I don't think US is a big threat to fight China either. But I do think Japan, Taiwan, South Korea are big threats. These are delusional western worshippers and do hate China with a passion. I don't think they will accept Chinese dominance without a fight. The most likely scenario will likely be these countries trying to acquire nukes and China will be forced to fight a war to prevent them from getting nukes. I think the probability of China being forced to fight Japan is very high.
No, these countries use the US as a backbone. No one has any dreams of fighting China if the US sits back. All Asians other than China are absolute GOATs at accepting a powerful master and living on their knees. There is something strange with you that you think that Chinese rule is so unacceptable in Asia when it is the historic norm.
Many may disagree with me, but I'm not scared of a nuclear Japan. It's way smaller than China and getting nukes won't change the power dynamic at all against China. We don't even have to fight them; we can economically collapse them just by refusing them trade. North Korea doesn't have the USA by the balls just because it's also a nuclear country and neither would Japan have China.
But recent Ukraine and Iran wars have shown none of the so called super powers have the numbers necessary to fight a proper conventional war with a competent opponent. When you compare with the past cold war and ww2 numbers, these countries used to maintain armies of several millions and had the arms stockpile to fight an attritional war.
But I think US success in the gulf war in 1991 had a very negative effect, it made countries believe they dont need to maintain big number of troops or weapons to fight war anymore. They thought technology and air power is sufficient to victory.
1. Russia is still trying to preserve some Slavic brotherhood. They are not fighting as if they were being attacked by a true enemy. They are also preserving their most lethal powers in case of a NATO invasion.
2. Neither have more than a small fraction of China's manufacturing or rare earths hold.
China also fell victim to that and rapidly reduced its armed force numbers and also reduced weapons stockpile, focusing on quality instead of quantity.
If not, then China would fall victim to maintaining thousands of obsolete machines while much farther behind where we currently are in terms of quality and technology. I would much rather the current situation.
I think modern warfare is again becoming more about attrition. Drones and missiles have leveled the playing field. Now you dont need air superiority to cause massive damage to your enemies. And small countries can again fight against big power using drones and missiles.
Only if the big country had suffered the hubris of believing that their size and superiority means they can neglect lower end cheaper weapons like suicide drones and are constrained by production to hold far less missiles. Both are the opposite of China. Mao's China invented the concept of assymetric missile warfare with Chinese missiles being developed long before its air force or navy. The current China is the undisputed master of drones and manufacturing them.
Since you failed to see this, you far oversimplified things into small country doing unexpectedly well against a large country and pigeonholed China into that narrative.
China cannot expect to fight a war in the pacific and expect to win easily even if they achieve air dominance. They will face mass drone and missiles strikes and will likely see its strategic factories, radars and other installations destroyed.
What "mass" drone and missile strikes? These countries don't even know the meaning of "mass" until China unleashes its drones and missiles. Calling their arsenals "mass" when facing China's is like calling a little Japanese kid's firecracker a "mass" explosion when Fat Man was being dropped on him from overhead.
Yes, they can also inflict this damage to its enemies. But that is not the point.
No, it is the point. It's the central point. In a war of attrition, China has more of everything, can make more faster than everyone else put together and has the depth to take more damage than anyone else by far. That's the point.
The point is China cannot gain dominance without massive losses and that will make Chinese leaders reluctant to use force, and thus they will not be able to gain dominance.
Pffft, what kind of fart logic is that? I fixed it for you: The point is Japan/Korea/USA cannot gain dominance even with massive losses and that will make their leaders reject using force, and thus they will not dare fight China.
