I have been writing about the probability of a big war with China for years, increasingly so recently. I pray that I’m wrong, but I see too many indicators leading to that conclusion. And it will likely happen sooner than we think.
China’s dictator Xi Jinping has declared the Chinese military must be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, and they are almost ready.
If China attacks, U.S. forces will likely be hit first. And the first 48 hours could decide the winner.
It will be ugly.
While some of our top military and political leaders are getting ready for war with China — see War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent talk to our entire group of senior commanding generals and admirals — most Americans are blissfully unaware.
I recently noted how China can attack the U.S. homeland from within, using cyber-attacks, or even kinetic rocket, drone, or sabotage attacks from Chinese-owned farmlands inside our country, often near strategic military bases.
This could throw America into chaos.
Even if the U.S. mainland isn’t attacked by Chinese cyber or sabotage on any massive scale, and don’t bet on that, can America absorb the massive military losses expected in just the first couple of days of a major war with China in the Pacific?
To better understand what an initial large-scale conflict with China abroad might look like, Andrew Latham, a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, has given us a detailed and scary peek.
In a piece for National Security Journal, he describes how the first 48 hours of a kinetic war with China “could be ugly.”
He notes that – “In a war with China, the U.S. must prepare to absorb a massive opening punch of over a thousand missiles and drones aimed at paralyzing its forces.”
To him, the key to victory is not preventing this first strike but building a resilient force that can “fight hurt.”
He describes an initial onslaught by China so massive that will send U.S. and allied forces reeling and struggling to recover:
Imagine a first day with perhaps a thousand inbound missiles and drones: craters on airbases, fuel farms in flames, runways closed, command posts jammed, warships bracketed, aircraft trapped on the ground. [I call it Pearl Harbor on steroids.]
That’s the tempo Beijing wants to impose, compressing the timeline until decision-making stumbles and recovery falters.
The test is brutally simple: can the US military absorb the first punch, fight through the second, and make sure there’s still a joint force on day three that can find, fix, and finish at scale?
Latham goes on to describe intense, fast-paced, brutal combat on air, sea, and on islands, that may defeat our forces initially. He also describes how American and allied forces are quickly adapting to the Chinese way of war.
This includes U.S. air force quick dispersal tactics like Agile Combat Deployment (ACE), “spreading aircraft across many austere locations, moving often, refueling hot, and loading munitions under pressure…”
He talks of hardening forward bases like “Guam, expanding access in the Philippines, and changing the geometry of presence in Japan and across the first and second island chains.”
Latham also notes how the Navy is increasing production of missiles capable of long-range strikes, such as SM-6, LRASM, and JASSM, increasing its magazine depth.
Then he gets to the Marine Corps’ new island-hopping strategy.
…the Marine Corps’ new littoral regiments are the quiet disruptors. Small, mobile, missile-armed, and paired with new sensing and deception kits, they exist to make narrow seas and straits hazardous to a blue-water fleet that expected sanctuary under its own umbrella.
He also discusses long-range strikes by U.S. strategic stealth bombers like the B-2 and new B-21 Raider, and coordination with allies such as Japan, which is shifting its decades-long defensive strategy to now go on offense with weapons like long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.
All this is great.
However, while the U.S. and allies are making substantial progress preparing to fight China, Latham notes that, “None of this erases risk. The first forty-eight hours could be ugly.”
The question is, can America withstand the initial devastating shock psychologically and militarily, and quickly rebound to win?
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: National Security ‘Catastrophe’? It’s Mostly Bark — No Real Bite
Sponsored
The polls prove it — New Jersey is ready to FLIP RED. But the radical Left is pouring millions into their woke puppet Mikie Sherrill to stop it. Chip in NOW to help President Trump SAVE New Jersey!
Why would the ChiComs ever attack the US, when it’s far easier and cheaper to buy American politicians?
Foreign ownership of US land should be illegal. That land owned by antagonistic powers should be seized immediately with all foreign actors deported. Remunerations could be made after the fact with national security taking precedence.
Given the ongoing successful attacks on Russia’s infrastructure….noting the Ukraine e ‘s success is only by virtue of American Weaponry, American Satellites and American supplied battlefield hardware and training infrastructure.
The feared attacks from the belligerent coalition of China, Russia, North Korea and Jihadist states – are already in play. Not en-masse but in small increments such as …
CCP farmland acquisition in the US and Canada, restriction of strategic mineral supplies from China, and Africa, CCP, Take over of North Amrican Trucking industry installing Chinese and pro Chines Sikh’s’ Myorkas letting in and hiding 20, million illegal immigrants strategically placed in Americas most vulnerable cities and states.
Canada’s unwillingness to participate in North Americas perimeter defense, Chinese take over of Canada’s backroom political system at the Federal, Provincial and Munoicipal levels. The defenseless Container Shipping Ports of North America . Not to mention the relentless attacks on North Americas Critical communications networks under constant attack by Russia, China and the NORKS.
It appears the first 48 hours has already started and that the Final 48 hours of an actual Kinetic attack will be the Coup de Gras.