Taken together, all these things are ingredients for a recipe for trouble. China is already butting heads with the Philippines and making threats to Taiwan. But could they be looking to expand their aggression elsewhere?

Dan Blumenthal, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently penned an opinion piece where he pondered the likelihood of China's launching a strike against America's best ally in the North Pacific - Japan.

China may be preparing a surprise attack against Japan. This operation would include a massive missile barrage against all major U.S. and Japanese military installations on the archipelago. 

The logic of such a campaign is straightforward. To maximize the effectiveness of a complex amphibious operation to conquer Taiwan, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would need to establish air and naval supremacy around the island. Japan hosts the majority of allied naval and sea power. But will Chinese leader Xi Jinping risk a third world war to improve the odds that his operational plans succeed?

This issue - the risk of a Communist Chinese attack on Japan starting a major regional war, if not World War 3 - seems like much more of a certainty. We have treaty obligations with Japan as well as the Philippines, and we also have military bases in both countries. Japan is America's best ally in the Pacific. Even under the feckless Biden administration, a military response by the United States against Chinese forces would be near-certain, especially if American forces were attacked. China may well go after Taiwan in a stand-alone operation, and they will almost certainly continue throwing their weight around in the fishing grounds around the Philippines - but an attack on Japan is quite another story.

Granted, this would be a spoiling attack. China would not try to conquer Japan, but may well try to stop Japanese and American forces from interfering with Chinese aggression elsewhere - like, say, Taiwan. According to Mr. Blumenthal, this is precisely China's operational plan.

PLA doctrine emphasizes a preemptive disabling attack to clear the way for a massive invasion of Taiwan. In such a scenario, the PLA would ferry hundreds of thousands of invasion troops across the Strait with naval vessels and dual-use civilian ships. A pre-emptive strike by China against U.S. and allied air and naval power would provide the Chinese with the air and maritime superiority that such a huge and complex amphibious operation requires. Indeed, historically no modern amphibious operation has been successful absent the invader’s neutralization of its adversary’s navy and air force.

A "disabling attack" means a rain of missiles and possibly air strikes on forces of the Japan Self Defense Forces (JSDF) and American forces in Japan and, likely, places like Guam and Okinawa. It's difficult to see any outcome of this other than a massive escalation of a new war in the Pacific. And Japan, we must remember, has been dialing their military forces in; there are some in Japan, after all, who apparently remember that the Land of the Rising Sun once had a proud martial tradition.

See Related: PM Kishida: World at 'Historic Turning Point,' Japan to Increase Military Posture

Even so, this seems an unlikely scenario, for several reasons.

First: There are powers in the Pacific Rim that may well remain neutral in the event of a Communist Chinese attack on Taiwan - South Korea, and perhaps even Australia. But if the Chicoms expand their aggression against Japan and the United States, those nations may well see themselves next on the hit list and join in against China. The fact of Taiwan's continued existence rankles the Chinese Communist Party, but is that rankle enough to risk a major war, one in which the correlation of forces against China is not favorable?

Second: The United States holds what Billy Mitchell called the most strategic piece of land in the world - Alaska. I've described Alaska as the Crown of the Pacific, and that's apt. Alaska offers a fixed base from which American and allied aircraft can strike nearly anywhere in the Pacific north of the equator. There are already F-22 fighters at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, and the 11th Airborne, a newly reconstituted airborne division, is likewise in Alaska. It would not be a huge exercise to move more forces into the Great Land, and those forces can be supplied over land (depending on Canada) or by ship. China, surely, knows these things.

Third: The JSDF and American forces exercise together regularly. The JSDF uses largely American aircraft. The two allies share much, from doctrine to ammunition, simplifying logistics - and it is logistics that wins or loses wars.

Fourth and finally: China cannot project power the way the United States, for all the problems our military faces under the Harris/Biden regime, still can. They have no fully operational carriers. Their capacity for underway replenishment for their navy is minimal. The People's Liberation Army Navy (yes, that's what they call it) is essentially a coastal defense force. They can reach Taiwan, and they may very well do so - but beyond that, they are limited.

See Related: Is China Preparing a First Strike Against American Forces? 

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An attack by China on Japanese and American forces in the Pacific seems unlikely. Even for an unstable regime like China is today, with virtually all power held in the aging hands of one man, it seems a bridge too far. A direct attack on the Japanese home islands would be even more fraught. Such action would result in a major regional war at a minimum. Depending on what Tsar Vladimir I, seated comfortably in Moscow, far from the Pacific, might do, it may well result in a third world war. That's not an event that even the most unstable world leader should care to contemplate.

China is still a regional problem for the nations of the West Pacific (WESTPAC.) They are a problem for the United States. They are a problem, period. But they have problems of their own, serious problems, and their increasing bellicosity notwithstanding, an attack on Japan and the American forces in WESTPAC seems a gamble they are unlikely to take.