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Notes -
Bias statement: I greately enjoy Pax Americana, I write this from the perspective of a frustrated and worried citizen who sees their mantle of "global superpower" slipping and is sad that the response to that is to shoot ourselves in the foot over and over again.
It's crazy you just skipped over that point lol
This is a great first step, and given they are the leader in ev's and power installation, it looks like they might be thinking about this too!
A few more things to consider, just riffing off the top of my head, happy to expand on any of them
Dominant position in heavy REE refining, yes, everyone else can stand up this capcaity, no, no one has to the same extent despite saying they want to for 20 years
One shipyard can build more ships than all US military shipyard combined
Military doctrine literally explicitly built around countering US forces
USA keeps shooting all its interceptors, of which it builds a far too small amount, to defend Israel (greatest ally btw)
If you dont want to read this , here is an AI-slop summary:
US + allies (Japan + Philippines + farther bases; excluding SK/Taiwan) — change last 10 years: Japan added only 2 HAS (and IAS grew from <60 to 100), the Philippines stayed at 0 HAS (IAS roughly doubled from a low base), and the “farther” US operating areas remained 0 US HAS; overall, in the within-1,000-nmcut (excluding SK), the US added +2 HAS total.
US + allies — current (per the paper): Japan has 36 military airfields with 140 HAS (most Cold War-era); the Philippines has 0 HAS across 13 bases; and the farther US/partner areas listed are almost entirely unhardened with 0 US HAS.
China — change last 10 years: PRC HAS rose from 370 entering the 2010s to “over 800” (i.e., +430-ish HAS, more than doubling); non-hardened IAS grew from just under ~1,100 to >2,300, reaching >3,100 total shelters nationwide.
China — current in-theater (per the paper): 134 PRC air bases within 1,000 nm of the Taiwan Strait with 650+ HAS and almost 2,000 IAS.
A collection of INDOPACOM leaders shitting their pants:
Adm. Samuel Paparo (Commander, USINDOPACOM) — Senate Armed Services posture hearing (Apr 10, 2025): “China is outproducing the United States… the trajectory must change.”
Adm. Samuel Paparo — USINDOPACOM Posture Statement (2025): “the trajectory must change. China is out-producing the United States…”
Adm. Samuel Paparo — testimony coverage on shipbuilding (Apr 2025): China building naval combatants “6 to 1.8” vs the US; “I could go through every force element…”
Adm. Samuel Paparo — Sedona Forum (McCain Institute coverage, May 2025): “every force element… is a bad trajectory.”
Adm. John Aquilino (Commander, USINDOPACOM) — Senate posture statement (Mar 21, 2024): PRC continues “aggressive military buildup”; “the risk… is high and trending in the wrong direction.”
Adm. John Aquilino — same statement (Mar 2024): “On a scale not seen since WWII… [PLA] has added over 400 fighter aircraft… more than 20 major warships…”
Adm. John Aquilino — Senate posture hearing (Mar 10, 2022): described an “extensive buildup of nuclear capability”; when asked if expansion was dramatic: “Extremely, quickly.”
Adm. John Aquilino — interview coverage (Apr 2024): “I’ve watched it increase in scope and scale, it is not slowing down.”
Adm. Phil Davidson (Commander, USINDOPACOM) — Senate testimony coverage (Mar 2021): cited “the… numbers of… ships, aircraft, rockets… they’ve put in the field,” and warned “the threat… [is]… in the next six years.”
Adm. Phil Davidson — later public quote (Sep 2021): “all those trend lines indicate… within the next six years they will have… capability… to forcibly reunify [Taiwan]…”
Yes I did skip over that, because it's a deep rabbit hole of classified information, Communist-bloc boasting, vaporware, and extremely complex speculatiion about how future wars might take place. I'll freely admit that I'm not qualified to even judge the current generation of aircraft, let alone the next generation. But from where I stand, there was a lot of doubt and worry about the performance of the F35 and Ford-class carriers, but both now seem to be working marvelously. They just finished a massive military operation against Iran! China has never done anything comparable, they can only speculate and boast about how they might someday perform. My vague impression is that the J-20 has excellent range and good stealth, but is not as good in avionics and other soft factors as the F35- and there's over 1000 F-35s now compared to just 300 F-20s. Similarly, I know they're working on a next-gen stealth bomber but don't have it ready yet, whereas the US is already scaling up production of its next-gen B21.
For the rest of it... well, I'm not sure what you expect me to say. Obviously they're a large, industrialized country which has been rapidly building up its military lately. Obviously it would be quite difficult to fight such a nation in their own backyard. But they have no means to project force overseas in any way close to what the US can, or even what the USSR could at its peak. All they can really do is defend their own local space and hope to deter us from directly attacking them. That report seems to be about them hardening their airfields, which is a good way for them to survive being bombed, but still not a great sign when your airfields are being bombed. It's far from clear that they even want to attack Taiwan, and there's a vast diversity of opinions on that, but I think most experts agree it would be an extremely difficult invasion for them- but of course US military leaders must take it seriously, and may play up that threat as an excuse to increase their own budgets.
Even if China did take over Taiwan... frankly, so what? It's a small island with no natural resources, far away from anything. It's only strategic asset is their chips factory, and that's rapidly being diversified. Iran is of much more strategic importance, and we just took that without breaking a sweat.
I agree with basically all of this.
Will China ever land troops in LA? no
But will the USA lose the ability to project power inside the first island chain? I'm worried that they might
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