PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC
- Thread starter SEAD
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Indeed. Fundamental and system-wide changes are necessary to reform the US Military into a competitive institution when compared against anything beyond second-rate powers. Insofar as how it is possible, I never said it was. I personally believe that not only will such changes not occur, but that our problems will likely just keep getting worse until a major national-scale failure either snaps us back to reality or precipitates a grim sequence of internal calamities.
As for "Who dares to take on the MIC?" - there do exist some individuals within the .mil world who see reality for what it is, and who have accepted significant damage to their reputations and careers in attempts to create change. Unfortunately, it rarely (if ever) amounts to anything.
It's a good thing patchwork_chimeras are
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General question, but has anything notable PLA wise emerged since you last engaged here in early '23 that significantly surprised you? Could be about a specific PLA system or anything PLA related in general. Just curious which developments in the last couple years, while of course all novel to us, also caught you off guard to any degree or you wouldn't have anticipated back then.
I think this agrees with my point, which is an essential assumption in any projection where the US acquires a favorable balance of power is that the PLA "continue pursuing [its current] vision driven far more by internal resource and economic priorities than external factors."
If the Chinese leadership places absolute military dominance over the US in the Westpac as the overriding national priority, above economic priorities and relaxing relevant internal restraints, then I expect the PLA to successfully achieve that goal regardless of what the US does.
Remember that Chinese "absolute military dominance over the US in the Westpac" has significant economic benefits for China.
It means Chinese factories are secure from US military attack.
In the event of conflict, it also means that Chinese-based supply chains (flowing through neighbouring neutral countries) are a secure option, which means less "decoupling" from China.
So it may be that increased Chinese military spending will more than pay for itself from greater domestic Chinese economic activity.
Well, perhaps AGI /shrug
AGI will fix everything, surely.
AGI will fix everything, surely.
It's precisely because the balance of power has swung in China's favor on the cheap that it's kept defense expenditures relatively low.
If the US went on the large scale buildup you would like to see, liquidated all its other defense commitments, and recapitalized its military production capability, China would undoubtedly respond. There is no fundamental constraint on raising defense expenditures from the current 1.4% of GDP to north of 5%. Whatever limits appear to be there are a political choice.
This is a blind spot I've noticed that you have. While you are certainly a lot better informed and far more intelligent than the overwhelming majority of US commentators, you seem to think that the US can (even if it won't) pull a rabbit out of its hat in the 2030s. There's no rabbit in the hat; China is capable of overmatching anything the US can physically do.
Edit: Completely OT, what do you think of Salt Typhoon? What's the chatter in your circles about it?
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Let's not make assumptions here and make big calls like that. There's a reason why Patch writes certain things in certain ways.
The idea that he's suggesting the US could "pull a rabbit out of its hat in the 2030s" is an interesting way to interpret what he's written; arguably it is a exaggerating his position.
The key part he wrote was this:
"Significantly reducing overseas US commitment and operational tempo in low-yield theaters, recapitalization of our yards - even if just to maintain currently in service platforms, realigning fiscal priorities strongly in favor of Air Force and Naval procurement and modernization efforts, and more sensibly approaching procurement and sustainment endeavors such that we are no longer paying enormous fees to rent-seeking contractors to conduct support activities which are fundamentally ill-suited to civilian involvement, etc. etc. etc. would substantially reduce the barrier to fielding a capable and credible force to operate in the WestPac"
That does not constitute a "large scale buildup" but rather merely utilizing existing resources and capabilities more wisely/less stupidly. It is not particularly materially constrained, and moreso constrained sociopolitically.
Of course, the PRC could also respond to that with its own procurement efforts to compete with a more focused and efficiently positioned US military, but it's also not out of the question that the PLA's own trajectory of procurement and military modernization won't be greatly influenced by such a prospect.
Dude...
could you be more specific about the structural issues? anecdotes perhaps?
It's not just what he wrote here, but an impression I get from reading his body of work here and on Reddit. It's a consistent theme I've noticed; the passage you quoted just recalled it.
The "rabbit out of a hat" is my way of putting it (with some embellishment), but what I got from reading what he wrote when he was active in the past is that the balance of power could shift in the US's favor in the 2030s from a present/near future nadir, as opposed to continuing to erode (or indeed face accelerated erosion) as is currently happening. If I've misunderstood, I'm happy to be corrected.
I'll cop to more than my fair share of jingoistic hubris and say that I heavily discount the possibility even if the US were to summon up Herculean levels of commitment. A lot has been made of the Chinese shipbuilding capacity being ~230x the US one, and even taking all the requisite grains of salt and ignoring the media hysterics, there is just no way for the US to overcome that kind of deficit in any conceivable timeframe if an appreciable fraction of that capacity were used militarily.
No offense intended, I just wanted to know if it's as bad as it looks from the public reporting. There have been senators quoted saying things like "worst telecom hack in our nation’s history — by far"
Given that a large part of their job is theatrical, I wanted to know (without revealing anything that would get anyone in trouble, of course) how seriously what Warner and his like say about it should be taken.
Patch, if this is too sensitive, feel free to dismiss it with a "no comment."
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