Oaledonia wrote:The great thing about the US is that it doesn't have to focus on one or the other, it's perfictly capable of sending a few carrier groups over to Asia and putting troops in Europe. Because Asia won't be a ground-centric conflict, it will be fought at sea.
Kep in mind, too, that Japan is not defenseless, either. Indeed, Japan actually has both a more powerful navy AND a more powerful air force than does China itself (after the U.S., it's currently the greatest air and sea power in the Western Pacific). That's one of the reasons that I dismissed comments by Russophiles than China might like what Russia is doing in the Ukraine, because it opens the door to them doing the same thing in their dispute with Japan over various uninhabited islands, reefs, and shoals in the East China Sea.
Sure it does — if China wants to see its proud navy and a goodly chunk of its air force reduced to useless scrap over the course of some futile lost weekend. Personally, I doubt that they do; it embarrassed them enough when Vietnam kicked their asses back in the late 1970's (which is why they're not going to mess with the Vietnamese, either). Why would they want to get their asses handed to them so visibly AGAIN?