I'm glad none of y'all are running the defense department. None of seem to know a whole lot about modern warfare.
Yes, war with China is probably inevitable. In fact, it's likely already started, whether we recognize it or not. We're accustomed to thinking of war in purely military/strategic terms, but to the Oriental mind, it's far more holistic and includes everything from warships to computer programs to cyberwarfare to trade. And, they think in terms of decades while we think in terms of the next budget cycle.
In the first place, discard the scenario of either side physically invading the other. Not gonna happen. The logistics of transporting and maintaining an invasion force, and follow on occupation troops, makes it a no-go for both. Not to mention two important facts:
1. No invasion fleet would get close to either shore. They'd be destroyed enroute.
2. Both China and the United States are too big to physically occupy and control.
If you're going to fight China, the one thing you do NOT want to do is engage them in a land war in Asia. You'll lose. You're too far from your base and way too close to their billion people.
If I were going to fight China, the first thing I'd do is bring back every defense related manufacturing operation to this country. And, I'd heavily tax any US concern doing business in China. Every dollar we spend there strengthens them and weakens us. They know it and that's why they've been assiduously cultivating business ventures with us. The war has already started and WE are providing the capital and know how for them to develop the weapons and industrial base they'll use against us when the time is right. It's foolishness on our part.
The second order of business would be to completely destroy their navy. They don't have much of a blue water navy right now, but the ships they need to protect the source of their imported oil (Iran) are on the ways now and they have intentions of deploying them to control the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca and to dominate the Indian Ocean. Don't let 'em out of the shipyard.
Third. Cyber attack their infrastructure, industrial sector and their military command and control. Put them in the dark and out of communication with each other.
Just those three things would lock China into its own landmass and force them to move any troops they wanted to take anywhere overland, on foot, which makes them targets for our air forces.
By the way, the Obama administration clearly recognizes the threat from China and has made some remarkable changes in our strategic posture to deal with that threat. And, they're thinking holistically too. Our response runs the gamut from a just-below-the-radar trade war, to the President's tax proposals to Congress concerning businesses which offshore our jobs (shot down by the GOP), to a growing relationship with India, to the stationing of US ships in Singapore and US Marines in Australia, to re-focusing of our whole foreign policy to the western Pacific, to the multination efforts to contain Iran, to warming relations with Russia. And, that's just a partial list.
