I think your last point is pretty accurate. The US side has done a bunch of war games for a Taiwan invasion situation. In these games, the US side barely wins. To me, that’s evidence the US probably loses. All of the Chinese decision making is done by US military people that think like the US military. If the PLA acts differently, they could easily be in a better position. Also, the Chinese capabilities will be based on US intelligence. Unless the Pentagon knows everything about missile ranges, warhead sizes, magazine depth, aircraft speeds and ranges, etc, they won’t be able to anticipate a capability they didn’t know about.
Probably most importantly, China has a vast industrial base and would be much closer to the fighting. All they really have to do is use up the US missile stockpiles and shoot down a few planes (probably while they’re just parked in Okinawa). Once the war becomes about who can manufacture more missiles and planes to replace losses, there’s no way the US will be able to keep up. If it becomes a protracted war, the US loses by default.
Edit: also, I’m not so sure Iran would close the straight. But I don’t think it would matter because part of the US plans involve closing the Malaca straight to starve the Chinese of oil. They’ll do it themselves.
China and Iran are allies.
If the US and China go to war Iran will close the strait to their enemies. And we’ve seen the US is impotent to that and overly reliant on oil.
I think China just has to deal with a first strike from the US and then wait for an impotent United States to fall apart and starve.
I think your last point is pretty accurate. The US side has done a bunch of war games for a Taiwan invasion situation. In these games, the US side barely wins. To me, that’s evidence the US probably loses. All of the Chinese decision making is done by US military people that think like the US military. If the PLA acts differently, they could easily be in a better position. Also, the Chinese capabilities will be based on US intelligence. Unless the Pentagon knows everything about missile ranges, warhead sizes, magazine depth, aircraft speeds and ranges, etc, they won’t be able to anticipate a capability they didn’t know about.
Probably most importantly, China has a vast industrial base and would be much closer to the fighting. All they really have to do is use up the US missile stockpiles and shoot down a few planes (probably while they’re just parked in Okinawa). Once the war becomes about who can manufacture more missiles and planes to replace losses, there’s no way the US will be able to keep up. If it becomes a protracted war, the US loses by default.
Edit: also, I’m not so sure Iran would close the straight. But I don’t think it would matter because part of the US plans involve closing the Malaca straight to starve the Chinese of oil. They’ll do it themselves.