I agree that the Chinese people have that mentality maybe, but I do not believe the Chinese goverment maintains those kind of illusions. I think that if the Chinese communist government were faced with a situation where they were going to be destroyed or cast out of power they would be capable of pretty much anything.

China will never do that. And here is why.

The chinese have a HUGE history compaired to the rest of us. They have thousands of years of recorded history as a backdrop to their thinking, and this is key. As a result, they sometimes make statements like "In 300 years, CHina will be a superpower". Now maybe they will and myabe they wont (some say they already are), but the point is their outlook on their place in the world is totally different then the west.

The world is changing and soon the west will not be the only big boys on the block. India and China are fast up and comers.

Just something to think about.

that wont stop some from saying "if we go down, Im taking you with me" a desperation move can easily set destruction on both sides.

China is stupid and we are stupid, but our missles both outnumber, out accurate, and our everything theirs. Period.

Neither country woud fire Nukes, each knows that the consequence would be destruction of both countries from the face of the earth. They could wipe out our major cities and almost everything else, we could turn Aisa into a smoking crater.

The only end to a war with China is a nuclear one. Even if we control the air they can still launch missles at anything they want. And they would. Until some sort of realistic and reliable missle shield is developed (please lets not open that can of worms on this thread) war with a country that possess even somewhat capable balistic missle technology and nuclear capability is something that we can't afford to be involved in. We don't have the stomach for it.

China's military tech is nowhere near our own. Like I said, a ground war is one thing, in the air is where we own. They have nothing even remotley close to an F-22. Even our F-15/F-16s are far superior, the A-22 will destroy thier ground troops/tanks/APCs.

The Joint Strike Fighter will replace some of the F-16/B-1/A-22 Mission, with stealth capability.

For a ground war, it would be dirty, and the nuclear price would be too much to pay, it would be total attrition with our soldiers dying to overwhelming odds. The Americans proved at Normandy that an lesser trained/equipped but determined force can take a better trained/equipped force with sheer numbers.

If confronted with war, I think China is capable of increasing their tech pretty quickly. At the moment they're doing it gradually because there is no pressing need, but if pushed, they could probably become a threat pretty quickly. A war with them would have to be swift.

They have about a 2.5 million man army though, outnumbering your troops about 10:1 if you sent in 250,000. It would be no small war.. you'd have to pull troops out of everywhere and toss them in there to ensure a speedy defeat. If it wasn't fast as I said above, they'd certainly increase their capabilities... war has a way of doing that.

They might surrender in mass like in the first Gulf war, but I don't know if the chinese are like the japanese in that sense where they'll all fight to the last man for honor. Anyone know if they're like that?

Not to mention they have nukes and who knows what the'd do if they were desperate. Nukes are generally peacemakers just for having them.

A war with China wouldn't involve heavy ground forces.

We wouldn't try to occupy that country without help from every ally we have.

However, our Air Force will trash their entire world, easy enough.

and we are overconfident to think that we cant be beaten. I fear going into a war with china. the could send 10 battalions against us and lose every single one of them and not lose any strength. of course equiping them would be another story but all they would have to do is overwhelm a defensive unit and use that battle gear.

draft I think would be a good thing

as far as jobs and what the forces are meant to do. no matter how you look at it the Army IS an ocupation force. they do have a lot of attacking units but, thier main job is to occupy. The marines were built for spearheading front lines and such.

Yes I agree with your premise. In the Vietnam era it was overwhelmingly the poorer class that provided the majority of draftees. However I think this had more to do with college deferment than an intent on the part of the draft board to pull from only lower class families.