"R. David Steele" wrote in message
...

| Not everyone keeps up with various policies and DoD planning.
| the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen Myers, was picked
| to plan for this potential war.
|
|Actually, you're the one who seems out of touch. The Joint Staff plans
for
|all sorts of wars all the time. But Presidents don't pick Chairmen of
the
|JCS to plan any particular wars. Indeed, the Chairman's job is mostly to
|supervise current ops; the Staff does long-term planning regardless of
who
|is in charge.

There were several articles in the Washington Post here, when the
GWOT started (just after Sept 11th), on how Gen. Myers was
selected to plan for a possible war with China.

Bullpoopie. Such planning is handled in the J-3 Operations section of the
Joint Staff, under the direction of a three star. The unified command
responsible for the AO in question (in this case that would have been PACOM)
would also be contributing to the planning process while it updates its own
theater level plans. Firstly, I don't recall the Washington Pravda saying
any such thing; and secondly, since when has that media source been a
reliable source for military-specific information?

And how he was
out of his element with the GWOT. It is common knowledge, at
here in DC, that we do have a war in the making with China.

I live within spitting distance of you and have not picked up on any such
"common knowledge". Stop making stuff up, for gosh sakes.

It
would be nice to avoid that war. But Gen Myers does have that
mission.

As I believe Tom already told you, the JCS staff routinely plans for all
sorts of contingency operations, no matter how likely. We have done that for
eons; hell, we had contingency plans for going to war against the Brits and
canucks long after they were any sort of major threat to the US. Do we have
OPLAN's that are directed at a potential war with the PRC? Of course. That
does not mean that we have a "war in the making" with China.


| China has let it be known, there
| are a number of papers coming out of their post graduate officers
| school, that they plan to challenge us for control of the far
| east. That means control over India, most of SE Asia (down to
| Australia), Japan, the Philippines and Siberia.
|
|China's policy appears to be primarily focussed on ensuring that no one
else
|interfrres with their own territory.

And they define that "territory" as everything from India to
Australia to Siberia and Japan. The whole of the far East. This
has been China's "domain" for thousands of years. The question
is do you want to be shut out of that area?

While China no doubt would love to be the big dog in that lot, it knows that
right now, and in the immediate future, it can't be.


| Also China has sent it agents off its soil as it never has in
| 5000 years. They now run the Panama Canal. Have bases all
| throughout the Caribbean. Now own a port (former naval base) in
| San Diego. And they have extensive operations all throughout
| North Africa.
|
|Oh, good grief. China has commercial intereasts worldwide, yes. But
|there's no evidence that running port operations in Panama (NOT running
the
|Canal proper, BTW) translates into any sort of aggressive intent.
INdeed,
|the company that runs those ops is a Hong Kong-based multinational, not
|controlled by the Chinese government as the fearmongers would have you
|believe.

Since much of "business" in China is owned by the People's
Republican Army (PRA), business is seen as an arm of the
military.

The "Peoples Republican Army"? You can't even identify the largest freakin'
army in the worl properly, and you want us to believe your rants about them
going to war with us in the near term??! Try "Liberation" in place of
"Republican".


Whether we like it or not, things change. China has been looking
for a chance to be player.

OK.

With the USSR gone, and Russia weak,
they have their chance.

Not really. They have to have the tools and expertise to back such a
strategy up, and they don't have them now, and won't have them anytime in
this decade. How many AWACS do they have? None really, just a few somewhat
capable AEW platforms. How well have they managed to integrate their
operations between components? Their 1979 Vietnam fiasco showed us they had
virtually NO capability there, and while they have undoubtedly improved
since then, they are not in any shpe to confront the US. How about their
naval capability versus the USN? Laughable at present.

Most of us have no problem if they play
fair and equal. But if they treat business much the way the
mafia does then we will have to learn to be equally aggressive.

Not everyone in the world sees appeasement as being fair minded.
Many see those who use appeasement as being weak thus prey.

What the hell does your rant have to do with "appeasement"? Recognizing the
true level of the current threat does not equal "appeasement". Does China
want to be able to confront the US? Yes. Can they do it now? No. By 2010?
No. By 2020? Maybe, but only if the US completely scotches its military
development.

Brooks