PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

bustead said:

Firstly, munitions is only part of the equation. The cost of launching such a campaign includes the man-hours of work needed to keep your delivery system in operational condition, the fuel and supplies needed to repair any damage of your assets and the risk of losing your strike platforms. Think of it this way, the Battle of Britain was not purely won by UK counter-bombing Germany.

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Yes, I agree, and I believe with the current balance of forces that China and the US have, the US would be capable of waging such a conflict successfully.

Chances are, this will change in a decade's time or two decade's time.
But right now? No.

bustead said:

As for the problem of threatening American MIC, I disagree with you. Firstly, cyberwarfare, space assets and even saboteurs can be used to delay or destroy American assets. Potential targets include power generation, water supply and transport infrastructure. For example, orbital bombers/FOB systems can be used to bomb major power plants to disrupt the supply chain. Sure, the F-35 production plant maybe very secured with multiple redundancies built in, but that is not helpful if the workers are starving at home because food cannot be delivered to Walmart.

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I agree that cyberwarfare can be used to target production facilities and national infrastructure in general, if one wants to consider national civilian infrastructure to be "viable military targets".
That does not solve the fact that Chinese production facilities will be more vulnerable and degraded than US production facilities -- and congratulations, by conducting cyberattacks against US civilian infrastructure it means that you consider them viable military targets, so the US will consider Chinese civilian infrastructure as viable military targets.

So nice, now the US and China will doubtlessly conduct cyberwarfare strikes against each other.
But it is only the US that has the capability to conduct kinetic strikes against Chinese production facilities -- on and to conduct kinetic strikes against Chinese civilian infrastructure too now as well.
You've just made the war worse, not better for China.

bustead said:

Secondly, China can use the existing divides of American society. The US is currently suffering from racial and class tensions and by disrupting civilian production (which is far less secured than military production), China can indirectly incite more unrest, riots and violence in general. The goal is not to threaten the American military production directly. Rather, threaten the survival/safety of the workers to reduce their efficiency.

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The US can do the same to China, and arguably do so more effectively given the Chinese civilian population will be suffering from the effects of a constrained SLOCs and have their own territory actually subject to strikes.

bustead said:

As for Chinese MIC facilities under attack from the US, the increasing sophistication of AA systems and higher social cohesion can help China in rebuilding more quickly.

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The loss of specialized production tools, experienced engineers and production staff, is not easily replaced.
"Increasing sophistication of AA systems" doesn't help to counter the fact that at the end of the day, Chinese production facilities (and apparently Chinese civilian infrastructure now) are vulnerable to being targeted by kinetic strikes while US production facilities are not.
Meaning that at the end of the day, Chinese production capabilities for the military effort over time will become more and more degraded and more and more ineffective than US production facilities.

bustead said:

Again, strategic bombing by itself cannot defeat a great power. You can do so to Yugoslavia (somewhat controversial but let's say that's the case) but a power like China has enough strategic depth and industrial capacity to rebuild quickly. Put it this way, you can try to beat a boss in a video game but the boss is regenerating faster than you can deal damage to it.

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I never said that strategic bombing by itself can defeat a great power.

I said that a war of attrition would not be preferable for China because its production facilities will be able to be struck and degraded by US forces and its SLOCs will be capable of being threatened and at minimum significantly affected.

If China is defeated in such a conflict, it will be due to long term (i.e.: attrition) gradual peeling away of Chinese defenses and gradual destruction of Chinese facilities that makes China unable to have the material capabilities to fight.

bustead said:

1. Stealth fighters. I do agree actually. However, what can you do with stealth fighters when all your forward air bases are destroyed? Realistically, you can only field a certain number of planes based on the logistical train that you can support. In the West Pacific, the US is faced with a lot more challenges than China. Harassment from missiles and subs, Chinese cyber attacks and jamming, and just pure distance means that it is very difficult for the US to sustain such a large air fleet. In other words, the strength of American stealth fighter production is great for defense, not for offensives.

2. Large Tankers. C-17 production lines are closed. C-5 lines are also closed. There is no US edge in CURRENT production.

3. Stealthy strike missiles. This is about doctrine. China has way more supersonic cruise missiles than the US. It is not about the US having better tech. Rather, it is about the US having a different military theory than China.

4. Helicopters. I agree. However, just like stealth fighters, what can you do with them?

5. Nuclear submarines. I do agree on that point. I think American submarines will be the biggest concern of the PLAN and Chinese shipping.

6. Engines. Yes China is behind. However, I don't think engines by itself will be able to win a war. Again, it is definitely a weakness, but current China can already make-do to an extent.

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Large tankers -- I'm not sure what C-17 and C-5 has to do with anything, they are not tankers.
US production of KC-46s and large commercial aircraft is something that China cannot match (even leaving aside the current fleets of tankers each side has in service).

You are missing the forest for the trees.

My point is that "China does not have an edge in industrial production" -- all of those six categories were ones where I stated to demonstrate to you that China does not have an edge in industrial production in many important domains of military hardware and military systems.

Nothing here you wrote has countered my argument, so I take it that you concede this point and agree that China does not have an edge in industrial production.

bustead said:

How big of an effect? Is it worth losing multiple carriers over?

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With the current capabilities that China has, their ability to threaten US carriers operating in the Andamans region is next to nil.

bustead said:

The global supply chain will be disrupted.

-edited for character count-

As I said, such an attack is not carried out by one asset only. Which is why flying over Myanmar or Thailand is needed.

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China cannot track a carrier in the Andamans because they will not be able to operate the same extent of air power over the Andamans region as they can over the First Island Chain -- even if Myanmar or Thailand choose to open their airspace to China, the US is not going to sit idly by -- they will quite happily declare war on Myanmar and Thailand to wipe out their puny air forces from carriers and bases in Singapore and Australia and deploy a minor fighter presence in that region to easily shoot down any puny UAVs that China deploys to try to search for US carriers in the Andamans.

This of course, ignores the fact that China currently does not have a sufficient fleet of UAVs with the requisite sensor payloads and mission profile to deploy to the Andamans in the first place.

Then, there's also the fact that the US can simply withdraw its carriers a few hundred km away which would greatly enlarge the search area Chinese UAVs would have to patrol, while leaving a host of surface combatants and submarines in the area to conduct blockading actions.

And there's the little fact that Chinese UAVs operating in the area would be highly vulnerable to being shot down in the first place by US carrier deployed fighters or US SAMs from surface combatants.

And if after all that, they somehow manage to acquire the US carriers and the US carriers happen to be within range of Chinese AShBMs, then the Chinese AShBMs still have to defeat US ABM capabilities that would be part of their escorts.




After saying all that, I don't know how else to respond to you other than to say that you are underestimating the current capability of US forces and overestimating the current capability of PLA forces.
Over time, the PLA might have the capability to do what you describe -- but they will need more stealth fighters, more tankers and transports, more carrier battle groups, more SSNs and more SSGNs, more high end UAVs, and more satellites, than they currently have.


At the end of the day, throughout these replies, you've written nothing to successfully put back my central thesis:
At present, with the current forces that each side has -- the US can degrade and strike Chinese production facilities and SLOCs, while China has nil credible capability to do so to US production facilities and SLOCs.
Therefore, in a war of attrition over time, those factors means China would be poorly suited to fight a war of attrition.

Bltizo said:

Yes, I agree, and I believe with the current balance of forces that China and the US have, the US would be capable of waging such a conflict successfully.

Chances are, this will change in a decade's time or two decade's time.
But right now? No.




I agree that cyberwarfare can be used to target production facilities and national infrastructure in general, if one wants to consider national civilian infrastructure to be "viable military targets".
That does not solve the fact that Chinese production facilities will be more vulnerable and degraded than US production facilities -- and congratulations, by conducting cyberattacks against US civilian infrastructure it means that you consider them viable military targets, so the US will consider Chinese civilian infrastructure as viable military targets.

So nice, now the US and China will doubtlessly conduct cyberwarfare strikes against each other.
But it is only the US that has the capability to conduct kinetic strikes against Chinese production facilities -- on and to conduct kinetic strikes against Chinese civilian infrastructure too now as well.
You've just made the war worse, not better for China.




The US can do the same to China, and arguably do so more effectively given the Chinese civilian population will be suffering from the effects of a constrained SLOCs and have their own territory actually subject to strikes.




The loss of specialized production tools, experienced engineers and production staff, is not easily replaced.
"Increasing sophistication of AA systems" doesn't help to counter the fact that at the end of the day, Chinese production facilities (and apparently Chinese civilian infrastructure now) are vulnerable to being targeted by kinetic strikes while US production facilities are not.
Meaning that at the end of the day, Chinese production capabilities for the military effort over time will become more and more degraded and more and more ineffective than US production facilities.




I never said that strategic bombing by itself can defeat a great power.

I said that a war of attrition would not be preferable for China because its production facilities will be able to be struck and degraded by US forces and its SLOCs will be capable of being threatened and at minimum significantly affected.

If China is defeated in such a conflict, it will be due to long term (i.e.: attrition) gradual peeling away of Chinese defenses and gradual destruction of Chinese facilities that makes China unable to have the material capabilities to fight.






Large tankers -- I'm not sure what C-17 and C-5 has to do with anything, they are not tankers.
US production of KC-46s and large commercial aircraft is something that China cannot match (even leaving aside the current fleets of tankers each side has in service).

You are missing the forest for the trees.

My point is that "China does not have an edge in industrial production" -- all of those six categories were ones where I stated to demonstrate to you that China does not have an edge in industrial production in many important domains of military hardware and military systems.

Nothing here you wrote has countered my argument, so I take it that you concede this point and agree that China does not have an edge in industrial production.





With the current capabilities that China has, their ability to threaten US carriers operating in the Andamans region is next to nil.




China cannot track a carrier in the Andamans because they will not be able to operate the same extent of air power over the Andamans region as they can over the First Island Chain -- even if Myanmar or Thailand choose to open their airspace to China, the US is not going to sit idly by -- they will quite happily declare war on Myanmar and Thailand to wipe out their puny air forces from carriers and bases in Singapore and Australia and deploy a minor fighter presence in that region to easily shoot down any puny UAVs that China deploys to try to search for US carriers in the Andamans.

This of course, ignores the fact that China currently does not have a sufficient fleet of UAVs with the requisite sensor payloads and mission profile to deploy to the Andamans in the first place.

Then, there's also the fact that the US can simply withdraw its carriers a few hundred km away which would greatly enlarge the search area Chinese UAVs would have to patrol, while leaving a host of surface combatants and submarines in the area to conduct blockading actions.

And there's the little fact that Chinese UAVs operating in the area would be highly vulnerable to being shot down in the first place by US carrier deployed fighters or US SAMs from surface combatants.

And if after all that, they somehow manage to acquire the US carriers and the US carriers happen to be within range of Chinese AShBMs, then the Chinese AShBMs still have to defeat US ABM capabilities that would be part of their escorts.




After saying all that, I don't know how else to respond to you other than to say that you are underestimating the current capability of US forces and overestimating the current capability of PLA forces.
Over time, the PLA might have the capability to do what you describe -- but they will need more stealth fighters, more tankers and transports, more carrier battle groups, more SSNs and more SSGNs, more high end UAVs, and more satellites, than they currently have.


At the end of the day, throughout these replies, you've written nothing to successfully put back my central thesis:
At present, with the current forces that each side has -- the US can degrade and strike Chinese production facilities and SLOCs, while China has nil credible capability to do so to US production facilities and SLOCs.
Therefore, in a war of attrition over time, those factors means China would be poorly suited to fight a war of attrition.

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If things are as dire as you describe, why doesn't the US concoct some outrage and launch a war on China now, especially given that it will not have that option in a decade or two's time as you mentioned?

Given this glaring asymmetry in conventional forces, the nuclear deterrent will have to do a lot of heavy lifting in this dangerous intervening period while China builds up its conventional capacity. How close do you think the Yumen, Hami, and Ordos fields are to initial operational capability?

ZeEa5KPul said:

If things are as dire as you describe, why doesn't the US concoct some outrage and launch a war on China now, especially given that it will not have that option in a decade or two's time as you mentioned?

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Because a war of attrition -- even one that the US can eventually win -- will still be painful for the US, and no one, not even the US, except on perhaps one or two occasions in modern history chooses to outright fabricate a cause for a war without a reasonable geostrategic rationale.
That said, it is a risk.

Bltizo said:

I'm not sure what that means.



I never said that the US would be willing to "level factories in mainland China".
I said the US would conducted targeted strikes against key elements of China's military industrial chain that will allow them to greatly hinder China's production and replacement of military assets.

Of course in any such conflict I expect China and US to use missile systems against each other in the western pacific (as well as aerial strike systems), that is the entire basis of my reasoning for why China's production capabilities are vulnerable and why it would be detrimental to China at the present moment if a war of attrition occurs.

Due the nature of pre-conflict positioning and geography, China can only target US bases/staging areas in the western pacific, whereas the US can target China's bases/staging areas on the mainland and key Chinese production facilities.




The victory conditions for a nation during a war can be generally defined in two ways:
1. Defeating the enemy's resolve to fight -- i.e.: the enemy may or may not have the material capabilities to continue a conflict, but due to morale, psychological, cultural, social reasons, they do not choose to continue to fight.
2. Defeating the enemy's capability to fight -- i.e.: the enemy may or may not have the morale/psychological/cultural/social reasons to continue to fight, but that regardless of whether they choose to continue to fight, due to the sheer loss/lack of material capabilities they have faced, they are unable to fight.


In terms of force planning and procurement, it is ideal and prudent to pursue a flexible, comprehensive force that should be oriented to defeating the enemy's capability to fight, rather than hoping that one's force procurement is sufficient to defeat the enemy's resolve to fight.

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Targetting Chinese production capabilities is not possible given current US stockpile.

1. Priority targetting will be long range radar, air defense and airbases. Otherwise you're just sending missiles and planes into the grinder for nothing. This step must be done with long range cruise missiles as to do it with dumb bombs is suicidal. Note that this includes PLAN naval assets but for ease of understanding we can wait on counting those.

2. Secondary targetting will be direct command/control facilities and logistics facilities, only once all air defenses and airbases are suppressed. Otherwise planes can still scramble from highway strips and be armed from roadside warehouses to shoot down bombers like in the Vietnam War.

3. Only then will targetting production facilities be possible.



Total To suppress all 100 bases for a few hours ala Syria takes 5900 missiles. Can't be done. OK let's say it takes 150 to totally destroy a base which requires a 2 month rebuild. This is a fair assessment I'd say, if a few hours of suppression requires 59. And let's say you only need to destroy the biggest 20 bases. Still 3000 missiles required.

OK let's look at air defense. (see conclusion). Let's say 90% of them are found to be not SAM sites by the human analysts. That's still 210 SAMs that are possible from satellite imaging. They can't send a scout to verify as the scout will be shot down - they need to actually hit those sites. 5 missiles per site since the vehicles are spread out (see photos). That's 1000 missiles.

So now we're down to 3000/4000 missiles available for airbase suppression, since they need to hit all the SAM sites.

That's assuming every one of those can launch, none of them will be shot down. In reality, will have AWACs scrambled, SAMs on high alert and fighters in the air ready to shoot down slow, unstealthy subsonic cruise missiles.

Let's say that only 500 J-10s, J-11s and J-16s are scrambled inside China, each with 10 PL-9 (J-10 10x hardpoints PL-9, 1x hardpoint fuel, J-11s at 10x hardpoints PL-9, J-16s at 10x hardpoints PL-9, 2x hardpoints fuel). Even with an incredibly low 50% probability of a shootdown, that's 1500 missiles downed, excluding those shot at fake SAM sites. Any higher shootdown rate and it'll be an essentially no-go operation.

So now we're down to only 1500 missiles that can hit targets. At 59 per airbase per Syria example, you'd only be able to disable 25 airbases for a few hours. At 150 per airbase, you'd only be able to destroy 10 airbases - that are empty, with their fighters already lofted, and whose fighters can just land elsewhere.

Conclusion: There is no capability to meaningfully attack Chinese production because to attempt to do so leaves all air defense assets in place. An attempt to attack air defense assets will fail due to lack of sufficient munitions.

This is assuming the PLAN does 0 interception.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Targetting Chinese production capabilities is not possible given current US stockpile.

1. Priority targetting will be long range radar, air defense and airbases. Otherwise you're just sending missiles and planes into the grinder for nothing. This step must be done with long range cruise missiles as to do it with dumb bombs is suicidal. Note that this includes PLAN naval assets but for ease of understanding we can wait on counting those.

2. Secondary targetting will be direct command/control facilities and logistics facilities, only once all air defenses and airbases are suppressed. Otherwise planes can still scramble from highway strips and be armed from roadside warehouses to shoot down bombers like in the Vietnam War.

3. Only then will targetting production facilities be possible.

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To suppress all 100 bases for a few hours ala Syria takes 5900 missiles. Can't be done. OK let's say it takes 200 to totally destroy a base which requires a 2 month rebuild. This is a fair assessment I'd say, if a few hours of suppression requires 59. And let's say you only need to destroy the biggest 20 bases. That's still 4000 missiles. OK let's drop that to 150. Still 3000 missiles required.

OK let's look at air defense.

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(see conclusion). Let's say 90% of them are found to be not SAM sites by the human analysts. That's still 210 SAMs that are possible from satellite imaging. They can't send a scout to verify as the scout will be shot down - they need to actually hit those sites. 5 missiles per site since the vehicles are spread out (see photos). That's 1000 missiles.

So now we're down to 3000 missiles available for airbase suppression, since they need to hit all the SAM sites.

That's assuming every one of those can launch, none of them will be shot down. In reality,

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will have AWACs scrambled, SAMs on high alert and fighters in the air ready to shoot down slow, unstealthy subsonic cruise missiles.

Let's say that only 500 J-10s, J-11s and J-16s are scrambled inside China, each with 10 PL-9 (J-10 10x hardpoints PL-9, 1x hardpoint fuel, J-11s at 10x hardpoints PL-9, J-16s at 10x hardpoints PL-9, 2x hardpoints fuel). Even with an incredibly low 50% probability of a shootdown, that's 1500 missiles downed, excluding those shot at fake SAM sites.

So now we're down to only 1500 missiles that can hit targets. At 59 per airbase per Syria example, you'd only be able to disable 25 airbases for a few hours. At 150 per airbase, you'd only be able to destroy 10 airbases - that are empty, with their fighters already lofted, and whose fighters can just land elsewhere.

Conclusion: There is no capability to meaningfully attack Chinese production because to attempt to do so leaves all air assets in place. This is assuming the PLAN does 0 interception.

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Yes, of course targeting priority will be military forces such as command/control, long range radar, air defenses and air bases.

However, the US is not required to literally defeat every command/control center, radar station, air defense site, and air base to make targeting production facilities worthwhile, because those facilities are fixed and the ability to reposition their effects requires time.

Concentration of strikes to key radar stations, air defenses and air bases at certain regions followed up by a brisk targeted strikes against specific specialized production facilities, will be very likely, all the while the US will continue to wage strikes against military targets in the general region as well as appropriate.

What will result is specific, temporary crippling of defenses in certain regions (alongside strikes against general military HVTs such as command/control etc), which will allow for a gradual degradation of specific Chinese production capabilities.
Rinse and repeat that cycle over months and years, all while China is only able to target US bases and carriers in the region and unable to target US production capabilities, and you get a war of attrition that they will not favour them.



At the end of the day, what I'm writing should not be controversial at all -- the nature of the current balance of forces and the geography of said forces, means that a war of attrition inevitably means that the wartime production capability will favour the US simply because US production facilities will remain unmolested while Chinese production facilities will be more vulnerable and more degraded the longer that the war occurs, especially when considering US ability to threaten Chinese SLOCs while China cannot do the same to US SLOCs.


If one wants to talk about conditions whereby a war of attrition is favourable to China, it requires China to have a force that is capable of wiping out US ability to threaten Chinese production facilities AND a force that is capable of starting to threaten US production facilities.... AND a force that is capable of threatening US SLOCs while defending Chinese SLOCs.

Bltizo said:

I'm not sure what that means.



I never said that the US would be willing to "level factories in mainland China".
I said the US would conducted targeted strikes against key elements of China's military industrial chain that will allow them to greatly hinder China's production and replacement of military assets.

Of course in any such conflict I expect China and US to use missile systems against each other in the western pacific (as well as aerial strike systems), that is the entire basis of my reasoning for why China's production capabilities are vulnerable and why it would be detrimental to China at the present moment if a war of attrition occurs.

Due the nature of pre-conflict positioning and geography, China can only target US bases/staging areas in the western pacific, whereas the US can target China's bases/staging areas on the mainland and key Chinese production facilities.




The victory conditions for a nation during a war can be generally defined in two ways:
1. Defeating the enemy's resolve to fight -- i.e.: the enemy may or may not have the material capabilities to continue a conflict, but due to morale, psychological, cultural, social reasons, they do not choose to continue to fight.
2. Defeating the enemy's capability to fight -- i.e.: the enemy may or may not have the morale/psychological/cultural/social reasons to continue to fight, but that regardless of whether they choose to continue to fight, due to the sheer loss/lack of material capabilities they have faced, they are unable to fight.


In terms of force planning and procurement, it is ideal and prudent to pursue a flexible, comprehensive force that should be oriented to defeating the enemy's capability to fight, rather than hoping that one's force procurement is sufficient to defeat the enemy's resolve to fight.

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I meant are you describing a PLA that is so overwhelming that victory against them cannot be assured under reasonable circumstances, which by your conclusion is “yes”.

The post above me is how I imagine any mainland attack scenario to be carried out. Any facility would require 100s if not more missiles. Additionally, considering this is on the east coast of China, there would almost certainly be devastating civilian casualties for any successful attack. This is why I believe it would be impossible to contain North Korea at this point, and likely Russia.

I definitely agree that war planning can only be “play to win”, and the PLA calculation would definitely be to field an overwhelming force. However, I don’t think the US can reasonably calculate on an “open season” on attacking mainland China without starting WW3. How important is Seoul to you? A wild question right?

supersnoop said:

I meant are you describing a PLA that is so overwhelming that victory against them cannot be assured under reasonable circumstances, which by your conclusion is “yes”.

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Victory against such a force could still be viable under reasonable circumstances.

The force I described was one whereby a "war of attrition" would be favourable for China -- whereas the current force balance is one where a war of attrition if unfavourable for China.

supersnoop said:

The post above me is how I imagine any mainland attack scenario to be carried out. Any facility would require 100s if not more missiles. Additionally, considering this is on the east coast of China, there would almost certainly be devastating civilian casualties for any successful attack. This is why I believe it would be impossible to contain North Korea at this point, and likely Russia.

I definitely agree that war planning can only be “play to win”, and the PLA calculation would definitely be to field an overwhelming force. However, I don’t think the US can reasonably calculate on an “open season” on attacking mainland China without starting WW3. How important is Seoul to you? A wild question right?

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The benefit of being the main power having allies/client states in a region close to your enemy, while your own territory is across on the other side of the world and difficult/night impossible to strike, is that in the event of a true large scale conflict, you have the freedom to make decisions where you can trade the wellbeing of your allies in exchange inflicting sufficient damage to your enemy while preserving the wellbeing your own territory.



As for "any facility would require 100s if not more missiles" -- I disagree.
Modern weapons cannot function without key subsystems, and key subsystems in turn require key subcomponents whose production cannot be quickly or easily duplicated or replaced if lost.
Think about how complex the fabrication and assembly of vital subsystems like a turbofan, or an AESA is.
Even temporarily crippling the production of a couple of those subsystems would logjam and bottleneck the production of your entire end product.

In a war of attrition, China would obviously seek to move, rebuild and duplicate production facilities, but that will take time, and they will inevitably be struck and re-attacked that will result in degradation of their production capabilities.
Meanwhile, US production facilities will also be expanded, and those expanded facilities and existing facilities are out of reach of PLA strikes.

We can talk about every aspect of a war of attrition and the ways in which China could try to mitigate or defend against US strikes, but the current balance of forces is simply such that a war of attrition means China's production capabilities will be degraded, compromised and fall behind that of the US.
The only way to prevent it, is for the PLA to attain a force that can rapidly and comprehensively defeat US air and naval forces in the western pacific and prevent the US from deploying air and naval power in the western pacific, while the PLA retains the capability to still deter the US from trying to redeploy.
(Note, such a PLA force would be one where neither the US and China would be "favoured" in a war of attrition, and is less capable than the hypothetical PLA force I described above for a situation where a war of attrition would be "favourable" to China).

Bltizo said:

Victory against such a force could still be viable under reasonable circumstances.

The force I described was one whereby a "war of attrition" would be favourable for China -- whereas the current force balance is one where a war of attrition if unfavourable for China.






The benefit of being the main power having allies/client states in a region close to your enemy, while your own territory is across on the other side of the world and difficult/night impossible to strike, is that in the event of a true large scale conflict, you have the freedom to make decisions where you can trade the wellbeing of your allies in exchange inflicting sufficient damage to your enemy while preserving the wellbeing your own territory.



As for "any facility would require 100s if not more missiles" -- I disagree.
Modern weapons cannot function without key subsystems, and key subsystems in turn require key subcomponents whose production cannot be quickly or easily duplicated or replaced if lost.
Think about how complex the fabrication and assembly of vital subsystems like a turbofan, or an AESA is.
Even temporarily crippling the production of a couple of those subsystems would logjam and bottleneck the production of your entire end product.

In a war of attrition, China would obviously seek to move, rebuild and duplicate production facilities, but that will take time, and they will inevitably be struck and re-attacked that will result in degradation of their production capabilities.
Meanwhile, US production facilities will also be expanded, and those expanded facilities and existing facilities are out of reach of PLA strikes.

We can talk about every aspect of a war of attrition and the ways in which China could try to mitigate or defend against US strikes, but the current balance of forces is simply such that a war of attrition means China's production capabilities will be degraded, compromised and fall behind that of the US.
The only way to prevent it, is for the PLA to attain a force that can rapidly and comprehensively defeat US air and naval forces in the western pacific and prevent the US from deploying air and naval power in the western pacific, while the PLA retains the capability to still deter the US from trying to redeploy.
(Note, such a PLA force would be one where neither the US and China would be "favoured" in a war of attrition, and is less capable than the hypothetical PLA force I described above for a situation where a war of attrition would be "favourable" to China).

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The only major issue I have with what you said is the idea of sacrificing SK. Keeping in mind this is a Taiwan scenario, what is the point of saving one ally at the expense of another?

I get that you are assuming a longer timeframe here and that is more favourable industrially for America, but I’m not sure it is a viable political strategy.

supersnoop said:

The only major issue I have with what you said is the idea of sacrificing SK. Keeping in mind this is a Taiwan scenario, what is the point of saving one ally at the expense of another?

I get that you are assuming a longer timeframe here and that is more favourable industrially for America, but I’m not sure it is a viable political strategy.

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This all goes back to post #919 talking about how US intervention in a Taiwan contingency could result in a war of attrition.

Needless to say, by that point, such a conflict would have long expanded to become a generalized western pacific conflagration rather than merely a localized conflict in the immediate area adjacent to Taiwan island.

So the conclusion of all these debates are that in order for China to fully integrate Taiwan, without leaving its success to any actions or decisions of its enemies, China together with its allies, might as well be ready for and be capable of winning World War 3.

Basically to retake Taiwan, China must be able to subdue the whole world.

But since given current peacetime trajectories in development, China might very well able to amass the allies and capabilities required to do just that.

Then shouldn't we be more worried about WW3 started by China's enemies to pre-empt such a scenario, than a puny island that is Taiwan?

Seems to be this is more like a true "Tianxia" Unification War of the 21st Century Warring States period, than just a simple Chinese reunification.