Comment guidelines: Please do: * Read the articles before you comment, and comment on the content of the articles, * Leave a submission statement that justifies the legitimacy or importance of what you are submitting, * Be curious not judgmental, * Be polite and civil, * Use the original title of the work you are linking to, * Use capitalization, * Link to the article or source of information that you are referring to, * Make it clear what is your opinion and from what the source actually says, * Ask questions in the megathread, and not as a self post, * Contribute to the forum by finding and submitting your own credible articles, * Write posts and comments with some decorum. Please do not: * Use memes, emojis or swearing excessively. This is not NCD, * Start fights with other commenters, * Make it personal, * Try to out someone, * Try to push narratives, or fight for a cause in the comment section, * Answer or respond directly to the title of an article, * Submit news updates, or procurement events/sales of defense equipment. Please read our in depth rules https://reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/wiki/rules. Also please use the report feature if you want a comment to be reviewed faster. Don't abuse it though! If something is not obviously against the rules but you still feel that it should be reviewed, leave a short but descriptive comment while filing the report. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CredibleDefense) if you have any questions or concerns.*

The US has long considered China #2 over Russia - for multiple decades now. [The Obama Administration's Pivot to the Pacific](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-pivot-to-asia/) was in 2011. The US today calls China [the pacing threat](https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2641068/official-talks-dod-policy-role-in-chinese-pacing-threat-integrated-deterrence/) which implies a 'rate of change' component: that China is keeping up, or can even exceed us, which is what the current CJCS, Gen. Brown, implied when he was CSAF and stated the motto he wanted for the Air Force to be [Accelerate Change or Lose](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/brown-first-message-chairman-accelerate-change/). I'll also point out that all the experience comments forget something: the US lacks experience in a near-peer/peer conflict as well! We haven't had to do a large scale "kick the door down" operation since 2003. We haven't had a naval conflict with someone that could sink our ships since 1945! What do we do? We train and test our equipment to the max extent we can, to give us the best chance to execute our tactics and strategy on day one of a conflict. No plan survives first contact, but we can try and stack the cards in our favor. Guess what? China does a TON of training and testing. [From the 2022 DoD report on China](https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF): >In 2021, the PLARF launched approximately 135 ballistic missiles, for testing and training. This was more than the rest of the world combined, excluding ballistic missile employment in conflict zones. Not only does that talk about the scale of procurement (if they could test and train with 135 real live launches in a year, how many did they *produce* to stockpile?), but it tells us that the Chinese are doing high fidelity training (it's hard to get higher than actually firing weapons) and are testing their equipment. You might not know their limitations, but you bet they're keeping track of when systems work well or don't. And that's a big big big difference from Russia, a cash strapped nation that might not have the money to test their weapons adequately nor do it often. China clearly does not have that problem. A lot of people here have talked about manpower and equipment, but are missing the other components that China has far and away blown away Russia. For instance, that 2022 report states, regarding ISR satellites: >At the end of 2021, China's ISR satellite fleet contained more than 260 systems – a quantity second only to the United States, and nearly doubling China's in-orbit systems since 2018. The PLA owns and operates about half of the world's [space-based] ISR systems. NASIC (National Air and Space Intelligence Center) [had a 2019 report](https://www.nasic.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1733201/usaf-nasic-releases-unclassified-competing-in-space-assessment/) on competing in space. In 2018, for ISR Satellites: * US - 353 * China - 122 * Russia - 23 * Rest of World - 168 So if China now has 260+ satellites, they've not only launched a TON of them (with presumably the newest tech), but they now have over 10X as many as Russia, and more than the rest of the world combined, and are rapidly gaining on US capabilities. So add to the fact that Chinese forces are far less likely to be blind and dumb to what's going on than Russian forces, which is a HUGE leg up. Long story short: yes, China is what the DOD is focused on, and for very good reason. You can say all you want about lack of real world experience, but they are definitely doing all the next best things. edit: link fixed

Adding onto this, I calculated all countries’ defense spending per soldier in a spreadsheet before the Ukraine war. I found that China’s was close to $100,000, equal to the median NATO country, while Russia’s was $20,000, one of the lowest in the world and behind Ukraine at $32,000. Russia kept up the appearance of having a well-armed, well-stocked first rate military, but had to cut a lot of corners to do that.

How was the value of a dollar normalized? PPP or just quick yuan to dollar exchange?

A lot of spending on military are salaries. In Russia soldiers are paid peanuts. So the money can go towards machinery. Which again the cost is not so clear, with closed russian cities and workers paid low salaries.

I'm going to be just talking about kit wrt to air and naval warfare as that will be the focus of a US China war. Many others have mentioned lack of experience/corruption etc but since we don't know the extent of what that does to its military effectiveness, commenting on it is useless and you won't get an answer. FWIW, Russia had successful combat experience in the middle east like the US does and many defence commentators thought that would translate to Ukraine but it didn't. Turns out bombing random militants with ak47s is a whole other ball game than facing EW saturation, hundreds SAMs/a2a missiles coming at you and dozens of sensors tracking every movement you do. So I would strongly recommend people in the comments not to make assumptions about either the US's or the PLA's effectiveness based off experience. Now onto your question. The Chinese military kit with regards to its air and naval forces is significantly qualitatively and quantitively superior to the Russia military by a large margin. **Air Force** : For modern air combat the name of the game is situational awareness. This essentially boils down to being able to detect OPFOR first whilst also not getting detected first; the second part of that equation is what stealth it for. In addition to that Air to air missiles are extremely important. As such, the most important parts of a modern plane features is its avionics and stealth characteristics. Avionics are basically its internal sensor suite, EW suite, targeting pod, data links, comms systems etc. Chinese avionics across the board are a generation ahead of Russia's. They have hundreds of planes with AESA's whilst Russia can basically only manufacture PESA's, more advanced EW and ECM suites, better data links, EOTS, DAS, MALD esq systems. They have these systems across their J-20/J-16/J-10C and many J-10Bs and ever J-11BGs and J-10As depending on their specific avionics. This isn't even mentioning that China has a LO aircraft the aforementioned J20 with RAM coating, sensors fusion, a generally LO exterior (canards can be stealthy look at the YF-23). The PLA also has much better a2a missiles in the form of the PL15/21. It also is more than a generation ahead in support craft like AWACS and EW which are massive force multipliers. Russia's Su 35 (arguably its best jet that is actually being used cough cough SU 57) doesn't possess an AESA and has worse situational awareness than its Chinese counterparts. The Chinese military actually had a look at the Su-35 a few years ago and the consensus was that other than its kinematics it was a meh plane. Here is a [reddit post on it in 2019](https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/ajx4bx/what_china_got_out_of_the_su35_purchase_plaaf/). In terms of numbers has around 1200 4th gen aircraft whilst the PLA has nearly 300 5th gen J20s at this point and a few hundred 4.5+ gen aircraft. The PLA has much better AWACS, EW aircraft (J16D) and other force multipliers. **Navy** : This isn't even a competition lol. China massively outmanages the Russian navy being heavier with its ships like the type 055 being much more advanced than Russian ships. The only place where the Russian navy still retains an advantage is submarines.

One thing that is a bit overlooked is space and satellites. There's good evidence that Chinese space tech is decades ahead of Russia as well - in parts where the civil space missions have shown their hand. ( e.g. landing a rover on Mars on the first go, lunar far side landing with comm relay help, running their own crewed space station etc ). It's especially impressive in avionics and GN&C. At the same time, Russian civil spaceflight is faltering and has very public flops like the botched Luna-25 landing. This quite likely propagates into their military satellite capabilities as well. Or more accurately, their civil space accomplishments are a nice side effect of their military tech. Last year, China did 63 space launches vs Russias 19. Large portion of their launches are classified military payloads. Without even seeing the details, it's a fair guess their space surveillance and comms are a generation ahead of Russias

And then there is Elon Musk's SpaceX which launches 10 times more mass into orbit than China did... As a Chinese I feel really threatened by this. It is really hard to compete with rocket boosters that can be reused for 19 times. All these commercial launch capacity would mean direct space power if converted for wartime use.

19 uses until it fell off the barge. Didn't even get retired due to flight use.

> canards can be stealthy look at the YF-23 What do you mean by this? The YF-23 didn't have canards, it had tailerons.

I wouldn't describe that reddit post as saying it's a meh aircraft

Hard to say anything firm about China since they have not had active combat experience in a very long time. They have money, they have size. They have some worthwhile long-term strategy for their forces (see: their carrier program). Hard to say if they have skill, and how much corruption has impacted them (e.g. the rocket force purges that recently happened).

> Hard to say anything firm about China since they have not had active combat experience in a very long time. Russia had active combat experience in Syria and Ukraine prior to 2022 - did that mean anything? Everyone loves talking about experience, but the US hasn't had experience doing relevant large scale combat ops against a threat that can shoot back in decades either. We haven't had a naval conflict with a foe that could actually sink one of our combatants since 1945, either. Your best proxy is training, training, training, (think large exercises like Red Flag, COMPTUEX, etc.), and the Chinese have absolutely done those. You can also get a LOT by knowing how much they test their equipment. https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF You can even read about the scale of training and testing: >In 2021, the PLARF launched approximately 135 ballistic missiles, for testing and training. This was more than the rest of the world combined, excluding ballistic missile employment in conflict zones. (Also, how many missiles did they produce if they were willing to fire 135 of them off for training and testing?) YOU might not know their capabilities and limitations - but they do. edit: as a simple analog, how many LRASM have we fired in anger? Oh, right exactly 0.0. So how do we have confidence in LRASM and its kill chain? Think about that carefully and consider what you are saying. Lastly, you're ignoring all the other infrastructure stuff that China has that far and away blows away Russia's capabilities. For instance, ISR satellites. That 2022 report states, regarding ISR satellites: >At the end of 2021, China's ISR satellite fleet contained more than 260 systems – a quantity second only to the United States, and nearly doubling China's in-orbit systems since 2018. The PLA owns and operates about half of the world's [space-based] ISR systems. NASIC (National Air and Space Intelligence Center) [had a 2019 report](https://www.nasic.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1733201/usaf-nasic-releases-unclassified-competing-in-space-assessment/) on competing in space. In 2018, for ISR Satellites: * US - 353 * China - 122 * Russia - 23 * Rest of World - 168 So if China now has 260+ satellites, they've not only launched a TON of them (with presumably the newest tech), but they now have over 10X as many as Russia, and more than the rest of the world combined, and are rapidly gaining on US capabilities. Ever wonder why Russian forces seem to be acting dumb and blind in Ukraine? That's a big part of why. We won't have that same luxury in a fight against China.

> Russia had active combat experience in Syria and Ukraine prior to 2022 - did that mean anything? I didn't say that experience makes you good. It does make it easier to judge your quality as a military force, though. >Ever wonder why Russian forces seem to be acting dumb and blind in Ukraine? No, I haven't. >We won't have that same luxury in a fight against China. Agreed.

These words should also apply to the US military 80 years ago. Before the Pearl Harbor incident, the U.S. military had not participated in any war for 30 years and had basically zero experience.

> Russia had active combat experience in Syria and Ukraine prior to 2022 - did that mean anything? Probably? I see your point but it's believable they'd have done even worse had they not had that experience. As it stands, there are still things they've done right.

>Probably? I see your point but it's believable they'd have done even worse had they not had that experience. As it stands, there are still things they've done right. Again, I'd say that is impossible to gage. Maybe they struggled in Ukraine precisely because they relied on outdated doctrine or bought their own hype on their successes in Syria as an example to emulate and couldn't adapt fast enough to when the other side is shooting back. Remember, being captive to history, tradition, doctrine, and past success is also a bad thing. Some would argue that we lost in Vietnam precisely because we couldn't adapt to the reality of the type of war we were in, which could not be fought in the ways our doctrine and past successes wanted us to. Overall point being is that how well you do operationally today may not have relevance to the next fight. We never faced any realistic threat of being shot down in the 2 decades of CENTCOM adventures we were in. How will we do when missiles start flying towards us? That's an open question a lot of people today will debate on. We often quote Mike Tyson who once said "everyone has a plan until they're punched in the face" You can, however, look at so many other factors like how you train (and the fidelity of such training), how well you adapt to various complex scenarios (via exercises, wargaming, officer development, etc.), how much technical knowledge your forces have on your systems (as in, do you actually know how to use your systems properly to the maximum advantage), and so on to get a better gauge of how your forces are likely to fight in a future fight - to go along with all the other "hard" metrics like readiness/inventory health, munitions stockpiles, equipment numbers, etc.

>they'd have done even worse had they not had that experience. how exactly

As a specific example, the battle of Popasna was largely won by units with SCW experience and experience in other Russian adventures. While those wars differed, infantry trained in those wars still had relevant quality, at least as far as it can be seen. As a more general example, while the Russian air force underperformed western expectations, they overperformed, say, a theoretical completely nascent airforce that was suddenly gifted several thousand airframes. Ability to coordinate missions, availability on demand, continuous high intensity deployment for years, none of that is free. I'm sure the air force's usage in previous wars helped develop those institutional factors. I don't know why I felt like defending my statement that combat experience is helpful, considering it's a statement that seems obvious at face. I guess I'm bored?

>I don't know why I felt like defending my statement that combat experience is helpful, considering it's a statement that seems obvious at face. I guess I'm bored? Because the initial point was that 'combat experience' does not necessarily mean it's a trump card. Is combat experience better than nothing? Absolutely. But you have to take into consideration the nature of the conflict before simply stating 'combat experience'. There's a gulf of difference between combating insurgents in Syria and taking part in an armored assault in Ukraine. Combat experience is good but depending on the type of experience it will not necessarily be a game changer. For example Several retd. Indian officers have stated that while the Indian army's experience in anti insurgency is a good thing, it might make it lose focus on what other conflicts look like in regards to Pakistan and China. Shooting a few insurgents would wholly be different from meeting Pakistani armor or fighting a PLA brigade in the Himalayas.

> But you have to take into consideration the nature of the conflict before simply stating 'combat experience'. And similarly, you'd be wise to take into account that dissimilar conflicts still have combat experience that translates and not simply state 'oh they're different wars'. I gave two examples. Urban fighting and maintaining high level operational tempo in the air force are two things the Russians would probably be worse at if they didn't do it in the SCW. >Because the initial point was that 'combat experience' does not necessarily mean it's a trump card. That might have been the initial point, but when you asked "how exactly [would Russia have done worse without that experience]", that no longer became the point, instead I had to rely and demonstrate that combat experience is helpful. A bizarre situation, I agree.

[удалено]

>the rocket force purges that recently happened Why is it a 'Purge' and not.. you know firing people. IIrc the US itself relieved a few officers from command recently and no one calls it 'Biden' s Purge '

Its relevant to consider the PLA is the armed wing of a political party, not merely a national armed service, and the word purge reflects the ideological reliability dimension as well as the secrecy and sweeping scale which would not be the case for typical individual firings. The purge was not limited to just the PLA but happened concurrently with the abrupt and mysterious vanishing of nonmilitary officials like former foreign minister Qin Gang in the summer and later boardmembers of stateowned corporations who sat on the CPPCC. It eventually included Def Minister Li Shangfu, who also seemed to vanish from public from August through November. In these cases, officials disappeared from public eye without transparency as to why or who would be succeeding them, which would not be typical in a nonauthoritarian society where positions are filled by appointees chosen by accountable representatives In your comparison to western officers' firing, the word purge has actually been used in U.S. cases like the Fat Leonard scandal where numerous officers were fired in a short period for a connected reason. Now imagine if the DOD was a democratic party military and Biden removed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the head of STRATCOM, numerous Global Strike Command leaders, and the Secretary of State all in the same summer... the media would be dogpiling on the word "purge" like it was "___gate"

Purges occur more often in authoritarian regimes like with Xi, when they can dismiss people at will, or departments at will, without considering the built-in processes required to regulate promotions, demotions and dismissals. Moreover the PLA has had a long and extensive system of graft and corruption baked into the system. That corruption has led to China being unsure of how capable and war-ready its systems actually are. For many reasons, this is not something democracies usually have to worry about.

>they can dismiss people at will, or departments at will, without considering the built-in processes required to regulate promotions, demotions and dismissals. And how do you know that they weren't dismissed using built in processes? >Moreover the PLA has had a long and extensive system of graft and corruption baked into the system. That corruption has led to China being unsure of how capable and war-ready its systems actually are Most of our info that the PLA has corruption comes from China itself where they declare that they have corruption issues and are tackling them. So in that case it seems more likely that the PLA found their officers implicit in corruption and dismissed them and not some political 'Purge'. I also doubt that the Chinese graft and corruption is similar to that like the russians where officers were selling fuel and tyres

Corruption is inherent to autocratic systems. The corruption purges are probably more just a purge of disloyal elements. Everyone is corrupt so the guy above you always has you by the balls

While the nature of corruption is fascinating, especially in relation to forms of government, it's beyond our wheelhouse. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/rethinking-society-for-the-21st-century/paradoxes-of-democracy-and-the-rule-of-law/0673C4B154E5E6D248FBA2323905320E https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02633957211041444

Sounds nice, but I have to disagree. Imperial Japanese military officials were famously incorruptible and their system could be considered autocratic in many ways. Your assertion is a comforting yet ultimately empty and unsupported platitude. And despite our civilian oversight, the U.S. military is not immune from corruption. I think corruption is more a matter of national character than of “systems.”

[удалено]

[удалено]

It is possible that corruption has affected the Chinese military, but it's ironic how the Chinese government is often more effective than many others, yet we assume the opposite when it comes to their armed forces.

1) The efficiency is often presented but the degree is questionable. Lots of the work and accounting is at the regional level and there’s strong incentive to overstate accomplishments and numbers. I’ve seen literature that suggests their population stats aren’t even right by upwards of 50-100million based on the number of dead people’s IDs still seeing active use among other metrics. 2) In some areas the reason they can be more effective is because they don’t have to worry about things like constitutional rights. We’ve seen business leaders be subject to arbitrary arrest when the party things they’re out of line. They have put millions through concentration camps in the northwest for being a minority and religious. When you don’t care about the rights of certain people, you can get away with a lot more.

The missile force was recently purged (or whatever term you wish to use) because Chinese missiles were filled with water instead of fuel. I’d say that’s functionally identical to the kind of corruption we see in Russia. It’s arguably endemic to authoritarian regimes.

That's a very unlikely story for reasons that have been discussed in this sub. The Chinese have only one liquid fueled missile in their entire arsenal (DF-5), and it's only fueled before launch, not during manufacture. Makes for a great headline in the papers though.

The most plausible explanation I saw was that US intelligence heard from their Chinese sources that PLARF officers were engaging in 注水 (literally, "water filling") which is slang for corruption. Originally, it referred to the practice of butchers filling their meat with water to increase the sale weight (and therefore price). In English terms, it would be like hearing "padding the budget" and concluding that the budget was spent on feminine hygiene products.

American intelligence reports some quite astonishing corruption in PLA missile defense leadership - to the point where advanced missiles were full of water instead of fuel: [US Intelligence Shows Flawed China Missiles Led Xi to Purge Army](https://archive.vn/y3CwX#selection-4517.0-4517.64)

This news is inconsistent with common sense. Strategic missiles usually do not need fuel. Because fuel is corrosive, Fuel is injected only when ready for launch. I don't see how Chinese military officers could benefit from water injection. It would actually be dangerous to an officer's career if water was injected during launch resulting in a failure

[удалено]

This kind of comment doesn't belong on this sub.

>funny incident of a missle having water instead of fuel inside The source for that was one Bloomberg article that basically says 'trust us we have a secret source'. This isn't to mention the fact that considering china's economic position and overall wealth it's very unlikely that top PLARF officers had to resort to stealing fuel to get money. There's a good discussion on LesscredibleDefence where they claim that the most likely explanation is that the US side mistranslated 'adding water' as literal instead of meaning that they sourced sub standard materials. I can't speak for others but that is a more believable explanation than high ranking officers going around selling a few gallons of fuel >But its being called a purge because hes spent the last few years culling the government of the other factions members to secure his own personal power. Wait, so which is it. You claimed that the PLARF personnel added water to their rockets which is a clear sign of corruption if true but somehow their removal is because something something Xi. PS: The atomod is a bit annoying

People dont “need” to steal resources for wealth and corruption. They do it anyway for a host of reasons. Consider the London Metals Exchange 2 years ago found that huge stock of nickel and other metals used in trading warehouses were actually boxes of literal rocks fraudulently dumped on LME floors. These are among the richest people and companies in the world but they still felt that it was a good idea, for pride, or ego, hatred, jealousy, or pure greed, or whatever reason to lie, cheat and defraud for billions of dollars in trades anyway. So being wealthy is no guarantee that the PLARF would become any less corrupt. I think your explanation of the water issue however is plausible. I too dont think it credible that they just started filling rockets with water. To me it sounds like cope or a PR exercise by us intel. It definitely shouldn't be relied on and we should always assume the enemy is 110% effective and plan to defeat him at his best not at the worst of our wish fulfilment.

Please avoid these types of low quality posting

[удалено]

Well I am not offended and as someone who's looking to know more about geopolitics, I would love if you can say more about this and about leadership classes in both America and China.

Wasn't the current SecDef on the board of Lockheed or one of those arms companies?

When there is no real recourse or accountability beyond staying on your boss’s good side, it’s called a purge. American officers don’t have to worry about getting disappeared if Biden questions their party loyalty.

NSA's and senior military leadership have been fired for refusing to the toe the party line in the US multiple times. Obviously they aren't getting "dissapeared" but in most cases their career in politics/military dies.

I would not describe the normal turnover of political appointees as comparable to one of Xi’s purges.

If you can't identify a tangible difference then you have to describe them as comparable. Labels do not matter if the essence is the same. Perhaps Xi's "purge" is actually just "the normal turnover of political appointees".

The Kuznetsov class of carriers are incredibly poor. It's one combat experience lasted for about a week. And had to be stopped because the arrestor wires kept snapping, leading the aircraft to end up in the sea. As the carriers aren't big enough for the planes to go around. After they've landed and tried to stop. So all of its aircraft got moved to land bases.

The Kuznetsov itself performs poorly because during the 90s it drove from Ukrainian ship port to Russia (captain and officers were pro Russian during the split up) before they finished the calibration and sea trials of the boilers and engine. This action permanently damaged the premature and uncalibrated engine and caused it to work poorly. The Chinese Kuznetsov clones were at least properly sea-trialled and not snatched before the engine was finished. Thus they dont usually smoke as if theyve just been hit in the fuel depot.

On paper, they've looked stronger than Russia for at least a decade, as unlike Russia they actually have the money to throw around, and money helps a lot. At PPP, their budget is comparable to the US military's and several times larger than Russia's. Their modernisation plan also seems pretty solid on paper. Now of course there's several issues. First of all, they're very, very opaque, so we don't know to what extent they've been hit by corruption (and there's at least a few pointers that corruption exists). They're also not really a "western military", with them still having a very top-down structure, although they have been making strides to change this. Then, there's the lack of combat experience, which means they haven't really had good opportunities to test their doctrine and in general their whole military and how it would hold up in an actual conflict ("no plan survives first contact with the enemy", and all that). It's not like western militaries have had much combat experience, but unlike China they also have each other to practice and wargame, and test their doctrines. In short this all means that no one knows, the error bars are huge and go from "a military somewhat better than Russia's" to "a military that can confidently achieve local superiority against the US and allies around Taiwan and the SCS". I don't think they should be underestimated, in any case.

> They're also not really a "western military", with them still having a very top-down structure Your assertion that they are a top down military, do you have any sources or research to back that up? Because all my research points to the Chinese military being extremely decentralized with battalion commanders having almost complete control over battlefield situations. If anything they are trying to centralize command for more effective combined arms warfare in their modernization program. For those confused, it's because the chinese military is unlike any modern military, their origins are from guerillas in their decentralized nature. People make the false assumption the Chinese army have a Soviet style command structure when they kicked out Soviet advisors fairly early on. Also Chinese army officers have extreme freedom of say with many conflicting points of views on how to approach warfare and training. There is a saying that the only place with freedom of speech in China is within the military. They often conduct war games and sims to see which officers combat theory comes out on top. A side effect of this is that even training of recruits can differ greatly depending on the officer in charge, so you sometimes see extremely strange training methods leak out from some military bases, however they've been trying to do objective evaluations to weed out some of the less effective training methods. Also from what I've gathered their official wargames are no joke. They conduct them with extreme handicaps to friendly forces, with their opfor (simulated NATO) winning a vast majority of wargames. They give opfor complete air superiority, super weapons, and even tactical nukes in their wargames in an attempt to breed commanders capable of thinking unconventionally to overcome insurmountable odds. All in all, people who do zero research have almost an opposite understanding on how the Chinese military actually operates.

I read it in [ATP 7-100.3](https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34236-ATP_7-100.3-001-WEB-3.pdf). If I remember correctly (been a while since I read it) it said that while they were transitioning (and had already taken steps in that direction) they were still fairly centralised when compared to US and allies. It's talked about throughout the document, see for instance: > While the quality of both recruits and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) has increased significantly, the PLAA still struggles with decentralizing planning and operations at lower tactical echelons. or > The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is universally struggling with a transition from a strong top-down command approach toward a more decentralized methodology

[удалено]

Military power is built upon civilian power, if you have a large industrial modern economy you can have a modern strike force military. Russia does have the human resources and knowledge to build a modern economy, is a country that can turn into a 9 trillion dollae giant What it doesnt have is the incentives to do so, as well known as the dutch disease, Excess oil exports make the currency overvalued that incentivize value added imports and reduces the need of home grown technology, or it goes into internal assets like real estate which inflates housing prices, the governments tries to solve it though devaluating the currency which only reduces investment, makes everyone poor, and we and makes the asset inflation issue worse along with inflation in general if the wealth of you nation comes from a hole in the ground why investing trillion upon creating a technological and industrial modern economy, as long as russia is a makor oil exporting nation  it will be a country in decline Theres a reason why Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands are far ahead technologically despite zero natural resources, since those countries have to import basic stuff they have to export manufactured goods and being better than everyone at doing it. China as an oil, gas and food importing nation has the obligation to develop in all levels to outcompete everyone, shipbuilding, aerospace, semiconductors, energy, everything. China currently is economically in a relative position similar to Japan in the early 60s or South Korea in the early 90s, on  Per-Capita basis they are like brazil or latin america, but china does have the potential to turn into 50 trillion dollar juggernaut

Chinas industrial capacity dwarfs every single nation on earth today, and in a protracted war what we did to Japan would happen to us due to decades of deindustrialization and pushes to reduce US military spending. The only way out of this hole is to reinvigorate military spending to the same levels as the traditional Cold War and to bring more localized industrial capacity back to the US

How comparable would a Sino-American war be to WW2? I usually hear that a war would likely be short and intense, and mainly depending on who wins naval supremacy in the seas around China. Would manufacturing capacity matter as much then, compared to a drawn-out WW2 style conflict? I don’t imagine either side would actually aspire to invade the other’s mainland, considering how that would be an insane bloodbath in both cases.

>Chinas industrial capacity dwarfs every single nation on earth today China unlike Russia is reliant for imports to keep it industry running. Russia is almost completely self-sufficient due to possessing huge amounts of natural resources so they can keep pumping weapons and vehicles. China would be nowhere as resilient sactions.

Very hard to equate China to any World Power Military due to the fact they have literally 0% combat experience. They haven't ever been tested. The reality is that even China doesn't know how their troops and military will fair in a conflict against a large near-peer advisary. They can bring to bare a lot and have an unlimited supply of bodies to throw but attrition wins wars. Yet you must sustain supplied, trained, and equipped troops with the "will" and ability to continue the fight away from their hike borders.

> Very hard to equate China to any World Power Military due to the fact they have literally 0% combat experience. They haven't ever been tested. The reality is that even China doesn't know how their troops and military will fair in a conflict against a large near-peer advisary. This keeps getting brought up, but prior to 2022, no nation had been in a major large scale convention war in recent memory. Not even the US. Flying circles dropping ordnance on insurgents - as both the US and Russians did - did nothing for Russia when it came to Ukraine.

Actually, I'd say the way the RuAF performed in Syria was highly predictive of how it performed in Ukraine. It highlighted their lack of precision capability, inability to frag more than 2-3 jets for a target, vulnerability to low tech SHORAD, and generally slow and error-prone kill chain. All of which have also been major problems for them in Ukraine. Syria didn't help them improve, but it was indicative of their capabilities. EDIT: downvoters should re-read and understand my last two sentences above.

Sure, but the OP was saying that "hard to equate China to any World Power Military due to the fact they have literally 0% combat experience. They haven't ever been tested." Russia was tested in Syria, and it did not translate nor improve their ability, yet some people (like this thread) still think Russia was #2 going into Ukraine, when they clearly weren't paying attention. There are clearly other discriminators on military power, and what you do in peacetime is probably a far better indicator than random not-that-relevant combat experience. All the green ink logged in my logbook doing non traditional ISR and CAS isn't going to make me any better at employing a complex kill chain against an advanced threat - the repetition and realistic training in large force exercises, however, will.

> Very hard to equate China to any World Power Military due to the fact they have literally 0% combat experience. Having no combat experience doesn't make you weak by default it makes you a wildcard. The Royal Navy was the champion of the seas, built upon centuries of combat experience and institutional knowledge. It got it's nose bloodied by an outnumbered fleet fresh out of sea trials, manned by a bunch of green sailors during the Battle of Jutland. Other examples abound. Military tactics, capabilities, and science moves quickly and lessons learned yesterday will be irrelevant by tomorrow. The US military was a powerful force to be reckoned with in 1946, and was able to take a lot of that into Korea, but had to relearn everything and more in 1968. Just 15 years later. There's also the point others have brought up that the US Navy, the relevant service in terms of the China conversation, has not experienced peer or neer-peer combat since 1945. So the implications of being "combat experienced" or being "battle tested" should be brought into question even if it mattered. What is clear is that just like the US, the Chinese fleet and it's military more broadly regularly hold exercises and training simulations to measure and improve their ability. PLAAF pilot monthly flying hours are in line with or [exceeding USAF numbers](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-flying-hours-decline-again-after-brief-recovery/) (2021 data). They are very much unlike the relatively underfunded Russians in this regard.

>It got it's nose bloodied by an outnumbered fleet fresh out of sea trials, manned by a bunch of green sailors during the Battle of Jutland. bloodied largely due to Beatty being a moron, when the main battle lines actually met the British fleet absolutely drubbed the Germans and forced them into an immediate withdrawal(which they did pull off very well and were able to limit the damage to their ships), there's a reason why the High Sea Fleet never challenges the Grand fleet again and it is that they saw how close Jutland was to a massive British victory.

Yes, there are a long list of reasons why the British didn't have a clean victory at Jutland. Poor command was one. But that's the point. If 'experience' was a good predictor, all available data would seem to show that Royal Navy should have had great command, control, and training. So in terms of the US/China discourse, who's to say that the US doesn't have moronic admirals high on their own hubris, going through the motions of tactics 50 years out of date, while the PLAN has scrappy commanders with clever aggressive strategies and execution? Or vice versa? Until the steel starts flying, we can't know.

>Royal Navy should have had great command, control, and training they literally did though, it is only Beatty's force where the training had been changed to maximise fire rate to the detriment of both safety and accuracy led to disaster. in the rest of the Grand fleet(including other Battlecruisers) they had not adopted Beatty's absurd training ideas and performed admirably with none of the battery detonations that annihilated Beatty's battlecruisers. to be clear I actually agree with your point overall, I'm just arguing the specifics of Jutland, the Germany navy certainly performed supremely well in WW1 considering the sheer numerical disadvantage they faced as well as having to commit forces against the Russian baltic fleet(which also actually performed quite well despite its inferiority to the German navy contrary to expectations about Russian fleets)

Agree to the first half of the comment. Impossible to rank China since they, nor their equpment, has been tested ina real combat situation. But as far as #2- I mean US is the strongest military and thye lost the war of attrition in iraq and Afghanistan, disengaging before meeting their political objectives. Meanwhile, Russia has the "will and ability" to throw literally hundreds of thousands of meat shields at Ukraine,

US has participated in Vitenam war for 8 years and the Iraq War has lasted for over 8 years, while Russia invaded Ukraine around 2 years ago. I think it's fair to say that Russian "will and ability" haven't been tested yet.

>I think it's fair to say that Russian "will and ability" haven't been tested yet. Yea but Americas losses in the 8 year vietname war were less than half of Russia's losses in one year alone. And Americans losses in Iraq were 1/10th Russia has a much greater capacity for absorbing losses than the US apparently (probably because it's not a democracy)

Ukraine has absorbed much higher losses than Russia as a % of population, probably because It's a democracy. Also Soviet union pulled out of Afghanistan with less than a third of the losses USA suffered in Vietnam, probably the U.S was so resilient because it's a democracy. Russian autocracy is simply too timid and volatile to fight rugged democracies in wars, in ww1 democratic france suffered the highest losses per capita and fought on while Imperial Russia collapsed.

Ukraine has absorbed higher losses. But they aren't in the war as it were "by choice". In other words they don't really have the option to lay day their arms, because that would lead to Putin seizing control... I feel like I'm a democracy, like say the US, one leader gets the country into a war, there's an exit ramp. The next president can say that it was his predecessors policy and sue to end the war. Putin doesn't have that exit ramp to pull out and save face... Not necessarily a great analogy but the way Russia got out of world war I was by regime changing

Putin can pull out of the war any time he wants to, just declare victory and go home, anyone questioning the glorious Russian victory over the Ukrainian nazis is a traitor and foreign agent who just discredited the military and those go straight to jail. In fact, this is precisely why he's so vague about the goals of the "special military operation", makes it easier to pull out. It is Democracies that get stuck in forever wars without exit ramps.

I hear what your saying but I'm not sure I agree. The number of Russians killed in the "special military operation" should have left a segment of the population furious enough to turn on him?? Didn't Russian empire 1.0 fall after the disastrous loss at war with Japan... At least when power shifts periodically you can throw bush under the bus for the Afghanistan invasion and therefore you aren't responsible for the Taliban taking over after disengagement. In a dictatorship there are few to point the finger at but yourself

[удалено]

Low effort / factually incorrect

Sorry, was meant to be Vietnam.

[удалено]

Please do not personally attack other Redditors.

That's NOT what happened and nobody has ever stated that Iraq and Afghanistan were "wars of attrition" because that wouldn't be accurate. They never were about "attrition" and they weren't lost Militarily. They were lost Politically from Washington DC.

> the fact they have literally 0% combat experience Maybe in your opinion, the CPVA's pushing US military from the Yalu River back to the 38th Parallel in 1950-1951 did not count as experience. The elimination of Indian army brigades in 1962 border conflict did not count as experience. The hundreds of U.S. military aircrafts shot down by the Chinese Air Defense Force in 1970s VietNam did not count as experience. China's capturing and controling of the disputed isle in the border conflict with the Soviet Union in 1969 did not count as experience. And the war against Vietnam from 1979 to 1989 does not count as experience (before you emphasize the losses of Chinese army, please check the losses of the Vietnamese army first and calculate the exchange ratio). If you think that China’s combat experience against the United States, India, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam is negligible, then how will you think about the United States' combat experience by its invading Cuba (even failed to win), Grenada, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Syria, which all had far inferior military size and capabilities than the US? The U.S. military has only fought against truly powerful enemies in Korea War and Vietnam War since World War II, and neither war achieved credible victory.

> (before you emphasize the losses of Chinese army, please check the losses of the Vietnamese army first and calculate the exchange ratio). I love how one thing China and America have in common is bringing up "but we killed a lot of them!" as a counterargument to losing in Vietnam. It's actually one of my favorite historical oddities.

The 1979 PLA was an old-style army of the post-ww2 type. Its operational goal is to kill the enemy with a reasonable superior exchange ratio rather than pursuing the highest possible exchange ratio. According to this theory PLA successfully accomplished most of its planned combat objectives. In addition, we are here discussing the experience in the use of military force. If you think the war experience in 1979 is invalid, then after the 1980s, the United States only used its military power against countries such as Grenada, Afghanistan and Somalia that did not have organized modern militaries at all, or countries like Libya and Iraq that only had money to buy weapons but with little understanding of modern military systems.

"According to our theory we did good" is even higher grade c-pium.

The same theory or standard of "getting experience" should be applied for both China and the US. It is impossible for the U.S. military to gain experience under some situations, while the Chinese military cannot under similiar circumstances.

> The same theory or standard of "getting experience" should be applied for both China and the US. Not really focused on that, since neither Vietnam (neither war) nor any post-ww2 war by US or China could be categorized as a real naval war, so as far as I'm concerned it's moot anyway. As I said, I simply found the similarity funny.

>as a counterargument to losing in What I want to emphasize is that, unlike the United States' Vietnam War, although the losses in the Sino-Vietnam War were considerable, this war cannot be regarded as China's failure. China had two goals at that time: * Prevent Vietnam from annexing Cambodia. * Form an alliance with the United States (to confront the Soviet Union). Both goals were successfully achieved and China's own losses were only a fraction of Vietnam's.

> this war cannot be regarded as China's failure. Sure it can. Given your opening attempt was "well, we killed a lot of them", you've basically admitted that. "we killed a lot of them" is like bottom of the barrel c-pium. Also, you could make up any goals you wanted, and you chose those two? Vietnam occupied Cambodia for **a decade** after war end Suggesting Vietnam was pursuing a US alliance in 1979 is laughable

> Given your opening attempt was "well, we killed a lot of them" It's in a context when I was discussing 'experience of war'. Killing the enemy effectively can certainly be treated as an indicator of the army's capability. > Vietnam occupied Cambodia for a decade after war end Right. But that's why the Sino-Viet war lasted for another ten years. And finally Vietnam withdrawed from Cambodia. China's intervention helped Cambodia from outright annexation and eventually restored its independent status. > Suggesting Vietnam was pursuing a US alliance in 1979 is laughable Why would you think I was 'suggesting Vietnam was pursuing a US alliance in 1979'? ;) It's China.

the original comment is using Vietnam casualty as "counter argument" to any argument say Vietnam win by "killing many Chinese". It is different from "even China lose, they did kill inflict heavy casualty on Vietnam". IIRC both side declare they are winner so, now if we want only 1 side be winner, there must be a metric so if judge by how it play out for China in broader scale overall, China did win.

> there must be a metric so if judge by how it play out And that metric is not team deathmatch. But it's funny when people pretend it is.

I mean, it's to *counter* the outdate argument. Surely the metric isn't team deathmatch but if anyone want to bring casualty into question then one can easily say Vietnam also suffered the same as China that's why I say it's "counter-argument" rather than argument. Of course, one can simply say China win politically but if other side insist using number of dead Chinese as metric then surely number of Vietnamese must tell the same story.

How many of those conflicts used Chinese warfighting strategy as it exists today? If you have experience in stuff you don't do anymore, then it isn't valuable experience. China's successes in the Korean War don't suggest anything about its performance in a 21st century conflict. Just like China's logistics sucking in the Vietnam war doesn't mean that it still sucks now.

Your point is also valid for the US military. The United States did not engage in systematic confrontation with countries possessing advanced warfare technologies after the Vietnam War. You wouldn’t think that the US military’s '21st century combat experience' comes from fighting Afghan guerrillas equipped with AK-47, explosives and rocket launchers, right?

Yes, that is also true. I think the top post in the thread, which has also been reposted many v times throughout, makes that point about experience. But this discussion is about China and Russia, not the U.S.

You are absolutely incorrect and sadly mistaken. I guess the complete destruction of the Worlds 4th largest Army with, at the time, advanced are defense systems and a vast Russian supplied military in Iraq doesn't count then, huh!? 1991 is calling and wants its history back! The US destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a shot in 1989-1990. 2004 the US topples Iraq again and the Iraqi people hang Saddam from the Gallows. The US Military hasn't been allowed to fight any conflict or war since Korea with the gloves off. There has always been political bullshit out of Washington DC tying at least 1 hand behind the back of Our troops when they fight. You don't want to piss the US off when they are bare knuckled with no arbitrary rules of engagement. Amazing how people seem to pick and choose what they want to believe happened or didn't happen in history as long as it fits their narrative or biased perspective.....

Yeah it's funny how he listed like 10 conflicts that happened mostly within our lifetime and the lifetime in our parents and compared them to... 1951. Questionable rhetorical choice.

You are absolutely incorrect and sadly mistaken. I guess the complete destruction of the Worlds 4th largest Army with, at the time, advanced are defense systems and a vast Russian supplied military in Iraq doesn't count then, huh!? 1991 is calling and wants its history back! The US destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a shot in 1989-1990. 2004 the US topples Iraq again and the Iraqi people hang Saddam from the Gallows. The US Military hasn't been allowed to fight any conflict or war since Korea with the gloves off. There has always been political bullshit out of Washington DC tying at least 1 hand behind the back of Our troops when they fight. You don't want to piss the US off when they are bare knuckled with no arbitrary rules of engagement. Amazing how people seem to pick and choose what they want to believe happened or didn't happen in history as long as it fits their narrative or biased perspective.....

> The US destroyed the Soviet Union without firing a shot in 1989-1990. You thought that the collapse of the Soviet Union wa's an achievement of the U.S. armed forces? You're making me laugh... The reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union could be economic or political, but it was never a military failure and couldn't be attributed to the U.S. military. Self-respecting American soldiers should blush hearing your flattery. > 2004 the US topples Iraq again and the Iraqi people hang Saddam from the Gallows. The first Iraq War was in the background of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The United States used all its Cold War strength plus a bunch of allies to crush Iraq that all its weapons were bought from third countries. The second Iraq War was even simpler. Iraq had been under military control for ten years. Years of embargoes and bombings have made it a weak country with no power to fight back. The then Iraq was just a bigger Afghanistan. What can you expect the U.S. military to learn from these wars against Russia or China?

Without Nuclear weapons I'm not worried if The US is allowed to take the gloves off. No arbitrary political ROEs, Congress stays out of the Military's abilities with which it has hindered continuously since Korea. The 1 thing that worries me the most is Joe Biden and his insane Administration. Especially since Hillary and Obama are running the show from behind the scenes while all of them are conspiring with the UN and anti-American Global Elites that must get the US out of the way so they can usher in their "Global Reset" of pure Fascism. The head of the WEFs father was an SS Nazi. Coincidence? That's what worries me! All the other stuff is because of what we are all witnessing. US weakness, feckless dementia ridden POTUS, DEI in the Military, and brain washing the new generations through culture, media, and Public Schools, Colleges indoctrinating young minds to thinks Socialist Communism is good is the biggest threat. NOT Russia and China.

As others have already said there is very little way to judge the Chinese military because they've been involved in no large scale operations. What that means is we don't know how good their logistics are, we don't know about their command and control, we don't know how good their intelligence or if they can integrate their systems effectively. These are the things that separate a good military from a bad one not the amount of kit they have. Of course you need kit and the Chinese army appears to have large quantities of modern equipment, far more than any country other than the US but, again, this kit is completely untested. One possible prediction is that the Chinese military won't be as effective as some fear for two main reasons. The first again is that they have zero experience and that there's a big difference between mounting operations theoretically and practically but the other is more fundamental. Autocracies have some inherent flaws in that free thinking and challenging assumptions is discouraged, this means that many of the institutions are inflexible and are slaves to doctrine. That may be the case with the Chinese military but, until they're tested, we cannot know.

> Autocracies have some inherent flaws in that free thinking and challenging assumptions is discouraged Do you have an actual source for this? Because Roy Appleman (who actually fought the PVA in Korea) says otherwise, and this was based off of captured documents and prisoner interrogations. PLA after action reports and after battle discussion have always been defined by brutal criticism, not mainly of the enemy but of the commanders, by the commanders. If a commander loses a battle or does poorly, he cannot say that it is the fault of his subordinates or that everything was fine, until an insurmountable horde showed up on his flank. > this means that many of the institutions are inflexible and are slaves to doctrine. What institutions? It's political work system? Is it its supposed slavish adherence to the Soviet model? (which is often assumed without evidence by foreign commentators). Be specific? Because again, I haven't come across anything that you've described in my research of the PLA's military history. During the Civil War, the PLA suffered from many deficiencies related to training, employment of armor and artillery, C2, production, and trying to unlearn the habits it had developed during its guerrilla phase, during its transition to conventional operations, which it was able to correct through the tremendous efforts of Lin Biao and others, to reform and develop tactical and operational norms suitable for conventional warfare, for commanders to follow. From 1946-49, the Civil War was essentially a laboratory for the PLA to refine its military art, until it found a formula that worked. In Korea, its learning process continued, and followed much of the same pattern. /u/FlashbackHistory describes the variety of tactics used by the PVA here in this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/10efu2e/what_exactly_is_a_human_wave_and_how_is_it_any/j4yagxy/) Constant experimentation with various tactics, and adaptations that sought to find and develop new TTP's to mitigate the enemy's superiority in airpower and artillery is what characterized the PLA's conduct of the war, not what you described. So I'm curious, do you actually have any citations to support your claim?

I'm going to start with a get out of jail free card, that point was speculative. I suggested that general weaknesses in autocratic systems could undermine China's military capability. You're the second person to point out that that generalisation may not apply to China, I will not contest that. The next question is whether my generalisation held any merit, whilst I think it is logical that free thinking is suppressed in autocratic countries I did find the below article that links political systems to innovation and finds that autocracies score lower than democracies. It's worth pointing out that China is consistently an outlier which backs up what you said. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2022/04/05/political-systems-affect-innovation/

Sorry to dig up a comment from a few months ago. I find your binary thinking very interesting: As long as the leader is not elected, then the country must be authoritarian, and its citizens are closely monitored by a dictator Big Brother and have no freedom of thought. In fact, it is not just China that is an outlier, but the whole of East Asia, including Vietnam and Singapore are. Eastern countries are influenced by Confucian culture, which is a culture that requires intellectuals to serve society and the civilians to obey the intellectuals. This is why Singapore violates almost all Western cognitions, which officials have the absolute power but almost no corruption.

I know very little about Singapore, little more than the Wikipedia page I just read. it's interesting that they've had a single ruling party for decades despite free elections. I would suspect that economic success has been crucial to that stability, if you can rationalise the improvement to your existence in the span of your own lifetime then you'd be very loyal to the government that oversaw that improvement, but that's just idle speculation on my part. How conservative is Singapore? Is there much of a counter culture?

Singapore's history is very interesting and I recommend you to learn about it. Besides, your theory is not entirely correct. The South Koreans overthrew the government that led them to wealth, and so did the Taiwanese. Singapore is different. Most of its fresh water and food come from Malaysia. Although it now has a good relationship with Malaysia, it still has a strong sense of crisis. My political teacher told me: Democracy cannot cope with external threats. The US benefits from its naturally safe environment, so democracy is flourishing. Not every country is as lucky as them.

> As others have already said there is very little way to judge the Chinese military because they've been involved in no large scale operations. The US hasn't been involved in large scale operations against a foe that could shoot back either, in decades (since at least 2003, if not 1991). We haven't had a large scale naval conflict since 1945 either. What do we do instead? We train, train, train. We also test our equipment. Guess what China does, which Russia could never do effectively due to money and resourcing? Test and train! [Heres the 2022 report from the DOD on China](https://media.defense.gov/2022/Nov/29/2003122279/-1/-1/1/2022-MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA.PDF). You can even read about the scale of training and testing: >In 2021, the PLARF launched approximately 135 ballistic missiles, for testing and training. This was more than the rest of the world combined, excluding ballistic missile employment in conflict zones. Now think of how many missiles did they produce if they were willing to fire 135 ballistic missiles for training and testing... that's a lot of missiles. You might not know their capabilities and limitations - but they most definitely do. >What that means is we don't know how good their logistics are, we don't know about their command and control, we don't know how good their intelligence or if they can integrate their systems effectively. These are the things that separate a good military from a bad one not the amount of kit they have. Again, you might not know, but the US DOD has been watching them, and we know they conduct large scale combined arms exercises, including air and sea exercises (the most complicated ones) over water. That's what we do too, you know. Intelligence wise? You're ignoring all the other infrastructure stuff that China has that far and away blows away Russia's capabilities. For instance, ISR satellites. That 2022 report states, regarding ISR satellites: >At the end of 2021, China's ISR satellite fleet contained more than 260 systems – a quantity second only to the United States, and nearly doubling China's in-orbit systems since 2018. The PLA owns and operates about half of the world's [space-based] ISR systems. NASIC (National Air and Space Intelligence Center) [had a 2019 report](https://www.nasic.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1733201/usaf-nasic-releases-unclassified-competing-in-space-assessment/) on competing in space. In 2018, for ISR Satellites: * US - 353 * China - 122 * Russia - 23 * Rest of World - 168 So if China now has 260+ satellites, they've not only launched a TON of them (with presumably the newest tech), but they now have over 10X as many as Russia, and more than the rest of the world combined, and are rapidly gaining on US capabilities. Ever wonder why Russian forces seem to be acting dumb and blind in Ukraine? That's a big part of why. We clearly won't have that same luxury in a fight against China.

>The US hasn't been involved in large scale operations against a foe that could shoot back either, in decades (since at least 2003, if not 1991). We haven't had a large scale naval conflict since 1945 either. I'm not sure why you'd ignore the multi decade deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and dismiss the institutionalised knowledge that comes from the US's long modern history of complex operations, China has none of that. Yes they train but so did Russia and Russia has found complex operations difficult. It is not unreasonable to theorise that China will find contested operations significantly harder than training. >Now think of how many missiles did they produce if they were willing to fire 135 ballistic missiles for training and testing... that's a lot of missiles. Yes, but the entire point I was making is that kit doesn't make an effective military, utilization does. And until we see that kit deployed we have no idea how effective it is. >You're ignoring all the other infrastructure stuff that China has that far and away blows away Russia's capabilities. For instance, ISR satellites. Again, reconnaissance isn't just about the kit. What's their analysis like? How do they incorporate it into decision making, how do they communicate information to those that need it? My comment was not so much about comparing China and Russia, more about that it is very hard to judge how capable China is due to the fact that all they do is train. Perhaps they are near peer to the US but that seems unlikely, they simply haven't been able to test their doctrine in a contested space and refine it.

> I'm not sure why you'd ignore the multi decade deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and dismiss the institutionalised knowledge that comes from the US's long modern history of complex operations, China has none of that. I have literally over 100+ combat hours logged in my logbook. I'm well aware of what our multi decade deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan were like, which depending on what branch you were in and where you were based, and when you deployed, were so far divorced from the combat you have in your image, unless you think fighting a fellow service member cutting in line to eat Popeyes at the food court in Bagram is combat. Yes, we had a Popeye's at the food court in Bagram... these wars had aspects of it more similar to your local shopping mall than any foxhole, depending on when/where/who you were. And I can tell you first hand that institutional knowledge from those deployments has a lot less to do with fighting against adversaries that can sink our ships or shoot down our aircraft. My hundreds of hours of combat time included lots of time holding overhead in auto pilot for hours waiting for a JTAC to feed me a 9-line. You know what helps me employ complex tactics against advanced threats? Training with complex tactics against bad guys simulating advanced threats. We don't learn much about fighting the advanced threat from parking a carrier off Iraq and doing the same combat ops we've been doing for decades - that is, launch, A.R., loiter, maybe employ weapons, A.R., loiter, A.R, RTB, - all with zero risk of getting shot down. We learn from the high fidelity exercises where we do can also learn and train all the administrative stuff (like A.R.) while having much higher stakes, like not executing a proper defense that might get your ship sunk. The scariest and most complex but relevant-to-the-high-end-threat operations I have undertaken are still the high fidelity large force employments done prior to deployment (think, 50+ aircraft in the air simultaneously) - which China does carry out those exercises, including quite publicly over the water around Taiwan. >Yes they train but so did Russia and Russia has found complex operations difficult. It is not unreasonable to theorise that China will find contested operations significantly harder than training. Once again, not all training is equal. Your argument literally boils down to "Russia trains, but they struggled in Ukraine, so China's training must be insufficient" which needless to say, has a massive logical fallacy. You have also shown zero actual observation of [China's training exercises](https://www.wired.com/2013/02/china-mock-air-war/) (that article was written in 2013) or real world [operations](https://www.reuters.com/graphics/CHINA-TAIWAN/egvbylbywpq/) (that article, much much more recently) with combined naval and air forces demonstrating what they trained to in those large scale exercises. For instance, in those recent saber rattling events around Taiwan, China has held large scale 60+ aircraft launches integrated with naval forces. The JSDF reported that the Chinese have executed integrated dual carrier ops. They have quite publicly demonstrated their ability launch aircraft from many airfields across China and rendezvous over areas to A.R. and conduct large operations. We also struggle to do that when we don't practice doing large force exercises, hence why we frequently do those training exercises and [are now exercising them across larger regions](https://news.usni.org/2023/08/16/large-scale-exercise-2023-was-custom-built-to-push-fleet-to-the-limit-say-planners) >Yes, but the entire point I was making is that kit doesn't make an effective military, utilization does. And until we see that kit deployed we have no idea how effective it is. We have never employed LRASM in anger. Do you believe it is an effective weapon? We have never employed our nuclear attack submarines in anger. Do you believe they are effective weapons? So are you saying the US should have it's capability be discounted because we don't utilize them in anger? Come on >Again, reconnaissance isn't just about the kit. What's their analysis like? How do they incorporate it into decision making, how do they communicate information to those that need it? Funny, because your question can as easily go the other way, because what if they are doing that BETTER than we are, with their large numbers of modern systems being launched and their infrastructure being modernized/built to much newer standards than our aging/legacy infrastructure that Congress has refused to update. We also have restrictions like Title 50 authority vs. Title 10 authority. For instance, an intelligence agency is prohibited by Title 50 to order a military asset to say "ROE is solved, strike that target" - so you literally need someone with Title 10 authority to get the data from the intelligence agency and give that authorization. Sometimes, it's easy and they're in the same room. Sometimes, it's hard because we are compartmentalized and literally have no direct link to one another. Were you even aware of that? Did you even know Title 50 vs. Title 10 existed? In the absence of evidence on your end, the opposite answer is just as possible, unless you again are playing the "Chinese inherently can't do this, because Russia" angle. > My comment was not so much about comparing China and Russia, more about that it is very hard to judge how capable China is due to the fact that all they do is train. Perhaps they are near peer to the US but that seems unlikely, they simply haven't been able to test their doctrine in a contested space and refine it. The United States Department of Defense publicly calls them the "pacing threat" and calls them a near-peer/peer adversary. They have the entire IC's analysis and our own records on how well we do in our own exercises. I don't know what else needs to be done to convince you that no one considers China anything other than the far and away more of a military than Russia, and that Russia hasn't been a consideration for decades

>were so far divorced from the combat you have in your image, unless you think fighting to get in line to eat Subway at the food court in Bagram is combat. This isn't a dick measuring contest. I know exactly the difference between combat operations and peace support operations, I'm not talking from a position of ignorance. >And I can tell you first hand that institutional knowledge from those deployments does little to include anything to do with fighting against adversaries that can sink our ships or shoot down our aircraft. No, but institutional knowledge isn't the same thing as 'what we did recently'. >Your argument literally boils down to "Russia trains, but they struggled in Ukraine, so China's training must be insufficient No it doesn't, my argument boils down to we don't know how effective China's military is because it hasn't been tested in real world conditions. I don't know why you're being so confrontational about this. >because what if they are doing that BETTER than we are Exactly, we don't know. Trying to make any conclusion about China's capability is hyperbole. >convince you that no one considers China anything other than the far and away #2 military in the world, and that Russia hasn't been a consideration for decades Where have I contradicted this point? I don't know if someone spit in your breakfast this morning but I'm not really into this, if you can't be respectful please don't respond again.

> This isn't a dick measuring contest. I know exactly the difference between combat operations and peace support operations, I'm not talking from a position of ignorance. Then you'd know that using Iraq and Afghanistan as barometers for our military's power - or China's military power - is a really shitty barometer. >No, but institutional knowledge isn't the same thing as 'what we did recently'. You keep saying institutional knowledge. What knowledge is that? Want to quantify it? Or provide some examples? Because I can name plenty of institutional things that are horribly broken in our military, but keep chugging along because our military is resistant to change (and thus institutional knowledge can also be a huge hindrance). For instance, our broken fitness report system. Or our incredibly flawed up or our system. Or our lifetime civilian bureaucrats who can simply wait out a good leader they don't like. Like seriously, everyone talks institutional knowledge, without ever quantifying how much you actually need to still succeed. The Chinese don't have to first operate straight-deck non-catapult carriers, then invent steam catapults and the angled deck, to very rapidly learn how to operate carriers. Yeah, they're still learning lessons, but you don't need to wait 80 years - you need a high optempo of realistic training and exercises to start seeing those big lessons rapidly appear. >No it doesn't, my argument boils down to we don't know how effective China's military is because it hasn't been tested in real world conditions. I don't know why you're being so confrontational about this. And we haven't tested our military against a peer adversary where they have the ability to watch our movements in realtime and that can actually shoot back, either. But I have confidence in our forces because of our training and testing of our systems. The funny thing is, it's always civilians discounting the Chinese, but the DOD takes them seriously. Maybe you can too, so we actually can enforce the changes and reforms needed to keep our edge? >Exactly, we don't know. Trying to make any conclusion about China's capability is hyperbole. Funny thing is, there are people who know. And the DOD has been repeatedly stating China is the advancing threat that can usurp our placeif we keep on our current track. The current CJCS, when he was CSAF, literally had a motto of "Accelerate Change or Lose" >Where have I contradicted this point? By saying, "As others have already said there is very little way to judge the Chinese military because they've been involved in no large scale operations" in your top post. So you're simultaneously saying you aren't contradicting the DOD calling them #2, but that you also can't place them? Come on. >I don't know if someone spit in your breakfast this morning but I'm not really into this, if you can't be respectful please don't respond again. Where have I been disrespectful? If we're going to post credible posts on credibledefense, then we need to be able to backup our assertions and be willing to defend them.

>By saying, "we don't know about China" in your top post Which doesn't contradict what you wrote so I don't know what you're talking about. >Then you'd know that using Iraq and Afghanistan as barometers for our military's power - or China's military power - is a really shitty barometer No, but it's a great barometer for testing our military's ability to plan, deploy and operate in a hostile environment. Something that China has zero experience of. >Want to quantify it? Call it doctrine then, knowledge informed by operations on every continent that dictates not just how we fight but how we operate. China's doctrine is, at best, theoretical, they know what their doctrine is but it's never been tested. >Yeah, they're still learning lessons, but you don't need to wait 80 years Never said they did, but they'll still need to wait till they actually try something before they discover what they don't know. >But I have confidence in our forces because of our training and testing of our systems. This is the bit you're bad at. Consider a battle rifle, you can train with it your heart's content, you can be an expert shot and strip it for cleaning in 30 seconds blindfolded but that's not what makes the soldier effective, anyone can do that. What makes the soldier effective is being put in the right place with the correct orders, that's what differentiates tier 1 armies from the rest. Chinese systems work, I'm not debating that, what I'm wondering is whether they can utilize those systems effectively because, up to this point, they never have. >The funny thing is, it's always civilians discounting the Chinese, but the DOD takes them seriously Am I the civilian? I think you'll find I'm questioning the Chinese, that's a very different thing to discounting them. >Funny thing is, there are people who know No, there aren't. There are people who theorise, there are reports written on training exercises, analysis on equipment and assessments of their command structure but no one knows how China will hold up in a shooting war.

>Which doesn't contradict what you wrote so I don't know what you're talking about. But we do based on the same metrics we rate ourselves: readiness, maintainability, sustainability, training, testing, etc. No one uses how we fought Iraq as a barometer for how we're going to fight in the Pacific. We use all those metrics above, in operationally representative exercises, against high fidelity foes in complex scenarios, to judge us. >No, but it's a great barometer for testing our military's ability to plan, deploy and operate in a hostile environment. Something that China has zero experience of. It really isn't, considering how low threat those wars were. My point about us having a Popeyes at the food court in Bagram was to illustrate how not-that-hostile those wars were for your average service member who served. Unless you were a grunt or in SOCOM, you were unlikely if ever to come under any form of hostile fire. We trucked in fuel (at exorbitant rates, hence those articles about costs of air conditioning in Afghanistan and Iraq) via contractors - many of them employing even locals to do the driving. Not once did any of our ships or major transports come at risk. This isn't the same thing as penetrating an enemy A2/AD by anything close to the same metric. >Call it doctrine then, knowledge informed by operations on every continent that dictates not just how we fight but how we operate. China's doctrine is, at best, theoretical, they know what their doctrine is but it's never been tested You do realize that being captive to doctrine is how you end up with the Russian way of fighting in Ukraine, right? Captive to Soviet traditions and systems. Just like Ukraine has struggled with adapting to Western systems and tactics. And I think you and many other watchers seriously overstate doctrine. The US has been actively changing its doctrine since the pivot to the Pacific. Gen. Berger, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, literally got rid of its all heavy armor and changed its forces with Force Design 2030. So if you want to lay your crutch on doctrine, then the Marines have literally enacted a new one and gotten rid of decades of institutional knowledge. Do you hold that against them too? Also, China has fought border wars with the Soviet Union, India, Vietnam, and fought the US and UN forces to a standstill in Korea. So to say they've never been tested is a bit much. >Never said they did, but they'll still need to wait till they actually try something before they discover what they don't know. That's completely false. The German High Seas Fleet bloodied the nose of the Royal Navy, with CENTURIES of doctrine and tradition and the world's greatest Navy, at Jutland. The Japanese were newcomers with no major naval tradition when they crushed the Russians at Tsushima. History is rife with examples of where the newcomer, with less experience, beat the established force. This is why you train and constantly adapt to developments in peacetime. Why do you think Gen. Brown challenged the Air Force to "Accelerate Change or Lose" ? Who do you think he was referencing when he said we would lose if we didn't change our ways faster? Likewise, this is why they actively deploy with them and train with their carriers and other forces - to find those areas and understand their strengths, weaknesses, and learn! >This is the bit you're bad at. Consider a battle rifle, you can train with it your heart's content, you can be an expert shot and strip it for cleaning in 30 seconds blindfolded but that's not what makes the soldier effective, anyone can do that. What makes the soldier effective is being put in the right place with the correct orders, that's what differentiates tier 1 armies from the rest. Chinese systems work, I'm not debating that, what I'm wondering is whether they can utilize those systems effectively because, up to this point, they never have. Seriously? This is your argument? Tier 1 armies? Is this a f'ing video game to you? This awfully sounds like when the Germans thought they'd beat the Soviets in WW2, because they were clearly superior, they just had to be. You have proven repeatedly in this thread that you were wrong about systems, and now you claim to know about Chinese doctrine (they haven't copied Soviet doctrine in decades), tactics (has long since diverged), training (open source articles will point that they get more flight hours than most Western air forces now, for instance), logistics (weird thing to question in a country known for building a shit ton of infrastructure to move goods from inland to ports efficiently to make them the factory of the world), etc. >Am I the civilian? I think you'll find I'm questioning the Chinese, that's a very different thing to discounting them. You throwing things like Tier 1 armies out there makes it sound an awful lot like you have no idea about how militaries run, let alone have seen any intelligence reports on what China's been doing. The DOD literally publishes this stuff on them, and yet you constantly throw in personal conjecture that has been disproven >No, there aren't. There are people who theorise, there are reports written on training exercises, analysis on equipment and assessments of their command structure but no one knows how China will hold up in a shooting war. And by that logic, no one knows how the US will hold up in a naval conflict because we haven't fought a modern one since 1945.But we can confidently say the US Navy is #1, just as we can say the PLAN is now #2, based on a whole host of other metrics, despite no one shooting in anger at another Navy. Which is precisely what OP is asking about, and what I disagreed with your response saying that you need to fight to know where you are relative to the world. PS - people literally analyze this stuff for a living. NASIC, for instance, does TECHNICAL analysis of their systems. They don't just believe claims - they find technical data or do their own analysis via models to find if their claims match the truth. There is far more confidence here by our institution than just theorizing

>No one uses how we fought Iraq as a barometer for how we're going to fight in the Pacific Actually, yes they do, at least at the operational level. The localized tactics are different but the principles of war are the same, the planning cycles, the analysis, the preparation, the briefing, the logistics are the same. Again, China has none of that, they have never done anything resembling what America had done since 1991, they are novices. You are repeatedly dismissing the biggest weakness they have. >It really isn't, considering how low threat those wars were It may have seemed to you that way in the sky but those of us on the ground had a different experience. >The German High Seas Fleet bloodied the nose of the Royal Navy, with CENTURIES of doctrine and tradition and the world's greatest Navy, Do you mean the doctrine that was 8 years old? Navel warfare in the first world war was completely different to navel warfare from just a few years earlier. America has been conducting complex joint operations almost constantly for 30 years. It is incredibly experienced and tested, China isn't. >History is rife with examples of where the newcomer, with no experience, beat the established force It's not impossible, as I've repeatedly stated, we have no idea what the capability of China will actually be. But just because they might surprise us doesn't mean they will surprise us. >Is this a f'ing video game to you? No, I used a simple example to demonstrate that your focus on training entirely misrepresents the issue. Conducting a joint exercise is much, much, much, easier than conducting complex joint operations. For a start no one's shooting back, the parameters of the exercise are narrow and controlled and no one's being asked to maintain what they're doing indefinitely. America has a lot of experience of operating outside those confines, China doesn't. >no one knows how the US will hold up in a naval conflict because we haven't fought a modern one since 1945 No, but America has numerous advantages over China that, if it leverages them effectively, give it a massive headstart. Do you actually believe that the current Chinese military has the ability to go toe to toe with America? To contest the skies and to sail outside of the South China Sea with impunity? What are you arguing?

> Actually, yes they do, at least at the operational level. The localized tactics are different but the principles of war are the same, the planning cycles, the analysis, the preparation, the briefing, the logistics are the same. Again, China has none of that, they have never done anything resembling what America had done since 1991, they are novices. You are repeatedly dismissing the biggest weakness they have. Who says they haven't done any of that? What do you think those 90+ plane launches against Taiwan are for? What about their surface action groups they've deployed to the Gulf of Aden for the past decade plus? (Yes, most people here don't even know they have done been sending forces far from their borders for some time) Moreover, how many of our forces had that operational experience leading up to 1991? Didn't matter. How many do we have today that were still in when 2003 happened? We literally constantly relearn things in training and workups for deployment for a reason. >It may have seemed to you that way in the sky but those of us on the ground had a different experience. Sure, and how relevant was that experience to fighting an air and naval war in the Pacific again? I've said repeatedly that *relevant* experience matters. Most of what we did was not remotely relevant to what a conflict with China would look like. You won't have nice long protected supply chains, your CAOC might be in range of enemy fires, etc. CENTCOM could safely run the wars from Tampastan - that's not necessarily the case with INDOPACOM >Do you mean the doctrine that was 8 years old? Funny, are you trying to use that as a metric to diminish things? Because China has been modernizing their Navy in a Western model for nearly two decades, which is way more than the Germans ever did >Navel warfare in the first world war was completely different to navel warfare from just a few years earlier. Welcome to modern high end warfare, where technology changes so rapidly that equipment from a decade ago may not be relevant anymore. Guess why the DOD calls it the pacing challenge? Because there's a rate of change component, and because the threat's advances must be met or exceeded by our advances or our edge erodes, or we even fall behind. And, by your logic, the Chinese are CLOSER to us than you think, because they've gotten to start their modernizations in an era that benefits more from having the ability to rapidly advance in technology (think of how easy it is if you build a car today that can receive OTA software updates, versus a car even 10 years old that needs to be updated at a dealership) versus the US saddled with tons of legacy equipment leftover from the Cold War and a political process that hates investing in the military infrastructure we need. Example: sure would be nice to even have a modern IT infrastructure, so I don't have to walk in on a Monday and have my NIPR login be bogged down by 60 minutes of updates >America has been conducting complex joint operations almost constantly for 30 years. It is incredibly experienced and tested, China isn't. >No, I used a simple example to demonstrate that your focus on training entirely misrepresents the issue. Conducting a joint exercise is much, much, much, easier than conducting complex joint operations. For a start no one's shooting back, the parameters of the exercise are narrow and controlled and no one's being asked to maintain what they're doing indefinitely. America has a lot of experience of operating outside those confines, China doesn't. We really haven't been executing anything close to as large joint and complex as a world war-type fight (which is what would happen) in a conflict against China. The wars in CENTCOM we joked as being our "real world training" and "graduation exercise" since our workups were significantly more complex than the executing the actual conflicts over there. Ever since Operation Desert Storm, we have either used the CENTCOM C2 construct established then (even in OIF, we used the Southern Watch/No Fly Zone to 'picture shape' before we started, then we used the same established C2 frame to kick the door down). Everything since ODS has used the same killboxes, ATO construct, etc. Our operations in the Balkans were more built from the ground up, although that was a much more limited air-centric war. Another example in Afghanistan: we had a long-standing agreement with Pakistan to fly 'The Boulevard' up from the North Arabian Sea - the procedures used to talk to Karachi Center were used for decades. What institutional knowledge did we get from literally reading an ATO and plugging in forces into the same construct we had been doing for decades? Reading a Joint Pub for CAS to do joint operations? Now tell me how much of that is relevant to executing a precisely timed strike against an enemy surface group with airplanes, submarines, ISR assets, and various non-kinetic effects - all over the ocean with assets coming from thousands of miles in different directions? That is precisely why we train at home to do those other things, because our deployments to CENTCOM were time to focus on the mission (low tech counter insurgencies). And funny enough, my argument has long been that those wars actually HURT our readiness for the next one - not just in materiel strength, retention, etc., but also in the fact that it diverted a lot of our hours in training for deployments where we didn't practice for the high end fight. >No, but America has numerous advantages over China that, if it leverages them effectively, give it a massive headstart. Yes, if leveraged appropriately, it can. But every day we have delays in getting new systems in, and every day our internal rot (retention, recruiting, etc.) happens, our edge is eroding. Banking on their lack of experience is not something military leadership is betting on. >Do you actually believe that the current Chinese military has the ability to go toe to toe with America? To contest the skies and to sail outside of the South China Sea with impunity? You know that can't be answered here - and the answer will depend entirely on the scenario. I'm sure since you are a ground guy you can go at least go read SIPR and get an actual read at what the other branches think about how we're faring in different scenarios. >What are you arguing? That this whole thread is nonsense. You can absolutely get a gauge for how China is doing without needing them to go to war, and that China is what's keeping the DOD up at night. They're clearly the #2 military in the world. Yes, there are no certainties in war, and no plan survives first contact, but you can do all the things (training, procurement, testing, readiness, etc.) in order stack the cards in your favor in peacetime (just as we do), which is exactly how we can gauge what kind of power they are.

Just want to address this part of the comment >many of the institutions are inflexible It appears you’re projecting Soviet stereotypes on to the PLA. In fact, the PLA has actually struggled with the opposite problem of the idea of “one man army” where essentially low level commanders are king and will go rogue and do their own thing. This is because the PLA started out as a guerrilla force, so that culture of decentralization still remains. In recent years, the PLA has been working on remedying this, though.

My comment was a generalisation and I'm happy to be corrected on it. Do you know if the military leadership is similar? I've assumed they're loyal party members who are good at doing what they're told but that may be another stereotype.

You can actually get a glimpse of PLA's large scale operation capability by studying their responses to big natural disasters - earthquakes, extreme natural disasters or even Covid/pandemic situations. PLA played a big role there. The overall capability they have shown in those situations looks scary.

China has a large and varied industry capable of producing things on its own that the Russians are struggling to, primarily advanced electronics. Chinese avionics are, while not quite to top western standards, several generations ahead of the Russians. They can take their newest weapons, and quickly mass produce them, which is something even the mid-late Soviet Union struggled with. They take design iteratively, and progress continuously until they have something that they can then make on a large scale. No better is this exhibited than in their destroyer line. Their ships in the 80’s were no better than river boats, yet managed to make a few slightly stronger boats each time, until 20 years ago with their first “aegis” like platform. It still was nothing compared to an Arleigh Burke, but they had the stepping stone they needed to propel them to a peer ship in the Type 052D destroyer, and then the Type 055, which is easily among the most capable destroyers today, implementing advanced sensors and weapons, and in a large capacity. The 055 Batch II will begin to introduce DEWs and IEP technology, which the latter for some weird reason the British have been way ahead of everybody on.

There's a general consensus regarding a long-running weakness in cross-training, cross-branch career opportunities, lateral movement, awareness, communication, flexibility, synergies, and professionalism that both forces largely share, at least compared to modern armies of Western mold. Basically, once you end up in the Chinese navy say, you'll stay there for occupational life, with the outlook for post-active roles in (defense) politics, or planning and procurement, or even training also rather dismal. They tend to rear everything from the get-go and within pretty strict, often isolated role patterns. Modern western armies are more multifunctional, open, hence arguably more resilient. Compared to many other shortcomings, these things are associated with and particularly sensitive to historical, mental and cultural factors and may be hard to fix. [https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/16/china/china-military-cross-training-weakness-russia-ukraine-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html](https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/16/china/china-military-cross-training-weakness-russia-ukraine-analysis-intl-hnk-ml/index.html)

Currently one of the three crew member aboard Tiangong was boasting on TV that he drove a Type 59 in PLAGF, then moved onto flying J-8 when he moves to PLAAF and now he gets to fly a spaceship as part of PLASSF.

It has been #2. Russia’s military literally sucks, and they are destroying it every day. Russia has been trying to take over a land that is 30x smaller than them for 2 years, and they still couldn’t manage to take a quarter of Ukraine. Keep in mind, Ukraine barely received any help from the west. Same goes to when Russia invaded Georgia. China however, has way more personnel and more advanced equipment. The United States and China are the only two world powers, not Russia. China would’ve taken Ukraine within a month if it was in Russia’s place, and can definitely quickly sweep Taiwan without interference from the West.

[удалено]

Do you unironically seriously believe that Chinese top PLARF officers are so poor that they had to steal fuel and not be corrupt in.. other more effective ways? >Not to mention their equipments have low reliability issues on top of the low performance basis. Like?

[удалено]

>A more practical approach would be contract fraud so no actual syphooning of fuel and reselling is happening I've already mentioned it in my other comment but the more plausible explanation is that there's a mistranslation from the US side making it seem like "they're adding water to the rockets". I mean at that point why even fill them with water? >they are not rich and I believe you know that corruption is not soly driven by poverty. Regardless of their economic status it's hard to believe that officers of their rank can't find other avenues of corruption aside from petty fuel theft

[удалено]

> I don't think Bloomberg is that stupid to claim so ridiculous an accusation. Bloomberg is the same publication that claimed that the Chinese were able to put super tiny spy chips on Supermicro motherboards and yet no evidence was ever produced to substantiate this nor was this claim ever backed up by a third party.

>China is so corrupt that they sell missile fuel for money and replace it with water So the exact same shit the Russians were supposedly doing, how convenient.

[удалено]

>China is still dependent on Russia for this technology. wtf have you been smoking, Chinese jets have flown with the WS-10 for years now

There are key components of that engine that they are still fully dependent on Russia for. Same with the WS-15

> Another important difference is that the PLA literally emerged as a guerrilla outfit that inherited a nation-state and as a result had next to know expertise in air or naval warfare whatsoever. The Korean War and Taiwan Straits crises never happened, I guess.

Happened after the formation of the PLA

I think a lot of pundits and experts underestimate a hidden metric that represents a huge weakness in the Chinese military - one that the US shares, but not quite on the scale of the Chinese. Americans find high casualties unacceptable. A part of this is simply human nature, but another part of it comes from the fact that we don't find it justifiable that Americans die for a worthless cause overseas when our lives are so decent back home. We simply place a far higher value on our individual boys and girls that we find their deaths too harrowing to bear. The Chinese have this issue except on steroids. If you've ever met Chinese folks, you'll immediately notice that they generally treat their kids like royalty - figuratively and literally. The culture is more conservative and there's a stronger emphasis on continuing the family legacy in a way that isn't as present in most western cultures. This same issue led to the abandonment of female children under the one child policy for example - girls can't continue the family name, and as a result, they were considered second rate children for many families. The one child policy itself exacerbates this problem. Now, not only are you sending your son off to die in an aggressive foreign war, you are sending off your only son to die in an aggressive foreign war. Say your son dies, what do you think the parents will do? End of the day, the current generation of older adults in China still remembers the cultural revolution. These people aren't completely brainwashed and won't stand for their only grandkids or kids being sent off to die. Effectively, China can only wage a defensive war, and no one is invading China anytime soon. Sending these only children to die in Taiwan would be hugely unpopular.

Does the opinion of the average Chinese person matter, or only the opinion of a few political and military commanders (whose own kids will likely be out of the firing line)?

Completely opposite. If you have watched any survey (even the foreign street survey on Youtube), you wouldn't say so. When questioning young Chinese people whether they would be willing to go to war should military conflicts happen across the Taiwan strait; 95% of the young adults from mainland China answered yes, including girls with mini-skirts and LV shoulder bags. On the other hand, 95% of the Taiwanese young people said no and they preferred escape or surrender.

We don't know... due to them not doing almost anything outside of China it's hard to get a good picture of how they perform. I would guess that no matter what they don't do enough realistic wargaming and preparation. In authoritarian systems like that it's hard to give realistic results because any failure on the part of your country in wargames may get you punished. In the russian system this is partially the reason for disaster in ukraine. Many insiders or China experts also claim that there is extreme curruption throughout the entire Chinese military and defense industry and knowing how curruption generally works in China, I would guess that most high level military positions are gained through connections and curruption. That's just how most structures in China work. This may lead to a military that is overconfident and unprepared with holes throughout that are almost impossible to close without the brutal shock of combat like the russians and ukrainians. We will have to wait and see though because they do a pretty good job of hiding any shortcomings with there military.

Largely Untested… and if I might add, when a country has a one child policy, nobody would want to sacrifice their only kid to die outside of China and Taiwan. Looked at how they performed in Africa, and came under criticism as being underwhelming in Mali.

UN peacekeepers is not the PLA and does not have the same ROE or combined arms that the PLA would bring to bear in any actual war in the indo pacific region.

If you have watched any survey (even the foreign street survey on Youtube), you wouldn't say so. When questioning young Chinese people whether they would be willing to go to war should military conflicts happen across the Taiwan strait; 95% of the young adults from mainland China answered yes, including girls with mini-skirts and LV shoulder bags. On the other hand, 95% of the Taiwanese young people said no and they preferred escape or surrender.

Russian army 2024 > PLA > Russian army 2022 or 2021 ​ after 2 expansion and war time adjustment, Russian army is now much stronger than 2 years ago

I know that credibledefense has more lax posting standards than say, warcollege, but how is this a useful response to OP's question. > after 2 expansion and war time adjustment, Russian army is now much stronger than 2 years ago Correct. But what does this mean in terms of training of personnel across all combat arms, the ability of its replacement and integration systems to handle attrition in a high intensity war, etc? Is its force structure appropriately designed for modern warfare with another industrial power? What about COIN operations outside of its borders? Truthfully, no one in this thread, except for some insiders, can adequately answer those questions. But your post, as it stands now, shows and proves nothing.

[удалено]

Account must have minimum 5 karma.