Ok I have the feeling you been in desert storm, cause no one else keeps bring that up.
The Chinese members here are welcome to bring their military experience and share their insights.
In boxing, a good boxer against a bad one can still clearly demonstrate his skills by winning by KO or a large margin. You can still gauge his skill level.
However it is against someone of equal or superior level can one find out more about the boxer.
True. We are still waiting. May be China would take the card?
I am not saying desert storm isn't important, it showed the level of the US military, but there are lots of other factors that contributes to a conflict.
For example, Desert Storm isn't a perfect operation,...
Did I even implied it was? I always find this line of rebuttal amusing, as if somehow pointing out the flaws of something that is significant made its relevance any less.
...but Iraq doesn't have the power to exploit it, but a country such as Russia or China may pounce on it.
Sorry, but 'may' does not cut it.
Not saying we are better or equal to US, but when the difference isn't THAT big, one has to be cautious, we both have the power to KO each other, it's just that with the skill level it is more likely for you to defeat us than the other way around, but not impossible.
Sorry, but the difference is
THAT big.
I will speak for air power, that is my area of interest anyway.
The US have had a constant flow of air power capability, technological progress, and actual combat experience since WW I. What does China have? Nothing. When China sent up an agile fighter to harass a lumbering American prop jobber, the Chinese pilot collided with the prop jobber and died. That is the extent of Chinese military air combat experience against US.
The PLAAF started its own version of 'Top Gun'. Good for the PLAAF. A wise thing to do. But the Americans already have many levels of air combat training and been so for decades. Not only that, we managed to fly actual adversary aircrafts against our own, not merely having ours simulate the adversary. The PLAAF have not even 1/1000th of that training experience.
The PLAAF against the USAF? That is cattle to the slaughterhouse.
I know you think the US is the only country that self criticizes, but it is not so, so do we. Everyone saw desert storm, and a lot of people made predictions from all over the world, but to date, why did we make the biggest jump in terms of technological improvement, why did we become the second largest spender, why did we cut the number of military personnel time after time.
The reason the PLA reformed is because of Desert Storm. I know you do not like to see it again, but it is reality and the truth. You had to perform self criticism, the real and honest kind this time. I never said the US is the only one to perform self criticism. I said we are willing to do so and much more honest about it than others.
Our training program change all the time, we improve it all the time. We haven't been standing still. I know what the you thinks about Chinese attitude, like we are still the communist of old, but just think about it, if we were can we even be at where we are today? You give us way too less credit, if it's so easy, why are we even considered a threat.
There is nothing wrong with considering a potential adversary, no matter his capability to do US harm, as a threat. It does not matter to me if you have a knife or a pistol while I have a machine gun. If I perceive you to be willing to do me and my interests harm, you are a threat.
Also to your last point, it is kinda stupid, a shooting war? Do you know why Bismark didn't march on Vienna after his victory like Napoleon and didn't make the French suffer too much, he wanted alliances later.
Even aside from the fact that there is MAD, the US would want a balance of power in Asia, if China is completely defeated, it is just as bad if not worse for US. Due to the size of China and population, US can never hope to contain us the same way it did Japan, that's just a fact, so a relationship is still very much needed.
It's similar to why France was not split up after Napoleonic wars and concert of Europe was created, it is also something that contributed to Napoleon's end because he didn't care to understand it.
If China is militarily defeated, it will take a long time for China to recover. Recovery in itself is a sort of containment. A self containment.
