[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Which part of "these are no American waters" is difficult for you to comprehend? Those are international waters.

What part of these are American waters, it was just off a US island, distance from LA doesn't matter, as that was not the closest point of land don't you understand?

We're not in a shooting war here, in case you forgot, so the "hide" aspect is moot. The point is to shoot the missile in a way that it receives attention, and that it did. In plain view of LA, timed perfectly to offer a great spectacular view against the sun.

Yet, no one except a news copter that happened to be in the area even noticed it. Funny how this "spectacular" launch didn't attract much attention.

Petty arrogance part 1. More about that below.

"You think the US is going to take measures it did every day for 40 years in the cold war against a much larger Soviet submarine fleet. you're being arrogant."

Nothing I said out there is beyond the USN's ability. It was SOP for decades to follow Soviet SSBNs. The Chinese subs are less capable than a typhoon. What makes you think they'd be any better at evading the USN, when they're louder, and there's less to keep track of?

You totally missed the point.

You're the one who missed the point. If it was A chinese attempt to saber rattle, the US will respond in kind. The favorite form is to transit the Taiwan strait with a CBG.

Presuming it was a nonamerican missile launch (that's still unclear in my book), it was still technically all fine. It happened in international waters, and the trajectory didn't lead it over American territory. That's also the reason why NORAD could technically say "there never was a danger". It wasn't headed towards America.

Once again it was not international waters. Those Islands right there are part of the US. They count for the mile limit.

Petty arrogance part 2. If you really think America had the capability to lead a land war in China, I've got a bridge to the north pole to sell you.

Why would the US need to fight a land war against China? China doesn't have significant power projection beyond their shores. Note that even if this was a Chinese launch, which there is absolutely no evidence for at all, that does not change that, as you really don't want to be using your SSBNS when your enemy has more of them, with more missiles each, with each missile carrying more warheads.

Anyway, this is leading to a discussion I don't wanna lead. Please enjoy your patriotic feeling of omnipotence. Don't worry. You have no enemies in the world worth taking seriously. And should a war against Iran really start, let's see what happens.

This is a complete strawman. Of course you seem to be an expert on them. No one's saying the US is invincible. People are saying the US can rip apart anyone else's standing military conventionally. This really shouldn't be in dispute. The only nation with a larger army is China, which consists of a core of professional soldiers with modern training, equipment, and doctrine, and many units still using cold war era doctrine. China is the the process of modernizing though, so that core will be getting bigger, while the rest get smaller. Even then though, the US has a larger airforce and much larger navy. The US couldn't conquer China do to its size, but if you look at any conceivable conflict between the two, China attempting to take Taiwan, or both the US and China intervening on opposite sides of a renewed Korean war, the US will win. It's only if the US does something like invade china itself that the US really risks losing. No one else even comes close to the US or China conventionally though, not even Russia, which has downsized its military greatly since the cold war.

Originally Posted by Mentar

Xellos, with all respect, you can't even beat a few-hundred man strong guerilla in a land with an allied government. Yet, you think that you can wage a ground war against a people of 1.7 billion? Who - just to mention it - has nuclear capacity which it can easily use against your fleet, and still have enough to glaze over the American mainland in entirety, with the MAD principle? Now that's gonna be an interesting experiment in logistics.

We can cut it short. It wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. But I will keep in mind that you're even thinking of discussing this. Never underestimate American pride.

"You can't beat an insurgency. This means you can't win a conventional war."

Now you're just trolling. either that or you think COIN is in anyway related to the ability to defeat a standing army in the field.