Quora Answer: Could China Invade the USA with a 50-Million-Man Navy?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Could China invade the USA with a 50-million-man navy?  How many ships would that come out to, in the most effective possible force?”

Firstly, no nation has or has ever had a 50-million-man navy.  Where are they going to deploy all that manpower?  It is a waste of human resource.  China’s entire military, the PLA, stands at 2 million.  At its largest ever, it was just under 7 million.  At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union had just over 10 million men under arms, the largest military force ever.  No country has the resources to arm and maintain a 50 million men military, let alone, just a navy.

Secondly, how are they going to get them across?  The distance between mainland China and the continental United States is over 10,000 km.  That means China must maintain a logistics chain that is at least that, and then some.  It must secure that logistics chain and the passage of a significant military force, which requires air and naval superiority.  China has neither.  That is why it cannot invade Taiwan, which is just under 200 km away.

This is the same reason why the US, for all its military might, cannot invade China as well.  The invader requires a three to one ratio at the point of attack, and then have enough resources to secure a beach head and expand the theatre of operations.  This is a manpower and logistics requirement that would compromise the US’s ability in other theatres.  The losses would be politically untenable, and they are guaranteed to be eventually starved of material and reinforcements.