Interesting. Coincidentally, I had just watched Scott Ritter and Carl Zha arguing passionately over the US vs China war fighting mindset. In that argument Carl Zha also brought up this Mao quote that men, not atom bombs wins wars.
What started this argument was that Carl Zha dismissed the power and relevance of the US today too casually. Ritter, while not a fan of the current US government today is still a boomer, and that triggered him. He ranted about USA #1 for awhile, and after calming down, he said that he is warning people around the world to not push the US into a corner too much too soon. Because there are too many nutjobs like Lindsey Graham and Trump in the halls of power, and they might just go crazy and throw nukes around. But Carl Zha doubts the US nuke threat, called it a bluff, and used that Mao quote too casually. Both Ritter and Zha have flaws in their argument. Ritter thinks that China is getting cocky and is out to get America now. Not true at all. He still doesn't understand China enough. While Zha just dismisses the US threat of war with China too casually. The Americans may be cowards, but their military is still very formidable against China. Now is not the time to dismiss them as a threat. Never underestimate your adversary. Don't make the same big mistake as the Qing Dynasty.
Mao was not wrong, but sometimes people do throw his quotes around too casually. It is true that men win wars, not nukes, but just don't dismiss the nuke threat too easily. Nukes are still controlled by men. The US didn't nuke China during the Mao era because it was just not worth it. Today, it's a different US and China. There are no more WW2 veterans in charge in the US. And China is poised to overtake the US economy and overturn over 200 years of Anglo-European domination of the world. For today, it might just be worth it to nuke China out, if the Western world have already accepted that they are doomed. Ritter was arguing to not dismiss that threat too casually. Because there are preemptive nuclear strike plans against Russia and China and the US is getting more desperate. He mentioned that the US neocons and haters still think that they have a massive warhead count advantage over China. They wet dream a surprise preemptive first strike on China because they think that the US might just fare better in a post nuclear exchange with China. Nobody survives nuclear war. But there are too many idiots in America who think they can.
I have brought up this same neocon viewpoint here about 4-years ago, in the middle of the Covid pandemic. I had argued with some people about the need for China to actually build a credible nuclear deterrence against the US. What China had in 2020 was enough to deter India, but it was still far from enough to deter the US. It still is today. Trump and his MAGA Republicans would sacrifice millions of Americans to Covid, so that they could show the middle finger to China's success at containing Covid. So why should they not do it with nuclear war if they were desperate enough? China should not gamble on the assumption that the leaders in the US are still reasonable people. Minimal deterrence is no longer enough. China has to attempt to achieve parity with the US nuclear arsenal. Only then, could China's deterrence be taken seriously by the American neocons. The good news is that the Chinese leadership is doing exactly that, by expanding its arsenal to 1000 warheads first. I personally believe that they'll go further after that, until they match with the US.
I still remember arguing with one idiot who argued vehemently that China's nuclear arsenal is a just waste of money. That China should actually spend that money on more economic development. If China would not have nukes at all, that'll better. This idealistic idiot is either high on something, or he is actually a hanjian pretending to be concerned for China.
