China Isn’t Worried
You ever wonder why it seems like China isn’t really worried about the United States?
A few years ago, before I retired, I was in a small seminar with a handful of Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels, with a US Army Brigadier General who’s name escapes me as the guest. The topic of discussion was how we, the United States, with a military significantly smaller than China would fight against a much larger foe.
One of his first answers was that “we would energize the industrial base just like World War II” to make up for equipment shortages. This was pre-COVID and we hadn’t yet swapped over some of the auto manufacturing plants to provide respirators instead of engine components, so WWII was his point of reference.
I countered his point with the fact that we were not going to be building P-51 Mustangs and other piston driven aircraft, nor were we going to be building M4 Sherman tanks. Every single piece of equipment we would need to fight a large conventional force would be much more technologically advanced. The technological advancements would, therefore, make it more difficult (not impossible) to convert assets in the industrial base like factories and assembly lines, to support the manufacture of current combat equipment.
I reminded him that during WWII, we also had instituted rationing to ensure the defense structure had the materials it needed to increase production. We even made pennies out of steel to save copper for ammunition. I told him I wasn’t sure modern America would be so easily on board with the idea of rationing as our grandparents were, especially if it limited the ability to purchase the latest and greatest tech devices we love so much. Tell a 16 year old they aren’t producing the XBOX anymore so we can put microchips in tanks and he isn’t going to be happy.
The General decided my arguments were not based on reality, and only assumptions, so he poo-poo’ed what I had to say as conjecture and didn’t really address them. OK, fine. That was his prerogative.
The discussion turned quickly to being able to man all this new equipment we would need to fight the much larger Chinese force. There was a lengthy discussion about the draft, including the idea of including women since all military positions were being opened to them, including Infantry and Special Operations. It was an interesting discussion in which the General never took a definitive position.
Of course, I had to open my mouth again. I asked the General how, with all this great technology we were going to build from the now-energized industrial base, were we going to be able to train new servicemembers to actually USE the equipment. I ceded the point that we would be able to rapidly build all this new equipment for the sake of argument, but how were we going to train a massive force to employ it effectively. I reminded him again we weren’t fielding P-51s and M4 Shermans, and the new 5th Generation Fighters and latest version of the M1 Abrams were highly technological and not easily trained.
I think the General was feeling somewhat cornered. He said we would pull airline pilots who already knew how to fly multi-engine jet aircraft to help augment the aviation career field and that kids today play video games all the time and would be able to pick up the technology in tanks very quickly. I wasn’t ready to let this go, so I asked him if he was concerned that the majority of draftees in WWII (his own reference point) were much more physically fit and many already knew how to shoot BEFORE the Army trained them and that our current crop of American youngsters were spending more time playing video games (his own point) and much less time outside and even less time hunting and shooting? I also asked if he thought the American public was ready to give up airline travel since he was ready to pull their pilots to augment the Air Force and Navy.
Listen, I am no dummy. I knew from the look on his face I was about to get drug into the hallway by that General and told to shut my fucking mouth. I let the point go, feeling like a TV lawyer who just made a point to the jury and then retracted it after an objection knowing he had been heard and the point made. The General never addressed my points.
Why does any of that matter? Because our support to Ukraine is proving my point about our inability to fight China. We have given 100 Bradley fighting vehicles to Ukraine. A Bradley is below par with an M1 Abrams in technology and capability. Simpler engine. Simpler targeting and gun system. Simpler maintenance. It just is. I’ve been in a few Bradley units in my career. 34 of those vehicles were destroyed, damaged, or abandoned in the first few engagements with the Russian Army.
Want to know why? We didn’t adequately TRAIN the Ukrainians on how to use the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, if at all. When you don’t train people to use equipment, it gets destroyed. The same thing, and probably worse, will happen if we ever have to go toe-to-toe with China. They have a large, trained military that is near-peer in technology. We don’t have a great technological advantage over them, and they have MORE of everything. More troops, more tanks, more planes, more artillery.
We aren’t going to have time to energize the industrial base and train a force to adequately stand up to the Chinese Army. It just isn’t there. And we don’t have the current non-nuclear military to beat them. And NATO isn’t going to save us because most of NATO is in worse shape than we are. And we are proving it to them in Ukraine every single day.
That’s why China isn’t worried about the United States.