Chinese and American flags flying together
Since the industrial revolution military power has been largely a function of three factors:
- Technology.
- Industrial Capacity.
- Population.
As time goes buy population becomes less important (see, rise of drones), but it still matters. Think of it as something like Tech x IndCap x (Pop x .5).
America has a powerful military though most of the technology is one or two generations old. The general consensus is that Pakistan’s Chinese jets (themselves last gen tech) out-performed India’s Western jets.
At this point, China is ahead in about 80% of tech fields. China has 31% of world industrial capacity, and the US about 16%, meaning that China has about twice as much. Further China owns the entire supply chain for many of its technologies, whereas the US’s supply chain is reliant on China.
Finally, of course, China’s share of world industrial capacity is increasing.
A lot of civilian industry can easily be turned into military tech. This is what made America “the arsenal of democracy” in World War II.
China has about 230x the shipbuilding capacity of America.
China produces about 20K civilian drones a day. The US produces about 20K civilian drones a year.
The US and Canada combined produce about 12 million cars a year. China produces about 30 million cars a year.
So in a real war, where civilian industry is retooled for military production, well, China is well ahead. In the case of drones and ships, ludicrously ahead.
The US finds itself in a similar position to Japan on the eve of the Pacific War. J had a powerful fleet and air force, but it couldn’t replace equipment losses at the rate of the US, let alone expand its arsenal. If it isn’t a “short victorious war” the US loses, unless it goes nuclear, in which case everyone loses.
This imbalance is only going to get worse. China has a ridiculously small army of about 2 million, with a million paramilitary. When you consider its population of 1.4 billion, well, again, China is similar to the US before WW2: an industrial behemoth with an undersize military, but which can be expected to ramp up fast.
(These numbers are better if one includes South Korea and Japan, or even the EU, but then one has to add Russia to the Chinese side. And the way the US is acting, it’s less and less clear its allies will support it in a shooting war, especially if it starts the war. Never thought I’d say that about Japan, but Trump has really shit the bed with his insane trade war.)
All of this is going to get worse and worse for the US. China is increasing its tech and industrial lead, while the US is systematically de-funding its research sector even as erratic economic policy makes long term investment in new industrial capacity difficult. China’s civilian airline industry is taking off, its car industry is expanding as the West’s collapse, and it’s the only real player in the drone space.
China doesn’t want a war for the simple reason that the longer they put one off the easier it will be if it happens, and the less likely it will be to happen, because Americans will be unable to sustain the delusion that they have any chance of winning said war.
The American era is over. It’s even likely that the US will lose control of South America, which it has had since the late 19th century. (Yes, there were theoretically independent nations in South America. Theoretically.) It will be pushed back to its North American stronghold, where it even seems to be attempting to lose effective control of Mexico and Canada: an entirely self-inflicted wound, since both nations wanted to stay under the US wing.
Just as the sun set on the British Empire, today it is at the horizon for America, and the long European supremacy is nearly over. The world returns to its normal state, where the Middle Kingdom is the most important and prosperous country in the world.
Feral Finster
The United States also has a much larger blue water navy and China faces a lot of chokepoints.
Ian Welsh
China has more ships, America has more tonnage. But China is building more military ships and tonnage than America is, so this, again, is a legacy matter.
Ian Welsh
Not sure about your comment, taking a look. The article is gone for good, aye, decided it wasn’t quite right for my place. Bad judgment on my part and no reflection on the author.
Alan Coovert
Just what the planet needs is 30 million more 4 wheeled steel boxes no matter if these cars are ICE cars or EVs . How about instead more electric buses and electric trains? How about high speed rail networks? Oh wait I forgot. The privately owned automobile is global corporate capitalisms most important commodity.
Jan Wiklund
“China doesn’t want a war for the simple reason that the longer they put one off the easier it will be if it happens, and the less likely it will be to happen, because Americans will be unable to sustain the delusion that they have any chance of winning said war.”
– According to Dale Copeland a power that is doing fine in the economy field never goes to war willingly. Only those who seem themselves losing it do. See https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691161594/economic-interdependence-and-war
Mark Level
All entirely clear and obvious. The only real question viz the much-planned-for attack on China is if Trump can untangle from the commitment to pissing away resources on Ukraine (but the MIC profiteers won’t let him?) in time to foreground Ghina. Yes, they can offload a lot of that to the brain-dead, self-destructive EUro-Baltic Tards. But it’s failing no matter how much the increase the sunk cost.
I didn’t comment on the very nice UK piece, but yes, “Sir” Keir has to be one of the most homicidal and suicidal “Leaders” who has ever fronted for Actual Power. I did not comment on the Gaza Genocide piece either, as words (even typed) fail me now. All I can say of the Brits is that evidently their populace is full of self-hatred (which is very justified by their history across the globe) given who they put in power. Being 1/4 Irish myself (more than any other piece) I’ve long had an antipathy toward the Brits, despite as a child and youth imbibing a lot of great culture from there, Monty Python, Dr. Who and more serious stuff as well; Alan Moore is a Demigod, I was reading the Watchmen as it came out serially in 12 issues in the mid-80s. . . one can’t broad-brush and despise everyone.
So, returning to Gaza, not too off-topic: Yesterday I saw a new source, Mohammed OD, covering that on Sunday, Netanyahu forced his Cabinet, without a vote (which he would’ve lost) to start providing food aid again, “soon.” Soon enough? Consider me skeptical.
But at the same time, Due Dissidence noted yesterday that Trump is colluding with Bibi to clear half the (surviving) Gaza populace out by dumping them in failed-state Libya in the near future. Can the world stop it? Who knows? Anybody have any insight? I’m kind of trying not to go insane over all the carnage and Trumpist Squid Ink.
Ian Welsh
The plan for aid is 20-30 trucks a day (they let in 9 yesterday.) Before the blockade 500 to 600 were going in a day, and there were reports of malnutrition.
So, fig leaf and essentially meaningless, just trying to provide allies with some cover to keep sending them weapons and ammo.
Jessica
In one of Doris Lessing’s Canopus series sci-fi novels, there is a character who is an agent from a benevolent ET empire. This agent takes on the role of the leader of a barbarian horde about to wipe out an oasis civilization (Central Asia, I assume). He will go down in history as a blood-thirsty barbarian who destroyed a higher civilization. But the reason he is assigned this task is so that he can be in a position to allow the holders of the civilization’s higher culture to escape just before the end.
I think of that sometimes with Trump. He is so wildly incompetent at what he claims to be doing and what his supporters want that sometimes it seems as though he is an agent working to undermine precisely what he seems to be working for.
OK, I don’t think he is an ET agent and I don’t think that any of the hidden social forces are powerful enough to pull this off – or wise enough to try.
But after all, right now, the greatest immediate danger to the species and the planet is that a frustrated US in decline, with a substantial minority that shares the same murderous fanaticism as the Israelis (are a major source of it actually), will do something orders of magnitude more lastingly destructive with the one power it still has, its weapons of mass destruction. And the crudity of Trump’s flailing about is shortening the time until war with China becomes such a losing proposition for the US that even the mongerist of the war mongers can’t deny it and his intensifying of splits among the US elites makes it less likely that the US can or will act during its closing window of kind-of sort-of opportunity. (In reality, the window is already closed but not so thoroughly that some in the US might not delude themselves otherwise.)
Jessica
If China becomes the world’s strongest power, there will be nothing surprising or unusual about that. But the normal state of human history was for multiple regional powers to exist with weak contact and no real ability to dominate each other (India-China-Roman Empire) or no contact at all (Europe/India/China – Aztecs, Incas pre-1492).
Note also that during its strongest recent peaks (when Marco Polo visited or during the century of conquest that preceded (and facilitated) the century of humiliation), China was ruled by outside conquerors.
Barely relevant, but it seems that the Chinese term rendered as “China Town” is actually “Tang Town”.
Chinese history is fascinatingly more complex than the yellow peril redux being peddled by our illustrious leaders or the angelic China counter-narrative. (Dzungar Khanate)
Oakchair
If China becomes the world’s strongest power,
—-
China already is the world’s strongest power in
Manufacturing
Engineering
Scientific research
Technology
Trade
Population
Wealth
We could quibble that America still has the stronger military even though it couldn’t even defeat the Taliban. The corollary being that America’s imbecilic use of it’s military makes it a weakness rather than a strength.
mago
It’s Chinatown Jake.