US-China Total War Scenario

[Darth Hoth]

Inspired (somewhat) by this thread.

A sufficiently advanced alien wants to play Sim Wars with Earth, and the US and China look like they should be the most interesting major players. So he goes to work modifying the relevant minds.

As of February 2 2009, the political leadership of the United States (across the political spectrum) is effectorised to become irrational anti-China fanatics. Basically, Obama, his cabinet, SCOTUS, all the most senior civilian and military civil servants, and a large majority of members of both houses of Congress all now suffer from a paranoid fear and hatred of the Chinese People's Republic and the Han people comparable to how Adolph Hitler felt about Soviet Russia and Jews. They are all completely and irrevocably convinced that the Chinese are irredeemably evil, want to conquer the world and then destroy all that is good and pure in humanity and replace it with whatever horrible dystopia they personally find most appalling. The only chance of survival goodness has is to pre-empt their evil plans.

The new American leadership thus promptly goes to work on preparing a war that will end the perceived threat. Specifically, they want to wreck the Chinese economy to such an extent that it will not recover to present levels for at least the next few hundred years, with as little harm to American interests otherwise as is compatible with this goal. (Although they naturally realise that the US will suffer horrifically even in the best-case scenario; they consider this acceptable and necessary losses.) They will use any and all economic, political, and military means at their disposal to do this.

However, to the best of their ability they will do so intelligently, restraining themselves somewhat, initially, at least, in order to be able to make maximally effective use of their resources. To this end, they will probably wait for a couple of years before launching their attack, in the meantime building up defences as can be done, disentangling from current wars, and so forth. The limit is that the war must be over and done with before Obama's term draws to its close. This is universally agreed upon.

Given the above . . . How do things play out from there? Concerning both how well the military forces are matched, and the consequences and political fallout of whatever battles are likely to take place.

[Count Chocula]

Nukes, and lots of 'em. Possibly biowar. China gets bombed back 200 years, the Three Gorges dam goes kablooie, America attains pariah status WRT the rest of the world and takes a huge economic hit, and...Russia gets a whole lot of new real estate. US probably gets a few port cities wasted by h-bombs on Chinese container ships. Chinese operatives cry havoc and run wild in the interior. Hilarity ensues.

Did I mention nukes?

[Zaune]

Wouldn't the general public tend to notice almost every single one of their elected representatives simultaneously going completely batshit insane? Gearing up to liberate some oil-rich tinpot dictatorship into a smoking heap of rubble is one thing, especially in an election year, but China is the only single country left that could fight the US on a mostly equal footing. Even the looniest fringes of the Tea Party are unlikely to be comfortable with risking nuclear armageddon just for a chance to kill foreigners.

Besides, once the Chinese caught on they'd stop selling the US any more manufactured goods, at which point the country would self-destruct.

[Darth Hoth]

Wouldn't the general public tend to notice almost every single one of their elected representatives simultaneously going completely batshit insane? Gearing up to liberate some oil-rich tinpot dictatorship into a smoking heap of rubble is one thing, especially in an election year, but China is the only single country left that could fight the US on a mostly equal footing. Even the looniest fringes of the Tea Party are unlikely to be comfortable with risking nuclear armageddon just for a chance to kill foreigners.

Though insane, they are still savvy politicians who know how to talk to the masses. (Well, as much so as before, anyway.) Most likely, they will not immediately start ranting and raving on TV about how WWIII must be brought about shortly. Even Hitler was not elected on a war ticket, after all. Rather, they would encourage anti-Chinese feeling more cautiously, while absolutely not under any circumstances revealing the full extent of their true aims to the general public. Since that would be obviously and severely harmful to the cause of actually accomplishing those aims

Besides, once the Chinese caught on they'd stop selling the US any more manufactured goods, at which point the country would self-destruct.

Then . . . as soon as that happens, that will force the desperate fanatics into attacking right away with whatever forces they can scramble, whether they otherwise feel ready or not, before it becomes too late. In their worldview that confirms all their worst fears, and they view it as the first Chinese strike against them.

[Zaune]

Though insane, they are still savvy politicians who know how to talk to the masses. (Well, as much so as before, anyway.) Most likely, they will not immediately start ranting and raving on TV about how WWIII must be brought about shortly. Even Hitler was not elected on a war ticket, after all. Rather, they would encourage anti-Chinese feeling more cautiously, while absolutely not under any circumstances revealing the full extent of their true aims to the general public. Since that would be obviously and severely harmful to the cause of actually accomplishing those aims.

Anti-Chinese sentiment needs very little encouragement; it's fostering pro-deranged acts of nuclear brinkmanship sentiment that will be the problem. No matter how skilled in the art of bullshit the politicians might be, once the anti-China sentiment ramps up past big talk, it will be blindingly obvious to just about everyone not in the hands of the Mysterons that continuing down this path cannot possibly end well for anybody.
Now, our sufficiently advanced alien with too much free time can presumably point their orbiting brain lasers at the new administration that sweeps into power on a "don't start World War 3 and kill us all" ticket, but I'm pretty sure the US public has about reached the limit of their patience with massive policy climbdowns as soon as the election is over. Questions are going to be asked. Documents are going to be leaked. The military are going to start creatively misinterpreting, "accidentally" failing to pass on and eventually outright ignoring orders from a political leadership that has obviously gone off the deep end. Eventually, people might even figure out what's really happening and start actively resisting the induced anti-China sentiments.

[Tasoth]

I'm pretty sure initial engagements would play out between navies, and from what I've gleaned from the board, most foreign navies can't hold a candle to the USN. So assuming that is true, the US opens up the coast of China to cruise missile strikes and air strikes from carriers.

I know we also have military bases in South Korea and Japan, but I don't know what other places we have them present. These would probably be staging points for additional strikes via aircraft as well as the where most of the US supplies and infantry launch from.

I am not sure of what the Chinese ground and airforces (even the navy, honestly) are capable of, so I leave that up to a more informed poster to lay out.

[hongi]

China is the only single country left that could fight the US on a mostly equal footing. Even the looniest fringes of the Tea Party are unlikely to be comfortable with risking nuclear armageddon just for a chance to kill foreigners.

China doesn't have enough nukes to make it MAD. The US Navy is still the best in the world and China's blue water capabilities are still behind Russia's I believe.

[Skgoa]

Blue water capabilities aren't important in costal defense.

[Block]

Blue water capabilities aren't important in costal defense.

They're pretty important in getting to a coastline that needs defending though.

[Shroom Man 777]

Being on the defensive is a losing proposition. I mean, you could have the best SAMs and IADS and coastal defenses in the world, but if you lack the capability to strike back at the enemy's bases, the enemy can just attack you and your territory at his leisure while your defense forces struggle to shoot down his planes or his ships or whatever. In comparison, the actual capability to strike back at the enemy's home, his cities, his shores, now this would actually put more fear into the enemy and make him think twice about attacking you.

If your ability to react to the enemy is stuck to SAMs that shoot at his planes, or coastal crap that just shoots at his boats whenever they come near, you're basically fucked.

[Simon_Jester]

Nukes, and lots of 'em. Possibly biowar. China gets bombed back 200 years, the Three Gorges dam goes kablooie, America attains pariah status WRT the rest of the world and takes a huge economic hit, and...Russia gets a whole lot of new real estate. US probably gets a few port cities wasted by h-bombs on Chinese container ships. Chinese operatives cry havoc and run wild in the interior. Hilarity ensues.

Did I mention nukes?

Uh, did the Chinese ICBM force all spontaneously combust or something? Sure, they're not up to "Mutually assured destruction," but you're still looking at a few dozen H-bombs landing on our heads- that's pretty damn destructive.

[Shroom Man 777]

Using wiki as a shit-source for China's delivery systems, they only have about fifty ICBMs with ranges that can reach the USA. As USAF Gen. Buck Turgidson put it, "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."



If the US is lucky, it can nuke their nukes before they can nuke you with their own nukes.

[JointStrikeFighter]

US blow up Australia's ports. Chinese economy crippled

[CaptainChewbacca]

US blow up Australia's ports. Chinese economy crippled

Couldn't we just... blow up China's ports?

[Count Chocula]

Uh, did the Chinese ICBM force all spontaneously combust or something? Sure, they're not up to "Mutually assured destruction," but you're still looking at a few dozen H-bombs landing on our heads- that's pretty damn destructive.

They have a dozen or so, who knows maybe 20, DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs. We have Patriots, SM-3s and NORAD. If in this crazy town we were planning a total war against those damn Godless Chinese we'd have our Army and Navy on full defense mode. The IRBMs would be a definite threat against any naval task force, sure, but their blow-up-the-USA-from-China capability is pretty weak sauce.

[tim31]

US blow up Australia's ports. Chinese economy crippled

Couldn't we just... blow up China's ports?

Yeah but we're talking proxy war now. That's actually ingenious. US false-flags terrorist attacks taking out Australian ports that feed the Chinese resource demands. It was the perfect plan... Except they weren't counting on AFP office Steve McClintock to discover the truth. Now his brother has been murdered and he is being pursued by US SOCOM assassins, as McClintock tries to find the evidence that would destroy ANZUS relations and change the balance of world power.

Gary Sweet is STEVE McCLINTOCK

[Sea Skimmer]

They have a dozen or so, who knows maybe 20, DF-31 and DF-41 ICBMs. We have Patriots, SM-3s and NORAD. If in this crazy town we were planning a total war against those damn Godless Chinese we'd have our Army and Navy on full defense mode. The IRBMs would be a definite threat against any naval task force, sure, but their blow-up-the-USA-from-China capability is pretty weak sauce.

Patriot and SM-3 = ineffective against ICBM. Only GBI can currently engage ICBMs with any real chance of success. Its also totally feasible for the Red Chinese to fly H-6 bombers clear across the Pacific and blow away the west coast with nuclear cruise missiles. USAF might stop that, might not. If the war started with Chinese SSBNs at sea, which they usually are not then each of those would also add a dozen missiles each; not clear if they have the missile range to fire on the lower 48 from dockside or not. \

As for attacking Australia, why bother? Any one leg of the US triad could vaporize the Red Chinese industrial war making capacity, and a second leg to vaporize most of the major military assets leaving whatever third leg we want, most likely the SSBN force, as a reserve hedge against the Russians. The only thing that would be all that vital to embargo anyway would be oil.