"RAND Study: A U.S. - China War Will Be The Most..." Topic

… Destructive War Since The Second World War.

"A new RAND report challenges the US military to rethink a war with China. The report examines US and Chinese military capabilities in 10 operational areas, producing a "scorecard" for each, from four years: 1996, 2003, 2010, and 2017. Each of the scorecards evaluates capabilities in the context of geography and distance, each of the scorecards evaluates capabilities in the context of two scenarios: a Taiwan invasion and a Spratly Islands campaign. These scenarios center on locations that lie roughly 160 km and 940 km, respectively, from the Chinese coastline.

The 430-page report, U.S.-China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power, 1997-2017, was written by 14 scholars, including RAND's wargaming whiz David Shlapak; modeling and simulation specialist Jeff Hagen; Kyle Brady, formerly with Lawrence Livermore; and operations researcher Michael Nixon…"
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This executive study to this 430 page RAND study can be read here ….

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and The full report is here…

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China's military is rising, and in the event of a future conflict and using the RAND study as a guideline, we can predict that such a war would then escalate into a conflict that would quickly become the most destructive war since the Second World War (and that prediction does not include nuclear weapons being used). In the event that nuclear weapons are used …. such a war would then quickly become the most destructive war in the history of mankind. Yup …. a sobering analysis from the RAND group.

Amicalement
Armand

But not really a surprise.

Thus a solution to disputes short of war should be in the interests of sane people on both sides.

Both sides know that would benefit no one in the long run, IMO … Remember Sun Tzu … RAND should of hired me … I work cheap …

I do not see it happening. Besides, China has enough internal challenges that are very significant over the next 20-30 years to keep them very busy.

Thanks,

John

Yes, but internal challenges have never prevented wars in any universal sense -- in fact, some argue that they do the reverse, they promote the attractiveness of external conflict as a solution to various internal problems.

Yeah, I understand that. However, when you have to use the military to keep your civilian population in check by force implied or otherwise puts a different face on things.

Well when China has nearly 60-70% of it population along the coast the it would not take much to drop that down.