How would the US respond to losing a major shooting war with China?

[Cassandra]

How do you think the US political system would react to losing a major hot war with China, say in the next 10 to 15 years.

[Agonized-Statism]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy. We're on the offense. We're invading China, not vice versa. Closest you can get is a Pyrrhic victory, which certainly would be the case here. The only way America truly loses is if EMP weapons are detonated in the atmosphere above North America- but then there's no more America, is there?

Lose a proxy war with China? Possibility, especially in Africa. National pride is hurt and isolationism makes a comeback. Populism benefits.

[Cassandra]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy.

How much are aircraft carriers really worth in an era of advanced surface-to-surface cruise missiles?

[Beet]

Same reaction as China would if losing a war to us. Bide time, nurture hate, & start WW4 when you're ready. End result is destruction/exhaustion of both countries. At that point India probably inherits the world.

This is in the wrong board, btw.

[Grassroots]

Like we would lose. We have a superior navy, we basically have them pinned to their own shores. Hell, even Battlefield 4 taught us this.

[Cassandra]

This is in the wrong board, btw.

I was curious how the scenario would effect future elections in the US, hence why I posted it here.

[Agonized-Statism]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy.

How much are aircraft carriers really worth in an era of advanced surface-to-surface cruise missiles?

And then how do you invade American soil without a massive Pacific fleet?

[Cassandra]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy.

How much are aircraft carriers really worth in an era of advanced surface-to-surface cruise missiles?

And then how do you invade American soil without a massive Pacific fleet?

Who said anything about invading the US? I would say defeating the US in the Pacific and then occupying Taiwan, or whatever the PRC's goals are, would count as a victory for China and a defeat for the US.

[Agonized-Statism]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy.

How much are aircraft carriers really worth in an era of advanced surface-to-surface cruise missiles?

And then how do you invade American soil without a massive Pacific fleet?

Who said anything about invading the US? I would say defeating the US in the Pacific and then occupying Taiwan, or whatever the PRC's goals are, would count as a victory for China and a defeat for the US.

Defeating the U.S. in naval warfare without an experienced blue water navy? Also, China taking Taiwan isn't a direct Sino-American war, it's a proxy conflict.

[Ye We Can]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy.

How much are aircraft carriers really worth in an era of advanced surface-to-surface cruise missiles?

And then how do you invade American soil without a massive Pacific fleet?

Who said anything about invading the US? I would say defeating the US in the Pacific and then occupying Taiwan, or whatever the PRC's goals are, would count as a victory for China and a defeat for the US.

Defeating the U.S. in naval warfare without an experienced blue water navy? Also, China taking Taiwan isn't a direct Sino-American war, it's a proxy conflict.

I think the OP implies that US forces would directly participate in the battle for Taiwan and be defeated, so it wouldn't be a proxy war

[Person Man]

China doesn't really have that large of a nuclear arsenal. Then again, Russia does and if anything went to the point nuclear weapons were considered, it would be squarely in Russia's interests to wave them around but then there would be the risk that either their bluff is called or everything spirals out of control and 30 million of their "citizens"(subjects really) get vaporized, 30 million get burned or crushed to death, 30 million die of treatment resistant cancer (or just can't get treated), 30 million starve to death, and the last 10 or 20 odd million take a camping trip for the next 20 to 200 years. They might have to take the risk because if China's out of the picture, there's no chance in Hell Russia will ever get a chance to get anything they want for maybe another 100 years MINIMUM.


But to the OP: What do you think being forced out of the Eastern Pacific would do? The most likely scenario where the US would lose a war to the PRC would be that they are able to repel the U.S. Navy, get the Philippines to only accept a PRC presence and no US or NATO presence, annex Taiwan, either reintegrate NK or reunify Korea under PRC influence, and maybe force the US out of Japan and the SCS. The PRC might even get whatever they wanted from India and Vietnam. Basically that China gets whatever they currently want and the US sphere of influence is pushed back into the central and south Pacific.

I would think that not only internationalism is abandoned as a reality but perhaps American Exceptionalism is as well. If the past century is of any guide, we could see maybe a 10 or 20 year experiment with a more practical and realistic approach to government and maybe see the Democrats doing very well for a couple of cycles and passing a huge chunk of their agenda but then a moderate Republican party would come along and establish a kind of defacto one party rule. That's probably the best case scenario.

The worst case scenario is that the US suffers a massive brain drain from the cities and becomes homogenous and "populist" enough that a Trump-style GOP basically makes the US a one party state but on the bright side it probably cracks down on "dissent" on the right as badly as it does on dissent on the "left".

[Epaminondas]

The worst case scenario is that the US suffers a massive brain drain from the cities and becomes homogenous and "populist" enough that a Trump-style GOP basically makes the US a one party state but on the bright side it probably cracks down on "dissent" on the right as badly as it does on dissent on the "left".

What do these things mean?

[pbrower2a]

Direct confrontation? We don't lose. We have the blue water navy. We're on the offense. We're invading China, not vice versa. Closest you can get is a Pyrrhic victory, which certainly would be the case here. The only way America truly loses is if EMP weapons are detonated in the atmosphere above North America- but then there's no more America, is there?

Lose a proxy war with China? Possibility, especially in Africa. National pride is hurt and isolationism makes a comeback. Populism benefits.

EMP? If so then we are back in the 1920s for technology - for a few years. Unless one needs sophisticated medical devices for survival, one will adapt. We will be back to dead-tree editions for books and news sheets; music will be on vinyl again.

The big loss would be in government deciding what gets recovered first. Figure that very quickly the government would be in the hands of people diametrically opposed to those in power during the war. Maybe the technologies of energy production and distribution and of communications will come first irrespective of who is in charge. We will be back to manual cash registers.