80 Years On, It's Unclear the U.S. Would Win a New Battle of Midway via Time

 Bottom Line Up Front.  The US Navy is screwed up.  It is rudderless and doesn't appear to have a plan on how to fight and win at sea against the Chinese.

via Time

Today, the order that these men helped to create is once again under threat, and it is not clear that the U.S. would win a second battle of Midway. For the first time since World War II, the West faces a serious naval challenge in the Pacific. The People’s Republic of China—a communist dictatorship—poses both an ideological threat and a strategic one. It has built a large oceangoing navy with a growing carrier capability; the first domestically built aircraft carrier is expected to enter service in 2023. In fact, according to a U.S. Department of Defense report in 2020, the PRC now boasts “the largest navy in the world with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships.” It menaces Taiwan directly and has established a massive military presence in the contested South China Sea. Beyond this, Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative,” which seeks to transform the whole of Eurasia, and the maritime “String of Pearls” concept, which attempts something similar in the Indo-Pacific, shows the PRC’s vaulting ambition.

Over the past few years, the United States and the rest of the Western world generally have slowly been waking up to this reality. In February 2016, Admiral Harry Harris, chief of US Pacific Command, warned Congress that he believed that “China seeks hegemony in East Asia.” In April last year, the Australian secretary for home affairs, Michael Pezzullo, announced that the “drums of war” were beating in the Pacific and that the nation needed to prepare accordingly. As for the PRC, leader Xi Jinping has warned advisers to “prepare for war” in the South China Sea.

Here 

The main difference between the US today and the US then is that the society is much softer now.

Much more divided.  Much more distracted by triviality.

China's population appears to more united, more patriotic and more focused on their goal.

If war was to happen tonight who would be on our side?  Japan and Australia.  The Europeans are frozen by the fight in Ukraine. S. Korea has an issue with N. Korea that they have to keep a lid on.  New Zealand would offer support but little else.

So a Japan/US/Australia naval and air battle vs the Chinese navy and air force...who would win?

If the fight is over Taiwan and is limited to just that area then the Chinese by a mile.  They're fighting in their home waters and we dare not hit their mainland out of fear of widening the war.

China has the initiative.  They can pick the time of the fight, they can decide how expansive it will be.

They're holding all the cards in this thing.  A defensive fight is almost always a losing fight.  It like the Maginot line but in the modern day.