What they do for us is exist as a free market democracy instead of as an evil dictatorship. Living in a world filled with free-market democracies is a lot nicer than living in a world filled with evil dictatorships. They also make most of your computer chips, including most of your highly-advanced computer chips. Many people would prefer to not see China gain control over most of the world's advanced chipmaking ability. That is incorrect. The theory lives on. If we stand by and let all of our allies be conquered and destroyed, we will be left alone with no allies. It was replaced by a federal statute.
1. Computer chips and the like that are critical to the US economy and/or defense can and should be made in the US. Didn't the technology originate in Silicon Valley? 2. Vietnam demonstrated the failure of the domino theory. The US lost. Vietnam then had a war with China. Vietnam and the US are on friendly terms. All of the theory supporting the Vietnam war was BS. 3. Sure. It is nice to see free market democracies. But does that mean I should want to die or have a family member die for someone else's country and/or for globalism, The US is not the world's cop. We tried that. It didn't work out so well. All of the theory about alliances and allies is how things like WWI get started. Has Taiwan shed any blood defending the US? The US has too many problems at home that require resources. We have the most expensive military in the World. Yet our border is totally undefended. So I find it hard to be concerned about someone else's border. 4. What is the law you reference? I would like to look it up and see exactly what it says.
Wherever the technology originated, today most of our advanced computer chips are made in Taiwan. It is the opposite. When we abandoned South Vietnam, they were destroyed. And now they are not a free market democracy like they would be if we had not abandoned them. That proves the domino theory. When we don't protect our allies, we lose our allies. I actually don't see it as us losing the war. I see it as our ally losing the war because we betrayed them. I think that is worse. If we don't protect our allies when our enemies try to destroy them, we will lose those allies like we lost South Vietnam, and we will end up all alone against a hostile world. That will cost us even more in the long run. It has worked out well so far as I can see. Not that I know of. But it is not an issue that I have looked into. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act
No one is asking you to die so stop playing the martyr. There hasn't been a draft since 1973. There will be no draft. The civilians don't want it and the military doesn't want it.I joined a draft Army and retired from a VOLAR (volunteer Army). Volunteer is head and shoulders better. We did not lose the Viet Nam War. We won every major battle, hands down. We were forced to our knees by peacenik civilians marching down Main Street, not by North Viet Nam.
Can you give us the dates for when Cambodia and Laos fell to the Communists? Can you tell why the insurgency in Thailand and Malaysia failed? How close was Indonesia to becoming another nightmare state? Would you believe those who said that if the Sudentland fell to Germany that this could set off dominos and Czechoslovakia would fall? Would that have bothered you? Fact is, we fought Communism, just as we fought Fascism and now we are facing off with Islamism (soon to be nuclear armed.) You fight them in their country or you fight them in your country. But the fight is on and all three three isms have declared war.
Which would result in the Chinese launching their own extensive arsenal of nuclear missiles against us. And the Russians against us as well then us against the Russians too. No need for anyone else to get involved, (though they all would) you've just destroyed all life on Earth, (including Taiwan.) Fortunately, that won't happen.
Bullshit. We did indeed win every battle and still did indeed lose the war, much like the British did when they fought us in the Revolution. It's called asymmetric warfare and the Vietnamese taught it to us and the world, though we, in fact, originated it. One of the most ridiculous things I hear said about that war was that we were winning at the end because we were no longer fighting the Viet Cong but the regular North Vietnamese Army, as if we had killed all the Viet Cong. In actual fact the Viet Cong had become part of the North Vietnamese Army and no longer felt any need to operate as a guerilla outfit. We could have won in Vietnam, by killing every single person who lived there. A strange way to "liberate" people but US conservatives are not known for common sense.
Most Chinese nukes will have been destroyed by conventional airstrikes well before things got to the point of nuclear weapons being used. It is true though that China may still have a few mobile ICBMs available. I don't see the Russians nuking us just because of China. Although I do agree that we would hammer them back hard if they did so. So it goes. If China invades Taiwan, and if conventional force fails to dislodge the invasion, we will use nuclear weapons to dislodge the invasion. Whether it escalates beyond the use of tactical nuclear weapons on Taiwanese territory will be up to China, but we'll be ready if China chooses to escalate.
The British didn't win every major battle though. They lost key battles. We were not forced to leave South Vietnam at gunpoint. We got up and left for no good reason, like we just did in Afghanistan. The Vietnamese didn't really do a good job of teaching asymmetric warfare. The reason why they were forced to launch the Tet Offensive is because they were losing the war using guerrilla tactics. Perhaps they did a good job of teaching how to win a war by convincing American antiwar protesters to sell out our allies. Actually we eradicated the Viet Cong during the Tet Offensive. Just like with Afghanistan, we could have won the Vietnam War by simply not leaving for no reason.
So, wait, the Chinese don't have any AirForce that can even slow us down enough that they wouldn't be able to launch a great number of their missiles? And they don't have any missiles in submarines? Like North Korea does? I guess 150-200 million dead Americans are perfectly fine with you. Thank god that China isn't going to invade anybody. They're not fracking nerts, like some American conservatives
THREE "isms"? The Nazis are gone, except for a few folks shown in this forum in the Ukraine that look more like Bloods and Crips than an army. And Communists are getting scarce too.
The British effectively lost our Revolution at Yorktown where a large British army surrendered to us. There was never any such surrender of Americans in Viet Nam. Your analogy doesn't work. "Asymmetric warfare" is essentially the dissolution of boundaries on the battlefield. Traditional warfare is organized with "rear areas" and "fronts". Maneuver elements face off across well defined lines called FEBA (Front Edge of the Battle Area). In these scenarios, "friendly" and "hostile" parts of battle area are well defined. Asymmetric warfare refers to a different situation wherein hostilities are conducted throughout the theatre of operations. The day I first arrived in Iraq I went to the local APO to mail a letter. It had been destroyed from mortar fire. One didn't stay in garrison and travel to "the front". The "front" was everywhere. Ambushes could be conducted anywhere and mortar and rocket fire could be encountered everywhere. here was no "rear area" that was secure and safe. THAT is "asymmetric warfare". The American Revolution was conducted in this manner, although at rare times, like the British march back to Boston from Concord or the operations of Marion in the south could be described this way. For the most part, engagements were conducted by large formations of troops maneuvering against each other. No one ever claimed that we killed ALL the Viet Cong. After their defeat during the huge Tet Offensive, however, they ceased to be a an independent, viable, effective fighting force. Did many of the survivors continue to fight alongside the North Vietnamese regulars? Of course. But the Viet Cong, as a viable, independent fighting force... was gone. I have never heard of any modern war in which "every single" enemy was killed. Wars end when one side loses the wherewithal and/or the WILL to fight. I would suggest that there are very intelligent and common sensical people throughout the political spectrum. Disagreements indicate differing ideas... not necessarily different level of intellectual acumen.
No, the VC simply changed their black pjs for regular North Vietnamese uniforms and conservatives thought they'd killed them all, until they overran Saigon. Remember the "light at the end of the tunnel"? It was neon sign. It said "Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City" Using your own words I rest my case on whether conservatives have common sense
Again... no one.... NO ONE..... ever said all the VC were killed. The VC survivors of Tet were integrated into the North Vietnamese regualr army formations. But as an independent fighting force... they ceased to exist. NO ONE.... NO ONE..... NO ONE..... NO ONE ever said they were ALL killed.
I find your idea of warfare rather dumb. China has nuclear bombs with the idea to use them when they are attacked. Hence there is NO possibility that you can fly over with conventional aircraft to take them out. Those conventional aircraft could be loaded with nuclear bombs for all the Chinese know, and so they will send their nuclear missiles to blow up the US as soon as they are spotting them aircraft entering their airspace. And they are in their full right to turn the US into glass when they are attacked by the US. As far as the US knows, China has equipped submarines with nuclear missiles. So there is absolutely no possibility to not get nuked when you attack China. And if the US would interfere with the internal civil war of China... then I wouldn't know why China wouldn't use a tactical nuclear warhead on the American fleet that is being a sitting duck in that area. Lil sub pops up, small missile shoots out... bye bye American fleet. A nuke doesn't need to make a direct hit. It can just blow up way above the fleet, and the blast of it is big enough to do the job.
It is unlikely that their air force could do much to slow down stealth bombers. Highly advanced SAM sites would pose a limited obstacle, but those sites would themselves be quickly destroyed. If China launches nuclear missiles in order to avoid a conventional attack against those missiles, they will face nuclear retaliation. Such submarines will be quickly sunk at the start of the war, The US military would avenge them. Unfortunately you are wrong. China plans to invade Taiwan as soon as they are ready to do so, although that point is probably about ten years off.
So the outcome of your scenario is a that 2/3 of the US gets nuked for the sake of Taiwan. I don't think there is a US president who is going to find that worth the trouble. You can't destroy what you can't find. They can start tomorrow.
Good. Taiwan is not interested in investing seriously in their own defense and we have no defense agreement with them so they'll have to sleep in the bed they made. They always knew China was a threat, and instead of spending more to buy new jets + other gear from US, they still fly planes from 1950s era (+ some F16, etc) and cut the size of their military. US should now fight for people who won't fight for themselves.
Yes they are. Sure we do. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_Relations_Act They are not responsible for Chinese aggression. They have 103 of their own fighters that they built in the 1990s. They have 46 Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters. They have 112 F-16s with another 56 ordered. Who says they cut the size of their military or will not fight for themselves?
No, they reduced the size of their military by about 30% and won't invest in high tech aircraft. Commercial, cultural deal. Sure, but no defense deal Taiwan's military has shrunk to 187,660 active-duty soldiers, from 275,000 in 2011. This are recent cuts, and they are MAJOR cuts. So, no, they are not serious about defending themselves, so good luck to them, but US isn't going to engage in a world war for them. Enough with the Neo-Con bullcrap.
I probably wouldn't authorize such an attack (although the Chinese did exactly this to slow the Japanese advance in WWII, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians). But I would let China know that I might, especially if I were Taiwan.
I love it when civilians try to second guess military actions with little information about strategy and tactics... less information about weapon options. Professional military leaders go to school for years to have the knowledge and expertise. They combine this with real world experience. Civilians discussing war is like a kid in grammar school discussing neurosurgery. Its very entertaining.
Eh....? "Taiwan has nearly 90,000 non-commissioned military officers (NCOs) – enlisted soldiers who began at entry-level and rose through the ranks – but just 44,127 soldiers and 36,232 commissioned officers who entered the military at a higher rank, according to government "
Cite? Modern F-16s are not high tech aircraft? Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters are not high tech aircraft? Fighters built in the 1990s are not high tech aircraft? "The act further stipulates that the United States will 'consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States'" Sure they are. Here is a list of the weapons they've been buying: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_arms_sales_to_Taiwan We will always defend our allies.
