Yes, which makes him Jesus to you apparently and means that every decision and choice he has made was perfect and that you should use him as the source for all your ramblings about geopolitics or military strategy or economics or probably even physics.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
Yes, which makes him Jesus to you apparently and means that every decision and choice he has made was perfect and that you should use him as the source for all your ramblings about geopolitics or military strategy or economics or probably even physics.
At that point, the USSR was the US's main opposition and the US didn't want to get bogged down in a war with China. That isn't the case today, which is a large part of the reason why Putin is making aggressive gambits now - Russia is now where China was in the Cold War, and Putin knows the US doesn't want to get distracted by a war in Europe.
It's clear from the discussion that a total war would have an uncertain outcome and be extremely expensive. So the PLA strategy if Taiwan declared independence today should be to attack in a way that avoids total war. That means a surprise attack to take the island in a few days and present the West with a fait accompli and won't escalate into total war.
Aside from the silly ramblings of a person here who seems clueless on even the basics, I still do feel a little skeptical that China would so easily lose a war of attrition. I feel the same about even a limited conflict causing excessive Chinese causalities especially Chinese production facilities, which I think Bltizo alluded to.
I'm not qualified to have a strong opinion on the topic, but wouldn't the initial engagement between Chinese and American forces be so brutal for the American side due to the overwhelming mass of missile strikes on all American bases and nearby surface ships within a few hundred miles of China/Taiwan that China could destroy most of the American forces in the first few days?
Assuming that this is possible then America would have very few assets to strike Chinese production facilities and the like. They would be focusing all of their forces on first the most important Chinese military platforms, and if America loses sufficient numbers before it can wipe out Chinese military platforms, they won't be able to move on to Chinese production centers.
Then China would have some time to engage in the war of attrition due to lack of American regional equipment. Unless America starts redeploying its assets immediately instead of after a few years of build up.
But couldn't China even then use the advantage of a couple days time to establish even more forward positions (in Taiwan and the Ryukyu island chain) and essentially keep doing the same thing? Mass strikes on the first redeployed units that arrive? The only way I can imagine the US forces are able to effectively redeploy is if they do it en masse. Like hundreds of aircraft arriving at a time, instead of dozens here or there.
But then where the hell will they all go? Hundreds of military aircraft just landing in the middle of South Korean and Japan? I don't see how this would work.
@Bltizo What do you think
I'm not qualified to have a strong opinion on the topic, but wouldn't the initial engagement between Chinese and American forces be so brutal for the American side due to the overwhelming mass of missile strikes on all American bases and nearby surface ships within a few hundred miles of China/Taiwan that China could destroy most of the American forces in the first few days?
Assuming that this is possible then America would have very few assets to strike Chinese production facilities and the like. They would be focusing all of their forces on first the most important Chinese military platforms, and if America loses sufficient numbers before it can wipe out Chinese military platforms, they won't be able to move on to Chinese production centers.
Then China would have some time to engage in the war of attrition due to lack of American regional equipment. Unless America starts redeploying its assets immediately instead of after a few years of build up.
But couldn't China even then use the advantage of a couple days time to establish even more forward positions (in Taiwan and the Ryukyu island chain) and essentially keep doing the same thing? Mass strikes on the first redeployed units that arrive? The only way I can imagine the US forces are able to effectively redeploy is if they do it en masse. Like hundreds of aircraft arriving at a time, instead of dozens here or there.
But then where the hell will they all go? Hundreds of military aircraft just landing in the middle of South Korean and Japan? I don't see how this would work.
@Bltizo What do you think
China can take back Taiwan if we assume that China no longer cares about the potential blow back and if you are assuming that the USA can intervene in a matter of days in such an event which it full force while leaving behind their garrisons around the world for what ever nation to take over, I may agree but USA no matter how powerful they are didn’t invent the ability to teleport a million plus soldier plus 5-10 aircraft carrier plus all of their fighters in a matter of seconds so nothing is for certain that the USA can steamroll the opposition as easily as before
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Ok
In a conflict, naturally the US will frontload its overall pacific forces to the western pacific, but even without doing so, the PLA will have its hands full dealing with pre-based US positions in the western pacific and would be lucky to spare air forces to fight it out over Korea.
Sure, if that happens, then MAD is very plausible.
But China will also be destroyed, so China still loses.
The only way to avoid an outcome whereby China loses a war of attrition and suffers from crippling terms of surrender (a lose condition), or using MAD to destroy the world (also a lose condition), is for the PLA to be capable of fighting to win a war of attrition, or at least to be able to avoid losing a war of attrition.
The only achilles heel I can think of is American subs, especially SSGNs, launching Tomahawks en masse. This will depend entirely on how far out China can detect them and how close they can get to China before launching (meaning less detection time).
They are subsonic and I assume fairly easy to defend against assuming China has thousands of missiles for that purpose ready to go. One would say they would only launch their salvos in concert with many other platforms, but again I don't see how most of those platforms would get close enough to China to launch all that many? The US is going to need lots of very long range missiles in a high quantity and the only ones I can think of are subsonic Tomahawks.
The Americans have 20 B-2s and probably only a dozen or so are going to be ready if the attack happens today? How is the US going to use B-2s to essentially wipe out Chinese IADs, that's even assuming they can get in range.
They are subsonic and I assume fairly easy to defend against assuming China has thousands of missiles for that purpose ready to go. One would say they would only launch their salvos in concert with many other platforms, but again I don't see how most of those platforms would get close enough to China to launch all that many? The US is going to need lots of very long range missiles in a high quantity and the only ones I can think of are subsonic Tomahawks.
The Americans have 20 B-2s and probably only a dozen or so are going to be ready if the attack happens today? How is the US going to use B-2s to essentially wipe out Chinese IADs, that's even assuming they can get in range.
This is a valid question from the "first days of the war" point of view.
It would depend on how well each side is prepared both in terms of dispersion and their own offensive strike capabilities.
Any Taiwan conflict (that would be the starting point of a generalized westpac conflict) will likely be preceded by months of significant political tension and posturing, and I would expect the US to gradually mobilize and disperse their western pacific forces and position them in sensible locations, as well as deploy significant offensive strike capabilities of their own to the region.
By the time that the US and China start shooting at each other, the side which shoots first potentially may have a small advantage, but the other side may also be able to respond very quickly.
We all know what strike capabilities the PLA have.
However the US has formidable strike capabilities in the form of its Tomahawk equipped submarines and ships, as well as bombers deploying from Hawaii with stand off JASSMs and LRASMs (B-2s, B-1s and B-52s are all relevant here, naturally with the non-stealthy aircraft launching their missiles at greater distance). This is ignoring their carriers and regional airbases, as at this early stage of the conflict those aircraft would likely be focused on contesting the air rather than conducting strike missions.
I expect both sides to try and go after their respective major air bases/aviation platforms will also sortieing as many of their fighters and force multipliers as possible to contest air superiority.
I think there is a high possibility of the PLA being able to badly maul large US air bases in westpac, as well as having a good chance of significantly degrading, crippling or even sinking 1-2 US carriers.
However I believe the PLA will also suffer significant casualties to their own air bases and command/control centers, as well as having used up a significant chunk of their relatively limited arsenals of AShBMs and hypersonics, and their long range ISR systems would likely have been degraded or struck as well.
(The idea of the PLA using a few days to establish forward positions in Taiwan or the Ryukus is unrealistic -- China simply doesn't have the rapid airlift and sealift capabilities to support it, not to mention the risk of US submarines and stealth aircraft would make those transport aircraft and ships very vulnerable. Not to mention those islands themselves would need to be pacified to allow forward positions to be established in the first place)
And that is where the war of attrition will enter its first stage, as each side regroups and redeploys their forces, and with the likely forces that the PLA will have remaining at this stage, and the remaining US forces in the region (and the ability to rebuild and resupply places like Guam from the untouched Hawaii), the PLA will gradually trade forces in an unfavourable manner while suffering targeted small scale strikes against some key production facilities that are initially limited in scope, but which over months and years will expand in scope.
The US of course will then move to reinforce their carrier force in the westpac with carriers from CONTUS and then also carriers from Europe and the Middle East (likely many more months down the line) while redeploying and replenishing their aviation fleet. By this stage, US submarines operating outside of the first island chain will likely be very difficult to counter and be capable of launch LACMs with virtual impunity, limited only by their magazine size.
For the PLA to come out ahead in the way you describe, I believe the PLA will need the capability to not only conduct multiple rounds of comprehensive long range missile strikes against US carriers and US bases in the region, but they also need a robust organic naval aviation capability (aka carrier strike groups) that are able to venture deep into the second island chain to contest air superiority at longer distances, supported by a long range stealthy strike capability (see, H-20), which altogether will provide a more robust correlation of forces and organic ISR capability to track down and neutralize US carriers remaining in the region and also to enable rapid re-attack of US locations in the region as needed. All that naturally will require the PLA to continue to build up their modern fighter force that are qualitatively competitive with the US to contest air superiority against US aircraft that manage to get into the air and able to operate from dispersed air bases or large airbases that are able to be rapidly repaired or improperly struck by the PLA.
It goes without saying that a good sized fleet of competitive SSNs that are able to venture deep into the pacific to deny US SSNs a safe haven to launch LACMs, is also necessary.
After all of that is completed (i.e.: comprehensively wiping out all US westpac air bases and surface naval forces and carriers, and being able to hunt US SSNs within the second island chain), China will likely be able to have bought itself some significant time to prepare for a war of attrition (though even with the above force, they likely would've suffered some losses) and prepare for the US second wave.
The ability of the PLA to resist the US second wave as part of the war of attrition, would depend on what forces they have remaining after the first rapid phase of the conflict.
Sorry the initial word isn’t intentional, typing in the phone can be wired at times, I didn’t mean to offend anyone there
A useful analogy to think about this is a mathematical curve of military power vs. distance from the homeland. In the US case, given its broad basing throughout the world, the curve is more or less constant. In China's case, it's high nearby (higher than the US curve, even) but drops off steeply the more distance increases. The US focuses on the region of the curve near China - where China has local superiority - which is why you get reports of the US losing war games. However, what we should look at is the integrals of the curves, which would reflect global power. Here, China is still lacking and is in danger in a US escalation to non-nuclear total war so long as the disparity in global power persists.
Even if the PLA wins a local war, the US can escalate horizontally by shutting off Chinese shipping at distant chokepoints, launch attacks from the sea that China can't respond to, etc. This will severely degrade its economy and destroy its war production. Then there's one of two choices: 1) Surrender and accept terms that make the Unequal Treaties look like paragons of fairness. 2) My preferred option: Launch a nuclear war that ends the US, China, and probably the rest of the planet.
True, but it's the lesser of two evils. A loss where China is enslaved is absolutely unacceptable. If the missiles fly, I'll spend my last half hour comforted by the thought that every American will burn too. Well, the lucky ones will burn, the unlucky ones will survive.
The following is a summary of my solution:
- Near term: Beef up the strategic arsenal (which happily seems to be happening with the new silos) preferably to numerical parity and move all missiles to a launch-on-warning posture to ensure survivability.
- Medium term: Continue the expansion and modernization of the PLA, especially with breakthrough capabilities like stealth bombers, nuclear attack submarines, and hypersonic missiles (conventional and nuclear armed). Raise PLA spending to 2.5-3.0% of GDP.
- Long term: Massively expand far seas power projection with nuclear-powered CBGs, naval basing in foreign countries like Pakistan, Myanmar, Syria, friendly countries in Latin America, etc. Raise military spending to 3.5-4.0% of GDP. Ideally, have conventional dominance over the US everywhere in the world ex. North America.