I have significant access to all the information on how to bench press 600lb, how to do a triple axel on ice, how to throw an uppercut to KO Mike Tyson and how to run 100m dash in sub 10 seconds. The information is there. I read it all. Or so I think
WARNING: Long read ahead. Grab a beer.
A severely crippled USA is an USA that brings all shipment routes to a full stop in 48 hours, anywhere.
China's sea access is interesting. To quote Sarah Paine - "
China has access to the sea — but not freedom at sea". You can not block China's Navy, they can go where they want, but all of China's exits to the world sea routes are subject to friction with close and further neighbors. There is no single maritime exit passage (or barely) which is fully under Chinese control.
In this sense, China can exercise very good sea
denial, but not as good
control of its local seas This is inportant, because its navy automatically shifts towards being a defense shield. It can bring the whole area to a halt, but can not bring the area to full control.
This is patently false.
An isolated USA will tighten its belt and have to replace its iPhones every four years rather than every year. If you manage to isolate it economically and politically at all. And unless a very solid anti-US coalition is created and for some miracle the US refuses to use nuclear weapons - there is no scenario where you can do a maritime blockade on the US. Or on Canada. Or even on Mexico.
An isolated and blockaded China will experience food shortages. Serious ones. They will not starve from that, they do produce carbs and calories (rice, wheat, corn, potatoes), they will be able to establish a wartime diet for sure, and they will not starve. They will however experience a severe protein crisis. They rely on imports for soybeans, animal feed, oils.
And soybeans are not something you nibble in front of your TV - they are the main staple of the livestock diet. Cut that, and their meat production collapses. Poultry will probably be salvageable - it is the main "restauration" meat source, the full cycle from egg to chicken is about 90 days, that's why countries recovering from wars first start with poultry then go with everything else. But the population's diet will become miserable. People will eat what their grandparents did.
If you read Frederick Forsyth's "The Biafra Story" (one of his lesser known books) - there's a passage about the famine in Biafra when the supply routes were cut. Kids were dying from malnutrition in droves, while having good access to grain and staple food. It's simply that the shipments of Norwegian dried cod (or whatever other fish it was) that used to come for the last several decades, stopped abruptly. And it turned out this was their only source of protein. Kids starved to death while eating.
Do this for long enough, and this very homogenous population (it is not, btw) will very homogenously kick its government out. They've had famines in the 50s and 60s, but back then they were coming from 30 years of civil wars (killed about 28 million), then another 30ish years of warlords and Japanese occupation. Nowadays, they have tasted the western way of life. They have tested comfort. They have tasted stability. Try getting that away and switch them to glorious fight for glorious Winnie, see what happens.
America's only strategical problem is that most of its opponents are smart enough to not poke it enough to make it switch to war setup. Their skills are to keep it at the edge, but never have it cross and switch. Those are great skills. They are very dangerous. And they can hurt a lot.
That came out long, but there's a lot to discuss. I was moderating a forum in Eastern Europe for a very long time, and have first hand experience with direct propaganda, and most of the usual narratives. Take this as pure truth, and you'll cry bitter tears. "
American soldiers are soft, they rely on technology only, their weapons are too complex, they never met a real ennemy in the last 70 years, they have no spirit, they are mercenaries, they lost in Vietnam, they won the First Iraq war because the Iraqis were incompetent, blah blah blah".
I happen to understand Russian - there were recordings of a call from a Wagner soldier that was part of the Wagner forces that "weren't there" during the battle of Conoco Field in Syria a few years ago.
What was that - well, in short - US forces were engaged by some unknown Syrian groups, so they picked up the de-escalation phone to the Russian forces on the other side and went
- "
guys, we're being attacked, just to confirm - it's not you, right ???"
- "
No no no, comrade, of course not, we don't know what you talking about".
- "Ok then, good, we can retaliate then".
Epic stuff. The Wagner guy boiled down to "
We deserved what we got, because for a second we bought into our own BS".
So no. Don't bury us yet
.
PS: About China's industrial abilities - yes, they are impressive. Search the following in YouTube: "
China’s Machine Tools 50 Years Behind West; A 1.4 Billion Nation Bested by 200-Person Japanese Shops". The channel it's on is not exactly pro-Chinese, but the video is quite interesting and shows stuff that you don't see every day. Does it put things in a different light - I'm not sure.
PPS: Little piece of useless analysis from a guy who grew up elsewhere:
- What sport do little and less little boys play in the whole World ? Football, it's called everywhere but here. Well - SOCCER, in our neck of the woods.
What does soccer teach ? Running. Stamina, and running. Health, and running.
- What sport do little and less little boys play in North America ? Let's see...
Football. AMERICAN football.
Baseball.
Hockey up North.
What are boys from all over the World good at when they go to war ?
- They are good at RUNNING. They can run forever, in various directions, in very fast sprints.
What are boys from North America trained to do when they go to war ?
- Throw grenades - very far, and very accurately.
- Smash things and people with bats. Very accurately.
- Run THROUGH people. Very efficiently.
- Do all of the above, ON ICE, for our friends up North.
Sounds like a joke, but it's not. There's deep wisdom into what boys learn.
