Ok, so here are some musings of mine from observing the Russian-Ukraine war so far. It would have been better in the Ukraine thread, but since they didn’t want any Taiwan talk there, I guess this is the only place to put it.
One of the fundamental basics to draw any lessons from Ukraine is to first understand the core underlying strategic thinking and thus, Russia’s choices, and how that might be different to China’s in a Taiwan scenario.
I have taken a back to basis approach of trying to reconstruct Putin’s strategy and choices and think I might have found the carefully hidden golden thread that links and explains a lot of the more puzzling aspects and developments in this war.
So, let’s start with what can be assumed with the highest order of likelihood and move down and see how things fall into place.
So, at the macro strategic level, it is simply inconceivable to me that Putin would have gone ahead with this invasion without having gained full Chinese support beforehand. It may not have been an explicit, I’m gunna invade on 24FEB2022, but I think detailed discussions and commitments would have been had and made that included the roles and obligations both parties had to each other in the even Putin decided to pull the trigger.
The true and full extent of that support (political, economic, military?) is going to be of great debate, while I will get into in more detail later, but to save time and stay focused, let’s just abbreviate that to support in general and move on.
However, it is just as inconceivable that any support China has agreed to give Russia would be unconditional. At a minimum China would have needed cast iron assurances that this won’t rapidly spiral into full global nuclear MAD. And I think this is the golden thread I mentioned earlier.
To obtain Chinese support, Putin would have had to draw a line beyond which he cannot cross without risking loosing Chinese support. There is precedent with that with North Korea where China allowed and then joined UN sanctions when Kim didn’t play nice.
I say risking because I am realistic and see there being a potentially great distance between what Putin and Xi might have agreed upon, and what both could ultimately live with in the end.
I think the Chinese red lines would have been, officially, no direct combat engagement with NATO troops. And no lobbing of tactical nukes if you get spanked by NATO conventionally as what they can live with.
On the flip side, I see the maximum official military/political support China being willing to provide if needed to suddenly and massively ramp up military tensions with Taiwan if NATO crosses specific pre-agreed escalation thresholds (timing wise, just look who had a delegation on the books to land in Taiwan less than a week after the invasion began, which would have provided the perfect pretext for a massive Chinese ‘overreaction’ had that ). For example, if NATO sent troops into Ukraine to seize ground and stare down the Russians like the Russians famously did Kosovo style.
The aim is to undermine NATO resolve and ability to directly engage in head on combat with the Russians by yanking America’s full attention to the Pacific, thereby massively weakening NATO’s combat capabilities. Unofficially I see China prepared to actually kick off Armed Reunification (AU) if it looks like America is treating that as a bluff and not redeploying sufficient forces to be able to have any realistic chance of actually contesting AU. With Putin maybe thinking he can blackmail China into lending him its Air Force if he threatens to go nuclear otherwise. I mean, if J16s were repainted in Russian colours, would anyone even be able to tell?
But all of that is really dicey and carries massive risks and costs and thus should be avoided if at all possible.
And that is the golden thread - Putin was terrified that NATO would send in troops to oppose him in Ukraine and desperate to head that off.
What tipped me off was what I think the only minor slip up that Putin made - his overreaction to Liz Truss.
There has been much public (exaggerated I think) scratching of heads on what she said that might have triggered Putin to put his nuclear forces on high alert, but I think it’s what she said a day earlier when she publicly supported the ideas of British volunteers going to fight in Ukraine. At the same time there was growing talk about former Soviet NATO countries doing a fighter jet whip around for Ukraine.
Now Putin is a man who knows his history, so he would have remembered that the PLA never officially went into Korea. It was the PVA who went in, so I think all these off the cuff hairbrained ideas actually accidentally got uncomfortably close to a nightmare scenario for Putin - of a NATO ‘volunteer’ army going into Ukraine and fighting the Russians to a standstill conventionally. So he prematurely waved his big nuclear stick and bluffed.
That, incidentally also explains the very odd way this war built up had started. Putin always knew he had to bluff with his nuclear card, so he used the build up to discredit western analysts most likely to call his bluff and building up the ideological crusaders who are more likely to think he isn’t bluffing.
So, going back and re-examine key aspects with this golden thread and suddenly things that didn’t make much sense start to.
Why did Russia hold the bulk of its forces back from actual combat? To not overextend and risk enticing NATO intervention.
Why the ill fated airborne assault on Antonov airport on day 1? So NATO couldn’t just fly in a token QRF force into Kyiv like the Russians themselves did during the Kosovo war to stalemate the war there and then.
Why the kiddy gloves air and missile strikes at the expense of Russian soldiers’ lives? To minimise collateral damage and calls for NATO involvement.
Why the Leeroy Jenkins mad dash of the Z force? To take territory and reach key choke points to head off and limit any NATO push before they ran into Russian ground forces.
Why isn’t power and communications systematically cut off from zero hour? Well two reasons, one is to maximise risks of NATO covert ops exposure if every civilian with a cellphone (which is everyone and their dog these days) is basically live streaming everything they see in real time, thus making western leaders much more hesitant to allow those ops.
And two is to make sure everyone keeps their cellphones with them throughout the war. Remember those Russia surrender psychops text messages everyone in Ukraine was getting on day one? What are the odds that’s not just bad propaganda? The Russians already stole NSA cyber spying toolkits and there are private companies offering off the shelf tech to compromise phones that merely receive an infected message. I would not be surprised at all if the Russians are already doing the hard work of post war counter insurgency now by infecting phones and having people finger themselves and their close contacts through their movements logs during the war to be picked up and disappeared later.
Make no mistake, I think the Russians also blundered and miscalculated in a lot of places. But not as much as western punts are claiming.
I think while there was indeed the hope that this would be Crimea 2.0 where the Russian army rolls in with minimal resistance, it was never counted upon.
There was massive operational level incompetence and wholly inadequate logistical support despite the prolonged build up; and fundamental deficiencies in Russia’s military modernisation. But a lot of the losses and damage was a result of risks and choices deliberately made rather than because the Russians didn’t know how to shape the fight to their own advantage. Just look at how little Twitter footages there is from the major eastern front engagements. That’s where the lion share of the fighting and dying is happening, and the Russians are doing very very well there based on what little info we have from there.
So now that we have covered Ukraine, how does that apply to Taiwan? Well I think while there will also be a significant time pressure factor in any PLA operation to take Taiwan. It won’t be to anything like the same degree or extent as the Russians for two simple reasons - the PLA is not going to be conventionally overmatched by the Americans in a Taiwan scenario; and I don’t think the PLA is going to assume it can bluff the US out of direct military intervention. That means that while the PLA would be hoping to take Taiwan before America can respond, its entire strategy doesn’t depend on it. Thus the PLA will push to move fast, but not unsustainably so as the Russians are doing in central and western Ukraine.
I think the biggest lessons China should take to heart to not repeat the mistakes of the Russians would be to not underestimate the willingness of political leaders to whip up its citizens into doing essentially meaningless suicidal lemming rush attacks for the primary purpose of generating massive civilian casualties for Twitter posts to try to tug to western heartstrings to increase the chances of direct military intervention.
It would also need to take city fighting as a given and invest heavily in weapons and technology that would increase the urban combat survivability of its ground forces and allow them to root out determined, dug in defenders with minimal collateral damage.
To that end, power and civilian communications should be a day 1 priority target to bring down and keep down throughout the course of any conflict.
