WWIII Revisited

The peeps at 1945 asked me to update a piece I wrote back in 2014 on what war between the United States and the People’s Republic of China might look like. To be clear I think that war would be horrible for both sides, but in part because of that I think it’s worthwhile to contemplate the course of the conflict. If the Russia-Ukraine War has demonstrated anything, it’s that raw force remains one of the arbiters of global politics.

How does the unthinkable happen? The United States and China are inextricably locked into the Pacific Rim’s international trade system. Some argue that this makes war impossible, but wars that people have believed to be impossible have nevertheless broken out.

This article updates an argument made eight years ago, concentrating less on the operational and tactical details of a US-China war and more on the strategic objectives of the major combatants before, during, and after the conflict. A war between the United States and China would transform the geopolitics of East Asia, but could also leave many crucial elements unchanged. Tragically, a conflict between China and the US might be remembered only as “The First Sino-American War.”