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By 2030, South China Sea will be ‘virtually a Chinese lake,’ U.S. study warns

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It is not a waste of money. US military presence is the reason why no war will break out, whether it is between the US and China, or between China and anyone else in the region.
US military presence can also make a war to last for a long time, e.g. Vietnam war.
 
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Deterrence is not about parity, even though parity of forces is utmost desirable.

Rather, deterrence is about making the adversary believe that a war will -- not could -- be damaging enough that even if the adversary win, he will sustain enough damages that he will suffer in other areas such as depleted resources, weakened economy, loss of manpower, and vulnerability. Back in the Cold War, NATO never had physical parity of forces with the Warsaw Pact, but the technological bias towards NATO sort of balance out that physical inferiority. That bias was acknowledged by the Soviets as late as the Raygun-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavik. The Soviets have always believed that if unleashed, NATO technological superiority would be greater than that of Warsaw Pact tanks over NATO tanks.

Am not saying that VN can wring out enough men at arms to convince China that could not win, what I am saying is that VN can present enough of a deterrent to convince China that even if China win, the PLA will -- not could -- be so weakened and that China will experience an economic depression and vulnerability that China will not go to war against VN and alliance, if any, because of that fear. I have to bring up this point again, but that the PLA's leadership is still intellectually smarting after their spectacular failed analysis of US military performance in Desert Storm. The PLA made that analysis based on the perception of its own forces, warfighting doctrines, and combat efficiency of its troops, and project that onto the Iraqi army.

It is always easy to estimate one's own forces. Easy to the point of overestimation. But much more difficult when it comes to an adversary. If China underestimate US in Desert Storm, who is to say that China WILL NOT underestimate VN ?

Desert Storm is a different time, China was still in its infancy, we had none of the weapons and none of the knowledge, any prediction is no better than a bad guess. Today that is different, for better or worse we have every weapon that the US has or we are in the process of development, we are reforming the command structure and we accept that technology is the key to winning.

Can China underestimate Vietnam? US? Sure, but so can the US and Vietnam underestimate China. Except the point today is that China has the knowledge and experience to judge the effectiveness of a modern command structure to go with modern military equipment. Even if we are off, we won't be off by far.

If we are to purely go by precedent, then why stop there, go to Korean war. If we are to see what the Korean war is about, no cost is too high, even nuclear. You didn't mention this when you talked about adding cost, so obviously you recognize that times have changed.

Nobody can know what exactly will happen in a future war, but China has been through Vietnam's current equipment and command structure. China has reformed and inducted newer ones. If nothing else it means we know what Vietnam knows, but Vietnam doesn't know what we know now.
 
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dream and reality is different. China could do likes trouble maker does.

I don't know about Annam, but China don't mess around. We have shown the world what we can do when we mean business. Annam on the other hand are dreaming their wildest dreams but it remained that way. Nothing has changed. So yeah continue crying, it does not bother China one bit.
 
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I don't know about Annam, but China don't mess around. We have shown the world what we can do when we mean business. Annam on the other hand are dreaming their wildest dreams but it remained that way. Nothing has changed. So yeah continue crying, it does not bother China one bit.

It is vietnam not annam you db! :yahoo::smitten:
 
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I don't know about Annam, but China don't mess around. We have shown the world what we can do when we mean business. Annam on the other hand are dreaming their wildest dreams but it remained that way. Nothing has changed. So yeah continue crying, it does not bother China one bit.

You don't know about Annam, so shoot up.

annam was their old name.

But our Emperor Dinh Bo Linh called the country with the name Dai Viet, (大越).

Anyway both names were given by their Chinese masters.

"Vietnam" is related to disscusion of our Emperor Gia Long with Manchurian man 1880s, the king Jiajing of 清朝, who has ruled China in this time. It is not related Han Chinese.
 
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