PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Blitzo

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
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ZeEa5KPul said:
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.
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I know, I know...

My point is that for the purposes of this discussion (guiding strategic planning and military procurement), the outcome of "surrender" and "MAD" are basically the same and equally undesirable.


ZeEa5KPul said:
The solution is simple and the topic didn't need the ink spilled on it over the past week(s):
  • 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.
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I don't disagree with the thrust of what you're writing, but to consider future strategic planning and military procurement, requires a recognition of what the vulnerabilities and correlations of forces that exist at present, which -- as evidenced by the past week and a half -- multiple people do not seem to agree with.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

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sinophilia said:
This is how countries lose wars. Why would you just assume either of these things with such immense confidence? Do you have any specific discussion to provide for the scenarios outlined by Bltizo? You know, actual discussion of Chinese and US military capabilities? Instead you are falling prey to exactly the kind of arrogant and incompetent thinking he was correctly saying that everyone should avoid.

Perhaps exercising a modicum of humility when speaking to people who clearly have vastly more knowledge than you is in order?
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I did and nobody was able to provide a refutation. The simple fact is US has 4000 Tomahawks, you need 59 Tomahawks to suppress even a 3rd world airbase after 5 years of civil war with no remaining air defense for just a few hours, and China has both hundreds of air defense candidate sites and airbases.

These are all historical facts from cited publications, not conjecture.

Again, nobody could refute the fact that US was only able to deploy 5/15 carriers against Iraq, a much weaker country with no ability to strike first, and after 6 months of stockpiling. Not willing to, but able to, as other carriers were in long term maintenance or en route after just finishing major maintenance.

Nobody could refute the fact that it took 700k US troops with air supremacy to invade flat desert Iraq over land in 1991 yet somehow nobody questions the unsourced assertion that a single ARG can amphibiously invade Taiwan held by PLA ground forces.

So when I see nobody able to refute these facts or come to the obvious conclusion when applied today, it just tells me they can't accept that they're unable to consider alternatives.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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FairAndUnbiased said:
I did and nobody was able to provide a refutation. The simple fact is US has 4000 Tomahawks, you need 59 Tomahawks to suppress even a 3rd world airbase after 5 years of civil war with no remaining air defense for just a few hours, and China has both hundreds of air defense candidate sites and airbases.

These are all historical facts from cited publications, not conjecture.

Again, nobody could refute the fact that US was only able to deploy 5/15 carriers against Iraq, a much weaker country with no ability to strike first, and after 6 months of stockpiling. Not willing to, but able to, as other carriers were in long term maintenance or en route after just finishing major maintenance.

Nobody could refute the fact that it took 700k US troops with air supremacy to invade Iraq yet somehow nobody questions the unsourced assertion that a single ARG can amphibiously invade Taiwan held by PLA ground forces.

So when I see nobody able to refute these facts or come to the obvious conclusion when applied today, it just tells me they can't accept that they're wrong.
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I have addressed all of those points you made, and provided you with answers.
The fact you have chosen to believe they were inadequate, and are choosing to mis-represent my positions here in this post, is your prerogative.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
Bltizo said:
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.
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You said:

1. The US would redeploy its global forces to fight China over Taiwan.

2. The fight would remain a naval-air affair.

Korea shows that these two statements cannot be true at the same time.

Either the US deploys all available assets for a full-scale war with China, in which case China can open a ground front in Korea, which makes this no longer a naval-air war, or the US keeps the fight limited and won't be able to deploy all of its forces to the area, in which case yes it will be a naval-air affair, but won't be a full scale war.

What's more, might I remind you that the DF-21 has a range of 1500 km, so US air assets won't be counting on its carriers.
 
ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
Bltizo said:
I don't disagree with the thrust of what you're writing, but to consider future strategic planning and military procurement, requires a recognition of what the vulnerabilities and correlations of forces that exist, which -- as evidenced by the past week and a half -- multiple people do not seem to agree with.
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I think you've stated the case admirably and given a compelling argument for it. I'm certain that Zhongnanhai sees the situation in much the same terms. Even if people disagree, it's always better as a matter of principle to have dominance over or at least parity with the US at every rung of the escalation ladder and in every geographic location.

Too many people, especially when considering China's strategic deterrent, have a poverty mentality where they seek "asymmetric" means to counter the US, as if China can be a superpower on the cheap. I think that this internalized poverty is largely gone from the Chinese military leadership, especially since Trump slapped the Chinese government out of its torpor. The PLA still got its regularly scheduled funding without any cut when COVID walloped China's economy in 2020 (relatively, its economic performance was still the envy of the world). I found that a very heartening signal.
 
S

sinophilia

Junior Member
Registered Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
I did and nobody was able to provide a refutation. The simple fact is US has 4000 Tomahawks, you need 59 Tomahawks to suppress even a 3rd world airbase after 5 years of civil war with no remaining air defense for just a few hours, and China has both hundreds of air defense candidate sites and airbases.

These are all historical facts from cited publications, not conjecture.

Again, nobody could refute the fact that US was only able to deploy 5/15 carriers against Iraq, a much weaker country with no ability to strike first, and after 6 months of stockpiling. Not willing to, but able to, as other carriers were in long term maintenance or en route after just finishing major maintenance.

Nobody could refute the fact that it took 700k US troops with air supremacy to invade flat desert Iraq over land in 1991 yet somehow nobody questions the unsourced assertion that a single ARG can amphibiously invade Taiwan held by PLA ground forces.

So when I see nobody able to refute these facts or come to the obvious conclusion when applied today, it just tells me they can't accept that they're unable to consider alternatives.
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Why not just attack the aircraft hangers, revetments, tarmac space, for planes on the ground. Keep attacking those areas and you'll destroy the planes eventually because they have to land at some point.
 
L

LesAdieux

Junior Member
Bltizo said:
1. The US is not trading Europe "for Taiwan". The US is trading Europe for robustly crippling China as a geopolitical competitor by winning a war against China.

2. At the end of a war of attrition that China has lost, China will have basically no air and naval forces to speak of, Taiwan would be devastated but able to declare formal independence in a way that China cannot militarily contest, and the US will be able to impose crippling terms of surrender on China that likely would include limits on military capability and technology, if not also civilian technology as well.




In a westpac conflict, the PLA's air capabilities will be fighting against the US in the general western pacific in the first chain and trying to conduct strikes into the second island chain. With the current balance of air fleets in the region, the PLA would be stretched thin to do so.

If we now introduce a second Korean War that requires the PLA to be able to contest air superiority over the Korean peninsula against the ROKAF and US air forces in Korea, then you have to choose between the PLA continuing to fight in the 1IC and 2IC role (which is essential to striking US bases and carriers in the region), or giving air cover to your ground forces.
The PLA cannot do both.
However, the US's pacific forces at large, supported by ROKAF forces, most certainly can do both.
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north Vietnam has an area amounts to1.6% of China, with no navy, airforce, or industry to talk about, America dropped three million tons bombs in ten years and lost the war.

conventionally and theoretically, America only has some SSNs which can sneak into the chain and launch some cruise missiles, four to five (six, seven?) magnitudes lower than what they dropped in Vietnam, which you assume will wipe out everything in China.
 
luosifen

luosifen

Senior Member
Registered Member
LesAdieux said:
north Vietnam has an area amounts to1.6% of China, with no navy, airforce, or industry to talk about, America dropped three million tons bombs in ten years and lost the war.

conventionally and theoretically, America only has some SSNs which can sneak into the chain and launch some cruise missiles, four to five (six, seven?) magnitudes lower than what they dropped in Vietnam, which you assume will wipe out everything in China.
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To be fair, most of the equipment on the Vietnamese side was made in the USSR or China and thus untouched. US political micromanagement of war operations also hindered their military's ability to target assets of key value. That being said, assuming US goes total war minus WMDs, what's stopping China from doing the same and using even kamikaze tactics to 1:1 attrition the USA? China has the 4 to 1 advantage in numbers here, the Americans would run out of citizens before China did.
 
FairAndUnbiased

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
Bltizo said:
I have addressed all of those points you made, and provided you with answers.
The fact you have chosen to believe they were inadequate, and are choosing to mis-represent my positions here in this post, is your prerogative.
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They were indeed inadequate responses because none of it was based on proven historical facts, only conjectures and assumptions. While you may have had good assumptions, assumptions are still not as strong as proven facts.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
Bltizo said:
1. The US is not trading Europe "for Taiwan". The US is trading Europe for robustly crippling China as a geopolitical competitor by winning a war against China.

2. At the end of a war of attrition that China has lost, China will have basically no air and naval forces to speak of, Taiwan would be devastated but able to declare formal independence in a way that China cannot militarily contest, and the US will be able to impose crippling terms of surrender on China that likely would include limits on military capability and technology, if not also civilian technology as well.
Click to expand...

If you look at all the arguments from the US from intervening in a Taiwan conflicting, they are all centered on the prestige argument, that the fall of Taiwan would signify a tremendous loss of confidence for US allies. In other words, threaten their hegemonic status.

What then, would be the consequence of the loss of Europe? Or even just Eastern Europe? That would be a disaster magnitudes worse than the loss of Taiwan. Sure, in a thought exercise we can pretend the US will do such a thing, but in reality, that will never happen.

Look, the argument here isn't whether China should continue to improve its military capabilities, it's whether China has a realistic chance of successfully retaking Taiwan by force in the immediate future. To answer this question, the willingness of each actor to bear the cost of a military conflict is of paramount importance. In this area, China is willing to bear far greater cost than either Taiwan or the US, therefore the US is not rationally going to engage in a protracted war against China over Taiwan. Irrationally, this would be even more unlikely, as the US public would have little appetite to keep sending bodies into a grinder over a tiny island on the other side of the world.
 
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