Could America Win a New World War? — What It Would Take to Defeat Both China and Russia. Foreign Affairs, journal of the Council on Foreign Relations.
A year ago in these pages I explained why China dominates the West Pacific. Since then, things have developed not necessarily to America’s advantage.
Last year, for example, a US carrier docked at Darwin Port had zero chance of surviving a volley of Chinese DF-26D anti-ship ballistic missiles and a 50-50 chance underway, in open ocean. Its chances are now zero and zero. A new surveillance satellite with onboard AI recognizes and identifies individual warships, tracks them through sleet and storm, and transmits better-than-human information to HQ in real time 24×7. Time on target is infinite, and PLAN screen-shares directly with fire-control, eliminating delays and miscommunication.
The same warships are also tracked by a million sailors in China’s fishing fleets – all directly connected to PLAN Shore Control and some towing Sonar arrays – by gigantic drones that spend months in the stratosphere, by the PLAN’s semi-undetectable subs, by a network of passive receivers on the ocean floor.
What admiral would sail a $30 billion battle fleet and 7,000 crew in range of such weapons when his air wing is still a thousand miles beyond operational range?
Firstest with the Mostest
While never denying its power, Mao called the US military-industrial complex a ‘paper tiger’. One quick, hard punch in the nose is worth 100 later. The punch he delivered in Korea proved his point and, like the Russian Army, the PLAN is prepared to repeat that lesson two generations later.
Early next year, Xi will commission five new Burke class destroyers simultaneously, all of whose thousands of missiles outrange and out-punch their USN counterparts. China has the biggest, most modern, newest, most powerfully armed fleet afloat, manned by the world’ best educated1 and motivated sailors.
The PLAAF’s (mass produced) J-20 Mighty Dragons combination of range, speed2 and payload I unequalled. In the 2-seater version, the copilot controls three drones that zip ahead to draw fire or attack targets3.
Asymmetry in the West Pacific
Any attack on Chinese territory would draw an equally powerful counterstrike on the US West Pacific Coast. Of this there is absolutely no doubt. China’s ICBMs are longer ranged than America’s, and carry more powerful payloads faster and, says Fred Reed,
Defense is impossible. Missile defenses are meaningless except as money funnels to the arms industry. This is not the place to go into decoys, hypersonics, Poseidon, maneuvering glide vehicles, bastion stationing, MIRV, just plain boring old cruise missiles, and so on. Coastal cities are particularly easy targets, being vulnerable to submarine-launched sea-skimming missiles. Washington, New York, Boston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle for starters. All gone.
Be Prepared
If worse comes to worst, Chinese and Russian preparations for ICBM exchanges are excellent, while the US has no effective defense at all.
Does it strike you as odd that undefended America is provoking a nuclear exchange with the two best defended nations on earth, and which have superior intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance superiority, and can easily strike the US at strategic and operational depths?
Fair Weather Friends
Internationally, Biden is a pariah, cruelly ridiculed at home and abroad insulted to his face. Xi and Putin are rock stars. Xi, who ponied up $3.5 trillion to help poor countries, plays God of Plenty to Putin’s God of War, as the Putin-Xi bromance deepens with time. They seem delighted to have found each other at such a propitious moment. Xi, bless his technocratic heart, obviously digs Putin:
Putin’s reaction to his first standing ovation from national leaders: “For God’s sake, sit down!”. Now he just smiles and takes it.
Our party’s over
We squandered our natural riches, degraded our human resources and hocked (financialized) our assets. Former friends decline our invitations or bring people we can’t stand, then leave early and surly4. Africa didn’t make it. Turkey’s halfway out the door. The Saudis who, like the Turks, spent billions on Russian S-400 systems, said their goodnights. Latin America is outside, waiting for a cab.
The neighborhood has gone downhill in the last 40 years, we’ve maxed our credit cards and, in front of six billion people, we’ve been stealing stuff that other countries entrusted to our care.
By Christmas next year Ukraine will be de-Nazified, its ports in Russian hands. NATO will be at their 1979 locations. Intra-EU cooperation will be a memory. Washington will struggle with stagflation, 35 million Covid invalids, mass homelessness, and even mass hunger5. There are already more illiterate, homeless, hungry children, more drug addicts, poor people, prisoners, suicides, and executions in America than in China.
Theirs is getting started
By Christmas next year, the world will have a new reserve currency and, to forestall Ukraine’s fate, Taiwan Customs and China Customs6 will merge7. TSMC will still produce the world’s high end chips, but unfriendly buyers may experience paperwork delays. On the mainland, a new fab in Beijing will be mass producing the first photonic chips, made with Chinese equipment and IP, and signaling the end of copper circuitry and the dawn of an era of higher speeds at lower power.
