It's becoming clearer and clearer that the US military and defense is not capable of what it once was even a decade ago. Privatization efforts have caught up and rotted it from the inside and it's likely gonna be revealed soon that they don't even have the capacity to sufficiently staff their 800 military bases. People simply aren't signing up to be meat pawns for them anymore. Their Middle East adventures have lost them all credibility with Gen Z, and even if most of the US populace drinks the koolaid when it comes to Russia-Ukraine they're still not gonna voluntarily enlist to die for the cause themselves. That's another major reason why the US now gets the people of other countries to fight their battles for them.

The US would need a draft of their own populace and given the legacy of Vietnam and every one of their military failures since, a draft for the purposes of battling China would incite enormous unrest. I don't think the people here would stand for it. And to crack down on such dissent they would have to majorly crack down on the populace using the military they're trying to get people to join... an incredibly asinine thing to do while attempting to start a world war with a shrinking economy, lagging technology, and record unpopularity of their political system.

Like, I wouldn't put it completely past the most violent politicians and string pullers of the US to do something that enormously stupid. But that's what it would be: enormously stupid. It might be the one thing that would actually launch a united revolution against them.