If we went to war tomorrow...

The war against terrorism is like the war in Viet Nam, and we are making the same mistakes we made there. The insurgents are choosing the time and place of every engagement. Our "search and destroy" missions are ineffective because the bad guys know we are coming and can hide or slip away and trigger roadside bombs when our troops approach. In Iraq, the militants we are fighting will cheerfully die because they believe they will be sent to paradise. This is the kind of war no advanced military equipment can win. On the other hand, if China were to attack the US, we would be in an untenable situation. Most of our manufacturing capability has been diminished to the point that it is nearly nonexistent. Products stamped with "Made in USA", rarely show up on shelves. Because of protesting environmentalists, we do not drill in oil-rich regions of the United States. Instead, we pay outrageous prices to other nations for something we have in abundance. In order to fight a war against a hostile nation, manufacturing capabilities and ready supplies of fuel for the fighting machines are absolutely necessary. An attack by a nation like China, would have hordes of soldiers manning equipment much less technically sophisticated than ours, but in huge quantities. Even if we have the most advanced equipment available, massive numbers will win out. For example, if the Germans had the quantity of tanks, jet aircraft and fuel they needed, they would have won the war. They had the biggest, baddest tanks and the fastest airplanes. It was America's overwhelming manufacturing might that enabled us to win that war. It was a numbers game: as we produced more they produced less. I fear that a war against a major power will not go well for us.