vincelee said:
I suppose EthernalDumb@ss has never heard of the word "nuclear deterence"... then again, he probably never went beyond highschool.
Dude, I gotta say that was kind of uncalled for... I don't think anybody here hasn't heard of MAD.
I would add a few more opinions regarding nukes but then again we want to stay away from the "nuking each other" topics...
Speaking of the 5th Generation US fighters (namely JSF, F-22) I'd say the biggest swing factor in a conflict would be the ability to detect them. As long as the stealth factor can be somewhat negated by improved detection capabilities, the US advantage (in an air war) would be considerably limited.
And of course since China doesn't have any capable carriers yet any possible scenario would probably be near Chinese territory, giving them an advantage in Ground radar, SAMs, resources...
It's all hard to say. Head to head I'd probably lean towards the F-22/F-35 winning a straight out fight, but in any modern war there are many factors in deciding victory, such as datalinking, SAMs, range constraints...