side it would choose if a major war broke out.
The inverted population pyramid that China is facing makes me think they'll want to fight sooner rather than later. Time isn't on their side in that regard.
Time isn't on almost anyone's side right now. Official fertility rates are dropping in most every country that isn't being paid to inflate their reported figures.
A bit of information: At this point you would think that someone would start to be worried about the Chinese and Russians potentially eating our lunch in a hot or at least "warm" conflict. Though organizations such as the US Navy are starting to mouth some platitudes at the uppermost levels, all of the counterproductive programs of a stupid, fat, lazy nation are still in place. Personnel are told to be innovative but to still follow all the rules that squash innovation and productivity.
I don't have any inside information or Pentagon access to know such things, but what you are describing definitely matches what I have heard elsewhere.... the military is now run by clown world and is in no shape for real war.
Yeah...but they got them some hellacious 'prounouns' by gawd!
William S Lind would probably disagree re the USA having better-trained soldiers, given his schtick about the US military largely being a 2nd generation war military. I don't know about the Chinese military, but if they can control the Indian Ocean with their allies, they can just wait until their industrial advantage is overwhelming.
The other thing of course is the issue of diversity - China is much more homogeneous than the USA, and so is Russia. How many of the Hispanics coming over the southern border will want to take up arms and go off to fight China...?
But diversity is our strength, Teleros. It even says so on our coins, "e unumus plurum." From one, many. =\
My understanding is that the PLA is structurally a very poor military, but a very good domestic enforcement and industrial production institution, with many military assets being invested not in military production, but in production of goods for the domestic consumer markets over there.
The US is a poor military due to defects in the upper echelons of the officer corps and the civilian instituional controls.
Like the US, the Chinese homeland is pretty much uninvadable from the outside at the moment, unless their invader was willing to rack up a proportionally greater civilian body count greater than the An Lushan Rebellion. (The US is uninvadable due to the huge number of civilian owned weapons of mindboggling variety.)
At this point, I think two of the three potential combatants in the scenario are paper tigers in the boots on the ground arena. And the third seems mostly focused on regional dominion.
Shawn
I have had this video book marked for all most 20 years. Siener was a South African prophet during the Boar war.
Siener Van Rensburg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2lSgXMgRU0
KI5UMB
Duly noted!
It eventually comes down to Morale.
Troops that are disillusioned tend to go AWOL or just avoid the fight as much as they can.
Imagine the women, soyboys, trannies and dykes reaction to real combat. Russia and China don't have that problem which is a massive multiplier.
No one fears the US anymore, and for good reason. They all know we can be beaten quickly, they have all been preparing for this for decades and the time is right.
They have only a few more keystrokes to wipe the US dollar off the face of the planet and then it's over. (Or maybe the beginning? I'm trying to be optimistic!)
Morale is of course the topic of the second installment, which I published today. My assessment of American morale finds it to be rather poor, with limited will to fight....
Given the 'world island' concept earlier, and the role Russia is likely to play here, i think a plausible american strategy might be: "try and hold china away from taiwan, and take our russia early, then negotiate a peace with china."
Maybe you keep up a constant barrage on the straight between taiwan and china, while allowing ships to come in from the southwest side of the island; make it impossible for Chinese land troops to cross. without trying to go at china directly.
I would think american would also have help from countries near china that actively don't want china to be the global superpower - but this could be wrong
I do think America would have aid from other parts of the world, but so would China and Russia. It seemed plausible to me to assume that the world would be split between the sides and that would balance out.
I think "try to take out Russia first" is, in fact, our strategy.
Any idea how much the rest of the world matters here, in the conflict?
I got the impression that LOTS of countries would love to see the US empire ended. Depending on how it starts and the posturing, i imagine that plenty of other countries would say, look, we don't feel like helping you hold onto power, America.
India seems like they'd be the biggest question here, and could play kingmaker. I imagine if i'm India i'd rather see the us hegemony end but i really don't want china running the world. I _think_ if i'm india, what i want is this conflict to play on long enough for china to break due to domestic turmoil, so i can lead a coalition of democracies that plans to replace the us/eu hegemony, possibly offering olive branches to russia and china.
Everything points to India being a HUGE x-factor.
Fascinating piece. I agree with your conclusion that a manufacturing economy beats a service economy when mobilizing for war. Factories beat out burger flippers and retail space. Someone should inform the neocons in Washington. This is the first analysis I’ve seen that takes into account the kind of GDP as opposed to the level of GDP. I also think your analysis of the relative effectiveness of military spending is interesting. The difference in cost between a Chinese aircraft carrier and a US one is startling. It also seems that some of our high-level military people are very focused on issues not related to preparing to fight. It’s my understanding that other militaries concern themselves with being able to achieve military objectives.
A few questions:
• Much of your examples involve older conflicts or conflicts between non-nuclear powers. Doesn’t the possibility of a war going nuclear change the strategic calculations?
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on the location and aims of a conflict on your projected outcome.
o A US invasion of China might be impossible. Besides a huge geography and huge population, my understanding is they have hypersonic projectiles that can sink an aircraft carrier. No idea how we’d land.
o I can’t see how invading Russia would work due to the size of the place, the weather, and their nuclear stockpile. How do we maintain supply lines?
o I also don’t see how China or Russia could invade the US and occupy it. Even putting aside our nuclear arsenal, the country is 3,000 miles wide by 1,000 miles long with varied terrain and half a billion guns. The only way that works is if the communists in our government succeed in disarming the population prior to an invasion. FWIW, a former Presidential National Security Advisor I know thinks a substantial portion of US corporations, the media, and many of our government officials are already on the Chinese payroll.
• If we’re not contemplating an invasion of the homeland, then where’s the conflict geographically?
o The US can tie Russia up in Ukraine for a while. Both countries got caught in Afghanistan forever and know how to fund an insurgency against the other side. This assumes Europe can go without Russian gas and the world can go without Ukrainian wheat.
o I spoke with a former high level military officer and Presidential military advisor who thinks the US can defend Taiwan. I’m skeptical we can/would bring enough firepower to China’s border on what they consider to be an existential issue. Plus, what happens to Taiwan Semiconductor and a tech-enabled world that can no longer get the best computer chips in the world.
o China is busy getting much of South America on its side, but they seem more interested in colonizing Africa than invading S. America.
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on non-military warfare
o The Chinese already own our media and all mass communication is filtered to fit their preferred narrative.
o My understanding is the US can pull chip designs that TSMC needs and stop high-level manufacturing. But if anyone destroys those plants or stops them, I think our military might be in trouble. Not sure how much we get from TSMC and how much from Samsung, but those are the best chip-makers in the world.
o I also think most of our military equipment relies on foreign semiconductors including all missile guidance systems. As much as I’m a free market guy, I’d pay TSMC to build plants here and hand out green cards to everyone who works there from the engineers to the janitors.
o China makes 90% of our pharmaceuticals. We used to make them in PR, but someone in Congress thought they could get more taxes from the pharma Cos. and they all moved production to China. The Chinese can turn off the spigot and kill grandma (along with everyone with a heart or cholesterol problem). How much of our population is currently on anti-depressants? That level of withdrawal all at once would be startling - not to mention people who have other urgent medical conditions.
o The Russians have shown an ability to hack our electrical grid and could possibly take it down. My understanding is that we could harden the entire system for a few billion dollars which is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but no one has shown an interest in doing so probably for the Thomas Sowell reason – politicians get no credit for spending money to prevent the thing that didn’t happen.
o No idea what US capability is for non-military warfare, but the US and Russia probably have the best hackers in the world. Strange to think the whole thing could come down to a newly found backdoor in someone’s military access. Kind of the 2022 version of the enigma machine.
Just my thoughts for the day. Again, thanks for the great article.
Gary, great to see you here.
• Much of your examples involve older conflicts or conflicts between non-nuclear powers. Doesn’t the possibility of a war going nuclear change the strategic calculations?
Yes, it does. However, my personal opinion is that nuclear weapons will be to the Third World War what poison gas weapons were in the Second World War. In WWII, everyone had poison gas in their inventory, but nobody deployed it the way they had in WWI. Somehow, even in the midst of firebombing cities and unrestricted sub warfare and so on, somehow they restrained themselves from largescale use of chemical weapons. I think it will be somewhat similar with nuclear weapons. We might see some small scale use, of course; and I could just be totally wrong and we all get blown up. Part of the reason there'll be no nukes is I don't think the war will be fought in homefronts (see below), at least not initially.
Corollary to this belief is a second belief: the really nasty stuff in WWIII will be new types of weapons not previously deployed, such as biological weapons and cyberwarfare targeting the civilian population. Nobody has caused mass starvation with cyberwar yet, so there's no taboo.
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on the location and aims of a conflict on your projected outcome.
I think the most likely scenario is imperial overreach by increasingly-desperate American leaders, leading to an unintended escalation with China or Russia. Then, in order to drum up support, one or both sides will engage in false flag attacks, to justify further escalation. The war aim for both sides is global hegemony.
o A US invasion of China might be impossible. Besides a huge geography and huge population, my understanding is they have hypersonic projectiles that can sink an aircraft carrier. No idea how we’d land.
o I can’t see how invading Russia would work due to the size of the place, the weather, and their nuclear stockpile. How do we maintain supply lines?
I actually think most of the fighting will take place outside of the home territory of the great powers. For instance, in the Korean War, the US fought China, but since the American and Chinese troops were in Korea, this wasn't "really" a war between US and China.
We might fight China in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, or India. We might Russia in one of the Baltic States, Poland, Iran, or Syria, say.
o I also don’t see how China or Russia could invade the US and occupy it. Even putting aside our nuclear arsenal, the country is 3,000 miles wide by 1,000 miles long with varied terrain and half a billion guns. The only way that works is if the communists in our government succeed in disarming the population prior to an invasion. FWIW, a former Presidential National Security Advisor I know thinks a substantial portion of US corporations, the media, and many of our government officials are already on the Chinese payroll.
They would occupy us but only after we'd already been defeated. Think "peacekeepers" sent int to oversee the "administrative downsizing" of the American empire. I'd like to believe there'd be an insurgency to resist them, but.... I agree with the NS Advisor, btw.
• If we’re not contemplating an invasion of the homeland, then where’s the conflict geographically?
See above!
o The US can tie Russia up in Ukraine for a while. Both countries got caught in Afghanistan forever and know how to fund an insurgency against the other side. This assumes Europe can go without Russian gas and the world can go without Ukrainian wheat.
Personally I don't think Europe can go without Russian gas, and I do expect to see worldwide starvation starting this winter... And refugee population movement will follow in the aftermath, sending further shocks.
o I spoke with a former high level military officer and Presidential military advisor who thinks the US can defend Taiwan. I’m skeptical we can/would bring enough firepower to China’s border on what they consider to be an existential issue. Plus, what happens to Taiwan Semiconductor and a tech-enabled world that can no longer get the best computer chips in the world.
In playtesting of my World War Next wargame (unpublished), America was not able to defend Taiwan.
o China is busy getting much of South America on its side, but they seem more interested in colonizing Africa than invading S. America.
Yes, I think because Africa is so resource rich and, perhaps, easier to exploit. In South America you always run the risk of Americans shouting "Monroe Doctrine" ruining all your plans...
• I’m also curious about your thoughts on non-military warfare
It has already begun...
o The Chinese already own our media and all mass communication is filtered to fit their preferred narrative.
Indeed.
o My understanding is the US can pull chip designs that TSMC needs and stop high-level manufacturing. But if anyone destroys those plants or stops them, I think our military might be in trouble. Not sure how much we get from TSMC and how much from Samsung, but those are the best chip-makers in the world.
My understanding is that we no longer have the know-how to make those chips ourselves. How we lost it, I don't know, but we're now second rate in chips.
o I also think most of our military equipment relies on foreign semiconductors including all missile guidance systems. As much as I’m a free market guy, I’d pay TSMC to build plants here and hand out green cards to everyone who works there from the engineers to the janitors.
Agreed.
o China makes 90% of our pharmaceuticals. We used to make them in PR, but someone in Congress thought they could get more taxes from the pharma Cos. and they all moved production to China. The Chinese can turn off the spigot and kill grandma (along with everyone with a heart or cholesterol problem). How much of our population is currently on anti-depressants? That level of withdrawal all at once would be startling - not to mention people who have other urgent medical conditions.
Agreed, this will be devastating.
o The Russians have shown an ability to hack our electrical grid and could possibly take it down. My understanding is that we could harden the entire system for a few billion dollars which is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but no one has shown an interest in doing so probably for the Thomas Sowell reason – politicians get no credit for spending money to prevent the thing that didn’t happen.
o No idea what US capability is for non-military warfare, but the US and Russia probably have the best hackers in the world. Strange to think the whole thing could come down to a newly found backdoor in someone’s military access. Kind of the 2022 version of the enigma machine.
Agreed. Referencing my comments above, this is exactly the sort of "unrestricted warfare" I expect them to undertake.
> I also think most of our military equipment relies on foreign semiconductors including all missile guidance systems. As much as I’m a free market guy, I’d pay TSMC to build plants here and hand out green cards to everyone who works there from the engineers to the janitors.
You'd also need to give them exemptions from all the bureaucratic rules that made it impossible to build semiconductors here in the first place.
> China makes 90% of our pharmaceuticals.
Well, most pharmaceuticals are over-prescribed to the point of having a negative effect on health.
> How much of our population is currently on anti-depressants? That level of withdrawal all at once would be startling
It would certainly be traumatic. Then again, if the bluehairs curl up in a ball of pain, they're not throwing sand into the country's functioning. However, in the long run everyone involved would probably be better for it.
The exemptions would take time. Which, when we don't know what is going to happen, isn't likely going to start until missiles are flying. And would be fought tooth and nail by the paperpushers unless they were all shot or imprisoned.
Yes, but that would still take years to resolve even a disruption, much less a stoppage. In the meantime, most everyone would know *someone* going nuts and needing tons of assistance, diverting resources. Economic warfare.
The trauma would not only be to those going into withdrawal. Our whole population would be traumatized *even though most could use it long term.* Fasting and detoxing from BigPharme would solve a lot of ills, but millions would just die with shortages and the rest would struggle with the rapid change and the resultant trauma.
Some very good points and overall well done but I have two major quibbles.
1.) WWII experience shows that industrialization can be unbelievably fast. Kaiser built 5000 cargo ships in a few years from yards that largely DIDN'T EXIST on Pearl Harbor Day. The US went from building one B24 every 60 hours to one EVERY HOUR in just 2 years using factories BUILT FOR THE PURPOSE.
HOWEVER, I still agree with your basic premise BUT
2.) The idea that we would get into a land war in Asia or allow the US homeland to be invaded without using nuclear weapons is unrealistic. Leaving aside for a moment the questions of WHY WOULD WE FIGHT China & Russia, leaving aside EUR's (admittedly small) contribution (might cancel out Russia though), we simply have no hope of defeating China in a war of attrition due to population disparity ALONE. IF we had a reason to go to war with them, it goes nuclear before we lose the homeland at a minimum. Maybe even before we lose Japan. That was as true in the 50's as it is now.
1) I'd like to hope you're right, but the US economy does not seem capable of doing that anymore. We don't have the industrial capacity to build the factories to increase our industrial capacity fast enough to matter in wartime.
2) I didn't specify in any way the nature of the war. It's my personal opinion that the vast majority of the ground fighting would occur in other people's countries. We'd fight in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, Latvia, Finland, Poland, India, Middle East. The conquest of the US, Chinese, or Russian homeland would come at the *end* of the war, not at the beginning.
If that sounds implausible, keep in mind that in WWI, Germany was defeated, occupied, demilitarized, and stripped off its colonies and provinces, *without a single battle taking place on German soil*. That's exactly the sort of outcome I'd expect.
E.g. with its conventional forces destroyed, the US/China/Russia must choose between nuclear annihilation or an armistice that leads to an unpleasant peace in which it loses Alaska/Taiwan/Crimea, demilitarizes, and pays enormous reparations.
According to the prophecy I just read, America prevails, but is left very weak. Germany again becomes a powerhouse, and Britain is utterly destroyed. Have faith!
I'm curious which prophecy that is. Care to share it?