War With China?

In an interesting post by one Richard Jack Rail at the American Thinker today, the author asks the question: Is WWIII On The Horizon? Rail lays out a case that the Chinese economy is in worse shape than we have been led to believe, and that without the ability to sell to U. S. markets, they may be forced to initiate military actions. With people suffering and sometimes on the verge of starvation, the Chinese politicians will need to point to some outside cause. And of course, if they don't want that 12 million man army turning on them, they will have to find something else for it to do.  I suspect that one of the things the Chinese will quickly go after is Australia, pulling the British government into the turmoil.

The timeline is advancing swiftly toward an end state adversely affecting the whole world: WWIII. The tell-tale sign is China's economy, which, without American markets to sell to, is in free fall. As much as we may complain about the shutdown, Americans have it better by far than most of the rest of the world, including Japan and Europe. 

With desperation growing in China, Xi will have to do something. Expect it to be military action so that China's 12-million-man army has something to do and the rest of the country has something to focus on and support. War is immensely destructive; it will create a domestic market to partly replace foreign markets no longer available.

I have reported several times about a paper I read while still working for the Navy, that concluded we would be at war with China inside of twenty years. That was 15 years ago. So far, the paper looks fairly prescient. The United States needs to decouple its economy from China. We need to bring our manufacturing capabilities back to the United States and stop relying on antagonistic regimes, such as China, for strategic supplies. That should be our goal, but it clearly can not be achieved over night.  Our President and Congress should get on the same page here, and set out milestones for achievement towards that goal, with incentives to private business to make it happen.

As things stand right now, it is not entirely clear that we could win such a war, or that if we did "win," that society would survive as before.  Wars are always destructive.  Reagan said: "Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again." We must, in this era, tread carefully. Please go read the article.

And speaking of the possibility of war, high frequency (HF) communication ability allows a person to communicate with others similarly equipped both regionally and world wide.  Today at the American Partisan NC Scout has an article dealing with the Coming HF Resurgence. If you are a ham, you will already understand why solar cycles are important for world wide communications. But even regional communications are affected. If you are a ham, now may be a good time to begin investing in a more capable antenna array. If you are not, now may be a time to study to obtain a Amateur Radio license, and get on the air.

Yes, right now cell phones and satellite communication are possible, and certainly more convenient.  But what happens when these communication means are taken out, by for example an electromagnetic pulse caused by a overhead nuclear explosion.  We need to maintain lower tech solutions to communicate effectively.  I remember when 9/11/2001 hit and the Pentagon was struck by terrorists using an airliner as a weapon.  The phones were shut down due to overload.  Had it not been for ham radio operators setting up on the Pentagon grounds and transmitting health and welfare traffic through the repeater across the river in Alexandria, the people in the community would not have known how their loved ones had fared during the attack.

I have seen it happen once, it can happen again.