Is the PLA vulnerable to pre-emptive strike now and in the near future?

First of all, starting a war with a country like China puts you geo-politically in trouble. You can think you have all the traditional allies blindly following the US, but they will be the most vulnerable to a counterstrike by China. You think those countries will be so willing when they most likely will suffer the most for the USA? So the US loses those countries and the bases to launch attacks from. Which means limited airstrikes will not decapitate China. So it comes down to the US by itself coming from the sea. The US cannot stage a sneak attack. China will know the US is coming. You talk submarines? Well China will have their subs in place silent and waiting before the US comes into striking range. They might only get off a first shot but that maybe enough to make the US think twice and pull back. Then there's the US Naval War College that has conducted simulated wargames on a naval strike on China. Everytime, the US Navy is defeated by swarms of anti-ship missiles. I read that the US Navy has worked to defend against this since but you also read that China has been working to develop methods to strike US ships further out to sea beyond the coastal range. And we've seen recently in the Israeli-Lebanon/ Iraq wars how Chinese-based designed antiship missiles have been able to strike with little or no warning.

China is not Iraq or Afghanistan. The US body count will be larger than any confrontation the US has ever faced before. American aircraft will be shot down and you'll see US Navy ships hit and sinking the Pacific. Will it be enough to defeat the US military? No! But it'll be so shocking for the US to see just one American carrier sinking, it will be a huge morale blow. So since Americans have shown they can't stand taking casulaties, most likely the US will strike with nukes first. Which means a nuclear counterstrike.

Really if the US could attack China, wouldn't it have done so already? Americans accuse China of being the biggest human rights abuser in the world. It has attacked other countries for lesser crimes. The inconsistency can only mean that human rights isn't the issue and the real reason is purely of self-interest and therefore unpalatable to world opinion. So if the US hasn't attacked China, ergo, it must mean the US is incapable of attacking China whether politically or militarily.

Failure in Iraq. Failure in Afghanistan. Shocking results in the Israel/Hezbollah war. Americans want to flex its muscles to Syria and Iran, the guys behind Hezbollah. And with all that, you want to boast that you can take on China?And China gets the bad wrap that it's the aggressor in the world?

Conventional warfare against China is not a viable option for the US military since there exists no reasonable relation between possible limited gains and possible catastrophic risks. Of course an escalation into full scale nuclear war has to be avoided but a prolonged conventional war without decision in sight is similar unuseful for US interests.:coffee:

Interestingly DoD strategists know very well that their current means of warfare are insufficient for fighting a limited war against China. Although USAF stealth assets could destroy some high value targets in China the impact would be mere pinpricks for a country with 1.3 billion people and the planets biggest industry base already rapidly moving to total war mobilization. In 1991 the USAF (+ allies) used some 110000 tons of ordnance against Iraq and achieved during six weeks a degree of heavy but not total destruction; assuming that USAF would be able to bomb China with 500000 tons of ordnance during a four week bombing campaign (currently USAF simply cannot do this!) the result would probably be the partial destruction of some coastal provinces but China´s core warfighting capability would not even be measureably degraded.

Additionally US bases in Asia are quantitavely insufficient and vulnerable to a chinese counter attack by land (South Korea, Thailand) and massive ballistic and cruise missile strikes (Japan, US-Guam; Phillipines, Singapore). (Absent of a gross chinese aggression all of these countries, with the notable exception of Japan, will definitely not support a US war on China)

Recognizing that these shortcomings have to be eliminated the USAF is building a global strike capability with new Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAV). In the future (in their vision around 2020) the USAF will be able to attack every target on the planet form bases in the CONUS and within 12-16 hours form target identification. Accordingly the sustainability of an air campaign even against a country as China with her giant target array would be significantly enhanced and eventually a conventional air strike war against China will emerge as a viable option for US policy makers.
China´s poiltical and military leaders must be aware that Washington is already building up deadly and dangerous capabilities (latest example: ´conventional warhead´ Trident 2-D5!) which can only be neutralized if effective countermeasures are timely implemented by the PLA.

There should be no controversy about ROCAF U-2 losses over China:

PLA/PLAAF shot down at least six (mainland sources maintain seven kills) U-2 between 9/12/1962 and 5/16/1969. The first U-2 shot down by S-75 (SA-2 of russian production) over Nanchang was piloted by Huai Chen who died in the hospital after surviving the crash.

Later U-2 were ´killed´by HQ-2 and at least two pilots survived their crash. Deng Xiaoping ordered mercifully their release to Hong Kong in 1982 from which they went eventually back to Taiwan.

Red_CCF said:

thanks for the information. I didn't realize that Iraq had already received such sophisticated air defense system. I do however, wonder how Iraq's air defense system would compare to the ones China possess. I also wonder if used properly by trained personnel, would the defense system possessed by Iraq be sufficient enough to stop stealth bombers. I would hope to receive some responses to my questions, thanks.

this link indicates that the chinese have shot down u-2s belonging to american trained ROC pilots during the 1960s-70s.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

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Now I understand about the U-2's/ It was the ROC. That I believe!

It's not just the stealth bombers that would have to be stopped . the PLA would have to contend with the ECM blanket the US would put out prior to any attack. I do not think the US would ever attack the PRC. To much economics involved.

Better training would help the PLA operate the equipment better. But would it change the results? I hope to never find out!

AssassinsMace said:

First of all, starting a war with a country like China puts you geo-politically in trouble. You can think you have all the traditional allies blindly following the US, but they will be the most vulnerable to a counterstrike by China. You think those countries will be so willing when they most likely will suffer the most for the USA? So the US loses those countries and the bases to launch attacks from. Which means limited airstrikes will not decapitate China. So it comes down to the US by itself coming from the sea. The US cannot stage a sneak attack. China will know the US is coming. You talk submarines? Well China will have their subs in place silent and waiting before the US comes into striking range. They might only get off a first shot but that maybe enough to make the US think twice and pull back. Then there's the US Naval War College that has conducted simulated wargames on a naval strike on China. Everytime, the US Navy is defeated by swarms of anti-ship missiles. I read that the US Navy has worked to defend against this since but you also read that China has been working to develop methods to strike US ships further out to sea beyond the coastal range. And we've seen recently in the Israeli-Lebanon/ Iraq wars how Chinese-based designed antiship missiles have been able to strike with little or no warning.

China is not Iraq or Afghanistan. The US body count will be larger than any confrontation the US has ever faced before. American aircraft will be shot down and you'll see US Navy ships hit and sinking the Pacific. Will it be enough to defeat the US military? No! But it'll be so shocking for the US to see just one American carrier sinking, it will be a huge morale blow. So since Americans have shown they can't stand taking casulaties, most likely the US will strike with nukes first. Which means a nuclear counterstrike.

Really if the US could attack China, wouldn't it have done so already? Americans accuse China of being the biggest human rights abuser in the world. It has attacked other countries for lesser crimes. The inconsistency can only mean that human rights isn't the issue and the real reason is purely of self-interest and therefore unpalatable to world opinion. So if the US hasn't attacked China, ergo, it must mean the US is incapable of attacking China whether politically or militarily.

Failure in Iraq. Failure in Afghanistan. Shocking results in the Israel/Hezbollah war. Americans want to flex its muscles to Syria and Iran, the guys behind Hezbollah. And with all that, you want to boast that you can take on China?And China gets the bad wrap that it's the aggressor in the world?

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There's a famous truism that many armies have discovered to their cost

" In the end it's not those who can GIVE the most who will win, it's those
who can TAKE the most "

A war between China and the US will depend upon who can degrade the others capabilities the most and still keep standing.

All of your responses I have read so far are too biased against America and too pro-China. Me, being no being too loyal to either of the two countries and being neither pro nor anti-American see it this way. Please don't get mad at me if you see anything that you judge to be unfair as reality is decidedly pro-American as of now.

Right now, any non-nuclear conventional American attack on China has a decent chance of accomplishing the objectives of severely deteriorating Chinese leadership (possibly even bring abut regime change when the Chinese people realize their leaders cannot protect them, as any regime that cannot protect its people never lasts long) and destroying the credibiliy of the PLA, PLAN, and PLAAF as fighting forces. Though the gap between US and Chinese conventional forces is decreasing we have to face facts that US military is still much more capable than Chinese military effectively, technologically, logistically, and professionally. There would be no need to sent in ground troops, obviously, all action would be naval and aerial. US has considerable advantage in the technology of its aircraft and a virtual dominance on jamming and ECM. If SAMs worked as well as their Russian advertisers say, every US aircraft in Iraq would have been shot down already twice. However we all know Iraqi air defenses (even though upgraded as Popeye pointed out) scord 0 kills in the 2003 war. Yes PLAAF would do some damage, but PLAAF pilots cannot match US pilots in expertise of technology even if they have numbers on their side. USN is even farther ahead of PLAN and has the capability to outrange and thus outfight PLAN through its carrier-based strike aircraft by a minumum of 4 times. Once again professionally-wise USN is way ahead also. USN can literally throw thousands of Tomahawks at the mainland simultaneously.

Any pre-emptive strike would probably involve US stealth aircraft inflitrating and destroying SAM, radar, and command sites to create narrow avenues of approach for US fighter bombers. F-22s wll probably establish air superiority and while older F-16s and F-15s strike leadership, communication, and command. In the meantime, JSFs and F-16s loaded for SEAD woudl continue to degrade the SAM network and while hunting down other opportunity targets. Airfields would literally be flattened by B-1B and B-52s before Chinese have a chance to take off. Once air superiority is obtained and Chinese military is cut off and sufficently in turmoil, the dedicated ground attack roles would come in and carnage would be wreaked on Chinese army, marines, and the infrastructure that took so long to build. Keep in mind thousands of Tomahawks are falling on valuable targets while all this is happening. See what I mean that it is totally possible for PLA to be wiped out in pre-emptive strike?

All of you seem to believe that the US economy is weak and US logistics cannot deal with a sustained conflict. Did you not know the first purpose in the design in the US military is not havign the best technology, but having the best power projection and posessing overwhelming logistics? Just go read on the US army website. "For every shooter or man wih a gun otu there, we have 10 people backing him up at home." The US has moved millions of men across the Pacific in WWII and Vietnam and is moving hundreds of thousands at will across th Middle East today. So yes the US is able to carry on a sustained fight as well as China, if not even better. And whose economy do you think will take more of a beating from Sino-US war? Yes the US will suffer, but US economy is incredibly resilient whereas China virtually depends on Western companies (mostly from US). Once these pull out the 'bubble' in Chinese economy will burst. I know trust me, my father was a professor of finance at Princeton.

All of you seem to regard Afghanistan and Iraq as failures. Politically and geopolitically, I would tend to agree. However, militarily, both Iraq and Afghanistan reaffirm the might of the US military. Look at US casualty counts versus Taliban, Iraqi, and Insurgent casualties. See what I mean? Literally 60.000-70,000 insurgents have been killed or captured in Iraq (based on a Jane's defence figure and a number of independent think tanks) and thousands of Taliban have been killed in Afghanistan. I believe I posted on this earlier. In a straight conventional fight, the US military is unbeatable.

Listen, I love China and I think it has made great progress in the last decade but when it comes to a military contest with th United States I have to be fair and admit that China has the potential, like the rest of the world, to be literally taken out after a few thousand sorties.:china:

Excellent well thought out non-flaming post. I agree with much of it Americanoilman..but

All of your responses I have read so far are too biased against America and too pro-China. Me, being no being too loyal to either of the two countries and being neither pro nor anti-American see it this way. Please don't get mad at me if you see anything that you judge to be unfair as reality is decidedly pro-American as of now

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I hope I'm not one of "all" in your mind. Of course you are going to see some bias towards the PRC side in this forum. It is afterall a Chinese military forum.

Right now, any non-nuclear conventional American attack on China has a decent chance of accomplishing the objectives of severely deteriorating Chinese leadership (possibly even bring abut regime change when the Chinese people realize their leaders cannot protect them, as any regime that cannot protect its people never lasts long) and destroying the credibiliy of the PLA, PLAN, and PLAAF as fighting forces.

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Not even near. In the Kosovo conflict, the very same american attack didn't succeed doing the same to Serbia, about ten times smaller and less sophisticated than china at the moment. Your "statement" would be plausible if none would fight against the US forces, but there is no reason to belive that the PLA would just sit in their barrack while the opponent is charging against them. To say this under the label "non biased towards US military hegemony" is bit, well wierd...lying if beeing honest...

Now I personally dislike these USA vs. China threads as I know where they are going to end. It's hard to discuss over this issue even amogn those above average members which are able to do soem serious discussion, and with the normal kids, it's inpossiple. I will however make few points before I withdraw behind the curtains waiting someone to make a mistake and eat them alive afterwards...

However we all know Iraqi air defenses (even though upgraded as Popeye pointed out) scord 0 kills in the 2003 war.

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All of you seem to regard Afghanistan and Iraq as failures. Politically and geopolitically, I would tend to agree. However, militarily, both Iraq and Afghanistan reaffirm the might of the US military. Look at US casualty counts versus Taliban, Iraqi, and Insurgent casualties. See what I mean? Literally 60.000-70,000 insurgents have been killed or captured in Iraq (based on a Jane's defence figure and a number of independent think tanks) and thousands of Taliban have been killed in Afghanistan. I believe I posted on this earlier.

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Fighting against Iraq is about as glorifull as beating already near-death dog tied to the ground. Iraq army was practically non-existing and it had no means to perform any larger than single division (or even battalion) type of operations. The C & C structure and networks (which weren't so good even in the first war) where non-existing nor was there any left of any moral cruisal to any combat operations. Taliban was a gurellia organisation, althoug they had the key areas of afganistan in their hands, it was nothing compared to real army with all it's subsidors. And what comes to fighting against the insurgents in Iraq at the moment, well again hardly have anything to do with fighting against armies the size of China. And US troops aren't actaully making any progress of winning them...

I believe I posted on this earlier. In a straight conventional fight, the US military is unbeatable.

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That would be so much easier to digest if you could actually give some examples of conventional fightings. US army is good, one of the best (Tough not anyway near the standart of Finnish defence forces, exspecially the artillery branch ) but not superior and invincible. Everyone with even slightest ability to see the overall pictures can say you that you're wrong.

In 1941 Germans with superior tactics, training and somewhat better equipment went to a war against Soviet Union with very similar attidude than you now have, what happened? They lost simply becouse the huge size of Soviet Union was just too big to be overtake. To "destroy the fighting ability" of PLA would require so huge power, not even USA can afford it. The lost and damage marginal is just unbarreble to any military analysist to approve.

Also you brag about logistics and manpower which is somewhat hilarious when your opponent has the biggest manpowerpool in the wolrd. Also the agressor, (USA in this game) have to agross an ocean to get there.

The size of the opponent is one thing, the moral of the troops is another. In 1939 Soviet union with 1/100 advantage in quantity and quality went to war against us (Finland) and lost it simply becouse the devotion and moral of our troops took the longest twig. I've said earlier that if the fighting spirit in the mainland is even close to the spirit of our ofbroad chinese forumlingers, USA would have to face similar opponent as the Soviets 60 years ago...

There will never be a war between USA and China during our lifetime, simply becouse it would be a absurd campaing to neither one to start. So please, lets end this pointless penis contest before it gets overline, and if it does, You americanoilman are the one who have to face the consequenses of it as you threw the first flame-bait...

Well, so I am completely d'accord with your statement, Gollevainen.

A conventional USAF/USN campaign against PRC cannot be implemented with sufficient sustainability for achieving the desired result of regime change and subsequent dismemberment of China. Currently the US military is building up capabilities that would enable them to achieve the necessary full spectrum dominance against China (and also Russia) but even the boldest american patriot must acknowledge that they are years away from realizing their dream. Whether that strategic dream (or nightmare, depending on perspective) will come true depends also decisively on the countermeasures which will be implemented by China and to a lesser degree Russia.

Some posts are very impressive regarding their development of certain scenarios but (excuse my criticism) an important factor is lacking: Most people fail to recgognize that China has built up the worlds largest and also fairly modern industrial base in the last 10 years. Today the chinese economy produces five times more steel and ten times more cement than the US economy and this gap will grow progressively in the next 5-10 years. Also in sectors like computers and communication equipment China outproduces the US already and in vehicle (without motorbikes of course!) production China will overtake the US in 07 or 08.

Additionally the average age of plants and equipment is substantially lower than in the US and according to plans of industrial investment in both countries this gap will grow bigger in the next five years too. Obviously the US economy is yet superior in terms of high-tech but China´s industry is more flexible and is able to adapt in a more rapid pace (e.g. GM and Ford survived the japanese onslaught barely and had to concede the top carmaker position to Toyota; but will they survive competition with chinese carmakers in the coming 10-15 years?). Comparing China with the bankrupt and industrially teetering USSR is completely false and will lead consequently to completely false assumptions.

You talk of regime change. This is laughable. You have no understanding of the Chinese psyche. Just as the planners of OIF had no understanding of the Iraqi psyche. The only change brought about by external attack is a more militant, nationalistic, hardline, and xenophobic government. You can bet on that. Right now Chinese are focused on making money and raising their kids. The only change you can make to that would result in your worst nightmare.