This isn't a political post. There's a timeline and I'll keep it brief.
*Only the surface of the Chinese capabilities and intent was scratched in the reporting of how Elon Musks string of private network satellites are first in line if the Chinese use their sleeping satellite army.
Two things differ glaringly from entertaining, supposedly impossible fictions written on this:
Authors “playing with these ideas” posited a giant “EMP” to solve the US vulnerability issue. But it's actually likely that a much more tenable anti-satellite campaign will disable effective American response. And secondly, nobody gave serious thought to the number of Chinese “migrants” that could be stockpiled on private land in the midwest and elsewhere.
https://future.fandom.com/wiki/Invasion_of_the_U.S._Mainland
All the pieces are absolutely in place. Fortunately, we have super strong leadership ready to handle this twenty-first-century Cuban-Missile-Crisis. And that invasion of the United States by conscripted farmers would be met by a sinewy, well-organized population of able-bodied civilians ready to defend the country. So it's all impossible. Thank goodness.
Plus, our global culture makes “walking in an taking over a country” like in the thirties and forties very passe. Gauche really. Folks recognize that “taking over the world” is so old-school World War II-ish. Well except Russia's occupation of Ukraine. Maybe we're not through with “taking over each other's countries” after all.
But if everyone's Internet goes down while the “immediate surroundings seem fine at the moment” I'm getting out of town. Because shortly after that, there'll be soldiers. Not very good ones. But LOTS of them. With guns. Who are at the very least more manly than we are. And hungrier.