History Only Rhymes a Bit

Lessons from Pearl Harbor that China could learn.

Personally, I think the lessons are that China shouldn't strike with an economy the tenth of America's economy; that China shouldn't strike without nuclear weapons to defend their gains; and that China should not strike America when they strike.

On the last, there is plenty of worry that China could hammer American forces in the Western Pacific at the onset of a war. I do worry and think we should harden land bases and keep high value naval targets away from China as much as possible to avoid an initial defeat.

But there is nothing that America has out there that China can really attack that expands Chinese territory. The territory is held by someone else.

So my view is that China would narrowly attack the victim of their territorial aggression rather than include American forces in the attack. Taiwan is my template for this approach.

This would avoid provoking public anger to rouse a strong war effort; and buy time as America debated whether to intervene and to what extent we should intervene.

If China buys enough time to do that, they might win their war against the actual target before America can effectively intervene on behalf of the allied target of the attack.

China clearly has the first two lessons well in hand. The question is whether I am right about China learning the last lesson.