> It's unclear even now whether the US has enough stockpiles and enough production of modern munitions to maintain an active war against a peer adversary like China
Is it? What is the theory that the US could keep up with China? That would be the US vs the globe's industrial superpower with an arguably larger real economy. It doesn't seem plausible that the US can fight a long sustained war.
The plan as far as I can see it is to make use of a large network of allies and partners as well as aiming to finish the war quickly by cutting off materials like food and industrial inputs to stall the manufacturing engine. If it turns into a slugfest where munition reserves start to matter that seems like it would favour China.
One of the big surprises out of the Ukraine war is that the US isn't in a position where it can easily bully Russia. If that is the case it is hard to see it coming out ahead vs China in any plausible conflict.
>One of the big surprises out of the Ukraine war is that the US isn't in a position where it can easily bully Russia.
The US hasn't been fighting Russia - if they'd deployed F35s in 2022 then Moscow would be called West Alaska by now. Don't conflate "doesn't" with "can't".
But if they "doesn't" fight Russia now, why are they going to fight China in the future? Pretty good odds they won't because the cost is too high.
What we appear to be seeing is they don't really have a lot of tools that can be used against an uncooperative nuclear-armed power; and many of those tools would probably fail against China.
Nobody wants to fight China because the cost is so high - we are talking about lives more than dollars here (though dollar cost is high too).
What everyone worries about is being forced to fight China anyway. China is not playing nice with the US on the world stage. They are clearly supporting Russia over Ukraine (while pretending to be neutral). They are siding with Iran in the middle east. They are doing things in Africa that are against US interests (the US doesn't have a good record in Africa, but the US generally has supported democracy while China is fine with dictators which leaves lots of room for China to be worse though only time will tell). They escalating with Taiwan and the Philippians. Those are the major reasons I'm aware of to be worried about China, there is more that I didn't write.
How will this turn out - we can only guess. But there is reason to worry.
> but the US generally has supported democracy while China is fine with dictators
In the Middle East the US's #1 ally is indeed a democracy, but is currently fending off various challenges [1, 2] accusing them of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their #2 ally is an authoritarian regime run by a gentleman who can be identified with phrases like "the bone saw incident" let alone the Kingdom's long record of barbarism and human rights abuses.
The US might win a battle of who supports better causes, but it isn't a can of worms to open either. There is no particular indication that it cares about the government system or actions of the people it supports.
[0] If the US didn't do it directly, they endorsed it.
Yes, the theory is that the USA should keep up with China and maintain a qualitative edge in order to contain them. Keep it up long enough and hopefully they will collapse or undergo an internal revolution, sort of like what happened to the USSR.
> That would be the US vs the globe's industrial superpower with an arguably larger real economy
Wouldn't it be sad if this were true? Since when US was no longer a "industrial superpower"? Just 25 years ago, Chinese government officials were astound by how wealthy and advanced the US was when they visited the US. They wrote articles after articles to reflect why China was so behind, yet now China is the "globe's industrial superpower". In Oliver Stone's movie Heaven & Earth, Joan Chen's character went to the US and was totally mesmerized by the abundance in a supermarket. That was how Chinese people was amazed by the US too. And now? It's definitely great for China, but isn't it sad for the US to be behind?
Or perhaps it was just inevitable for PRC, also a continental sized land power with 4x population to be ahead once they got shit together. Comparing US industrial stagnation in US lens frequently fails to grasp/comprehend that PRC industrialization at PRC scale brought forth another "weight-class" of industrial output. Last year, PRC ship building launched roughly same amount of tonnage as entire 5year US WW2 ship building program. IMO many people think US industry declined from 10 to 5, and maybe whole of system effort can bring in back to 10. Meanwhile PRC didn't just turn the industrial output dial to 11, it turned it to 20, beyond what US was ever capable of, and likely will be capable of. Same way US didn't so much leave British Empire behind in the industrial race as UK was never capable of running better than a 7 minute mile while US stalled at 5 minute mile (and now de-trained into a 6 minute mile), meanwhile PRC is now running a 3.5 minute mile. IMO ultimately, not about sadness but being realisitic about systemtic potential. Maybe US can AI/automate their way to overcome human capita disadvantage, but PRC playing that game too.
Is it? What is the theory that the US could keep up with China? That would be the US vs the globe's industrial superpower with an arguably larger real economy. It doesn't seem plausible that the US can fight a long sustained war.
The plan as far as I can see it is to make use of a large network of allies and partners as well as aiming to finish the war quickly by cutting off materials like food and industrial inputs to stall the manufacturing engine. If it turns into a slugfest where munition reserves start to matter that seems like it would favour China.
One of the big surprises out of the Ukraine war is that the US isn't in a position where it can easily bully Russia. If that is the case it is hard to see it coming out ahead vs China in any plausible conflict.