- cross-posted to:
- us_news
- cross-posted to:
- us_news
A report for the Pentagon was released by Arlington, Virginia-based Govini, which in 2019 received a five-year, $400 million contract from the Pentagon to provide data, analysis and information on Department of Defense spending, supply chain and acquisitions.
The report also states that dependence on the Chinese supply chain is present on every major weapons platform, including US aircraft carriers.
It is separately noted that the current dependence on China cannot be resolved even in a decade. Because a “supply chain” at this scale is an entire economy, as it is a network of many firms that buy and sell from each other.
It certainly shows that US military would grind to a halt very quickly if US did go to war with China. I wouldn’t underestimate the sheer stupidity of the political class in US though. These people are completely divorced from material reality.
The military simply wouldn’t do it.
They would if they believe they can easily win
Like the Nazis and their opinion of the Red Army
The fact that the US hasn’t fought an actual power since WWII (and stayed out of that as long as possible) is a good illustration of why I don’t think that’s a useful comparison. This is a rule without exception: the post-WWII US never, ever goes to war with countries even remotely close to being peer states. The biggest power it ever took on directly was Vietnam, and that was only when it could jump in on one side after an extended civil war, and there was still a gargantuan gap in military capacity - and the US still lost! The US just lost to YEMEN. It will not go to war with China.
I’d argue Iraq, Yugoslavia, and a USSR backed DPRK + a late China were very real powers
Let’s not pretend the US military isn’t extremely powerful. They can and do win firefights, it’s just the ideological aspect they fall short on
The US was handed half of Korea after WWII. That war was predetermined, and frankly, half of a ruined Korea + newborn and poor PRC so not qualify as a “peer power” to what was at the time the absolutely undisputed military, industrial, and economic power of the entire world. The only true peers at that time were the USSR and maybe the UK. Also, the US couldn’t win that war. Iraq was a US dependent regional power in the first war and a failed state ruined by sanctions in the second. Also, the US couldn’t win that war. Yugoslavia collapsed primarily due to internal contractions and external squeezing, and the US didn’t put boots on the ground. None of these were in any way peers of the US.
The US military cannot win. It can only destroy, and so it does not go against enemies with true retaliatory capacity. It especially won’t do so against its own manufacturing base.
That would be interesting to see happen. I think we’re on course for something like that to happen in the future.
It won’t come down to a dramatic public break between political and military leaders. Political leaders will say they want war, they’ll go to military leaders through private channels, and the military leaders will say it’s a doomed prospect. None of us will ever hear about it except a few stories from anonymous sources.