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-Land of the Free
Peter Zeihan: Can the US Military Fight Russia and China?
2023-03-07
[MAILCHIMP] With the potential for the Americans to get caught up in simultaneous wars with the Russians and Chinese, do I think the US can handle it? The short answer is that the US will be fine, but if you had asked me this during the Cold War - it would have been a cakewalk for the Americans.

While I don’t think it’s likely (and it is most certainly not recommended), simultaneous wars with the Russians and Chinese wouldn’t be overwhelming for the US military. That is because those two wars would boast extremely different circumstances.

War with the Russians would be a war of supply, providing munitions - specifically the decommissioned and outdated stuff - to the Ukrainians. On the flip side, war with the Chinese would be fought on the seas; the navies would be doing much of the heavy lifting.

The military assets needed to fight these wars would strain different structures, allowing the US military to operate at a manageable and sustainable level.
Related:
Simultaneous wars: 2010-02-27 Indian military growth threatens South Asian stability, says Pakistan
Simultaneous wars: 2007-04-17 ask rosie
Posted by:DarthVader

#16  From what I've seen over my lifetime the US can't fight its way out of a wet paper bag.

The US can and has. I have seen it quite a few times in my 50 years and been part of it. When the objective is clear, and when the commanders are free to do what they need to do.

When the objectives are fuzzy and politicians use the military to do political roles, that is where things fall down. Watched it happen for 20 years in the middle east. When there was a clearly defined enemy and the dog was let off the leash, the US military tore them up. Otherwise it was just a giant game of grab ass where our people got killed and maimed.
Posted by: DarthVader   2023-03-07 20:58  

#15  Ref #13: Perhaps we don't have the market cornered on the.... Military Industrial Complex (MIC) business model.
Posted by: Besoeker   2023-03-07 17:36  

#14  Now I'm wondering about Opelation Eager Craw...
Posted by: Gromble Dribble4342   2023-03-07 17:30  

#13  From what I've seen over my lifetime the US can't fight its way out of a wet paper bag. We're now seeing Russia and China are paper tigers too.
Posted by: Regular joe   2023-03-07 17:27  

#12  Thank you for explaining, NoMoreBS.
Posted by: trailing wife   2023-03-07 17:09  

#11  TW, for some of us who spent a career under the rubric of Cold Warrior, the long, often clandestine conflict created a world view that said never trust those Basta*ds and never think they actually just gave up when the wall came down and we declared victory. The ChiComs were early junior partners, and more purist, at least overtly, in their Marxist beliefs. But what they also were were shrewd judges of the short attention span of the west and our focus on markets and profits. The Nixonian opening to China in the early 70s was always about the Kissinger affection for triangulation as a technique for breaking the Sino-Soviet linkages. We painted benevolent faces on their motives and saw their under-developed economy as a "market" and they quickly welcomed the economic envelopment. Cheap labor and cheap infrastructure costs drove short-term thinkers in business here to "de-industrialize", and from that point forward, the rest is history.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2023-03-07 14:02  

#10   China has been waging a total cold war against the US since at least 2006.

It seems to me the plan commenced when Nixon opened China. First the general seduction, then manufacturing — remember all the inexpensive Chinese silk clothes that were so much part of the 1980s big hair look? — then the consolidation of one manufacturing monopoly after another via predatory pricing... and along the way they suddenly had the accumulated funds to bribe those who hadn’t thrown in with them for envisioned profits, not to mention entrap the rest of the world via belt-and-road and predatory lending.

Which is the long way round to your total war since 2006, DarthVader. You’ll have to forgive my slowness — I lack the training, so I’m figuring it out from first principles, mostly picked up here.
Posted by: trailing wife   2023-03-07 13:12  

#9  I submit that an alliance of enemies are conducting low-intensity, clandestine warfare against the US now

China has been waging a total cold war against the US since at least 2006. Russia joined in after 2010. The damage to the US and its institutions have gotten severe, but not instantly fatal. Yet.

It is a race between how much they can poison the US into a civil war or collapse vs China and Russian collapses.
Posted by: DarthVader   2023-03-07 12:38  

#8  Above comment in response to this comment:

I submit that an alliance of enemies are conducting low-intensity, clandestine warfare against the US now!
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2023-03-07 12:32  

#7  

An astute observation. Fentanyl is only a part of it, the chemical component. The biological component was, of course, covid. But the corruption is just astounding. Hollywood, the media, academia and politicians all kowtow to the CCP.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2023-03-07 12:25  

#6  I submit that an alliance of enemies are conducting low-intensity, clandestine warfare against the US now! It is cultural, political, and economic, but very real and very well established. The Chinese elite capture strategy is just the first among many examples, and the ROE and target folders are easily visible across the landscape of daily American life. That there are surrogate actors like Obama, Soros, the DNC, the SPLC, much of academia and the media doing their bidding in return for wealth, access, advantage and ego, doesn't change the effects. It is, or has been slow motion, and subversive/corrosive against core American values and ethos, and it is partnered with useful idiots and fellow travellers of our own. But it is very real and very well financed, since we buy their products and services, giving them the resources they use to strangle and main us slowly.

What is different is the velocity of the "change you can believe in", since they capture of the federal government is now accelerating the effects. How else do you explain the insanity, the corruption, the outright fraud and subversion?
If a secret, Marxist coup was underway in America today, how would it be different than what is happening daily?
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2023-03-07 11:54  

#5  And corruption kills. The Chinese military is even more corrupt than the Russian. Further, the Taiwanese would flood social media with viral videos of the horrendous losses the amphibious forces would suffer. Something so visible, mom and dad will furiously demand an end to the stupidity.

Everyone assumes the Chinese have all the agency and everyone will passively react to what they do. That's not real life, theother side always has a say in the plans.
Posted by: Snakes Chomoth2976   2023-03-07 11:45  

#4  If the PLA were to suddenly invade Luzon instead of Taiwan, for instance, I suspect it would play to our weaknesses instead of our strengths.

Not really. The PLA doesn't have great transport capability over water to begin with. They barely have enough landing craft to make a seizure of a port a remote possibility. Leaving the cover of SAMs and going for Luzon will leave what they have very exposed to American missiles, naval and air power. It would be an Operation Eagle Claw level of failure for the PLA.
Posted by: DarthVader   2023-03-07 11:39  

#3  He is educated much more than his intelligence
Posted by: Elminens Chusorong3648   2023-03-07 11:36  

#2  It also assumes that the opposing forces will play to our strengths and their weaknesses.

If the PLA were to suddenly invade Luzon instead of Taiwan, for instance, I suspect it would play to our weaknesses instead of our strengths.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2023-03-07 11:02  

#1  The presumption seems to be that both will sit on their hands and not conduct operations against US assets abroad (military bases) or cyber / other strikes on the US. From my perspective both are working to avoid direct conflict with the US to allow it to implode on its own. That’s safer and surer with less damage to their own economies and populations
Posted by: Griter Slash1619   2023-03-07 08:55  

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