PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Blitzo said:

Private reassurances and commitments can be attempted as well, however I consider that to be even less viable than public commitments (which is why I didn't mention a private option) simply because of the ability of governments to deny any private commitments occurred while still building up forces.

For example, if the US agrees privately to stand down forces, but publicly rushes to reinforce their positions in the western pacific and denying there were any private agreements in the first place, then all you have left is essentially Option A by giving the US warning that China is intending to carry AR, which leaves China holding the decision to whether to strike at the US as part of AR operations.







It is important for us to recognize there is a difference between "preparedness" and "intent". I wrote about this a week or so ago with regards to China's capabilities vis a vis Taiwan, and it is also the case vis a vis the US to China.

Currently the US is indeed significantly fortifying its positions in the western pacific, however it is doing so to try and give itself as many capabilities and bases as it can, so that if conflict occurred, it has the best fighting chance and to allow itself to more rapidly redeploy and surge its global forces and CONTUS forces to the western pacific. It is engaging in preparedness.
However that doesn't mean the US right now has made a decision to explicitly provoke China into war at a given point in time.

If the US were intending to initiate a conflict with China, such as through provocations like conspiring with Taiwan to cross some of China's red lines, then I would be expecting the US to have made multiple months if not years of preparations before hand in the form of preparing its global and CONTUS based mobile units and redeploying them to the western pacific in rapid succession to give China minimal time to respond.


So no, it isn't a false dilemma, because the US has not chosen to prepare and massively surge the vast majority of its globally available air and naval forces to the western pacific yet.

If the US seriously wanted to prepare and commit to a western pacific war as part of a multi year plan, then we would be seeing stand down and work up periods of as many of its CSGs and air wings as possible, to allow them to recuperate, to enable as many of them to surge into the western pacific theater in as short of a period as possible.
Instead, what they're doing is fortifying alliances, expanding bases, and trying to acquire new bases, but the actual quantity and readiness of US globally available forces to rapidly redeploy to the western pacific is not significantly above recent norms, and their global deployment patterns are about normal as well.


Putting it another way -- what the US is currently doing at present is peacetime fortification. But if the US made an actual decision was made to carry out wartime fortification, redeployment and surge, then that would result in a far larger, more resilient, formidable and lethal force in the western pacific. It is the latter (wartime fortification, redeployment and surge) which the PLA would be most concerned about and ideally be wanting to prevent.

Which takes us back to the question of when/if they strike at US bases and forces in the region at the outset of conflict to prevent the US from reinforcing their westpac positions.

Edit:
One major "limitation" to US wartime reinforcing/surge capabilities to its westpac positions, is that it is not something which is permanent. It is not something the US can do indefinitely, and forces will eventually have to return to CONTUS for maintenance, stand down, and so on.
The problem becomes one of whether the PLA and US military in westpac actually wage war against each other when the US is reinforcing its westpac positions and the geopolitical decisions relevant to Taiwan. Namely, does the PLA conduct AR operations against Taiwan while the US has reinforced its westpac positions, or is there some ability for China to wait until the US has to drawdown its surge capabilities to strike once the US westpac presence is reduced?
Is it politically tenable for China to wait, if during that period for example Taiwan declares independence and the US and multiple other nations recognize its independence and open embassies and open up military bases on Taiwan, and China has to wait until the larger US westpac surge presence withdraws first, before carrying out AR operations?

That's the kind of unknowns we open ourselves up to, outside of Options A and B directly.





In terms of near future, I am talking about within the next 5-10 years. Beyond that, who knows.

Click to expand...

montyp165 said:

Quite honestly I can definitely see China able to directly face down a fully mobilized US in 2-4 years time let alone anything after that point (as all the essential elements China needs to do so are already there), which is why China's current position relative to the US I would say is much closer to how the US was relative to Japan before 1941 than some would recognize.

Click to expand...

Blitzo said:

Private reassurances and commitments can be attempted as well, however I consider that to be even less viable than public commitments (which is why I didn't mention a private option) simply because of the ability of governments to deny any private commitments occurred while still building up forces.

For example, if the US agrees privately to stand down forces, but publicly rushes to reinforce their positions in the western pacific and denying there were any private agreements in the first place, then all you have left is essentially Option A by giving the US warning that China is intending to carry AR, which leaves China holding the decision to whether to strike at the US as part of AR operations.







It is important for us to recognize there is a difference between "preparedness" and "intent". I wrote about this a week or so ago with regards to China's capabilities vis a vis Taiwan, and it is also the case vis a vis the US to China.

Currently the US is indeed significantly fortifying its positions in the western pacific, however it is doing so to try and give itself as many capabilities and bases as it can, so that if conflict occurred, it has the best fighting chance and to allow itself to more rapidly redeploy and surge its global forces and CONTUS forces to the western pacific. It is engaging in preparedness.
However that doesn't mean the US right now has made a decision to explicitly provoke China into war at a given point in time.

If the US were intending to initiate a conflict with China, such as through provocations like conspiring with Taiwan to cross some of China's red lines, then I would be expecting the US to have made multiple months if not years of preparations before hand in the form of preparing its global and CONTUS based mobile units and redeploying them to the western pacific in rapid succession to give China minimal time to respond.


So no, it isn't a false dilemma, because the US has not chosen to prepare and massively surge the vast majority of its globally available air and naval forces to the western pacific yet.

If the US seriously wanted to prepare and commit to a western pacific war as part of a multi year plan, then we would be seeing stand down and work up periods of as many of its CSGs and air wings as possible, to allow them to recuperate, to enable as many of them to surge into the western pacific theater in as short of a period as possible.
Instead, what they're doing is fortifying alliances, expanding bases, and trying to acquire new bases, but the actual quantity and readiness of US globally available forces to rapidly redeploy to the western pacific is not significantly above recent norms, and their global deployment patterns are about normal as well.


Putting it another way -- what the US is currently doing at present is peacetime fortification. But if the US made an actual decision was made to carry out wartime fortification, redeployment and surge, then that would result in a far larger, more resilient, formidable and lethal force in the western pacific. It is the latter (wartime fortification, redeployment and surge) which the PLA would be most concerned about and ideally be wanting to prevent.

Which takes us back to the question of when/if they strike at US bases and forces in the region at the outset of conflict to prevent the US from reinforcing their westpac positions.

Edit:
One major "limitation" to US wartime reinforcing/surge capabilities to its westpac positions, is that it is not something which is permanent. It is not something the US can do indefinitely, and forces will eventually have to return to CONTUS for maintenance, stand down, and so on.
The problem becomes one of whether the PLA and US military in westpac actually wage war against each other when the US is reinforcing its westpac positions and the geopolitical decisions relevant to Taiwan. Namely, does the PLA conduct AR operations against Taiwan while the US has reinforced its westpac positions, or is there some ability for China to wait until the US has to drawdown its surge capabilities to strike once the US westpac presence is reduced?
Is it politically tenable for China to wait, if during that period for example Taiwan declares independence and the US and multiple other nations recognize its independence and open embassies and open up military bases on Taiwan, and China has to wait until the larger US westpac surge presence withdraws first, before carrying out AR operations?

That's the kind of unknowns we open ourselves up to, outside of Options A and B directly.





In terms of near future, I am talking about within the next 5-10 years. Beyond that, who knows.

Click to expand...

Blitzo said:

Private reassurances and commitments can be attempted as well, however I consider that to be even less viable than public commitments (which is why I didn't mention a private option) simply because of the ability of governments to deny any private commitments occurred while still building up forces.

For example, if the US agrees privately to stand down forces, but publicly rushes to reinforce their positions in the western pacific and denying there were any private agreements in the first place, then all you have left is essentially Option A by giving the US warning that China is intending to carry AR, which leaves China holding the decision to whether to strike at the US as part of AR operations.







It is important for us to recognize there is a difference between "preparedness" and "intent". I wrote about this a week or so ago with regards to China's capabilities vis a vis Taiwan, and it is also the case vis a vis the US to China.

Currently the US is indeed significantly fortifying its positions in the western pacific, however it is doing so to try and give itself as many capabilities and bases as it can, so that if conflict occurred, it has the best fighting chance and to allow itself to more rapidly redeploy and surge its global forces and CONTUS forces to the western pacific. It is engaging in preparedness.
However that doesn't mean the US right now has made a decision to explicitly provoke China into war at a given point in time.

If the US were intending to initiate a conflict with China, such as through provocations like conspiring with Taiwan to cross some of China's red lines, then I would be expecting the US to have made multiple months if not years of preparations before hand in the form of preparing its global and CONTUS based mobile units and redeploying them to the western pacific in rapid succession to give China minimal time to respond.


So no, it isn't a false dilemma, because the US has not chosen to prepare and massively surge the vast majority of its globally available air and naval forces to the western pacific yet.

If the US seriously wanted to prepare and commit to a western pacific war as part of a multi year plan, then we would be seeing stand down and work up periods of as many of its CSGs and air wings as possible, to allow them to recuperate, to enable as many of them to surge into the western pacific theater in as short of a period as possible.
Instead, what they're doing is fortifying alliances, expanding bases, and trying to acquire new bases, but the actual quantity and readiness of US globally available forces to rapidly redeploy to the western pacific is not significantly above recent norms, and their global deployment patterns are about normal as well.


Putting it another way -- what the US is currently doing at present is peacetime fortification. But if the US made an actual decision was made to carry out wartime fortification, redeployment and surge, then that would result in a far larger, more resilient, formidable and lethal force in the western pacific. It is the latter (wartime fortification, redeployment and surge) which the PLA would be most concerned about and ideally be wanting to prevent.

Which takes us back to the question of when/if they strike at US bases and forces in the region at the outset of conflict to prevent the US from reinforcing their westpac positions.

Edit:
One major "limitation" to US wartime reinforcing/surge capabilities to its westpac positions, is that it is not something which is permanent. It is not something the US can do indefinitely, and forces will eventually have to return to CONTUS for maintenance, stand down, and so on.
The problem becomes one of whether the PLA and US military in westpac actually wage war against each other when the US is reinforcing its westpac positions and the geopolitical decisions relevant to Taiwan. Namely, does the PLA conduct AR operations against Taiwan while the US has reinforced its westpac positions, or is there some ability for China to wait until the US has to drawdown its surge capabilities to strike once the US westpac presence is reduced?
Is it politically tenable for China to wait, if during that period for example Taiwan declares independence and the US and multiple other nations recognize its independence and open embassies and open up military bases on Taiwan, and China has to wait until the larger US westpac surge presence withdraws first, before carrying out AR operations?

That's the kind of unknowns we open ourselves up to, outside of Options A and B directly.





In terms of near future, I am talking about within the next 5-10 years. Beyond that, who knows.

Click to expand...

Blitzo said:

Private reassurances and commitments can be attempted as well, however I consider that to be even less viable than public commitments (which is why I didn't mention a private option) simply because of the ability of governments to deny any private commitments occurred while still building up forces.

For example, if the US agrees privately to stand down forces, but publicly rushes to reinforce their positions in the western pacific and denying there were any private agreements in the first place, then all you have left is essentially Option A by giving the US warning that China is intending to carry AR, which leaves China holding the decision to whether to strike at the US as part of AR operations.

Click to expand...

Fedupwithlies said:

I believe what you described as peacetime fortification is wartime fortification. What you described as wartime fortification is phase 2, of which phase 1 is building up the infrastructure so what you described as the cost of mobilization is lessened.

I believe the US has already set a time and date for the opening shots of their war against China, and all this is the prelude. The only reason we have a veneer of "will or won't they" is to prevent China or others from doing their own buildup. Because it will be a full mobilization and the US doesn't want to fight multiple wars and uprisings across the world.

By the time people realize the US is distracted with a full war with China, it would be too late for themselves to build up the infrastructure that would let them mobilize for war.

Click to expand...

sr338 said:

No, if there is AR, Mainland need to be open about it, that it will remove the secessionist government.
That way you force the USA to either pussies out or fight a war it can't win.
-If US pussies out, West Pac is China's
-If US fight = Reverse Pacific War

Again, AR should maximize China's gain, Taiwan itself is not worth it.
Beat the crap out of the USA solve Taiwan/Luchu/Jap/Phil etc. In that case AR is totaly worth it.

Taiwan should be a bait, not a goal.

Click to expand...

coolgod said:

I think private assurances from US gov is way more credible than public assurances. US public assurances are absolutely worthless, while US private assurances is slightly better. US privately promised to pull out of Afghanistan without much bloodshed and they did just that.

Think about the entire US-China relationship, the whole recognition of PRC process, and many other things involving both countries were done through backdoor diplomacy. I think China would give benefit of the doubt if the US president, joint chief of staffs and US business elites all assured US would back down in AR. China has to do this, otherwise there aren't any good off ramps for US.

Click to expand...

If a future Australian government agrees, our Virginia-class SSNs will be able to use 2000-kilometre-range anti-ship missiles to strike China’s forces in the Taiwan Strait. That could be done from the safety of deepwater trenches east of the Philippines without detection.

As to other roles for our SSNs in a Taiwan contingency, we should consider discussing with Washington our capacity to deny the narrow straits of Southeast Asia to China’s overseas trade (it imports 80% of its oil through the Malacca Strait). That would be an important, independent military role for Australia, but without the potentially high cost of losing our relatively small number of military assets in a direct war over Taiwan.

Roggeveen is correct when he states that the US would be unlikely to subordinate nuclear-related missions to Australia’s submarine fleet. Even so, he observes that Australian SSNs might encounter Chinese SSBNs during future operations. In the Cold War, we regularly operated against the Soviet Navy in close-quarter operations that were greatly valued by Washington. UK SSNs trailed Soviet SSBNs for prolonged periods at distances as close as 500 metres and practised what was coyly termed contingency ‘target acquisitions’. In any such future occurrences, we would need ironclad rules of engagement reflecting our national sovereignty targeting priorities.

Click to expand...

Blitzo said:

It goes without saying that any public reassurances from the US would be done with substantial private assurances and negotiations.

The reason why public assurances/commitments are slightly more useful to China than private assurances/commitments, is because the US would be unable to deny that they happened, whereas with private assurances/commitments, it would essentially be China's word versus the US's word.

Putting it another way:
-Private assurance/commitment: only has US word vs China word and what they agree on in private, very easily for one party to renege
-Public assurance/commitment: the same as private assurance/commitment, but also means that the entire world knows that both sides have agreed to terms and that it is a bit more difficult for one party to renege.

Click to expand...

coolgod said:

I don't think China cares about the public opinion if the US publicly denies that they promised to stand down during the AR. I see two possible scenarios:

A. If China launches AR and the US doesn't stand down, then private negotiations are meaningless, only the winner of the war matters.

B. If China launches AR and the US stands down but claims China lied during private negotiations then it is equally meaningless. It would be equivalent to the Mea Culpa excuse using the four stage standard procedure I gave above. Furthermore, if the US does this then its hegemony credibility goes out the window. Imagine after AR Japan heard from US that China promised not to liberate the Ryukyu Islands.

The point of private negotiations is not to hold US accountable to public opinon, its to give US a final notice for offramp before the point of no return.

Click to expand...

Blitzo said:

My underlying point, is that people are viewing the current US fortification activities in westpac with excess alarm, because they have yet to realize just what a proper wartime surge/reinforcement would actually look like if the US was preparing to actually provoke or initiate a conflict.
If people here are already concerned and worried about the US fortification activities and posture in westpac now, well you will be fifty times more worried if the US was actually preparing to initiate or provoke a conflict of its own accord.

Click to expand...