PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

ZeEa5KPul said:

But we have to. Nuclear weapons exist, and not including them in our analysis leaves it at best incomplete. Rick's analysis of a war of attrition is detailed and well thought through, but it is completely inapplicable to reality because it ignores the existence of nuclear weapons.

The terms "China" and "mutually assured destruction" need to be much more closely correlated throughout America's decision-making apparatus and among its public. China should helpfully load its new silos when it knows American spy satellites are overhead so they can take nice, clear pictures, and it should make sure its plutonium reactors are always puffing big clouds of steam from their cooling towers. Every piece of evidence America collects should indicate that China is greatly expanding its arsenal, because that's what should be happening.

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Disagree from a discussion standpoint.
While certainly behind the scenes this must be the calculus, nuclear weapons in this scenario only means two things.

1. Total capitulation in the face of action vs. rhetoric (Crimea scenario), or
2. Nuclear apocalypse

China will continue to develop newer nuclear capabilities regardless of Taiwan, so it doesn't really add much from a discussion standpoint.

nugroho said:

Sir, you predict the war of attrition in a very detailed way, but all were military.
Since you are very sure US will win in the war of attrition against China , have you counted economic factors?
How many trillion USD must be printed to finance the war ?
In a very fragile economy, can US sustain it ?
After printing the money, inflation will go double or triple-digit in US ? Will US risk that ? Will US investors accept crashes in wall street in a patriotic way ?
China's economy will suffer too, really nobody win in a war, but it has the ability to absorb the economic disaster quicker than US
Please consider.

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Not to speak for him, but this is MILITARY forum, so we are best left to compare MILITARY capability.

Forget about the US economy, what about the Taiwan economy which is 40% dependent on mainland based on direct exports alone, so any President who wants to declare Republic of Taiwan must be ready to put more than half of the people on the street and hungry.
If you consider this, it becomes too many what if scenarios...
What if the military overthrows that president?
What if the pro-unification soldiers start to mutiny?
What effects would cyberwarfare have?
Etc. It would never end…

Hello sinodefenceforum

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but a possible liberation of Taiwan is usually presented as if it's a war between two nations. In fact, it is a civil war. The PLA probably has hundreds of special forces already on the island. On top of that there have been many recorded cases of ROC officers spying for China. These are probably just the tip of the iceberg and there will be a certain number of soldiers who will defect to the PRC. There may also be some pro reunification civilians. If China can be patient after a Taiwanese declaration of independence, it could also smuggle in more soldiers.

What could all of these men together do? They could of course make a landing on the beaches much easier, but they could also try to decapitate the defence. With luck, they could kill or capture the Taiwan government or senior generals. At the same time, the regular PLA forces could liberate the small islands closest to the mainland, which are likely to surrender. Once the leadership is gone and there are reports of many parts of the ROC surrendering, many more soldiers on Taiwan are going to accept the inevitable and surrender rather than fight a doomed battle to the death with no hope of victory. If such major advances can be achieved within a few days after hostilities begin, the US will respond with sanctions but not with the military and there will be no need to consider nuclear weapons.

FairAndUnbiased said:

If 003 proves successful in sea trials then we'll likely see 5x more 003s by 2035 if built 1 at a time (begin construction 2024, launches in 2026, 2028, 2030, 2032, 2034) and by 2030 if built 2 at a time (2x construction in 2024, launches in 2026-2027, 2x construction 2026, launches 2028-2029, 1x construction 2028, launches 2030).

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Based on what I'm hearing, they are only going to build 003. If you look at what PLAN has done, it iterates quickly to the class that it wants to mass produce and starts to mass produce when they get there. At this point, they are clearly trying to compete with USN. That means, they are going to build 004 with similar size to Ford class.

There is a theory that they are trying to get be ready to win the Taiwan conflict by 2027, since that's 100 year since the founding of PLA. The view inside PLA is that carriers are not really that important in taking Taiwan. So I think within PLAN, they are not expecting to have enough force to overcome a prolonged war against USN by then.

If they want to win a prolonged war, we will probably have to look at a further point on the road when they have more strategic weapon. Let's say h20 can join service by 2028 or 2029, which would be a huge achievement. They probably won't have sufficient number of them until 2035. They will need to get more competent at building more military nuclear reactors. That would allow them to power 004 class and also to build larger and quieter nuclear subs. Their current carrier and nuclear subs are not sufficient once you get outside the coverage of land based air cover and diesel subs. Let's say they can do that and start building 004 in a couple of years, then the first one might be ready for service in 2029. After that, they would need to add one every 2 years to have 4 by 2035. If they launch the first large new nuclear sub by 2025 and get it into service 2029. If this is like akula 2 in noise level, it would already be a huge achievement. They could get 8 of them by 2035 if they launch a little quicker than 1 a year. That would give them 2 advanced nuclear submarines per 004.

There should be enough j35 I'm service to cover the majority of the fighter jet portion of their air wing. Maybe by then, they will also have more ucav and refueling UAVs in service by then to have possibly more powerful air wing than usn carrier.

They will need a new ocean going frigate that has more speed than 054a. Let's call it 054b for argument sake. I don't see 054b going through mass production before 2025. But it should be produced in large number after that.

So then you have a competent air wing, carrier, nuclear subs and escort fleet. You also have strategic bombers in good numbers. All you need is more oversea bases where plaaf can operate from. They also should have more lhds and tankers in service by then.

So if we are talking about pla matching us further away, we are probably looking at 2035 at the earliest.

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier. My understanding is that they plan to build 1 003 before moving to 004. 004 is what they want to mass produce. The leap from shandong to 004 is too large. 003 is a nice interim to try out emal and catobar operation. They need to go to nuclear powered carrier to compete with usn. They need a larger sub with more powerful nuclear reactor to compete with usn subs.

tphuang said:

Sorry if I wasn't clear earlier. My understanding is that they plan to build 1 003 before moving to 004. 004 is what they want to mass produce. The leap from shandong to 004 is too large. 003 is a nice interim to try out emal and catobar operation. They need to go to nuclear powered carrier to compete with usn.

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I disagree, US made 8x CVs with steam plants in 15 years from 1952 to 1967 despite no war going on and despite USS Enterprise being built in 1958, between the Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes. Clearly the US did not believe that CVNs were universally better otherwise why would they build Kitty Hawk class in the 60's even though Enterprise was successful? And given that PLAN ambitions are more regional than USN, and USN found Kitty Hawk and Forrestal classes just fine for global power projection (using them in Desert Storm and Vietnam) I think there is no issue with CVs.

I also disagree that 003 is just an experiment. It's under construction for 5 years. Clearly the PLAN wants to get 003 right. 032 subs are an experiment, they were built in just 2 years. You don't build an experiment for 5 years. It is a waste of time and resources to perfect an experiment because the whole point of an experimental class is to get something that floats, get it out to sea and then work solely on the subsystems under evaluation. 5 years of construction implies perfecting the class and understanding the manufacturing process. That means that 003 is going to be mass produced, or if not, then 004 is an evolutionary upgrade of 003. I can talk more about this in the carrier thread to remain on topic.

Minm said:

Hello sinodefenceforum

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but a possible liberation of Taiwan is usually presented as if it's a war between two nations. In fact, it is a civil war. The PLA probably has hundreds of special forces already on the island. On top of that there have been many recorded cases of ROC officers spying for China. These are probably just the tip of the iceberg and there will be a certain number of soldiers who will defect to the PRC. There may also be some pro reunification civilians. If China can be patient after a Taiwanese declaration of independence, it could also smuggle in more soldiers.

What could all of these men together do? They could of course make a landing on the beaches much easier, but they could also try to decapitate the defence. With luck, they could kill or capture the Taiwan government or senior generals. At the same time, the regular PLA forces could liberate the small islands closest to the mainland, which are likely to surrender. Once the leadership is gone and there are reports of many parts of the ROC surrendering, many more soldiers on Taiwan are going to accept the inevitable and surrender rather than fight a doomed battle to the death with no hope of victory. If such major advances can be achieved within a few days after hostilities begin, the US will respond with sanctions but not with the military and there will be no need to consider nuclear weapons.

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@Minm hello bro welcome to SDF, about your question, I think many will agree with me as the ambiguity about US and its allies commitment to defend Taiwan is becoming clear with the US and EU recent action on Ukraine that Taiwan had a major rethink. I think even the die hard DPP is quacking in their boots. You can't rely on outsider to defend you especially if they're an Ocean away. It's a family problem, I have relative in Taiwan , they're proud of their Chinese culture as well as being Taiwanese. So there is hope , China has many minorities, our culture is the one thing holding us together, speaking as a Filipino Hua Qiao.

Bltizo said:

I think you are making a few assumptions there lol

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He thinks you’re Air Force Brat!

nugroho said:

Sir, you predict the war of attrition in a very detailed way, but all were military.
Since you are very sure US will win in the war of attrition against China , have you counted economic factors?
How many trillion USD must be printed to finance the war ?
In a very fragile economy, can US sustain it ?
After printing the money, inflation will go double or triple-digit in US ? Will US risk that ? Will US investors accept crashes in wall street in a patriotic way ?
China's economy will suffer too, really nobody win in a war, but it has the ability to absorb the economic disaster quicker than US
Please consider.

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Excellent point!

If we consider war as business “by other means”, how many in the business elites of both countries will endorse an economic Pyrrhic victory?

ZeEa5KPul said:

But we have to. Nuclear weapons exist, and not including them in our analysis leaves it at best incomplete. Rick's analysis of a war of attrition is detailed and well thought through, but it is completely inapplicable to reality because it ignores the existence of nuclear weapons.

Click to expand...

The importance of having nuclear weapons to be able to match every stage of the escalation ladder as appropriate is not being denied.

But at the same time, whenever a scenario crosses the use of tactical nuclear weapons occurs, in virtually every defense community I've been in, such a prospect results in the rapid escalation to the use of strategic nuclear weapons and generalized counter-value MAD strikes.

That story is already known and the road to that escalation is also already known to both China and the US.

However, the ability to match conventional escalation at every rung of the ladder is also very much necessary, especially if an opponent seeks lateral escalation.
Simply saying "nukes against, k thx bye" isn't enough and is a detriment to the discussion, because that leave the opposing side the ability to develop tactics and systems where they can try to achieve their objectives without the use of nuclear weapons occurring in the first place.

nugroho said:

Sir, you predict the war of attrition in a very detailed way, but all were military.
Since you are very sure US will win in the war of attrition against China , have you counted economic factors?
How many trillion USD must be printed to finance the war ?
In a very fragile economy, can US sustain it ?
After printing the money, inflation will go double or triple-digit in US ? Will US risk that ? Will US investors accept crashes in wall street in a patriotic way ?
China's economy will suffer too, really nobody win in a war, but it has the ability to absorb the economic disaster quicker than US
Please consider.

Click to expand...

My assumptions are that:
1. US resolve is high and intact (i.e.: US resolve isn't simply melted away by China sinking a couple of carriers and striking US airbases like Guam -- instead, I assume that US resolve massively hardens against China and a rally around the flag effect occurs, for China daring to have the audacity to sink US carriers and strike Guam, resulting in massive and enduring population hatred of China, from the grassroots level to the presidential level).
2. During the course of a multi-year war against China, the US is capable of shifting virtually all of its major military capabilities to the China theater (though not at the same time of course), by virtue of enlisting its major allies (mostly in Europe) to take up certain deterrence missions in Europe and the Middle East, and/or by simply accepting that the loss of military capability in certain regions is an acceptable loss for the westpac conflict against China.

Indeed, after such a conflict perhaps the entire world (including the US) will fall into a centuries long economic and technological dark ages.

But hoping that the opposing force will see common sense and choose to relent or that they will face some sort of economical limitation in the way they conduct their war is hoping the other side will make an unforced error.