1. That I see it as payback for the KMT losing the civil war.
2. Yeah, dunno about that, who will do what exactly to China? I also think that, since you mentioned it, Japan would intervene, China will pretty much use it as an excuse for retribution on what the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2.
I maybe missing something, but it feels bonkers to me of why with all the MIRVs they have on hundreds of nukes they do not feel the need to carpet bomb Ukraine with them.
Nuking all the major population centers would pretty much destroy the ability of Ukraine to manufacture weapons in any meaningful number and it would also deprive its army of any new soldiers, no reinforcements, no food supplies and so on. I think it will change the course of the war pretty fast and pretty drastically.
The internet never forgets: you go and find the first speech about why the war was started and look at the outcome. You can then judge for yourself if the war was won or lost. Obviously with all its nuances.
That's the thing I don't understand: why would they try to nuke Moscow if they weren't the ones attacked? And would they risk their own demise (considering the imbalance in warheads between them and Russia)?
If you flatten all of them and kill the residents, you will win the war. The question is just how far are you willing to go, not the lack of capacity to do so.
> There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA.
It actually depends on what the you the outcome of the war to be: total conquest or regime change.
The US can probably achieve total conquest, but not regime change. They spent 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and left there without winning anything, especially in Afghanistan. If they wanted to erase Iraq and Afghanistan, that would have a been a totally different thing.
> Taiwan has a real threat, and if they can build defenses that mean China faces a years-long war, there probably won't be one.
China could just bomb Taiwan into submission if it chooses to. I don't think it is a problem for China to build 20-30k ballistic missile and launch them at Taiwan. Or send a million drones over there just to be sure nothing survives them.
Taiwan is, unfortunately, in a very precarious situation should China decide enough is enough and reunification must happen no matter what.
In Taiwan's case, the question is how does China see the reunification.
It could be a naval blockade until Taiwan runs out of food/fuel/medicines and they surrender. Or it could be "we will take the island no matter what" and if somebody survives OK, if not, also OK.
As a "sitting on my couch" war expert, I think future combat should be country level semi-organized guerrilla combat style. When every structure, forest etc. tries to kill you, it might changed the adversary's opinion on how much they want your land.
On the other hand, if they just want to kill you for the sake of killing you, that's another story and the enemy will probably resort to "carpet bombing".
2. Yeah, dunno about that, who will do what exactly to China? I also think that, since you mentioned it, Japan would intervene, China will pretty much use it as an excuse for retribution on what the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2.