Should China and the United States Go To War?   

The United States stated she will sail her warships within China’s manmade islands or islands’ 12 nautical miles, and China openly replied that it would not allow any country to violate its territory.  In the coming days, if the United States indeed will sail within China’s manmade islands’ 12 nautical miles and if China is indeed going to use force to stop the American warships from entering the area, we may have an uncontrollable situation in which it’s insane just to fathom about the possibility of a situation like this to occur in the first place.  The biggest question is what will happen if China indeed sinks a ship or two that belong to the United States?  Will the United States go to war with China if such aftermath would occur?  Who will push the red nuclear button first?  We cannot take China as Iraq, because China got so much more capabilities than Iraq could ever wish for.  China knows the United States, although economically weaker by days and months, still has a very strong military and so facing the United States won’t be a walk in the park either.  It just happens that the Intelligence Squared Debates program got a debate show in which it asks the debaters to actively debate the question of “Are China and U.S. long-term enemies?” 

The long-term enemies part of the video may get it wrong because countries don’t look at each other as buddies but as potential competitors or pawns or necessary evils or enemies.  It isn’t strange when I stated that because it’s true.  Basically, nobody knows how the United States and China will behave toward each other in a much longer term.  Nonetheless, at the present time, the United States and China are clearly on the verge of starting a dangerous proposition in which neither country may want to back down, consequently leading to a global war.  If China and the United States are at war, the war environment won’t be a vacuum space in which the participants are only China and the United States.  In fact, I believe that a war between these two giants will pull in all sorts of countries that choose sides.  Even a country that wants to be neutral in such a scenario may not have a choice to do so, because of geographical reasons or whatever, one or both giants may want to push such a country into war anyway.

We can have a debate all we want on how long U.S. and China would be enemies, but if someone is crazy enough to think that it’s sensible to have China and United States go to war, we cannot rule out a situation in which nuclear weapons would fall off from the sky in both directions toward both countries.  By the way, Russia is China’s neighbor.  If Russia sees nuclear missiles from the United States heading toward the east, what do you think Russia will do?  If I were a Russian leader, I would definitely think that the nuclear missiles are heading my way, and so I must reply in kind with my own nuclear missiles.  Meanwhile, China too would be in a panic and push the red nuclear button.  From my understanding, both China and Russia together have more nuclear weapons than the United States.  It’s not a situation I like to see for sure, because I don’t want to see my life and countless other people's lives be wasted away in seconds for power politics in geopolitical common sense.

In my opinion, geopolitical common sense is the opposite of treating thy neighbor the way you want to be treated common sense because geopolitical common sense is about not having to lose one’s position, power, and so on.  To put it bluntly, nobody wants to be a little guy, because being a king is always better.  A king can have his way, and a little guy will often have to swallow a hurtful pride.  Nonetheless, whenever we include nuclear weapons into the equation, it’s hard for a sane person to think it would be possible for the United States and China to go to an all-out war.  Perhaps, one side likes to think that such an all-out war is insane, and so a controllable war would be possible.  One side may think that at some point, a situation got to a point that nuclear weapons may be used, they could negotiate deals to unwind the war and nuclear weapons will not be used.  Unfortunately, in a war, I don’t think it’s that easy to control or wish a situation to occur the way we like it.  Thus, we may want to unwind the war down in a war in which nuclear weapons would be used, the enemy may not know our best intention and misread the intention somehow and nuclear weapons would be used anyway.

It’s scary to see the biggest boys on the block with nuclear weapons about to strangle each other.  Right after the 9/11 of 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York, time had become ever more dangerous.  It’s cliche to say that we are living in an interesting time, but I think cliche or not we are actually witnessing a time in which humanity is at risk of losing the sanity of it all.  What is even crazier?  It is that in the time in which I attended middle school, a time in which it was way before 9/11 of 2001, I had read something from a book with which a title I totally have now forgotten, and this something predicted the explosion of a major landmark in New York.  On 9/11 of 2001, I could not believe what I’d witnessed on that day, and it reminded me of a prediction I’d read in a book way back then.  How could a prediction be so true even though the prediction is purely fiction?  In my opinion, prediction is fiction unless it becomes real.  Today, some people like to use bible prophecy which had been written eons ago to predict a war between China and the United States.  I want to say this, be careful of what you wish for!  A prediction may come true if we believe it and allow it to happen.