plawolf
Lieutenant General
That is simply not true.
Without getting into a pointless X v Y debate, there are numerous flaws with your reasoning.
1) you are assuming the PLAN will be fighting alone while throwing in B2s and F22s on the USN side. That's clearly unrealistic and comparing apples to oranges.
2) you are focusing on a completely untested and effectively unquantifiable measurement of 'experience'.
The USN undisputedly has more experience than the PLAN at world wide patrols and conducting intensive bombing campaigns on opponents without any capability to threaten their ships.
Firstly, that is no substitute for real world combat operations against a near peer opponent with modern weaponry capable of launching decisive attacks on your ships. Under the conditions a real war would be fought under, both sides have precisely the same level of experience, which is zero.
Secondly, even allowing for an operational experience advantage of the USN as would be fair, it would simply be impossible to even guess at, never mind quantify, how big a role that experience would play. Anyone can stick their fingers in the air and claim any impact from none to utterly decisive without anyone else being able to effectively counter it. To engage in such an argument is to engage in an exercise in absolute futility.
3) you are completely disregarding geography and key assets.
Taiwan is closer to China than any US or Japanese base. China's supply route to its bases are also vastly shorter than American supply routes to its bases in the region.
In terms of both number of bases, how well they are defended against attack and assets available at those bases are simply in completely different leagues
Simply put, PLA commanders would be overjoyed if the USAF deployed B2s and F22s to its bases in the region in meaningful numbers during a conflict, as all that would achieve is place those very dangerous assets well within their effective engagement range without even having to consider nukes.
Taking out those bases is one of the primary reasons China has invested heavily in both cruise and ballistic missiles of late.
4) you are using unrealistic assumptions and completely flipping the decision making process.
The central premise of your argument is that the US will easily win any war with minimal cost, and that the US' default position would be to get involved, and that Obama has to actively 'opt out' of the war.
That is simply nonsense.
In a war with China over Taiwan, the outcome is far from assured, and the cost of such a war would be colossal irrespective of outcome for both sides.
Any half responsible US president would need to present a strong enough case to justify involvement at such enormous risks and costs to both himself and his country.
The question isn't whether Obama or any US president would 'allow' China to take Taiwan. It is infinitely more complext and nuanced than that, and I seriously doubt any US present will know that answer himself until he has to make the call for real.
As such, it make zero sense for China to launch a surprise attack, never mind a nuclear one, as all that would achieve is make American involvement a certainty, and make American resolve and commitment to the war absolute. Whereas without such a move, American involvement is far from certain, and even when engaged, American commitment and resolve would be half hearted at best, presenting the possibility of causing America to rethink its commitment if China made the price of war high enough.
Indeed, the only logical rationale for envisaging such an attack would be if one was out deliberately looking for an act to not only get America to engage in war with China, but also commit to it to the bitter end.
Such nonsense only belongs in the cheap kind of escapest literature I am proud to have never wasted my time on.
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