What is facing the US president is indeed a huge problem.

Although Australia is an ally of the United States and has the same status as the United Kingdom. According to the standards of the US Foreign Affairs Commission, it belongs to the five-level allies, namely the most important allies that the United States must protect and support, after the matter is a big deal, the United States cannot ignore the feelings of the Australian authorities and tens of millions of Australians and use Australia's military bases without consulting.

You should know that if the United States uses Australian military bases to attack the Chinese fleet, China will have reason to fight back.

By this time, it is not only about the interests of the United States, but about the interests of the entire Australia. Not to mention the military forces deployed by China in Southeast Asia, even the task force with four aircraft carriers can destroy all military facilities in northwest Australia within a few hours.

Of course, the US president has enough reason to convince the Australian authorities.

In any case, while the United States needs Australia, Australia also needs the United States, and Australia is more dependent on the United States. Without the support of the United States, Australia cannot cope with the threat from the north at all, and cannot ensure its relatively independent status. To put it bluntly, as a country with a vast territory, rich resources, but sparsely populated country, Australia has great temptation. Almost all Australians believe that China has long been salivating about Australia's land and resources. It is the support from the United States that has saved Australia from threats from China and has also allowed tens of millions of Australians to live in paradise.

Not to mention whether China covets Australia's resources for the time being, at least in the minds of most Australians, the United States is the biggest backer. Australia should adhere to a pro-US policy, and even give up some diplomatic independence for this purpose and adopt a foreign policy that is synchronized with the United States.

In other words, as long as the United States declares war on China, Australia will not be out of the way.

But for the US president, the biggest problem is not from Australia across the Pacific, but from Congress opposite the White House.

If China voluntarily attacks Australia, no problems exist. The US president can take military action first according to the alliance treaty with Australia and then seek support from Congress. Moreover, there is no reason for members of Congress to oppose the United States going to war against China for its allies.

The problem now is that China has not attacked Australia.

In this case, if the US president wants to trigger a war, he first needs to obtain the support of Congress.

As long as Congress is involved, the problem is complicated. Even if the atmosphere of war is strong enough and more than half of the members of Congress will not object, the debate can last for several days as long as a few members raise objections. By the end of the Congressional debate, the opportunity that is beneficial to the United States will probably have passed long ago.

If a war starts against China without Congress’s deliberation, or mobilizes US troops to attack the Chinese fleet, the US president will face two problems: one is to surpass the president’s power and be impeached by Congress; the other is that there is no sufficient reason for war to deal with China’s military counterattack.

Relatively speaking, the former is still a trivial matter.

Whoever becomes president is just a matter of personal political future, it will not have much impact on the basic policies of the United States, and there will not be any major turning point in Sino-US relations.

The key lies in the latter.

Without Congress’ authorization, no combat order issued by the president has a legal basis, so it is impossible to declare war on China for this purpose. The United States naturally has no right to accuse China of its military counterattack. More importantly, China’s military counterattack will definitely not target the United States, but Australia. The consequence of this is that even if the United States fulfills its alliance obligations, it is equivalent to sacrificing Australia.

Any politician with a little mind knows that doing so is equivalent to destroying the Great Wall.

In addition to political considerations, there are also military issues that need to be solved.

To put it bluntly, the Chinese task force has raised its vigilance and knows that it is possible to be hit by a military strike from the United States, so the possibility of assault task force is greatly reduced. If the assault operation fails, in addition to suffering losses, it will also be hit by the task force counterattack. With the attack capabilities of the task force, it is no problem to destroy military bases in northwest Australia within a few hours. In this way, the US military has to take risks, that is, launch an assault operation that is not sufficiently certain if it is possible to suffer heavy blows.

Of course, in addition to the task force, China's military forces deployed in Southeast Asia must also be considered.

You should know that in the past day, the Chinese army has reversed the situation on the Indian battlefield when the war is unfavorable, forming a local advantage, and is expanding this advantage. With China's military strength, even if it is forced to fight on both sides, it is still confident that it will defeat the Australian US military.

There are obviously no such advantages for the United States.

Not to mention, even if we increase troops to Australia immediately, it will take at least one week to increase Australia's defense. Within this week, China's large-scale air strikes will not only defeat the US troops stationed in Australia, but also destroy most of Australia.

Can the United States bear such a great risk?

The answer is very clear. Even if it is supported by Australia, the United States cannot afford it.

The reason is simple. If the United States must first defend Australia, it will not be able to quickly defeat China in the Western Pacific and will not be able to effectively utilize the relatively favorable situation. If the war in the direction of Australia is delayed for a long time, the United States will lose the initiative in the war.

To put it bluntly, if World War III was triggered at this time, the United States' advantage would not be obvious.

In fact, this is exactly the biggest concern of the US authorities.

According to the information disclosed later, less than an hour after the incident, the Pentagon submitted a report to the White House, which detailed the comparison of military power between China and the United States, which clearly mentioned that if China attacks Australia, even if it only uses strategic aviation, the United States will need to use three to six aircraft carrier battle groups to provide sufficient security guarantees for Australia; in this way, it will not be possible to ensure that the Chinese navy is quickly defeated in the Western Pacific, and it will not be possible to ensure that the front line will be pushed to the Chinese local periphery before China completes its mobilization; therefore, there is enough reason to believe that if the Chinese navy cannot be defeated quickly, the war will be in a stalemate; after one or two years, China will have enough capital to turn the situation around and gain strategic initiative, and the United States will inevitably go to defeat.

Of course, this report also mentioned a key factor, namely, annihilation of China's task force within a few hours.

As long as this can be done, the US Navy will gain enough advantages. Even if three to six aircraft carrier battle groups must be deployed to the Southwest Pacific, it will be able to gather enough combat forces in the Western Pacific, defeat the Chinese Navy and seize sea control within a few months.

Unfortunately, it has been several hours since the incident happened.

What's even more unfortunate is that in order to deal with the threat posed by the Chinese task force, the US combat aircraft deployed in Australia has been launched. In other words, even if the deployment is adjusted immediately, it will take several hours to complete the pre-strike preparations, and it will inevitably miss the best opportunity to strike the task force.

If you miss this opportunity, the chances of eliminating the task force will be greatly reduced.

The reason is very simple. The task force has sailed from the Sunda Strait and entered the vast Indian Ocean, and it is possible to sail in any direction. In addition to the difficulty in finding the task force, it is also difficult to attack the task force in the vast sea, so it is naturally difficult to use a sudden attack to eliminate the task force.

The result is that the US president has to admit that the time for joining the war is not yet ripe.

At that time, the US Department of Defense also mentioned that the Indian fleet won a great victory in the subsequent naval battle and eliminated the Chinese task force, the United States would have the best chance to start a war against China, and the US Navy was also confident enough to defeat the Chinese navy in a short time. However, the Pentagon did not forget to mention a point, that is, the hope of the Indian fleet to defeat the task force was very slim.

That's why the US president remained silent and did not make any public statements about what happened in Australia.

At this time, the task force passed through the Sunda Strait, and after reorganization, it turned westward about 400 kilometers north of Christmas Island.

Because it is still within the range of US fighter jets, the fleet maintains a maximum speed of 33 knots.

At less than three o'clock in the afternoon, Zhang Yuting sent the first batch of reconnaissance aircraft and set the reconnaissance range to 2,000 kilometers to closely search the entire East Indian Ocean.

Mu Haoyang's intention is very simple: directly find the Indian fleet to fight to the decisive battle.

Although the task force does not have an advantage in terms of troop strength, Mu Haoyang only has four aircraft carriers, with a total number of carrier-based fighters exceeding 400, while the Indian fleet has five aircraft carriers, all of which are the "Nimitz" class aided by the United States, with a total number of carrier-based fighters of about 450, but in terms of combat capabilities between fleets and carrier-based aviation, the task force has obvious advantages and better overall combat effectiveness.

Not to mention, the opponent of the Kunlun Mountain class aircraft carrier is the US military's Ford class aircraft carrier, and the Ford class is one generation higher than the Nimitz class, and its aviation combat capabilities are more prominent. In addition, on the escort warships, the main force of the Indian fleet is the Burke-class destroyer assisted by the United States, as well as a small number of Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Zumwalter-class destroyers. The cruisers, destroyers and frigates of the task force were built in the late 20s, and all combat capabilities have obvious advantages.

Of course, the key to aircraft carrier combat group combat is to carrier-based aviation, especially carrier-based fighter jets.

In this regard, the advantage of the task force is more obvious, because the main fighter of the task force is the j-32, while the main fighter of the Indian fleet is still the fourth-generation F-35c. For fighters, this algebraic performance gap is difficult to make up by quantity.
Chapter completed!