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by The Chinese have a plan, should the event ever arise where American military forces in the Pacific need to be neutralized. Interestingly, the particular plan in question was not discovered through secretive espionage operations, but rather found simply by reading their military doctrine and published manuals. Linguists and military experts at the Rand think-tank have spent the past year pouring over available Chinese documents attempting to reconstruct the impact on the deployed American military. Rand's research stresses that, much like any nation's defensive war gaming, "These aren’t war plans. This is the military talking to itself. It’s not designed for foreigners or even China’s general public to read."
In a nutshell, the Chinese will completely neutralize the Air Force's capability of operating in theater through a series of "first punch" strikes. Long range missiles that are capable of covering Korea and Japan would eliminate the existing Air Force arsenal and airstrips. Fighters would focus on refueling missions to prevent long range efforts from reaching the mainland. Satellites would also be knocked out to prohibit surveillance. Nuclear weapons would be used at high altitude to disrupt communications and sensors. And lastly, a barrage of explosive munitions would simultaneously impact on barracks and living quarters to create massive casualties in a swift blow. The Chinese strategy hopes to take advantage of that fact that "the American public is “abnormally sensitive” about military casualties, according to an article in China’s Liberation Army Daily, killing U.S. airmen or other personnel would spark a “domestic anti-war cry” on the home front and possibly force early withdrawal of U.S. forces."
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I'm sure this sort of thing is perfectly normal. It's normal in that I would actually be surprised if any country of China's size and development didn't have some sort of 'plan' in place as described in the news article. I'm sure the U.S. has many for them and others also. It is surprising it was picked up in the casual way that it was; perhaps showing that it wasn't much to even keep secret. It does have a flaw though. As Figdor alluded, the American public is only "sensitive" about casualties when the reasons and cause for fighting are debatable. A full-fledged attack would put an end to a vast majority of these sensitivities.
America had a plan to invade canada so we can't exactly get on our high-horse about other countries planning for unlikely situations.
Invading Canada won't be like invading Iraq: When we invade Canada, nobody will be able to grumble that we didn't have a plan.
Historically, we've done it twice already and been beaten both times.
Every country has "a plan" for defense and the option of assault. I'd be curious as to how old this plan is... from the strategy described, it must be fairly recent. I wonder if our 'plans' for world dominance are updated as often. The reason the Cold War was successful - so to speak - is because everyone knew everyone else had a 'plan' and the means to implement them thus keeping everyone on their toes and wary. It wasn't a bad thing.
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Oops by Figdor :: NR3 :: on 05 February 2008
The Chinese seem to have forgotten Pearl Harbor. Perhaps WWII was a myth, much like the fabled Winston Churchill (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britainpeoplehistoryoffbeat;_ylt=ApX1oOuemkTWO13I3O_aJhntiBIF). While it may be true that our military casualities receive unusual scrutiny relative to times in the past, it can also be said that, relative to past conflicts, the most recent wars are also the most dubiously relevant to US interests. A direct assault would be an indisputable affront to our sovereignty. In the event of such an attack our own casualities would become more justifiable.