China and US are holding eachother bases/islands hostage, both could blow up eachother’s island/bases at a moment’s notice. But we should realistic about the situation here, USN can conduct 24/7 aerial surveillance on China’s islands but not the other way around, and USN has a much more powerful navy at present.
The USN can only conduct 24/7 surveillance on China’s SCS islands during peacetime. As soon as overt hostilities break out, none of their spy planes will be able to get anywhere close enough to those islands to take any pictures before being shot down.
US space based assets could be dazzled to make their imagery useless, or outright destroyed should things escalate that far.
China’s SCS islands are so big that it’s forces already depkoyedcould easily disperse, and short of a pearl harbour like surprise first strike by the Americans, they are unlikely to score devastating damage as PLA assets would disperse and redeploy from their peace time resting positions as soon as overt hostilities commence.
What damage US does manage to score some early in a campaign would all be temporary as those islands are essentially massive construction sites, with massive manpower, materials and machinery already in place and quickly repair any damage done.
With geopolitical realities, China will not be throwing the first punch. If there is to be conflict in the SCS, it will be the Americans who will be the ones to shoot first.
As such, the PLA’s current island garrisons are really only minimal tripwire forces. There aren’t much in the way of worthwhile targets to hit with a surprise alpha strike, but there are still enough punch in those islands to ensure any attacking enemy ships cannot come too close without assuming massive risk, and any opening amphibious assault attempt would be suicidal.
If the US cannot take those islands as their opening attack, which they cannot, the PLA reinforcements would be airlifted in within hours, and much more significant reinforcements will be deployed within days by ship from the mainland to bring those islands up to full combat capabilities.
With those islands fully garrisoned with defences, as well as with overlapping coverage by PLAN naval assets and air assets, those islands will be far harder to hit than any naval surface fleet, only difference being no number of missile hits can sink those islands.
Furthermore, without effective up to date intel to do damage assessment and find relocated priority targets, the US could use up its entire tomahawk inventory and still not be able to do much meaningful damage.
But you have to remember that the primary striking power of USN carrier fleets are their aircraft. Those fleets have a finite number of VLS cells, and any cells used for tomahawks are cells unavailable for SAMs.
If you do some basic maths, you can easily see how puny the first strike capabilities of a USN CSG armed to take on China (IE the escorts would be loaded for maximum air defence) is if it is limited to tomahawks only. It’s nowhere near what would be required to take out even one of China’s island bases and keep it offline for any tactically relevant length of time.
China’s SCS main island bases are all close enough to be mutually supportive, and any significant USN deployments to the region would be mirrored by PLAN fleet strengths. That means the USN would not have enough time to effectively capitalise on any surprise first strike.
After the US has used up its first strike, it becomes a game of attrition, of missiles, planes and ships, and it looses on all accounts.
The SCS is the worse place the US can hope to fight a war and win.
The only attractions to military operations there would be that there are no significant US assets or interests on the line in immediate region. That means the US could potentially do a hit and run by launching its surprise alpha strike, and then immediately turn tail and head for home while declaring mission accomplished with limited risks to the attacking US forces. Any Chinese retaliatory strikes against US bases in the region would be complicated by the fact that they are mostly based in third party countries, so China risks forcing them into any conflict if it strikes at the closest and most obvious US bases in the region. Any attack on Guam, the closest purely US military target, would at best be symbolic, as that would flip the odds and place the PLAN at massive logistical and support disadvantage.
The other possible advantage with attacking China in the SCS is if the US wants to go nuclear with its first strike.
Conventional munitions would just be rearranging sand against those islands, but tactical nukes would either obliterate them outright, or at least make them uninhabitable.
Such an opening move would carry with it massive shock factor, while also complicating any Chinese response with a lack of suitable proportionate retaliatory targets. Especially if the strikes were carried by by B2s instead of USN cattier groups, who would have all retreated well back beforehand.
