[lumost]

If China was to attack Taiwan, now would be the time. The current world order is at least in part based around the notion of the US (and allies) having the military capacity to fight any plausible combination of foes at all times. That this military capacity was used in accordance to a set of rules with input from allies and partners made the system tolerable.

If the US lacks the munitions to fight all of these conflicts, and is unreliable to allies or foes leads to a high likelihood of conflict.

[tim-tday]

Pretty sure they’ll wait about 9 months. They have a schedule after all.

[koolala]

Would allies give the US munitions to stop that possible outcome?

[lumost]

Why give munitions to an unreliable partner? why rely on an unreliable partner for munitions? the Japan/Australia/SK-US-EU/NATO alliance depends on the US being sensible and broadly aligned with the goals of the other countries.

Granted, patriot missiles are still manufactured across the alliance and I'm sure arms will be available for purchase.

[CyanLite2]

Fortunately, China just decided to fire most of their military leadership and replaced them with inexperienced, but loyal grunts.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Isn't that what the US did too?

[fma]

I think this is only true if the United States takes armaments from the Pacific theater.

[nebula8804]

There is so much BS on both sides of the aisle so it seems impossible to get a clear picture but didn't Iran prepare better than Venezuela in terms of deployment of Chinese radar and other security defenses? Seems like there has been no conversation whatsoever about Chinese defenses, were they bypassed again? If so, then China must be reassessing. (Again dont know whats real and whats fake anymore)

[nathanlied]

China is being very careful to provide enough support not to be seen as abandoning their trading partners/allies, while keeping the support at a low enough level to not get entangled in conflict or create expectations for future conflicts. They want to be able to paint this as "just business", in spite of any rhetoric they may publicly have. In some cases they'll help more in covert ways (Russia), while others they'll do the bare minimum (Venezuela).

So yes, China did give (note: sell) Iran some hardware, but it's not the most cutting edge tech China has, and it's not in sufficient quantity to make much of a difference.

The US is still ahead of China in a lot of military tech, even if the gap keeps getting narrower.

[lumost]

All limited exchanges end in annihilation, parties are required to tit for tat the exchange and it's really easy to run out of targets when you are using nukes - forcing an escalation.

If Taiwan was invaded, the only military targets for the US are in close proximity to major population centers. The response would be nukes on US Naval bases (in close proximity to US population centers). This would rapidly escalate to a full exchange. Or China would just use their nukes to achieve all military objectives in Taiwan.

Neither China nor the US plan to invade each other, or engage in any non-limited conflict. There is no rational reason for either to ever use nukes.

[markus_zhang]

Ah, such good thought to talk about nukes so lightly. Do not underestimate the number of nukes needed to obliterate a country with 1.3 billion people.