I dunno, I read Rand docs and sometimes I wonder...maybe I read too many Rand docs.
Granted:
1. Taiwan could be rubbled by PRC conventional ballistic missiles, no doubt. And I bet that is what the PRC would end up getting (rubble), not a first-rate industrial nation.
2. I make no claims it would be a cakewalk. We would expend beau coup munitions turning their shiny new planes, boats, and such into scrap.
It is going to take more than matériel to be competitive. Give them 20x or 50x the hardware they had when they fought Viet Nam (and lost), but retain the same culture and morale, and I doubt the hardware will do them much good against a first-rate military. Also, against whom have they been sharpening their armed forces the last 10+ years? Yeah, I can't think of any foe, either. OTOH, the USA has lots of veteran troops who have BTDT.
Ultimately, I think the PRC's decision to attack will come down to non-economic factors and an overly optimistic read of their chances of success. Not sure we ought to feed the latter.
Agree on the RAND docs, I've done my own analyses as well. I agree with your training assessment, but it's going to boil down to an air/sea war, not a land war, and our guys have had as much combat experience air to air and blue water engagements as they have. We haven't really fought a real war for air superiority or power projection at sea since Vietnam in the former, and WWII in the latter. While we train more realistically and more often, training only goes so far. The point of the rand air/sea report was even if training lowers the Phit by an enemy AAM by a factor of 4 or more, it's still a war of attrition on both sides. Yeah, an F-22 can probably get 4-6 kills with 4-6 amraams, but that just means it has to have a better than 50% chance of defeating the 20+ AAM's coming the other way to achieve the required exchange ratio. Same issues with ship defense, if you fire 200 cruise missiles as a CBG, it is highly likely you will get a bunch of hits. The Chinese strategy is one of quantity and overwhelming strikes..lust look at the number of SRBMs they point at Taiwan.
While I absolutely agree that we are far better equipped and trained, that can only improve the numbers game so much.
Also agree on what they would get after their strikeon Taiwan, but remember, unification is less about economically integrating Taiwan and more about national unification and creating their zone of influence unopposed. Even if they didn't request to rubble, it is likely they found have a serious insurgency (that is how it started after all), so it wouldn't be economically viable anyway--the point is to create their own exclusion zone and buffer zone, and "threats" inside that zone wouldn't be tolerated. Remove Taiwan, push the carriers back, and deter US from using Japan (including Okinawa), and our ability to do anything in the region becomes far more difficult just due to range.
Draw a 1500-2000km range ring around china, subtracting Japan, and look at the resources in that area, and who currently holds them. My bet is they will expand, avoid things that would really provoke the US (Taiwan, Japan) and use the possibility of massive attrition as a deterrent to prevent our intervention in things like the spratly islands.