United States of America vs China - Conventional War

Thanks to Pro for his opening argument. I will address his specific points in my next round and will use this round for my opening arguments. Let's look at a few crucial statistics. All from the same source, the CIA World FactbookRussian Manpower fit for military service: 22.59 millionNorth Korea Manpower: 4.9 million China Manpower: 318.2 millionTotal Manpower fit for military service: 345.69 million[1]That is a LOT of bodies. Germany Manpower: 15 millionFrance Manpower: 12 millionUK Manpower: 12.25 millionUS Manpower: 60.6 millionTotal manpower fit for military service 99.85 million[1] US and its allies are outnumbered more than 3 to 1. Furthermore they cannot match the replenishment rates for military aged males coming of age for military service every year. (US has about 2.1 million every year compared to China's 10.4 million) These numbers do not include females who would more than likely be called into such a global conflict. (for reference China has another 300.3 million females with 9.1 million newly able bodied females per year to the US's 59.4 million with another 2 million newly able bodied per year).[1] This is just the manpower figures. Next we need to look at industrial capacity of the nations involved. This is especially important for figuring out supply of weapons, uniforms and food. Based on GDP the % of each country for (A) agriculture and (I) industry. These numbers are from Wikipedia.[2]China: (A) 10.1 (I) 46.8Russia: (A) 4.5 (I) 36.9North Korea: (A) 23.0 (I) 43.4US: (A) 1.2 (I) 19.2Germany: (A) 0.8 (I) 28.6France: (A) 1.8 (I) 18.8UK: (A) 0.7 (I) 21.4This is important because these represent the percentage of the economy dedicated to manufacture of said goods. So China has nearly half of its economy dedicated to manufacturing, whereas the US only has 19.2%. China can manufacture more goods on par to be used by their soldiers and allies than the US can. It is true and worth noting however that the US produces a massive amount of corn but useful goods like rice, wheat and potatoes are all produced in the largest quantities by China. They also have the number one production of chicken, pork, sheep, goat and duck meat. They produce the most eggs and fish, the most cotton and wool. The general point here of course is that China and it's allies have economies that are focused on producing things rather than consuming things, and can therefore be more quickly converted to producing the things necessary for a global war. Before I get into the relative strengths and weaknesses of the armies involved I would like to touch on a very important thing. Money. The US is heavily in debt. It owes over $17 trillion in debt. 34% of it is externally held, or held by other governments. China is the largest holder of US debt with $1.271 trillion.[3] According to the Council on Foreign Relations a foreign sell off of US Securities could drive up interest rates and make the US stock of debt more expensive to service. China can single handedly destroy the US dollar based on the US's monetary policy of the last decades of wild spending and printing of money. A worthless dollar, means a worthless economy and a weak enemy. Next it bears repeating that this war will be global because of the players involved. There can be no neutral nations. World War 2 saw the Nazis overrunning their neighbors in a push to the English Channel and the Atlantic. Countries with no allegiance were either destroyed or used as storage for plunder (Switzerland, I'm looking at you). That being said it is important to note that Russia, China and North Korea do not have to directly attack the US in order to cause them pain. The rich lands in Eastern Europe, the Oil in the Middle East, Rubber in Thailand and the pacific rim are all within reach of a Russian, Chinese alliance. If my opponent is correct in his assumption that South Korea would be a launch pad for an invasion of China, it should be noted that this would be hindered by a large Chinese force, on a small Korean peninsula. They did it once before, and they can do it again.[4] It should also be noted China's dominance of the South China Sea is becoming somewhat of an inevitability at this point. Their major land reclamation has provided them with floating bases to place SAM's and Anti-Ship missiles on to turn the South China Sea, an area where $5.3 trillion in trade transits annually, into a floating fortress.[5] It is true that the United States has a larger portion of advanced weaponry, including a superiority of aircraft and aircraft carriers. But Russia has arguably the best missiles in the world. Their S-400 anti air batteries are the most advanced in the world.[6] They also possess some of the most deadly anti ship missiles in the world. SS-N-12 "Sandbox" missile is a 10,000 lb school bus sized missile that flies at mach 2.5.[7] They are fired in salvos of 16 and coordinate with each other to vary their speed, altitude and approach vector to confuse enemy defenses. This still doesn't even touch on China's increasingly capable Dongfeng DF-21 anti ship ballistic missile. It is a conventional ballistic missile with a 900 mile range for which the US has "no defense" if it works as theorized.[8] China currently has more than enough of these to destroy every carrier on the planet. It essentially works as a standoff weapon to keep the US Naval carrier groups at bay. China is advancing the field of asymmetric warfare, focusing on their cyber attack expertise which is theoretically able to wreak havoc on American air defense and targeting systems.[9] Their DF-21 missiles are also capable at taking out satellites, which they would more than likely do to cripple American capabilities. This coupled with the hacking would make American task forces in the region easy targets for the Chinese. Russia and China both stress the use of A2/AD defensive strategies in their military doctrine. Russia has recently demonstrated this with their annexation of the Crimean Peninsula effectively turning the Black Sea into a Russian Lake. A2/AD means anti-access aerial denial. The basic goal of this strategy is to use land, sea, air, cyber and space attacks to nullify America's technological advantages and ability to strike at the heart of the Chinese mainland. This isn't meant to completely stop an attack, but to weaken an attacking force so that by the time they reach their objectives they are so depleted that they must turn around or face complete destruction or mission failure. I will cover the specific capabilities of Chinese A2/AD strategy more in depth in the next round.Furthermore China is developing their own stealth aircraft that are on par with the F-22 and F-35 Lightning II. The J-20[10] and J-31[11] are both upcoming Chinese projects that are designed to match the American fifth generation fighters. China has also procured 12 Kilo-class submarines from Russia that are equipped with anechoic tiles that reduce sonar signature and are specially designed to operate in shallow waters. Considering the US Navy's shift away from anti-submarine specialty this is a troubling development for our armed forces. In 2006 a Chinese Song-class submarine stalked and surfaced within firing distance of the USS Kitty Hawk and its escorts.[12]For these reasons I believe that China, Russia and North Korea would be able to defend their naval borders from attack and invasion, while expanding their territory into Europe and the Middle East, forcing the US to engage in a land battle where China and it's allies have an upper hand. There is a reason that after WW2 the US focused so much on their atomic monopoly. Simply put Russia had too large of a standing army for any world power to be able to effectively combat them without Nuclear weapons. If the US is forced to engage Russia, China and North Korea on an extended land battle in Europe, Korea and the Middle East, it is questionable if they would be able to sustain a meaningful campaign in such a large theater of operations. Combat is about more than who has the most advanced weapons. It is about training, determination, leadership and the will of the people to sustain a conflict for such a long period of time. If we look at history; well equipped, well trained and well led armies have time and again failed at defeating superior numbers. Napoleon's conquest of Europe was a terrifying development for 19th century monarchs in Europe, but Napoleon fell prey to logistical problems and despite winning the Battle of Borodino, he failed to crush Russia. The same thing happened to the Wehrmacht when they invaded Russia in 1941. Although their superior military equipment and experience carried them deep into Russian territory, they were ultimately unsuccessful. German tanks, aircraft, small arms and artillery in the early war were much more advanced than their Russian counterparts. Vietnam shows us that a technologically superior force can still be defeated by a motivated populace. North Korea shows that very same thing. In my next argument I will focus on the implications of our recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as our dwindling supplies of battle ready equipment and munitions. I will also cover the specific impact of Chinese A2/AD strategy on our operations.Sources[1]https://www.cia.gov...[2]https://en.wikipedia.org...[3]http://www.treasury.gov...[4]https://en.wikipedia.org...[5]http://thediplomat.com...[6]https://en.wikipedia.org...(missile)[7]https://en.wikipedia.org...[8]https://en.wikipedia.org...[9]http://www.thedailybeast.com...[10]https://en.wikipedia.org...[11]https://en.wikipedia.org...[12]http://goo.gl...