Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

The military advantage gap is rapidly growing in China's favor versus the US and allies within the 2nd Island chain, and is basically insurmountable in the 1st Island Chain. By 2027 the US navy plans to retire all their remaining 17 Ticonderoga class cruisers, including a ship they just finished upgrading for $200 million (USS Vicksburg). Numbers and firepower wise they'll only be partially made up for by Arleigh Burke Flight 3s. Nuclear submarine numbers will decline as well in this period. They also want to get rid of the useless LCS ships just commissioned from the mid-2010s.

This is probably the basis of the mid-late 2020s PLA "peak". Maybe the Americans think the gap growth starts decelerating, or the power difference plateaus at that point. Maybe with the money saved from decommissioning, everything goes as planned and in budget, and the US will be able to claw back some ground afterwards.

The Pentagon probably believes war is inevitable, but to me it seems many of the US military want to push the conflict to later, after all their legacy equipment gets replaced and upgraded/next gen weapons (F-35 Blk4, B-21, etc) are ready in numbers. These people believe in the "resilience" of America and they may subscribe to "Double Thucydides Trap" theory where China's ascend will peak soon and start declining later, while the US magically recovers from it's ills. Whereas my impression is the US elites probably want it sooner since they look at the bigger picture and see the rapid decline in other spheres outside of the military (ie. Dollar reserve status in trouble).

tphuang said:

The conflict in Taiwan is the side show. There is plenty of margin for error. I don't know what you are talking about. China is build up a force capable of winning the conflict even if things don't go its way. As such, in majority of cases, it should have plenty of margin for error. In fact, if it can win the initial clash decisively (as we currently expect it to do), it will have wipe out US/Japanese positions within Guam. After which, US military will be fighting a huge uphill battle.

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孙子曰：兵者，国之大事，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也。
Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.

Chinese leaders should plan with the worst case scenarios in mind and avoid overconfidence because the war with the Hegemon and its vassals will have profound effects on China’s prosperity and security for the next hundred years.

vincent said:

That's a very dangerous assumption. What if PLAGF stuck in MOUT in Taipei? What if some ROC generals continue to lead in other places to resist? What if American "tourists" or Chinese-Americans gather the remains of the ROC forces and continue to resist in other areas and wait for the American intervention fleet? MOUT will continue regardless of Taipei's status.

Look, the restart of the Chinese civil war will be the most important seminal event for China since the Japanese invasion. There is almost zero margin for errors. Chinese leadership must plan for the worst in every scenario. The possibility of Hegemon and its vassals' intervention and ROC forces continuous resistance should be assumed to be 100% and PLA should plan accordingly.

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That is just my personal opinion, I agree that the planning for PRC should be for maximum intervention, US, JP, SK, AUS, even NATO.

That being said, on a personal level, I do not think it is realistic to believe any reasonable resistance can be expected if PLA has succeeded in establishing itself on the island.

What is “stuck”? If PLA has taken over any ports or airports, reinforcements will continue to arrive as necessary. If there are active MOUT operations, that implies PLA has established some kind of non-transient position.

Pockets of resistance aren’t going to turn the tide of war. If these forces are not a meaningful quantity to actually defeat the PLA, then why would you expect a full scale intervention to happen? The US would have to decide if the heavy lifting is worth it. A decisive defeat would likely mean the end of an Asian presence. Limited or indirect intervention would mean alliances with Japan and SK could be preserved.

ROC generals continued to resist from bases in Thailand and Burma with tacit American support. Did they serve as a spearhead to take back Yunnan? Nope, just became huge drug dealers and used GIs to re-introduce heroin to America.

Interview with a British volunteer who returned from Ukraine.


The people including experienced troops who were in Afghanistan in his section of the recruitment center generally didn't know how to do Boy Scout stuff like collect kindling for a fire. They were not well supplied so Boy Scout stuff was necessary. I think the PLA can offer camping/wildlife survival vacations for troops and teach a large number of them the skills without getting in the way of regular training. They might need it if supplies are disrupted while in the field in Taiwan.

I would recommend everyone to listen to the Guancha clip and their section on Russia which started around 28 min mark and go for 7 to 8 minutes. I would think that after listening to this clip, China will definitely assist Russia if it gets into serious troop in the current conflict. But bringing back to the topic, it makes me again wonder if there is an under the table mutual defense treaty where China can call for help from Russia in time of need. I mean simply request would be to using Russians ports and Russian air bases or just even allowing PLA brigades to move into Russia for certain operations. If we look at the map, Vladivostok is under 1000 km from most of the northern part of Japan. It would allow Chinese aircraft with shorter legs like J-10B/C to more easily take off and launch missiles and bombs into Japanese military bases.

North Korea can also help them with this, but Russia is such a uniquely large country that they provide so much more possibilities.

If it came to that Russia would just start lobbing nukes. Iskander, Kinzhal, and cruise missiles with tactical nukes up to 500 kT. So I hope it won't happen.

gelgoog said:

If it came to that Russia would just start lobbing nukes. Iskander, Kinzhal, and cruise missiles with tactical nukes up to 500 kT. So I hope it won't happen.

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China would not let Russia use nukes except if something so horrible is done by Ukraine first that using nukes would be seen as less escalatory than what the Ukrainians did first. For example, if Ukraine committed nuclear terrorism, or shot down Russian civilian airliners.

With the current trajectory of economic power between the East and the West, MAD is the only non-fringe scenario where China wouldn't be a clear winner. Why would China not fight tooth and nail to preserve their lead instead of going together with the west to zero?

They will sooner physically send troops to halt NATO on the ground than tell Russians to launch strategic nuclear strikes. But before that, they can just give huge amounts of advanced equipment for the Russians to operate so that they can make a solid defensive line combined with inevitable Russian mobilisation if NATO attacks with full strength.

If NATO intervened there is a high chance escalation with nukes would in fact happen. That meets Russia's parameters where they would be used in case of threat to existence of Russian state. No matter what conventional equipment they send into Ukraine though, Russia has same or better.

Biscuits said:

They will sooner physically send troops to halt NATO on the ground than tell Russians to launch strategic nuclear strikes. But before that, they can just give huge amounts of advanced equipment for the Russians to operate so that they can make a solid defensive line combined with inevitable Russian mobilisation if NATO attacks with full strength.

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Nah, training to operate such equipment isn't something that is gonna happen in a few days, not to mention actually transporting it etc.

AndrewS said:

Data Point 1
Big shrimp only said DF-17 cost 1/10 of DF-26.
-Vincent

That statement would also be consistent with the 12 million RMB ($2 Million) figure for a DF-17 and the CSBA $20 Million figure for a 4000km IRBM like the DF-26.
-AndrewS

Data Point 2
"As well as the sheer speed with which Beijing is able to acquire new weapons, Holt contends, the Chinese are also operating far more efficiently. “In purchasing power parity, they spend about one dollar to our 20 dollars to get to the same capability,” he told his audience. “We are going to lose if we can’t figure out how to drop the cost and increase the speed in our defense supply chains,” Holt added.

thedrive.com/the-war-zone/china-acquiring-new-weapons-five-times-faster-than-u-s-warns-top-official

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Just another take on these statements on hypersonic weapons by the USAF

The cheapest hypersonic weapon looks like $46 Mn for the Air Force ARRW.
The most expensive hypersonic weapon looks like $89/106 Mn for the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon for the Army/Navy

20x cheaper would mean the Chinese equivalent missile would be in the range of $2-5 Mn.
And my guess is that the equivalent missile is the DF-17 (ground-launched) or the DF-21 (with ground and air-launched variants)

But it's more likely to refer to a $2 Mn figure for the DF-17. And even if it is $5 Mn, it's still a huge bargain compared to US prices, and it's still in the same magnitude of cost with $2 Mn versus $5 Mn.

I also noticed that the CSBA added a standard $2 Mn cost for an anti-ship seeker to any missile

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That is really expensive. Two hypersonic missiles equal the cost of F35.