s**w
发帖数: 499 | 1 China has spent massively on anti-access/area denial weapons that would make
war impractical for the US
https://asiatimes.com/2020/08/why-there-wont-be-a-us-china-war/
In 1976, world heavyweight champion Mohammed Ali fought an exhibition bout
in Tokyo with karate master Antonio Inoki. Inoki spent most of the match on
his back kicking at Ali’s shins crab-fashion.
“Ali was only able to land two jabs while Inoki’s kicks caused two blood
clots and an infection that almost resulted in Ali’s leg being amputated,”
Wikipedia reports. “The match was not scripted and ultimately declared a
draw.”
That’s why there won’t be a shooting war between the US and China. China
has spent massively on anti-access/area denial weapons – A2/AD for short –
that make war impractical.
As I explain in my book You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-Form
the World, China’s defense posture is founded on the same idea as Inoki’s
defense against Ali: Beijing wants to make it impossible for the US to get
close enough to use its superior forces. The popular “Thucydides Trap”
argument that the US will go to war to stop the rise of China is, on close
inspection, Thucydides claptrap.
AT Premium
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is the worst-trained and worst-equipped
land army fielded by a major power today, and perhaps ever. The PLA spends
just $1,500 to equip an infantryman – not much more than the price of a
rifle and a uniform – compared with $18,000 for an American soldier.
Chinese tanks are mediocre and unlikely to stand up to newer American and
Russian vehicles. The PLA’s air force has no dedicated ground-attack
aircraft comparable to the American A-10 Warthog or the Russian SU-25.
At least 30,000 Chinese marines and 60,000 seaborne mechanized infantry
stand ready to invade Taiwan, or what would be left of Taiwan after an
initial bombardment in the event of war.
But China’s rapid deployment forces are tiny compared with America’s.
Analysts estimate that China has between 7,000 and 15,000 special forces,
versus about 66,000 in the current US defense budget.
But China has invested enormously in coastal defenses. Its surface-to-ship
missiles, from the initial DF-21 unveiled in 2008 through the DF-26 first
displayed in 2018, are dubbed “carrier killers” by the press.
China’s Dong-Feng 26, literally ‘East Wind-26’, is displayed during a
military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the nation’s founding
at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, October 1, 2019. Photo: AFP/The Yomiuri
Shimbun
The DF-26 reportedly has a 2,500-kilometer range, long enough to hit US
military installations in Guam. The Chinese missiles come down vertically
from the stratosphere, and US ship defenses are not designed to counter this
sort of attack.
Then there is the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle that piggybacks atop the DF
-17 heavy missile with speeds that likely can defeat any existing anti-
missile system.
Whether the Chinese can sink American carriers with missiles – or with
undetectably quiet diesel-electric submarines – is a matter of controversy.
The trouble is that there is only one way to find out for sure, namely to
actually have a war. A year ago the United States Studies Center at the
University of Sydney offered this dour assessment:
“This growing arsenal of accurate long-range missiles poses a major threat
to almost all American, allied and partner bases, airstrips, ports and
military installations in the Western Pacific. As these facilities could be
rendered useless by precision strikes in the opening hours of a conflict,
the PLA missile threat challenges America’s ability to freely operate its
forces from forward locations throughout the region.
“Alongside China’s broader A2/AD capabilities—including large numbers of
fourth-generation fighter jets, advanced C4ISR [command, control,
communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance]
systems, modern attack submarines, electronic warfare capabilities and dense
arrays of sophisticated surface-to-air missiles—it permits the PLA to hold
US and allied expeditionary forces at risk, preventing them from operating
effectively at sea or in the air within combat range of Chinese targets.
“Following Beijing’s construction of a network of military outposts in the
South China Sea that can support sophisticated radars, missile batteries
and forward-based aircraft, the A2/AD threat is further intensifying in this
critical waterway.”
To be sure, there are some enormous unknowns about Chinese military capacity
. Some American observers think that China’s J-20 stealth fighter is an
effective weapons platform against US naval ships and aircraft; others are
not so impressed. The point is that Chinese aircraft don’t have to defeat F
-18’s or F-35’s in aerial dogfights. They only need keep US forces at a
distance from China and make it difficult for the US to reinforce Taiwan.
America’s high-tech F-35 Lightning stealth fighter has often been referred
to as a flying computer because of its AI capabilities. Credit: Lockheed
Martin.
China has had the capability to destroy US satellites with missiles since
2008 and may be able to blind them with lasers. In the first minutes of a US
-Chinese war, US military communications and positioning systems would be
destroyed.
China also deploys the Russian S-400 air defense system, with sufficient
range to sweep the skies above Taiwan. Whether US countermeasures can defeat
the S-400 is a military secret, but the Russian system clearly compromises
Taiwan’s defenses.
Of course, a confrontation between US and Chinese forces near the Chinese
coast isn’t the only possible war scenario. The US might try to block
Chinese imports of oil from the Persian Gulf. That explains why China is so
eager to lock in overland delivery of oil and gas from Russia.
Still, China produces 85% of its energy consumption (in terms of BTUs) at
home. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan depend on imports for virtually all of
their energy, so an attempt to stop the flow of oil would have even more
devastating consequences for US allies.
The US could devise new weapons to defeat China’s formidable arsenal of
missiles. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency earlier this year
gave Grumman $13 million to study the issue. That is not exactly a Manhattan
-Project level of funding. The US Navy claims that it is working on a
defensive system, but details are scarce.
In theory, lasers can transmit energy at the speed of light against any
kinetic weapon. But sensing, focusing on and destroying very fast objects
poses a host of problems that haven’t been solved.
It will take years before laser weapons will change the power balance on
China’s coasts. As such, China’s high-tech defensive strategy makes war
with the US improbable for the foreseeable future. | z******y
发帖数: 969 | 2 本来就是这样。 美国现在搞搞中东那些小国可以。 大国，人不够死的。还是不要打战
了。 | S**********p
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