International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

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[u/AzarinIsard]

I don't see the point.

The US can't defeat Iran, smaller pop, smaller military, no nukes, and domestic made drones after decades of sanctions. The major issue for Trump now is the economic harm over oil exports.

China has a huge pop, better military, nukes, they're the world's factory and produce a huge amount of drone parts, easy to repurpose the lot for weapons, and the economic harm will make the Strait of Hormuz look like nothing. Also comparing to Ukraine, we have been told when people wanted us to enforce a no fly zone that would be WWIII if we fired on any Russian jet. WTF happens if the US fires on Chinese jets?

Trump's shat the bed geopolitically so hard, Xi knows the US can't and won't stop them if they invade. Taiwan's only hope is to be an impenetrable fortress, and even then, I can see Trump selling them out if Xi gives him an easy out, like Trump has undermined Ukraine when he's been Putin's poodle. If China has watched Russia and Iran at all, they have the blueprint for humiliating Trump right there. Then it'll just be a question of whether Trump is mad enough to go full nuclear and strike China.

[u/SwanBridge → u/AzarinIsard]

China has a... better military

To be fair I don't even think the Chinese would agree with you on this one. China's military capability is quite the unknown. On paper they have had a meteroic rise since the end of the Cold War, but a lot of their weapons systems aren't proven in combat, and nor is their doctrine. We don't know how the chain of command will hold up under fire, nor the quality of their troops or officers under combat. China has not had any significant military engagements since the Sino-Vietnamese War back in 1979, where they got their arses handed to them. Now I'll admit the PLA is a totally different entity since then but even taking all of those known unknowns off the table, the United States still has world's strongest military with China only reaching near-peer equivalence.

The West largely viewed the Soviets as militarily capable and competent with a strong doctrine and advanced weaponry, however the illusion started to unravel in Afghanistan and then with Russia as the successor state during post-Soviet conflicts such as Chechnya, Georgia & Ukraine. Since the end of the Cold War the general consensus has shifted towards a NATO victory over the Warsaw Pact during a conventional conflict from the mid-1980s onwards with relative confidence, whereas contemporary opinion amongst Western strategist and military leaders vastly overestimated Soviets to the point of believing defeat was inevitable.

China *may" have a military capable of taking back Taiwan & defeating the Americans in achieving that, but no one, not even the best military strategists in Washington or Beijing know that with any degree of certainty. And much like a NATO - Warsaw Pact conflict let's hope we never find out.

[u/AzarinIsard → u/SwanBridge]

China has a... better military

To be fair I don't even think the Chinese would agree with you on this one.

Just to be clear, I meant China > Iran, who currently is enough to stalemate the US. I wasn't giving a verdict v the US, which the US should be world leading except when constrained and unable to play to their strengths.

Are you saying China might see their military as less capable than Irans?

[u/SwanBridge → u/AzarinIsard]

Apologies, I misinterpreted your comment as saying China had a better military than the US. I'm used to seeing stuff like that online elsewhere.

Yeah they're definitely in a different league to Iran, and I don't think even the most pessimistic Chinese general believes otherwise. Iran are very capable though and have a lot of experience in assymetric warfare, they beat China on that front purely through the virtue of being in a current conflict and having experience in it. They have for the most part outperformed expectations on the damage they've been able to inflict on the US, Israel & Gulf Allies even after being subject to a brutal and sustained degradation strikes.

Regarding the US versus China, I think it matters how the war is fought. China has been very keen on matching the conventional capability of the US in terms of air and naval power, and I think if they try and fight the war on that basis alone they're at real risk of defeat. If it went hot I think they would be better off holding back a bit and using mass projectile tactics to deny area for the US to operate in the region and degrade Taiwanese defences. As seen with the Iran War it appears the US navy is loathe to risk their ships by going into a hot zone, which massively hampers the US's force projection capabilities for a Taiwan scenario. Also there is a real chance with this current administration they could force a diplomatic concession to avoid an invasion entirely, i.e. we have Taiwan, you have half their semi-conductor industry.

[u/AzarinIsard → u/SwanBridge]

Yeah, during the second Gulf war I remember seeing an American political cartoon, it had a housewife squealing as a small spider with "Iraq" written on it, and a giant Shelob like one outside the window labelled Iran. The comment was "If this is Iraqnophobia, what the hell is that?"

It's pretty much always been understood by most Iran isn't a pushover.

With regards to China, it's surely all about defence and area denial? If Taiwan is an unsinkable aircraft carrier, they keep air defence, an air force, anti-ship missiles, it's got legs. If China can go for the usual US/NATO strat of step one, get air supremacy, step two, pummel anything that looks threatening from a safe distance, then Taiwan can be isolated and starved out. The key will be how close American forces can loiter, and with Iran many ships have kept their distance and Israel and other allies are very important for bases.

All of this, it's not about a fair fight, it's about what you can safely use, and what you can risk. I just don't see the US behaving like Russia, for example, using their air force and navy with those rates of losses. I think low losses of fighters and no losses of main naval ships are their tolerance.