No doubt about it. If you look at the waves of territorial and demographic (Han) expansion since th 1940s (and even further back, within what are now the borders of the People's Republic of China), this is "lebensraum" all over again.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Sooo, 'Gun Control' doesn't work....And people kill people! Who knew?

Hush, or you'll overwhelm the Liberals with fact.

I hope Trump is capitalizing on this, geopolitically speaking.

India is clearly the needed buffer to China and the rising superpower that isn't actually that bad. Trump needs to leverage this to get India further away from the Russians and farther into our camp. His strong anti-China policy should naturally push India closer to us, which is a good thing, especially if we get them away from Russia.

I'm all for on-shoring/repatriating our assets from China, but we could be setting up lucrative--and fair (thank you, DJT!)--deals with India in the process.

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
I hope Trump is capitalizing on this, geopolitically speaking.

India is clearly the needed buffer to China and the rising superpower that isn't actually that bad. Trump needs to leverage this to get India further away from the Russians and farther into our camp. His strong anti-China policy should naturally push India closer to us, which is a good thing, especially if we get them away from Russia.

I'm all for on-shoring/repatriating our assets from China, but we could be setting up lucrative--and fair (thank you, DJT!)--deals with India in the process.

In process...
https://news.usni.org/2020/05/...tial-904m-mh-60r-buy

https://www.flightglobal.com/s...india/136694.article

Someone else mentioned Pakistan. I have a hard time believing that Pakistan will go to war for the sake of Red China, so what kind of role could they really play? Spoiler? Haven?

Pakistan and India are perpetually at odds, ever since they were both first divided out from British India, having fought 4 full blown wars and innumerable smaller skirmishes, standoffs, and border conflicts in the past 70ish years.

So in a shooting war between India and China, Pakistan's assistance to/alliance with China could stem from nothing more than an "enemy of my enemy" type situation.

There's all kinds of things Pakistan could do to distract/hamper India on their west flank while they're focusing on China on their north/east flanks. It could even be as simple as allowing China access through their territory to engage India on 3 fronts.

But keep in mind that India, China, and Pakistan are all nuclear powers. So let's hope it doesn't come to that, as things could escalate dramatically.

The mental image of a war between India and China is of chaos and incompetence if you've seen their militaries up close. China hasn't won a war against anyone, pretty much ever. They lost to Mongolia, Taiwan, Russia, and Japan at various times and were controlled or occupied until the end of WWII. India hasn't done a whole lot better.

I've seen China's SINGLE aircraft carrier "Liaoning" docked in Dalian harbor with it's goofy ski-jump front deck. I've seen Indian soldiers guarding Mumbai airport exercising zero muzzle discipline, sweeping the entire crowd at the airport all of the time with their shoulder-slung subguns. And they all have Hi-Powers in cross-draw belt holsters so they can sweep themselves too.

And when you think about it, a "made in China" or "made in India" nuke has how much chance of actually working properly?

Lefty, agreed on all points regarding India.

China, not so much. They have the resources, intelligence, and population base to be much worse than the Germans/Japanese in WWII.

Remember, we thought the Japanese planes looked goofy before WWII as well...

Maybe we could get all of China's phone help to redirect to Indian call centers?

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
China hasn't won a war against anyone, pretty much ever.

They fared better than the US in their own war against Vietnam.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
China hasn't won a war against anyone, pretty much ever.

They fared better than the US in their own war against Vietnam.

In all fairness, if the military hadn’t been so heavily hampered by the politicians, we could have won that conflict fairly rapidly without even resorting to nukes. Holding it in “peacetime” after cessation of official hostilities might be a different matter.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
if the military hadn’t been so heavily hampered by the politicians

Although I agree with your full statement, one of the significant facts of life is that wars are never fought by the military alone. During the Vietnam War the politicians were dancing to the tunes of their constituents, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Part of the reason then was that the reasons for the war were never clear to the vast majority of Americans, and that is true to this day. Just a few days ago I read a post here that asked (paraphrasing) “For what reason?” There were reasons for the US’s efforts to resist Communist aggression in Vietnam that I thought were legitimate, and justified our involvement even in hindsight, but very few people recognized them at the time.

The same was true of the Second Gulf War. There were several legitimate reasons to attack and eliminate Saddam’s regime that had nothing to do with whether he in fact turned out to have chemical weapons, as was initially completely reasonable to believe. But the opponents of the war and especially opponents of those who supported it managed to convince history that it was all a big lie and was therefore unjustified in hindsight. That accepted “truth” still affects political beliefs and actions, as again was demonstrated just a few days ago in a statement by a public figure.

Absolute despots can sometimes fight their wars without much regard for public opinion, but even then there are usually limits to how much they can ignore it. Even Hitler managed to generate so much opposition to his actions that members of his own military tried to kill him more than once and made other efforts to hamper his conduct of the war.

“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.” [Every nation has the government it deserves.] (Joseph de Maistre)

We get the government we deserve by voting for the representatives we choose. The American people chose the politicians who have hampered all of our war efforts (and not only in Vietnam), and someday that will result in the demise of this Nation—as it has countless times in the past.

War and politics are inexorably linked, with warfare being an attempt to secure specific political aims through violent force.

"War is the continuation of politics with other means." - von Clausewitz

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
China hasn't won a war against anyone, pretty much ever.

They fared better than the US in their own war against Vietnam.

I'm not so sure they faired better than the US. They made an incursion into Viet Nam but were not able to hold any territory. Maybe they were able to grab an uninhabited Island if anything.

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting....

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
China hasn't won a war against anyone, pretty much ever.

They fared better than the US in their own war against Vietnam.

In all fairness, if the military hadn’t been so heavily hampered by the politicians, we could have won that conflict fairly rapidly without even resorting to nukes. Holding it in “peacetime” after cessation of official hostilities might be a different matter.

Hasn't it been publicized that Ho Chi Minh stated after we left Vietnam that he was about to throw in the towel? That we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory?

flashguy

quote:

Originally posted by limblessbiff:
you’d think that if they had to guard an area with no guns that the Chinese would have some old school nunchucks,swords, and ninja swords and stuff. Not trailer park melee weapons like a club with nails in it

You're confusing the Chinese with the Japanese.

And I just started another thread about where one can go to find real news.

Here is an article on the ongoing India-China border conflict.