If China grabs the Senkaku Islands from Japan, China has to count on Japan and America deciding not to fight. Our Marines are confident that they could retake the islands if lost. Indeed, the Marines wonder if the Marines' ability to overcome defenders would even be needed, in the end:
“If we were directed to take the Senkakus, could we? Yes. [But] to tell you how it would take place or would it take place or any of that would be pure speculation,” Lt. Gen. John Wissler, the commander of the III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Japan, said at a breakfast with defense reporters in Washington.
“They’re not real big,” he said. “I think sometimes people get this idea that the Senkakus look like the island of Okinawa or, you know, any of the other major islands. It’s a very, very small collection of small islands.” ...
“You wouldn’t maybe even necessarily have to put somebody on that island until you had eliminated the threat, so to speak. And that’s where that whole integration of our full capabilities as a Navy-Marine Corps team would be of value,” he said.
The question is, would the Marines (and the rest of the military) get the order. And then how long would it take to carry out the mission?
The Japanese in 1941 assumed the order would not be given--or would be rescinded in short order as the magnitude of the job became apparent.
Could China think the same way, thinking nuclear weapons would deter any counter-attack, even when the magnitude of the job would be so small?
