Richard D. Wolff

A street hustler uses the magician’s maxim ’ The hand is quicker than the eye" with help from diverting attention. The next ‘Splendid Little War’ will be just that; another Grenada post marine hotel bombing in Beruit retreat and Contra scandal by the hero of a hundred WW2 training films. We wont touch the chinese anymore than the saudis for obvious rea$on$.
Iran is a relative pushover with evil moslems the latest version of the VietCong back to brits being defeated in Scotland or the 13 colonies by Mel Gibson. The misplaced hand grenade pin in this are the egos, stupidity and ‘Got Mitt Unes’ or ‘Shining city on a Hill’
blunderings of leaders on their first date trying to unhook a bra. Read THE GUNS OF AUGUST by Margaret Tuchman.

Yes the nine or so mega corporations in the U.S. that make up our military industrial complex are getting rich off our baby wars across the globe (Syria, Somalia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc etc etc) and the prospect of a big boy war with either Russia or China benefit them greatly. If you look back at their stock prices correlated with global unrest, wars, and instability you will quickly see that these companies thrive off conflict, the bigger the better.
That is why those who are bought and paid for by the military industrial complex, your John Mccains, Lindsey Grahams, Bill Kristols and a whole host of other chicken hawks that make millions peddling war all across the globe, have never met a war they didnt like and why they will go on the morning TV shows to whip up war sentiment in the U.S. whenever the stock market drops a little bit.
You need to understand that these defense corporations make up a large part of our overall economy in America. Even if a President or a people wanted to end Americas wars I dont think its possible without taking a significant hit to our whole economy. We have developed, and in my opinion perverted, our economy into a war economy. An economy that thrives on death and misery whether it is wars abroad, drone strikes on wedding parties and water boarding brown men or whether it is wars at home, shooting brown men on sight and incarcerating poor people into for profit prisons where slave labor pads the bottom lines of some of Americas best known companies.
Other than those few stock holders, paid schills and corporate managers of our war industries, nobody will gain out of a war between the US and China. The Chinese dont want it and neither do most Americans (for the reasons you mentioned and more, basically it will wreck both economies and thats before the destruction and loss of life even begins). The question will be whether these few megacorporations and their army of paid operatives stirring up trouble will be enough to flog the population into another war fever strong enough to endanger our very existence.
So the next time you see an Ex-four star general (now a consultant for Boeing) making rounds on the TV talk shows raving about how the Chineses are coming for our daughters, our technology and our way of life, take a moment to consider the source and the motives before running out to register for the draft.