[continued from previous message]   
      
   reconstructed many times. This is exactly what happens in most wars.   
      
   These dynamics do not bode well for the United States in a long war   
   with China. Right now, the U.S. has what appears to be the more capable   
   military, and certainly the more battle-tested and technologically   
   advanced one. It might inflict disproportionately higher losses on the   
   Chinese at first. But because of its diminished production capacity,   
   the U.S. would struggle to make up even a small part of the battlefield   
   losses that it would inevitably suffer. China—which is as much the   
   workshop of the world today as the United States was in World War II—   
   could churn out replacement weaponry at an impressively quick pace.   
      
   Controlling shipping in the Pacific Ocean would likely be the first   
   task for the U.S. military. But the U.S. mostly lacks a shipbuilding   
   industry. In 2024, for instance, the United States built 0.1 percent of   
   world ship tonnage, according to a recent Center for Strategic and   
   International Studies analysis; Chinese shipyards built more than 50   
   percent. The U.S. has allowed its shipyards to close and lost   
   generations of shipbuilding-engineering expertise, and it now has   
   hardly any experienced shipbuilding workers outside of a few shipyards   
   that supply the U.S. Navy. It would have to re-create all this   
   expertise, which would take years, before it could start producing   
   ships at a fraction of Chinese output.   
      
   Shipbuilding is just one industry in which U.S. production would   
   struggle to keep up. China, for instance, controls 90 percent of the   
   world’s commercial-drone production, and supplies many of the   
   components that are being put into both Ukrainian and Russian drones   
   today. American wealth helps only so much: States cannot simply throw   
   money at a problem and create productive strategic industries in a   
   short period. To compound the issue for the U.S., its allies are even   
   less prepared militarily, and Washington is currently going out of its   
   way to alienate them instead of fostering the cohesion necessary to   
   deter or fight China.   
      
   Hegseth might well prefer to imagine that the valor of American   
   soldier-warriors can overcome any other disadvantage, including a   
   diminished military industrial base and fractured alliances. Instead of   
   boasting about its superiority in hand-to-hand combat, the U.S. should   
   be preparing its military for an onslaught of Chinese drones and a   
   conflict that could last for years. Otherwise, it might win the opening   
   battles—but it will probably lose the long war.   
      
   --   
   Democrats and the liberal media hate President Trump more than they   
   love this country.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)