Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

AndrewS said:

It's actually very similar to my model of what I expect a Taiwan scenario to look like. If you have constructive criticism on certain points, please elaborate.

Also, the last survey I saw had support for reunification at 3%. That is not going to support a huge resistance movement.
So a Taiwanese Declaration of Independence would likely be accepted by the population if it didn't have serious consequences.

Click to expand...

I was being facetious, there was an actual paragraph on sanitation problems.

Support at 3% for reunification, yes, but support for status quo is over 50%.

So how do those people go when the chips are down? Probably mostly to the USA…

Declaration of Independence would absolutely bring serious consequences, so how people react is important.
As this is the "lessons to learn from Ukraine" thread, I will reiterate what I've said before.

Part of the reason the civil conflict in Ukraine arose (that is 2014 timeframe) is because of the perceived and actual disenfranchisement of the eastern population.

Back to Taiwan, the Pelosi visit taught a very important lesson. If China decided to "push the button", who voted for "freedom" to be impressed upon the people living on Taiwan island?

I would not expect a widescale resistance movement, but things like desertion, sabotage, tip offs, collaborators, etc. When the adversary has an overwhelming advantage in firepower, they don't need MORE help. I think it was @5unrise who had mentioned, there is quite an undercurrent of people in Taiwan of people who don't necessarily support the Communist Party, but one China is non-negotiable.

Again, I don't think it would be as directly militarily significant as Ukraine, but even a small group can cause a wave (i.e. Trump's supporters on Jan. 6).

Staedler said:

Let's pretend NATO ships are going from Antwerpen straight to Kaohsiung. That's a 11000+ nm journey and even sprinting at 25 kts for the entire duration, they will be spending at least 18 days in transit. And this is assuming no sea lane closures, never stopping for resupplying/refueling, and the ships are immediately available to be redeployed. In the meantime Taiwan will be basically under total air and sea blockade and starving. If the NATO ships opt to form up with the USN before entering the combat region, then that will take even longer! At that point, maybe we're talking a maybe a month before NATO can even try to fire in anger.

Click to expand...

Assuming UK's Type 45 destroyers don't breakdown on the way

Staedler said:

It'll be a similar story for NATO airforce too. What air route are they taking that will get them into the region? How will they be able to get the requisite maintenance and fueling to enter the fray? Distances involved means they will probably need refueling tankers once they take off from an airbase. Yet the few airfields/tankers available will already be in high demand with the USAF and being degraded constantly.

Click to expand...

Germany just sent six Typhoons fighters to Australia for an exercise. They were accompanied by four A400M transport aircraft and three A330 tankers. Seven support aircrafts for six front line fighters. How many more support aircrafts are needed if Europeans send more fighters to West Pac?

supersnoop said:

This post was totally full of sh*t… lol

The current conflict in Ukraine is partly a civil war. It seems to me that Russian forces enjoy a fairly high level of local support. Of course it can be partially explained by the departure of any possible resisters to the non-occupied areas.

On how this can relate to Taiwan…
Armed reunification can come by one-sided invasion or Declaration of Independence. Why is the automatic assumption usually one sided invasion? If there is such a declaration (or similar action), I think the danger would not be from the citizens becoming guerrillas to fight the PLA, but from whatever resistance that pops up to disrupt the newly minted ROTA. I would not expect a huge army or anything, but we need to keep in mind that keeping the status quo has consistently been the preferred option by most of the population. A Declaration of Independence (especially an illegal one) would probably fracture support amongst the local people.

Click to expand...

Patchwork's scenario here is pretty much what all of us have been speculating, but he is able to describe it in a far more realistic manner due to his extensive experience in war gaming around this.

bjj_starter said:

That's a really horrible scenario. I really hope it doesn't end up happening, it would be a lot of unnecessary human suffering.

Do you think there's any realistic path to that not happening? A US "operational consolidation" and a Taiwanese agreement with the PRC? I just can't see Tsai going for it, but then again she's not already declared independence so maybe a withdrawal of US support could make even her see the writing on the wall. I struggle to see the US giving up Taiwan without a fight, though. I am honestly not sure why, it's not like the Taiwanese are going to bleed the PRC the way the Ukrainians are bleeding the Russians. Maybe it would be wanting to avoid Japan and south Korea viewing it as a fickle ally, but then I think the situation unfolding anything like what you described would be significantly worse for US alliances in Asia than that. The US could credibly claim it never had a treaty obligation to support Taiwan so Japan and south Korea are very different; a decade from now it might be accepted wisdom, and maybe westpac remains stable with the US in charge until China is much stronger than it is now. But if the US opposes China militarily and loses, I don't think they come back from that in terms of their reputation in Asia.


If the US manages to make the conflict with China trigger article 5 of NATO (I know that's against NATO rules, but that NATO dude recently said it would like it was fact so at least someone is thinking it), would that significantly change the outcome?

Click to expand...

The only countries that matter here are Japan and Australia. No other countries can materially help us military. That's why the entire idea of us military fighting china in it's backyard such a stupid idea. It's unreasonable for America to expect it can achieve hegemon in China's backyard. But American politicians have been used to this level of power for so long that they cannot get their mind adjusted to the new reality. I don't think it really matters what the dod war games show if the establishment just simply do not want to acknowledge it.

If we look at what's going on in westpac. Us military thinks that it might be able to increase air defense around guam by 2026. It might have hypersonic missiles by then, but the missiles are too expensive. Us navy continues to shrink. Air force continues to shrink. It has all these obligations around the world. In comparison, pla is single mindedly focused on this one theater and building the force it thinks is needed to decisively defeat us military here. This is utterly a disastrous foreign policy that America is employing. Basically, hoping to keep pushing china and china won't respond.

We have seen what happened recently when china did respond after the pelosi visit. And now 7th fleet commander is complaining that if America doesn't do something about it, Taiwan will become another scs situation. Which means, he just acknowledged to all the asean countries that china rules scs and America can't really do anything about it. If you are south Korea or any asean countries, could you really hedge your bet on us military being able to defeat pla at this point? We will see in couple months whether etc's ability to quickly get a large war game carried and us military's inability or unwillingness to respond will lead to any changes in asean countries. Keep in mind that everything you saw was organized by etc alone.

supersnoop said:

I was being facetious, there was an actual paragraph on sanitation problems.

Support at 3% for reunification, yes, but support for status quo is over 50%.

So how do those people go when the chips are down? Probably mostly to the USA…

Declaration of Independence would absolutely bring serious consequences, so how people react is important.
As this is the "lessons to learn from Ukraine" thread, I will reiterate what I've said before.

Part of the reason the civil conflict in Ukraine arose (that is 2014 timeframe) is because of the perceived and actual disenfranchisement of the eastern population.

Back to Taiwan, the Pelosi visit taught a very important lesson. If China decided to "push the button", who voted for "freedom" to be impressed upon the people living on Taiwan island?

I would not expect a widescale resistance movement, but things like desertion, sabotage, tip offs, collaborators, etc. When the adversary has an overwhelming advantage in firepower, they don't need MORE help. I think it was @5unrise who had mentioned, there is quite an undercurrent of people in Taiwan of people who don't necessarily support the Communist Party, but one China is non-negotiable.

Again, I don't think it would be as directly militarily significant as Ukraine, but even a small group can cause a wave (i.e. Trump's supporters on Jan. 6).

Click to expand...

Taiwan is an island. Physically, there aren't enough airplanes or ships to transport many people off.

I suspect most people in Taiwan would learn to live with the situation, whether that is the status quo, outright independence or reunification.

Lmao are some posters seriously talking about NATO/european countries
getting themselves involved in taiwan now? thats brilliant, let’s take on Russia and China at same time while our economy are getting wrecked.

bjj_starter said:

So you don't think NATO involvement would significantly affect the outcome? That's interesting, a lot of citizens of NATO countries seem to think otherwise. I think they're probably wrong because I think NATO is mostly about where the US can put its military and it wins or loses based on US performance, but I'm interested in what Patchwork thinks because I know I have biases of my own. That's why I asked him.

Click to expand...

Good thing that the european Nato countries don't have to worry about the Russians when the US is distracted fighting another superpower. This leads up to the potential unintended consequences for the US if it found itself distracted fighting a peer adversary. Other countries or radical groups in the world may be encourage to rise up and create some chaos.

tphuang said:

The only countries that matter here are Japan and Australia. No other countries can materially help us military. That's why the entire idea of us military fighting china in it's backyard such a stupid idea. It's unreasonable for America to expect it can achieve hegemon in China's backyard. But American politicians have been used to this level of power for so long that they cannot get their mind adjusted to the new reality. I don't think it really matters what the dod war games show if the establishment just simply do not want to acknowledge it.

Click to expand...

Seems the reasons PRC hasn't pulled the trigger are the potential economic impact and the lack of nuclear parity

I said:

Nutrient said:

Yugoslavia had ten times the area of Taiwan. So even using 1999-era weapons, at the 1999 number of sorties and salvos, mainland China should only need 7.8 days.

Click to expand...

You replied:

vincent said:

Serbia is only a little twice the size of the Taiwan island, ...

Click to expand...

Sorry, you don't get to shrink Yugoslavia down to Serbia. Major cities of Yugoslavia NOT inside what is now called Serbia: Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje, Ljubljana.

NATO had to bomb ten times the area of Taiwan, which is why Yugoslavia resisted for 78 days.

Not only is Taiwan tiny, most of its population (and military power) is concentrated on the western coast, which faces mainland China. That makes it even easier for the mainland.

So a one-week smashing of Taiwan's coastal defenses (by missiles) -- followed by a massive invasion -- is quite possible. The mainland has enough ships (including commercial ships) to send millions of soldiers to the island.

Nutrient said:

Sorry, you don't get to shrink Yugoslavia down to Serbia. Major cities of Yugoslavia NOT inside what is now called Serbia: Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje, Ljubljana.

NATO had to bomb ten times the area of Taiwan, which is why Yugoslavia resisted for 78 days.

Click to expand...

I think NATO only bombed Serbia and Kosovo

Nutrient said:

Not only is Taiwan tiny, most of its population (and military power) is concentrated on the eastern coast, which faces mainland China. That makes it even easier for the mainland.

So a one-week smashing of Taiwan's coastal defenses (by missiles) -- followed by a massive invasion -- is quite possible. The mainland has enough ships (including commercial ships) to send millions of soldiers to the island.

Click to expand...

Please read what @Patchwork_Chimera wrote to see why amphibious assault is unnecessary

Nutrient said:

I said:


You replied:

You "think"? How about some evidence?

Click to expand...

Why would NATO bomb Sarajevo, a Bosnian city?