PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Bltizo said:

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.

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I was talking about China's nuclear arsenal in general. For once, I wasn't going on an autistic rant about my tac-nuke HGV idea. I mean that such a war of attrition as you describe would be politically impossible for the US to risk because China would never just sit still and take an L like that without escalating to nuclear force. "Escalate to de-escalate" if you will. It's certainly better that China have the conventional means to thwart such a scenario and that's what it should aim for, but my point is the nuclear arsenal will serve as an adequate if flawed backstop until then.

Of course I'm completely for China modernizing and greatly expanding its conventional force and pursuing every promising breakthrough. I'm also aware that "nukes, check and mate" kills discussion of these elaborate war scenarios, but that's also the effect they have in reality.

A bit off-topic, but do you think Russia has sufficient forces arrayed to both invade and occupy Ukraine? I ask because I saw a TV talking head (some retired senior officer) claim that Russia's bluffing because it doesn't have a 3:1 numerical advantage against Ukraine. That struck me as some pretty powerful copium - especially since the Iraqi army outnumbered the "coalition of the willing" in 2003 and look how that turned out for them. I wanted to get your thoughts on that, especially since the first I heard about the "3:1" idea was from you.

ZeEa5KPul said:

A bit off-topic, but do you think Russia has sufficient forces arrayed to both invade and occupy Ukraine? I ask because I saw a TV talking head (some retired senior officer) claim that Russia's bluffing because it doesn't have a 3:1 numerical advantage against Ukraine. That struck me as some pretty powerful copium - especially since the Iraqi army outnumbered the "coalition of the willing" in 2003 and look how that turned out for them. I wanted to get your thoughts on that, especially since the first I heard about the "3:1" idea was from you.

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The idea is that if an attacker has a 3:1 advantage (whether numerical, doctrinal and/or technological), they will take very few losses if they go on the offensive against a smaller force.

So irrespective of whether it is warfare in the air, ground or sea - if you have the initiative - you can decide where and when to concentrate your forces.

In the air and in the sea, it's obvious that a defending force can't be strong everywhere all the time, so the attacker has the advantage.

This is not so obvious in ground warfare, but in reality, ground forces can't be strong everywhere all the time either.
So you want to be the side on the offensive.
And the side which is first to run out of reserves to counter the other's sides offensive manoeuvres is the one that loses.

If you want to see what such a campaign looks like, there are fictional accounts of a NATO/USSR land war in Germany described in Red Storm Rising or The Third World War.

Still on the topic of war of attrition...
I have always believed that the greatest contribution of nuclear weapons is to prevent a war of attrition between nuclear armed great powers and compelling it to turn into a cold war...

uinahime.chifune said:

Still on the topic of war of attrition...
I have always believed that the greatest contribution of nuclear weapons is to prevent a war of attrition between nuclear armed great powers and compelling it to turn into a cold war...

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The greatest victory is winning without firing a shot at all.

If China can puff it's chest, extoll it's massive boner (nuke arsenal), and US knows it's place and sits out, then that is greatest victory.

Afterall, Taiwan isn't nearly as important to US as it is to China, despite the verbal diarrhea from US politicians about 'Woo Hoo Democrazies!'. These imperialists are ideologically flexible if the costs are too high.

Why do people downplay China's ability to withstand a war of attrition?

Have you guys forgotten that China is literally the manufacturing capital of the world? How much trained labour exists? Secured trade of minerals by the land section of the BRI.
Have they forgotten the vast CPC mobilisation ability and the bureaucratic capacity to transition to a full blown war economy?

Infact, in a possible war of attrition I would say that China would make the WW2 America production to be like nothing infront of China's monstrous industrial mobilisation capability.

People have really no idea what would happen if China really decided to go for a war of attrition. Just for the Navy domain, look at how many shipyards China has and you will understand what it is capable of.

Overbom said:

Why do people downplay China's ability to withstand a war of attrition?

Have you guys forgotten that China is literally the manufacturing capital of the world? How much trained labour exists? Secured trade of minerals by the land section of the BRI.
Have they forgotten the vast CPC mobilisation ability and the bureaucratic capacity to transition to a full blown war economy?

Infact, in a possible war of attrition I would say that China would make the WW2 America production to be like nothing infront of China's monstrous industrial mobilisation capability.

People have really no idea what would happen if China really decided to go for a war of attrition. Just for the Navy domain, look at how many shipyards China has and you will understand what it is capable of.

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In a war like that China wouldn't have those ship yards for long. Just sayin'. And in a war of attrition, a blockade would hurt China far more than the US.

Overbom said:

Why do people downplay China's ability to withstand a war of attrition?

Have you guys forgotten that China is literally the manufacturing capital of the world? How much trained labour exists? Secured trade of minerals by the land section of the BRI.
Have they forgotten the vast CPC mobilisation ability and the bureaucratic capacity to transition to a full blown war economy?

Infact, in a possible war of attrition I would say that China would make the WW2 America production to be like nothing infront of China's monstrous industrial mobilisation capability.

People have really no idea what would happen if China really decided to go for a war of attrition. Just for the Navy domain, look at how many shipyards China has and you will understand what it is capable of.

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First of all, using the term “war of attrition” as the holistic descriptor of the subject being discussed is incorrect usage.

Attrition is a factor in all combat actions no matter the scale of conflict. Additionally, should one look to historical examples of wars of attrition, one would find that actions in those conflicts were constrained largely within battlefield contexts, and military to capabilities. What is being discussed, here, with attacks upon mainland targets and civilian infrastructure, would correctly be described as “total war”, of which attrition would simply be one, of many, factors/components.

And, as I, and now several other commentators, have suggested, the greatest probability is that few nations are sufficiently invested in the future of Taiwan to risk any, or all, of the potential known, and unknown, consequences of waging a “total war” in order to possibly secure that future.

Well, back to my corner of being ignored!

ZeEa5KPul said:

I was talking about China's nuclear arsenal in general. For once, I wasn't going on an autistic rant about my tac-nuke HGV idea. I mean that such a war of attrition as you describe would be politically impossible for the US to risk because China would never just sit still and take an L like that without escalating to nuclear force. "Escalate to de-escalate" if you will. It's certainly better that China have the conventional means to thwart such a scenario and that's what it should aim for, but my point is the nuclear arsenal will serve as an adequate if flawed backstop until then.

Of course I'm completely for China modernizing and greatly expanding its conventional force and pursuing every promising breakthrough. I'm also aware that "nukes, check and mate" kills discussion of these elaborate war scenarios, but that's also the effect they have in reality.

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I was also talking about China's nuclear arsenal in general.

As for China's willingness to just "sit there and take it without escalating to nuclear force" -- the whole point of this discussion is talking about what sort of capabilities at every step of escalation (specifically, conventional) so that they do not have to consider the use of nukes to "escalate to de-escalate".

In a real conflict, if they lack the capabilities to defeat US conventional forces and are subject to unacceptable US bombardment and a war of attrition, then sure, their options are basically to use nukes in a manner that risks nuclear armageddon, or to drag out a war of attrition the best way they can and hope that US resolve fails over time or that the PLA somehow gets lucky.
Both of those outcomes should be regarded as "lose" conditions for the PLA, and we should be thinking about the kind of forces the PLA requires to avoid such a condition.

As for Ukraine, obviously a 3:1 advantage doesn't apply universally between every single hypothetical matchup, goodness.
Imbalances in technology, and imbalances in artillery/strike/long range strike, air power, air defenses, ISR, EW all exist, massively in Russia's favour.
The 3:1 rule of thumb -- and it is indeed only a rule of thumb -- is conditional upon a number of things, one of the unspoken assumptions being having approximately equal technology, types of forces (e.g.: one side does not literally lack a navy or air force), at minimum.

(The coalition didn't have a 3:1 advantage over Iraq of course, though in terms of the engaged forces the coalition actually had a slight numerical advantage, though their victory was due to a whole range of other more important factors obviously)

sferrin said:

In a war like that China wouldn't have those ship yards for long. Just sayin'. And in a war of attrition, a blockade would hurt China far more than the US.

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Perhaps some of the shipbuilding capacity can be destroyed, but the Bohai Sea is a well protected inland sea, the shipyards there can continue. In the meantime, USN losses would be at rates they wouldn't be able to sustain with their production when used to attack China's coastline since they will get focus fired on by a combination of PLARF, PLAN and PLAAF. We're talking 12 million tonnes of Chinese shipbuilding output vs. 400,000 of the US shipyards iirc?

Phead128 said:

The greatest victory is winning without firing a shot at all.

If China can puff it's chest, extoll it's massive boner (nuke arsenal), and US knows it's place and sits out, then that is greatest victory.

Afterall, Taiwan isn't nearly as important to US as it is to China, despite the verbal diarrhea from US politicians about 'Woo Hoo Democrazies!'. These imperialists are ideologically flexible if the costs are too high.

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I agree with this too, although the ending may be completely different. About nuclear... The US has the most powerful arm, so they have to tell others "I am supremacy" as much as possible and disclose various parameters to intimidate others. In other words, they disclose the upper limit. While China is a latecomer and many technologies are still inferior, they are more inclined to hide many things in order to strategic deception and disclose the lower limit. This gives many people the illusion that China is incapable of confronting the US with nuclear power. In fact, if it confronts the US alone, 300 bombs are not adequate, but they are enough to trigger a chain reaction. And the countries in this chain reaction (US, China, Russia, France, UK), I don't think they will allow any missiles from other countries in these to fly to their own territory without fighting back. This is why I do not agree with war of attrition (total war). Although I agree with his forecast, it is more like a war before nuclear weapons. Even if there is a conflict between China and the US, both sides can attack each other's navy and air force at sea, or escalate to completely destroy facilities on Taiwan Island or counter US military facilities in Japan or Guam. But for core territories such as mainland or Hawaii, both sides will be wary of avoiding it.