photo by: AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Chinese military delegates attend a pre-session on the eve of the opening of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Tuesday, March 4, 2025.

A retired general and a retired admiral told a Lawrence crowd Thursday that the U.S. military is superior to its counterpart in China. But, before you salute and wave the flag, also know this: They said it may not matter.

“A sergeant in the U.S. Army does what a colonel in the Chinese army does, and does it better,” said Robert Brown, a retired U.S. Army general who commanded 140,000 American troops as the leader of the Army’s Pacific force. “At the same time, you would have to be insane to ever want to go to war with China . . . The quantity has a quality all its own.”

In other words, the number of actual people China could commit would matter perhaps as much as the training and technology they are fighting with.

The big question, of course, is how likely is that war? That question and others surrounding China were the key topics of debate at the 2025 Intelligence & National Security Colloquium hosted at the University of Kansas on Thursday.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the keynote speaker of the event, told a KU crowd Wednesday evening that such a war was absolutely preventable, as the Journal-World reported. On day two of the conference Thursday morning, two military veterans who have long played cat-and-mouse with the Chinese didn’t disagree, but also expressed plenty of concerns.

One of them is that China is doing far more to convince its population of the importance of taking control of Taiwan than America is doing to convince the U.S. public of the importance of stopping any such Chinese expansion.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Mike Studeman, former director of intelligence for the U.S. Navy, spoke at the University of Kansas on May. 1, 2025.

Mike Studeman, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who has studied China most of his career and served as director of intelligence for the Navy, said there is an almost brainwashing that occurs in China as it relates to issues around the need for China to control Taiwan and Hong Kong. Taxi cab drivers, restaurant workers and other such ordinary people in China can recite, with some passion, the arguments why China must control those entities and more.

Such passion and belief could become critical in any war because Studeman said “will matters more than capability, at some point.” The reverse also is true: A lack of will on the part of the U.S. would matter greatly, and China knows it.

“I think there are circumstances where we win,” Studeman said of a possible war with China. “But when you look at a long affair that is occurring over months, our staying power is questionable in terms of not just sheer capability but the will of the American people.”

Studeman said both Democratic and Republican presidents have been wary of bringing up the idea that America would have to engage in war to prevent a Chinese takeover of Tawain, even though such a takeover would have immense consequences on America’s standing in the world.

“It would effect every individual in this room and elsewhere,” Studeman said of a Chinese takeover of Taiwan. “That requires a level of preparation, straight talk with Americans, conversations with the country that we haven’t yet had, in my humble opinion.”

Studeman said the time to have those conversations is soon because he doesn’t agree with some analysis — some of which Gates offered on Wednesday — that China will be quite patient with any plans it has for Taiwan. Studeman said he thinks the late ’20s and early ’30s “may be the most dangerous time,” for a possible Chinese action against Taiwan, due to a host of internal and political pressures in China.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Robert Brown, the former commanding general of the U.S. Army Pacific, spoke at the University of Kansas on May 1, 2025.

Brown’s concern is a bit different. While he doesn’t think China is preparing an imminent action against Taiwan, he said China is becoming much more aggressive in its military training exercises and how provocative it is willing to be when projecting its power.

“They are being so aggressive,” Brown said. “I could see an accidental conflict happening. It is more likely than ever before.”

Brown said he’s seen the change firsthand. He was a military visitor to China nearly 25 years ago, and it was clear Chinese officials didn’t want America to see the true state of its military, perhaps because of how far behind it was to U.S. capabilities.

Now, it has all changed.

“China used to fear the U.S. military and respect us,” Brown said. “What has happened over time is they don’t fear us anymore. They still respect us, but they don’t fear us. Five years ago when I was in China, they were bragging. They would show us the latest they had, and brag about it.”

The KU national security conference concludes on Thursday with presentations from officials with the U.S. Secretary of Defense Office, NATO, the National War College, the Korean National Defense University, and several other academics. This is the seventh year KU has hosted the conference, which promotes the university’s ties with the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, and also highlights a KU program that trains future national security officers.