Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Mohsin77 said:

If we take Patchwork's analysis as a given, and we proceed with the assumption (1) that China is now capable of neutralizing the US threat in this theater in the opening phase (and the US isn't even gearing up to effectively defend itself), then the next question is the invasion itself: Does Taiwan even have enough targets to justify a month-long air campaign? Probably not, which means a short+intense air/missile campaign, perhaps lasting a few days. After which, the Taiwanese land forces will have (2) no air cover, no logistical chain, no capacity to maneuver and no C4I to coordinate them i.e. they would be operationally kaput.

Now, if we assume the above 2 conditions are met, the rest is just boring. By the time the PLA makes landfall, the Taiwanese Army will be combat ineffective, without any ability to sustain conventional operations. They will melt away on contact. Plus, the probability of a sustainable insurgency is low, given that Taiwan would be an island under blockade without any resupply, and they are an advanced post-industrial society with a lot to lose.

Given the above, the only relevant dimension now is strategic, economic and geopolitical i.e. US vs China on the global stage. If that dimension is won by China, then the rest is just academic. Taiwan's own capacity to defend itself from China is non-existent. The likely outcome in that event would be that Taiwan accepts reunification without a shot fired, if the US is out of the equation.

p.s. Yes, I know Russia also thought Ukraine would be a walkover. None of that changes the above calculus, as long as the two assumptions hold true.

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In terms of strategy that the US would use, I would think other than direct fleet on fleet action which would slightly favor China currently due to proximity of battlefield, it would be the US pressing it's strategic bomber/aerial refuel fleet advantage both stealthy and not to lob stealthed cruise missiles at Chinese landing forces while they are crossing the strait. It won't necessarily stop the Chinese forces, but could potentially exact a bloody toll depending on whether China can achieve local aerial supremacy and push it's AA umbrella much further out.

Not a knockout blow by any means as they can be shot down, but the US would be able to manage barrages of a hundred+ air launched cruise missiles at a time without much difficulty. At that volume even if they weren't all ER-JASSM but tomahawks it would be a headache for isolated ships.

This is a way the US can intervene without a horrendous amount of casualties, well at least while allied forces within range get smothered.

Mohsin77 said:

This part is not that simple. The fact is that never before in history have two competing powers been this economically co-dependent. The Soviet Union and NATO had the Iron Curtain separating them. That is not the case with China and the US.

If an alien civilization visited Earth, they would have a hard time telling the US and China apart. Just look at the sheer volume of trade and flow of capital every day between these two countries. A fight between the US and China, from an economic perspective, would basically be like a civil war. This phenomenon didn't exist at the time of the Fulda Gap.

Remember, Patchwork also said that the US is not going to simply give up and walk away, even though it doesn't have the military strength to hold on to its empire. This is the irrationality built into the system which makes things very hard to calculate. There's always the possibility that the US simply collapses domestically, but that is hard to predict and the global economic consequences of that are even harder to predict. It's a non-linear chaotic system....

Like I said, this is now a strategy problem, which is much harder to solve than operations/tactics.

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The reason why US/Western China relations have turned sour is because greed has turned to fear in the west. And when people fear they tend to do irrational things.

The US collapsing domestically on its own is very real and maybe closer than you think.

The US economy is now stuck between two fires. On one side is high inflation and on the otherside is high levels of debt and big asset bubble's. If you want to maintain the high debt level's and the asset bubble's you need low interest rate and easy money. But if you want to fight inflation you need high interest rate and tight money. You can't do both at the same time its either the one or the other.

Over the past 7 months at this point the US has been fighting inflation with higher interest rates and its already causing all kinds of damage to the economy. The stock market, bond market, crypto currencies are all in bear market territory (down at least 20% from its height) and their is no end in sight. The falls at this point in time already represent more than 10 trillion dollars of loss in wealth. And the market are going down further because the markets have been propped up by easy money and low rates for more than a decade. Now that low rates and easy money policies are being reversed the markets are going down too. Where the bottom is no one knows.

You are already seeing trouble in the US housing market, the auto industry and retail market and many other sectors of the economy.

And the worst isn't even in yet as higher interest rates haven't reach the adjustable mortgage market and interest payment on credit card debt. The pension funds are a catastrophe in the making as the asset on the books of pension funds stocks and bonds are going down in value while at the same time social security have to raise payment to the pensioners because of higher inflation. Just wait for the bust to happen there. And if the Federal Reserve would to respond to these crises by lowering interest rates back to zero and restart QE, it would crater the value of the dollar and inflation will surge much higher causing even bigger problems in the future.

And the fight against inflation isn't even working as the US economy is now in stagflation meaning recession with high inflation! Looking ahead things are not getting better only worse.

There is no way out for the US and the West this is the result of decades of economic and financial mismanagement that is now coming to ahead.

tankphobia said:

In terms of strategy that the US would use, I would think other than direct fleet on fleet action which would slightly favor China currently due to proximity of battlefield, it would be the US pressing it's strategic bomber/aerial refuel fleet advantage both stealthy and not to lob stealthed cruise missiles at Chinese landing forces while they are crossing the strait. It won't necessarily stop the Chinese forces, but could potentially exact a bloody toll depending on whether China can achieve local aerial supremacy and push it's AA umbrella much further out.

Not a knockout blow by any means as they can be shot down, but the US would be able to manage barrages of a hundred+ air launched cruise missiles at a time without much difficulty. At that volume even if they weren't all ER-JASSM but tomahawks it would be a headache for isolated ships.

This is a way the US can intervene without a horrendous amount of casualties, well at least while allied forces within range get smothered.

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Bombers can fly from CONUS bases but tankers need to be based in theatre. If American bombers are attacking Chinese bases and ships, all bases that support the tankers are fair targets.

tankphobia said:

In terms of strategy that the US would use, I would think other than direct fleet on fleet action which would slightly favor China currently due to proximity of battlefield, it would be the US pressing it's strategic bomber/aerial refuel fleet advantage both stealthy and not to lob stealthed cruise missiles at Chinese landing forces while they are crossing the strait. It won't necessarily stop the Chinese forces, but could potentially exact a bloody toll depending on whether China can achieve local aerial supremacy and push it's AA umbrella much further out.

Not a knockout blow by any means as they can be shot down, but the US would be able to manage barrages of a hundred+ air launched cruise missiles at a time without much difficulty. At that volume even if they weren't all ER-JASSM but tomahawks it would be a headache for isolated ships.

This is a way the US can intervene without a horrendous amount of casualties, well at least while allied forces within range get smothered.

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Kill chain of non stationary targets wouldn't be possible without getting close. US would need to use F-35s and F-22s to guide the missiles which poses a question of how long they can loiter without risking high casualties. Having them freely loiter could be an invitation for China to just hit their bases so they have nowhere to land assuming they aren't just taken out in dogfights.

In the first few days there won't be mass movement of PLA onto the island, it will likely only be saboteurs and special forces scouting ahead, they would use small ships and even ones disguised as civilian vessels. Spending precious survivable stealth fighters into trying to find such vessels in a wide area seems fairly futile. The 075s would come out only after the regional US bases are currently suppressed.

I think if US goes to war, the best and possibly even only way is by committing the whole navy and destroy PLAN in a decisive battle located as far away from mainland Asia as they can bait them out to. The further out, the more useful much faster-but-less-silent US subs will be, not to mention US has China outnumbered 4 to 1 in most platforms. But China doesn't really have an impetus to engage in decisive battle.

The idea that US can safely take over Taiwan using just rebels and a few planes, a few troops, 1-2 CVs, at low cost to itself... hmm where have we heard this before? If Americans think there is a low cost option to war with a larger economy and way larger population, they're deluding themselves.

Going all in from day 1 to force a series of blows that degrade most of China's navy, so that US army can enter Taiwan in great numbers and thereafter declare a referendum and offer peace talks with minimal concessions from China besides the island of Taiwan is the most viable option. The longer war goes on, the more China will mobilize. If China pulls general draft, South Korea is not defensible, even if you believed that SK was defensible otherwise.

So even if US can land on Taiwan first and link up the rebels, China will have unlimited time to build up for a counteroffensive while holding the Korean peninsula allowing it to continuedly throw rockets at Japan/US bases.

Franklin said:

The US collapsing domestically on its own is very real and maybe closer than you think.

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Everything collapses eventually, what you don't know is the "when," and that's the important part.

Nor do you know how it would actually affect China, due to many cascading effects.

Maybe a global hard-reset is inevitable now.... maybe chaos and collapse is required.

But we don't know what will come out on the other side, or whether a soft-landing is possible.

tankphobia said:

it would be the US pressing it's strategic bomber/aerial refuel fleet advantage both stealthy and not to lob stealthed cruise missiles at Chinese landing forces while they are crossing the strait. It won't necessarily stop the Chinese forces, but could potentially exact a bloody toll depending on whether China can achieve local aerial supremacy and push it's AA umbrella much further out.

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It is a lot more complicated than that. Patchwork Chimera made a good post on the logistics, planning, and coordination that are required for large scale strategic aviation raids.

Biscuits said:

Kill chain of non stationary targets wouldn't be possible without getting close. US would need to use F-35s and F-22s to guide the missiles which poses a question of how long they can loiter without risking high casualties. Having them freely loiter could be an invitation for China to just hit their bases so they have nowhere to land assuming they aren't just taken out in dogfights.

In the first few days there won't be mass movement of PLA onto the island, it will likely only be saboteurs and special forces scouting ahead, they would use small ships and even ones disguised as civilian vessels. Spending precious survivable stealth fighters into trying to find such vessels in a wide area seems fairly futile. The 075s would come out only after the regional US bases are currently suppressed.

I think if US goes to war, the best and possibly even only way is by committing the whole navy and destroy PLAN in a decisive battle located as far away from mainland Asia as they can bait them out to. The further out, the more useful much faster-but-less-silent US subs will be, not to mention US has China outnumbered 4 to 1 in most platforms. But China doesn't really have an impetus to engage in decisive battle.

The idea that US can safely take over Taiwan using just rebels and a few planes, a few troops, 1-2 CVs, at low cost to itself... hmm where have we heard this before? If Americans think there is a low cost option to war with a larger economy and way larger population, they're deluding themselves.

Going all in from day 1 to force a series of blows that degrade most of China's navy, so that US army can enter Taiwan in great numbers and thereafter declare a referendum and offer peace talks with minimal concessions from China besides the island of Taiwan is the most viable option. The longer war goes on, the more China will mobilize. If China pulls general draft, South Korea is not defensible, even if you believed that SK was defensible otherwise.

So even if US can land on Taiwan first and link up the rebels, China will have unlimited time to build up for a counteroffensive while holding the Korean peninsula allowing it to continuedly throw rockets at Japan/US bases.

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I just don't see the US ever deploying boots on the ground in Taiwan, after conflict start it would be suicide and before conflict start it would start the conflict.

What happened on the Crimean Bridge has raised concerns among some about whether the intelligence services on the island of Taiwan will follow the example of the Ukrainians in causing similar disruption and causing chaos

zhangjim said:

What happened on the Crimean Bridge has raised concerns among some about whether the intelligence services on the island of Taiwan will follow the example of the Ukrainians in causing similar disruption and causing chaos

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I believe the Chinese MSS agents are all over the Taiwan regime to keep and eyes and ears on any sabotage work by the island defense department for decades.

zhangjim said:

What happened on the Crimean Bridge has raised concerns among some about whether the intelligence services on the island of Taiwan will follow the example of the Ukrainians in causing similar disruption and causing chaos

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China's internal control and surveillance is 100x stronger than Russia's. In Russia they still had paper documents （纸质身份证） until 2015. China has full electronic documents. China has more security cameras than any country in the world, maybe not monitoring individuals, but 100% monitoring key infrastructure.

This is why some countries keeps saying that China has no freedom - they want it to be easy to sabotage.