Sizing up the China-Russia ‘New Axis’

In a recent post, I tried to warn people about the substantial and growing chance of World War 3. My post was focused on the risk that a war will occur, but it didn’t really focus on the risk that the US and its allies will be defeated in that war.

Yes, nuclear weapons are a factor, but there’s no certainty they’ll be unleashed in WW3, even by the losing side. So yes, there is a chance the US and its allies could be defeated by China and its allies in a major conventional world war.

How big is this chance of defeat? Obviously, factors like training and competence come into play, and these are in favor of the US. Technological sophistication is also important and here as well the developed democracies probably still have at least a small edge over China.

But in World War 2, both skill/experience and technological sophistication slightly favored the Axis over the Allies at the start of the war. Nazi Germany started with the best ground equipment, while Japan had the best fighter planes and torpedoes, and arguably the best aircraft carriers as well.

But over time, massive US and Soviet production of ships, planes, tanks, and materiel ground down the Axis. And as the war progressed, the Allies learned how to fight and improved their technology rapidly, until by the end it was better than what the Axis had.

In a long conventional war, production really matters. And China has, since the turn of the century become by far the world’s biggest producer. Even before the current massive splurge of production, China was the world’s largest manufacturer by far, making as much physical stuff as the US and all of Europe combined.

The country’s current effort to increase that share even further threatens to make China the