Since the time of former US President Trump, the US military has maintained a super-conventional military presence in the South China Sea, and military planes have conducted close reconnaissance of China's coastal areas from time to time, and recently they have only been 20 nautical miles, and they have also repeatedly invaded China's territorial waters and China's air defense identification zone. Objectively speaking, as a sovereign country, a military power, and a "five permanent" country of the United Nations, if China really does not hold back and directly open fire when its territorial airspace and territorial waters are violated, then the responsibility for the conflict that breaks out between the two military powers of China and the United States should be borne by the United States, because the United States has always been the provocative party. Moreover, no one can say how large the two countries will eventually appear if they go to war. In this regard, the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said that our goal is to never go to war with China, because the consequences are too terrible.
According to the Observer Network reported on September 13, on the same day, Haydn, vice chairman of the Us Joint Chiefs of Staff, stressed the terrible consequences of the United States if it went to war with China. "Our goal should be to never go to war with China," he said. Because it's going to be a terrible day for this planet and for our countries. It will destroy the world and the economy and be a disaster for all. So, we have to make sure we don't get to that point. ”
Obviously, the scale of this "Sino-US war" that Haydn refers to must refer to nuclear war. Although the number of nuclear warhead reserves between China and the United States is very different, they both have the ability to beat each other back to the Stone Age and let the other side destroy the country and exterminate the species. Moreover, once there is a war of this scale, not to mention the two countries of China and the United States, the rest of the world will not be spared, and the "global village" where mankind is located will usher in the largest destruction, and the economy and ecological environment will all be zeroed. That's why Haydn said, "The consequences are terrible."
So, what is the US Joint Chiefs of Staff doing? The Joint Chiefs of Staff is generally composed of the Chairman, the Vice-President, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army and Air Force, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Commander of the Marine Corps. Just from the positions of these people, we can find that they are the top officers of all branches of the US military and the leaders of one branch of the US military, and the joint meeting of the board of staff composed of these people can influence the trend of war even if it does not command the US military.
Strictly speaking, the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not a war command organization, because the president of the US military is the president of the United States, and the operational command belongs to the secretary of defense. The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest military advisory body of the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense, and can be said to be a "think tank" or a "database." Formulate a battle plan or judge the trend of war, including U.S. military strategy, assessment and analysis of military struggle between countries, etc. In today's international context, assessing the military confrontation between the United States and China, the United States and Russia, and the consequences, should be their usual task. Today, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is U.S. Army Four-Star General Mark Milley, who is also a Trump nominee and has served as a military commander in Iraq and Afghanistan on several occasions.
In fact, neither China nor the United States, as the two legitimate nuclear powers, are willing to truly fall into an "apocalyptic" war. However, between the two countries, is there an incentive for war? It should be said that there are still some, and there are at least two.
First, in order to maintain its hegemonic position for nearly a hundred years, the United States will not tolerate the challenges of other countries and will not tolerate other countries surpassing or replacing its position in the international community. However, the world is developing, and if you develop slowly or regressively, will you not allow others to develop? For example, in terms of economy, China is now the country closest to the United States, in order to interrupt China's development trend, the United States has begun to continuously suppress China in various fields in recent years, if this can not stop the Chinese side from "overtaking", it is difficult to say that the United States did not use the idea of using the tools of war.
Second, the United States has always been "vaguely taking a stand" on the Taiwan Strait issue. Once China no longer tolerates provocations from all sides and uses force to reunify the two sides of the strait, will the United States intervene or watch? Today's current situation is that there is a military mutual defense agreement between the United States and Taiwan, and many politicians in the United States have also clamored for "military protection of Taiwan," but the analysis of all walks of life and the media believes that when war really comes, the United States may "abandon Taiwan." On the one hand, the cost of starting a war with Chinese mainland is too high, on the other hand, such a war will shake the united States, and the American people will not agree; and the most crucial thing is that the national strength of the United States has been declining, China has been rising, and the Chinese side is also famous, such a war. Even if the United States intervenes, it may not be able to win much favor; moreover, "abandoning allies" has become a routine means of operation of the United States in recent years, and it is inevitable that the same trick will not be repeated in the Taiwan Strait.
In this way, although the Taiwan Strait is also one of the triggers for Sino-US war, the odds are actually not large.