Russia is on the war path, and if successful in Ukraine is unlikely to stop there. Lithuania,
with EU support, has shut off the flow of military and economic material to the Russian enclave of
Kaliningrad, triggering a threat of invasion by Russia in retaliation. A world away, China
flexes its muscles as it threatens the United States and their continued support for Taiwan.
Fears of World War III are growing by the day,
and the United States is taking them very, very seriously.
Before we discuss how the US is preparing for the third world war,
first we need to know what its potential enemies are doing.
China has long been preparing for a confrontation with the United States as it seeks to become the
world's dominant superpower. Currently, China falls short of the qualifications
for a global superpower, qualifications which only the United States fills at the moment,
but with its dizzying economic and military growth, it may be less than a decade before
the Chinese Communist Party can project power all over the world.
China's preparations for a showdown with the West include dislodging the United States as the most
important economic power in the world. It also has to safeguard its own economic interests in
the wake of economic warfare vs the US, and to achieve this aim in 2013 it launched the
Belt and Road initiative. This massively ambitious plan includes building new land
and sea trade routes all over the world to connect China economically with nations
all the way from Europe to Africa. To achieve this, the nation has invested not just in its
own infrastructure, but in building trade infrastructure in other nations as well.
However, China's 'partnership' with host nations is more often than not, extremely predatory. They
offer economic loans to build massive projects that promise economic prosperity like sea ports
and rail yards. However, the terms of the loans often dictate that Chinese companies
must be hired to do the construction, leaving few jobs for locals. Interest rate on these debt
traps is often so high that a poor third world nation is guaranteed to default. Included in the
penalties for defaulting are clauses such as China owning exclusive rights to the infrastructure it
builds for terms as long as a century. It is in effect, a modern version of soft colonialism.
China's plan is to have heavy influence in the trade of goods throughout Asia,
the Middle East, and Africa, putting it in a very
strong position to dictate geopolitics in its ever growing sphere of influence.
China's next preparation for war with the US includes securing its vulnerable trade routes
through the South China Sea and the very valuable oil and natural gas deposits in the region,
as well as the remaining rich fishing grounds. This effort began with the construction of
artificial islands in 2013, which continued unopposed despite an international ruling by
the world court in The Hague that such island building and claims to economic exclusion zones
around them were illegal. Foreign pressure also failed to stop China from stealing claims to oil
supplies by neighbors such as Vietnam, or of using its coast guard to bully and intimidate
the merchant and fishing fleets of other nations out of their own territorial waters.
These islands have now become heavily fortified military installations,
which include modern missile defenses, runways long enough for long range attack aircraft,
and an ever growing network of surveillance assets all geared for one purpose: detect, track,
and destroy the US Navy. Further preparations have included the addition of dozens of new ships
to the People's Liberation Navy, which is now officially the largest in the world. Recently,
China's second aircraft carrier came online, and in a few years will be ready for battle,
greatly enhancing the CCP’s reach in the all important sea and air domains.
With Russia's increased belligerence in Europe, there is serious concern that the two nations
may partner up in an attempt to turn the current US-led world order on its head. Despite China's
increasing capabilities, it still does not have the power to defeat the United States in a one on
one confrontation, and it might hope to split US attention by partnering with Russia- thus
forcing America to choose between fighting China in the Pacific or Russia in Europe.
For decades, the United States maintained a policy of fielding a powerful enough military
to fight and win two simultaneous wars against near-peer adversaries. However,
with China's rapid ascension this has become officially impossible without bankrupting
the United States, and thus America has been forced to accept that it may only be able to
defeat one near-peer adversary at a time. The question is, how is the US preparing
to do that given the increasing likelihood of China and Russia starting a third world war?
First, the situation in the Pacific may seem dire with China's numerically superior Navy,
but the real measure of naval power is not in number of vessels, but in the
number of Battle Force Missiles. These are the number of missiles that both navies can bring
to bear against each other. The US maintains around 10,000 missiles vs the PLAN's estimated
2000- though these numbers have changed and will continue to change as China
fields larger vessels and both navies shift in composition. It's estimated that by 2030 China
may have closed the gap in Battle Force Missiles to 2/3rds of US capabilities.
The US's first line of defense against China is the place that is likely to be ground zero
for World War III- Taiwan. The small island democracy broke away from the mainland after
the nationalists were expelled by the Communists in the aftermath of World War II. Since then,
the former dictatorship has become a vibrant democracy that has refused
to reunify and put themselves under control of the Chinese Communist Party.
Securing Taiwan is not just important for the ever-intensifying global clash between
authoritarianism and democracy, but also for very important political and economic reasons. Firstly,
Taiwan produces around 50% of the world's semiconductors after US companies ceased
production at home due to expense. Semiconductors are important for every
single gadget in your life, the global economy quite literally runs on them,
and they have become as valuable a commodity as gas and oil. China itself produces between
25% and 30% of the world's semiconductor supply, so if China were to take Taiwan,
it would now be in control of three quarters of the global semiconductor supply. This
would allow China to effectively shut down the economy of any nation that disagrees with it by
simply barring the sale of semiconductors to it, giving China incredible power to
further control global affairs and reducing the West's ability to oppose its authoritarianism.
Taiwan is also politically important, as it makes up part of what's known as the 'first
island chain'. This is a chain of islands that extends from Japan to the Philippines, and acts
as a very physical barrier to the expansion of Chinese influence in the Pacific. If China
were to take Taiwan, it would not just break this carefully orchestrated containment strategy, but
allow China to effectively neuter Japan's ability to resist it. With aircraft and ships stationed
off Taiwan, China could target Japan's lines of communication and trade routes that cross the
Pacific and 'hem' the nation in, forcing it into subservience under threat of economic starvation.
If China takes Taiwan, the US commitments to defend the Philippines and Japan would
be made much more difficult, if not impossible. To defend Taiwan, the United States has inked
several deals selling the nation advanced weapon systems ranging from fighter aircraft
to air and missile defenses. US military advisors have worked closely with their
Taiwanese counterparts for years to prepare the nation for invasion. Despite threats from China,
the flow of US arms to Taiwan continues unabated, and recently US President Joe Biden publicly
voiced for the first time an unacknowledged truth in American politics: the United States will come
to the defense of Taiwan in case of invasion. This greatly angered China and the White House
press corps was quick to walk the statement back, but what seemed like a political gaffe was likely
yet another bit of intrigue meant to further the American strategy of keeping China guessing
as to how the US might react to an invasion. If China cannot accurately predict what America will
do should it invade Taiwan, it serves to create confusion and doubt amongst Chinese leadership.
Should China prepare its economy for a flurry of global sanctions like Russia received after
its invasion of Ukraine, or should China be expecting American F-18s to swarm the skies
over Taiwan and sink their invasion fleet? Strategic ambiguity is a powerful tool,
and political theater is an excellent method for creating it.
But the US isn't planning on fighting a war against China alone. To this end,
it has helped increase the capabilities of allies such as Japan and most notably Australia
who recently signed a military cooperation pact between itself, the United States,
and the United Kingdom. The pact will provide not just security cooperation between the countries,
but also help arm Australia with a fleet of nuclear attack submarines. This is of grave
concern to the Chinese, who recently attempted to charm Australia away from its relationship
with the US, a tactic which ultimately failed. In ten years time, China may not have to face
off against just US and British submarines, but tAustralian submarine also- putting the
People's Liberation Navy as well as it's all important sea trade routes at increased risk.
China imports most of its oil and gas over its seaborne trade routes,
and this is exactly what the US is preparing to target in case of war in order to strangle
the Chinese economy. Recently, security meetings between Japan, India, the US,
and Australia were revived after a pause during President Trump's term. The 'Quad'
as it is informally known, aims to tackle global problems such as global warming, cybersecurity,
and ensuring a free and open trade environment in the Pacific. This is a veiled implication of the
Quad's discussions on how to best handle China's expansion in the South Pacific.
Currently, the Quad has no military commitment to each other, but that may change in the future as
President Joe Biden makes the South Pacific and confronting China an area of pressing
concern for the United States. India is the only nation in the Quad without a formal security
agreement with the US, and it has historically refused to sign onto any security partnerships
with any nation. However, that may soon change as tensions between India and China escalate, and it
becomes clear that India is not able to win a war against the superior Chinese military on its own.
Bringing India into the network of security alliances in the South
Pacific would effectively hem China in on all sides, and more importantly,
put allied ships and planes directly in the path of China's trade routes through the Indian Ocean.
But the United States is also taking very material steps to confronting China.
War with China would be waged at sea and in the skies, with very little if any action
between the People's Liberation Army and the US Army. This will be a war of ships and planes,
not of tanks and artillery, and the US is preparing accordingly.
In an attempt to prepare for confrontation with China in the skies,
the US has accelerated the procurement of F-35s and made getting squadrons of the 5th
generation fighter into operational status a top priority. However,
both the navy and the air force have expressed reservations about the F-35's current readiness,
which has prompted both services to supplement orders of F-35s with orders of upgraded legacy
aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle for the US Air Force and the F-18 Super Hornet for the US Navy.
To counter the threat of Chinese missiles, including its very vast arsenal of ballistic
missiles capable of targeting US ships far out at sea, the Navy has also begun to expand the
number of AEGIS equipped vessels in its fleet. Starting in 2015, the Navy also began to work
on undoing the strategy of carrier-based sea dominance that it has employed since
the end of the Cold War. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the US Navy enjoyed unmatched
superiority and complete freedom of action anywhere in the world, and thus surface fleets
were retasked with simply protecting carriers. Anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare
skills had atrophied as naval strategy centered completely around big carriers. Now, the US Navy
is preparing its crews to once again face off against near-peer foes in ship-to-ship battles.
Submarines are America's second greatest naval asset after aircraft carriers,
and yet remain nearly completely forgotten by most of the world- which is exactly how they like it.
Currently the US has a fleet of 68 submarines, and is replacing the Cold War Los Angeles class fast
attack submarines with the new Virginia class. Investment in submarines has stalled recently
and procurement plans are behind schedule, but the United States retains a significant advantage
in undersea combat despite China having a larger force of less advanced submarines.
The realm of hypersonic missiles has received a great deal of attention ever since it was
announced that the United States was lagging behind both Russia and China in their development.
Yet there's some misinformation and confusion regarding this technology that has made Russia
and China seem as if they hold a significant advantage over the US in this realm when they
really don't. Firstly, any ballistic missile is hypersonic, and China's recent test that saw a
hypersonic missile fly around the world is not very impressive from a military point of view.
Technically speaking, this simply doesn't add any additional capability that did not exist before.
The real threat from hypersonic missiles comes from maneuverable hypersonics. These
are missiles that can not only fly at hypersonic speeds, but can also maneuver while doing so,
making them incredibly difficult to defend against. In this area all three nations are still
struggling to field fully operational missiles, but the US has made great strides in recent tests.
One area where the US may in fact be coming up short is the development of advanced long range
air-to-air missiles. Recent photos of Chinese jets show that China has begun to field advanced
beyond visual range missiles, while the US is still largely equipped with the AIM-120,
an extremely capable and combat proven air to air missile that nevertheless is only
effective at medium ranges. However, the Pentagon's F3R program aims to improve the
capabilities of American air to air missiles by not just greatly expanding their range,
but also improving efficiency in an electronically contested
environment. A new generation of American missiles will feature two-way data links,
GPS-enhanced inertial measurement units, an expanded no-escape envelope to increase lethality,
and improved High-Angle Off-Bore sight capability, allowing pilots to fire missiles
without their plane being pointed directly at their enemy, thus lowering their vulnerability.
However, the next step for US fighters is the AIM-260,
which will featured beyond visual range capabilities and match longer
range opposition missiles while bringing the tried and true technologies of the AIM-120.
But World War III will likely also involve action against Russia in Europe,
as China and Russia are both likely to cooperate in such a scenario. This will
be a partnership of opportunity however, not of choice, as relations between both nations are
difficult at best and Russia grows increasingly frustrated at its status as the junior partner.
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has proven itself incompetent, corrupt,
and inept in executing a modern 21st century war. Despite vastly superior firepower,
the Russian offensive in Ukraine has all but stalled out. And this is with Russian
forces facing a foe that has a fraction the capabilities of the US military. Simply put,
the only real threat Russia can bring to a global war scenario is their nuclear
power. With the bulk of the US Army not taking part in operations in the Pacific,
Russia would be easily contained by current US ground firepower. While America would be short
on critical air assets, these are capability gaps easily filled in by NATO air forces.
Four months ago we would have spent an additional ten minutes explaining to
you how the US is preparing to counter Russia. Today, after seeing what the Russian military
is capable of, we honestly don't have to. While victory would come at a cost,
NATO would most likely win a resounding victory over the Russian armed forces.
The only real threat Russia would pose would be in the first few weeks as the bulk of
American firepower is being shipped across the Atlantic and prepared for battle. This
leaves the Baltics and Poland vulnerable, but the deployment of NATO Rapid Response
Forces would likely be enough to slow down an initial Russian offensive and
greatly limit its gains until NATO's European partners can fully mobilize their own armies.
US strategy to counter Russian aggression in the next world war is thus based around
preparing European partners to better defend their own continent and not be so reliant on
the US military, as the conflict against China will consume the bulk of US sea and air power.
The Pacific is where the real war will play out, and after its stunning losses in Ukraine,
it's unlikely Russia would willingly engage NATO in a third world war anyways.
Now go check out World War 3 Hour by Hour, or click this other video instead!