PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

ACuriousPLAFan · Aug 12, 2023

montyp165 said:
Peace terms in this case could only be total withdrawal of US forces from Westpac and non-interference in Chinese affairs, but my own expectation is that the PLA would need to force a total unconditional surrender of the US due to the militarization of the US political establishment; this is something I consider they would be fully capable of doing even in that abbreviated timeframe.

Bruh. You dreamt too much. Unless China has some kind of a Star Destroyer that can vaporize the entire planet with a push of a button, I'd suggest you to abandon that fantasy.

China can never force the US to accept the offer of unconditional surrender - That is literally in the realm of the Imperial Japanese fascist fanatics in Tokyo that came up with an utterly delusional fantasy of the Rising Sun flag being spread across the entire Pacific, from occupied China to the Western CONUS - Right after their Pearl Harbor Attack on December 1941.

The only ones who can fundamentally change the US - From the very bottom to the very top - Are the Muricans themselves.

This is also true with China.

Overbom · Aug 12, 2023

Military logic says that first strike is the only option.

Btw all this public/private assurance talk is nothing. The PLA doesn't care about US words, instead it will monitor US warships/planes, military units, and materials. The moment it detects any significant intention to begin surge deployment to West Pacific, is the moment that the first strike will happen

Btw, its quite amusing to see people are so vehemently insisting on their belief that the PLA will not do a first strike when the PLA has marked the US military as an almost existential threat for over 2 decades now. The PLA will use every trick on its book to give it an advantage, no matter how ethical or unethical.

Peacetime fortification is acceptable for the PLA, wartime-like surge of CONUS forces to West Pac is absolutely unacceptable and any Chinese detection of the US attempting to do so will make first strike against them neccessary

Fedupwithlies · Aug 12, 2023

Blitzo said:
it would also be untrue to state right now that the US had made a decision to initiate or provoke a conflict based on current evidence.

I guess we just have to agree to disagree.

Everything I've seen leads me to believe they have already decided to provoke a conflict, and everything they're doing right now is to stack the odds in their favor when that conflict does start.

Militarily in a vacuum I will believe that they're just prepping for every possibility, after all a rising China does mean they have to re-prioritize their military.
But combine that with the actions of their politicians I cannot believe that they're just preparing for every eventuality. I can only see that they are preparing for one specific event. And they are putting the pieces in place to cause that one specific event to occur.

Serb · Aug 12, 2023

Blitzo said:
Our differing views of timeline might be due to differences in what we consider the conditions for peace/victory would be for the Chinese side.

Certainly in 2-4 years (and even now), the PLA can make it very costly for the US to intervene, even in a fully mobilized manner, but I do not believe it would allow the PLA to attain a military outcome where it can allow China to offer peace on terms that it would desire.

The problem is that you only considered the military aspect of that potential conflict, but not the economic, sociological, geopolitical, etc.

You have only a piece of the puzzle then. You see one dimension out of a multidimensional problem.

I know this is a military-based forum, but regarding this specific topic, the Taiwan conflict, it is the strongest, but it isn't the only factor.

I tell you that if you include those 3 factors as well, then China has a lot more assurance to emerge victorious than you currently think.

Blitzo said:
This is just a matter of semantics.
If you want to call it something else other than "peacetime fortification" and "wartime fortification" that's fine.

I'll use some different terms.
Let's call what is currently being done right now as "fortification" and let's call what I'm talking about in the lead up to war as "wartime surge deployment and reinforcement".

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.

They certainly want to provoke a war, but they are not retards, they don't want to make it obvious to third-party countries and lose public sentiment. If they openly started to rapidly mobilize in a full invasion mode against CHINA, then first, their stupid politicians will get overthrown or killed by their own domestic populace, and second, they will lose all semblance of international support during the duration of the conflict.

FriedRiceNSpice · Aug 12, 2023

Nobody on either side plans to or would want to initiate a conflict in the West Pacific. However, both sides are making moves so that they would be prepared and not be caught off guard in the case that such a contingency does arise. More importantly, these moves are to deter conflict rather than signs of preparations for conflict. The costs of even a limited scale conflict would be devastating, and unimaginable for a total war scenario.

Only possible contingency that may arise would be for an unilateral declaration of independence from the Taiwanese side, which has an infinitesimally small chance of occurring. And even then, the chance for conflict occurring afterwards would still be quite small.

In the event conflict does erupt, the only possible results are negotiated peace (hopefully), an armistice, or end of live of Earth. Forcing unconditional surrender on either party is pure fantasy. Even if nuclear weapons were not a factor, how can a surrender be forced when neither side can threaten each other's mainland, outside of token high-precision strikes? Within this decade, the PLA will not even be able to occupy Hawaii, let alone threaten the US mainland outside of rare strikes on the West Coast with precision weapons. At the absolute most, Chinese war goals can extend to re-exerting direct control over Taiwan and force US bases out of South Korea and the Philippines. However, those goals already constitute to a complete strategic victory, so even if somehow it was possible, there is absolutely no need to push for more.

plawolf · Aug 12, 2023

Blitzo said:
The key question that the last few pages are asking, is "in an AR operation, on what basis would the PLA target US military forces"?

I agree with you in principle that China would ideally prefer to contain such a conflict between only itself and Taiwan, and to minimally involve the US.
However, the problem is that at the outset of conflict China cannot guarantee the US will not get involved later in the conflict, and US military infrastructure in the western pacific, if left unmolested, has the ability to be significantly fortified and enjoy significant augmentation of forces from CONTUS and other regions.

This leaves China in a bit of a dilemma:

A) if China does not strike at and neutralize US forces and bases in westpac at the outset or early stages of conflict, then it means the US may have the freedom to significantly augment and fortify those forces and bases over time and enter/intervene in a later stage of said conflict with a significantly more concentrated and resilient force from much more fortified bases/power projection centers, making the PLA's task of combating them much more difficult, and potentially making it very difficult if not impossible to achieve its military goals on the field.

On the other hand...

B) if China does strike at and neutralize US forces and bases in westpac at the outset or early stages of conflict, then it may be able to militarily cripple US ability to project power and operate in the westpac, but means it also guarantees US involvement in the conflict and is likely to cause the US government and public to feel obliged to commit themselves to the conflict in a manner where they feel aggrieved as an "innocent party being attacked for no reason," which leaves much more limited room for de-escalation and an offramp after conflict is settled, and even if a peace can be negotiated it is likely to make US-China relations grievous and irreparable for many many decades if not centuries.

Now, there are going to be other factors relevant to consider if we want to look at the above question, for example we should specifically consider whether AR is being done out of China's own volition (i.e.: "initiating a conflict" out of nowhere), or whether it is doing so in response to Taiwan and/or the US carrying out political maneuvers that crosses China's red lines (such as moving too far towards de jure independence).
Needless to say, the time period in which this is occurring is important too, as that would determine the balance of regional power and the options each side has to play.

However the fundamental benefits and risks of "not striking at US forces" versus "immediately striking at US forces" in a Taiwan contingency, will exist in the general same manner regardless of the permutations.

There are only a few ways I can foresee China as being willing to hold back from striking at US forces at the outset of a conflict:
- one is if the PLA can become so overwhelmingly capable in the westpac, that they are still able to robustly defeat a concentrated, fortified and augmented US force in westpac that has had the time to conduct global strategic redeployments to the region. But such a balance of forces is not going to occur in the near future.
- the other (which can exist alongside the above) is if there can be some kind of public political commitment from the US that they would not conduct material redeployments or augmentations to the westpac theater or conduct military operations against China or in support of Taiwan, and that if such events did occur then the PLA would consider that an act of aggression and use military force. But this is rather unlikely and the political environment in the US would be loathe to even entertain such an idea, certainly not to the degree that China would want.

What you are suggesting in terms of the US massed forward deploying forces in Asia is little different from the Ukrainians stuffing their trenches, which are in artillery range of many many Russian guns, to the gills with more men and equipment.

That’s literally threatening the PLA with a good time.

The primary issue with American forward bases is one of distance and support. Those bases are well within range of massive amounts of PLA firepower, with so little in the way of strategic depth to manoeuvre and relocate that putting more forces there is basically the worst thing you can do since that just makes it a far more target rich environment for PLA munitions. In the modern age, when attack massively overmatches defence, no amount of additional AD or makeshift hardening is going to be able to stop the kind of overwhelming firepower the PLA can easily bring to bare, in a sustained manner.

The USN deploying more carriers will give the PLA planners a headache as those are highly mobile assets that are hard to find and keep tabs on.

But the US wanting to cram more aircraft and SAMs and troops into its forward bases around China is no threat to China at all. Even the US realises this, which is why it is investing in new bases in Australia, while at the same time trying to develop disposable unmanned long range strike capabilities to forward deploy so it can do its own alpha strike without risk loosing its fist and entire arm after throwing the first punch. But it is still only are the infancy stage with those developments. So unless and until the US makes massive progress in that regards, China can afford to let the US throw the first punch, because it is poised to rip that entire arm clean off as soon as that punch is thrown.

Blitzo · Aug 12, 2023

Fedupwithlies said:
I guess we just have to agree to disagree.

Everything I've seen leads me to believe they have already decided to provoke a conflict, and everything they're doing right now is to stack the odds in their favor when that conflict does start.

Militarily in a vacuum I will believe that they're just prepping for every possibility, after all a rising China does mean they have to re-prioritize their military.
But combine that with the actions of their politicians I cannot believe that they're just preparing for every eventuality. I can only see that they are preparing for one specific event. And they are putting the pieces in place to cause that one specific event to occur.

I suppose so.

But I would ask people who believe that the US has made a decision to provoke a conflict, what do they think of the Cold War?
We saw arguably the highest levels of mutual military preparedness and capability stacked up between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in that time against each other, both ready to move at a moment's notice.

However would anyone consider either side as having made a decision to provoke or initiate conflict with the other during that period?

Serb said:
The problem is that you only considered the military aspect of that potential conflict, but not the economic, sociological, geopolitical, etc.

You have only a piece of the puzzle then. You see one dimension out of a multidimensional problem.

I know this is a military-based forum, but regarding this specific topic, the Taiwan conflict, it is the strongest, but it isn't the only factor.

I tell you that if you include those 3 factors as well, then China has a lot more assurance to emerge victorious than you currently think.

I am aware of the multi-domain nature of this competition, and if we include the economic, sociological and geopolitical aspects those certainly do not give me faith that China would be capable of emerging victorious in the circumstances described above.

Serb said:
They certainly want to provoke a war, but they are not retards, they don't want to make it obvious to third-party countries and lose public sentiment. If they openly started to rapidly mobilize in a full invasion mode against CHINA, then first, their stupid politicians will get overthrown or killed by their own domestic populace, and second, they will lose all semblance of international support during the duration of the conflict.

We cannot make big claims like saying a nation has decided to "provoke a war" without substantial evidence.

If the argument is that XYZ "decided to provoke a war" but that we aren't seeing evidence because they want to be stealthy about it, then that is the equivalent of saying we do not need evidence to claim that a nation "decided to provoke a war".

It leads us to the conclusion that we can freely accuse any nation of deciding to provoke a war simply on the basis of large scale military preparation, procurement and geostrategic reinforcement.
By that logic, the US would be justified to say that China has been wanting to provoke a war over XYZ matter seeing as the PLA's modernization over the last few decades has been one of the most comprehensive and robust in recent history.

Minm · Aug 12, 2023

Blitzo said:
The key question that the last few pages are asking, is "in an AR operation, on what basis would the PLA target US military forces"?

I agree with you in principle that China would ideally prefer to contain such a conflict between only itself and Taiwan, and to minimally involve the US.
However, the problem is that at the outset of conflict China cannot guarantee the US will not get involved later in the conflict, and US military infrastructure in the western pacific, if left unmolested, has the ability to be significantly fortified and enjoy significant augmentation of forces from CONTUS and other regions.

This leaves China in a bit of a dilemma:

A) if China does not strike at and neutralize US forces and bases in westpac at the outset or early stages of conflict, then it means the US may have the freedom to significantly augment and fortify those forces and bases over time and enter/intervene in a later stage of said conflict with a significantly more concentrated and resilient force from much more fortified bases/power projection centers, making the PLA's task of combating them much more difficult, and potentially making it very difficult if not impossible to achieve its military goals on the field.

On the other hand...

B) if China does strike at and neutralize US forces and bases in westpac at the outset or early stages of conflict, then it may be able to militarily cripple US ability to project power and operate in the westpac, but means it also guarantees US involvement in the conflict and is likely to cause the US government and public to feel obliged to commit themselves to the conflict in a manner where they feel aggrieved as an "innocent party being attacked for no reason," which leaves much more limited room for de-escalation and an offramp after conflict is settled, and even if a peace can be negotiated it is likely to make US-China relations grievous and irreparable for many many decades if not centuries.

Now, there are going to be other factors relevant to consider if we want to look at the above question, for example we should specifically consider whether AR is being done out of China's own volition (i.e.: "initiating a conflict" out of nowhere), or whether it is doing so in response to Taiwan and/or the US carrying out political maneuvers that crosses China's red lines (such as moving too far towards de jure independence).
Needless to say, the time period in which this is occurring is important too, as that would determine the balance of regional power and the options each side has to play.

However the fundamental benefits and risks of "not striking at US forces" versus "immediately striking at US forces" in a Taiwan contingency, will exist in the general same manner regardless of the permutations.

There are only a few ways I can foresee China as being willing to hold back from striking at US forces at the outset of a conflict:
- one is if the PLA can become so overwhelmingly capable in the westpac, that they are still able to robustly defeat a concentrated, fortified and augmented US force in westpac that has had the time to conduct global strategic redeployments to the region. But such a balance of forces is not going to occur in the near future.
- the other (which can exist alongside the above) is if there can be some kind of public political commitment from the US that they would not conduct material redeployments or augmentations to the westpac theater or conduct military operations against China or in support of Taiwan, and that if such events did occur then the PLA would consider that an act of aggression and use military force. But this is rather unlikely and the political environment in the US would be loathe to even entertain such an idea, certainly not to the degree that China would want.

Your dilemma has a simple solution. It's all about the timing. An underlying assumption of your dilemma is that the fighting on Taiwan will take a long time, during which the US can prepare and then intervene. However, if the conflict is decided in a week or two after which the PLA controls the strategic points on Taiwan, then the US can't stop AR anymore, they'd have to take back the island. Defending Taiwan against an American counteroffensive will be a lot easier

If we assume it takes about a month for the US to surge assets in bases surrounding China, then China just needs to prepare to take over most of Taiwan within 1-2 weeks and keep enough buffer for preparing defences. Then the Americans will have a dilemma: do nothing and look weak, leading to lost international influence or try to take back Taiwan from a very unfavourable starting point

So if China is prepared for a very fast campaign on Taiwan, then the US will be forced to intervene early to make a difference, at which point they haven't brought over enough assets to pose a danger. China can survive a few bombs coming from the aircraft currently on Okinawa and then strike all American assets in the Pacific.

The real danger is the return of large numbers of US troops to Taiwan and a fortification of American bases in preparation for a US supportes declaration of independence

Blitzo · Aug 12, 2023

Minm said:
Your dilemma has a simple solution. It's all about the timing. An underlying assumption of your dilemma is that the fighting on Taiwan will take a long time, during which the US can prepare and then intervene. However, if the conflict is decided in a week or two after which the PLA controls the strategic points on Taiwan, then the US can't stop AR anymore, they'd have to take back the island. Defending Taiwan against an American counteroffensive will be a lot easier

If we assume it takes about a month for the US to surge assets in bases surrounding China, then China just needs to prepare to take over most of Taiwan within 1-2 weeks and keep enough buffer for preparing defences. Then the Americans will have a dilemma: do nothing and look weak, leading to lost international influence or try to take back Taiwan from a very unfavourable starting point

So if China is prepared for a very fast campaign on Taiwan, then the US will be forced to intervene early to make a difference, at which point they haven't brought over enough assets to pose a danger. China can survive a few bombs coming from the aircraft currently on Okinawa and then strike all American assets in the Pacific.

The real danger is the return of large numbers of US troops to Taiwan and a fortification of American bases in preparation for a US supportes declaration of independence

There are two reasons why I have not considered this as a viable solution.

1: The ability of the PLA to conduct AR in a relatively short time span (1-2 weeks) is one that I am not confident the PLA are able to do yet in the near future. It's not out of the question for them to develop the forces for, but I do not yet think they are there. Notably, the shorter the timespan in which they seek to carry out successful AR means that they'll have to contend with a military force on Taiwan that still likely has some reserves of fuel, food, water remaining, as opposed to if they spent a month doing comprehensive bombardment before initiating landings.

2: The bigger issue is that even if hypothetically the PLA completes AR within 1-2 weeks and let's say it all goes well and swimmingly, there is no guarantee the US will simply accept it lying down. The US does not necessarily have to "take back" and "reoccupy" Taiwan, but they can still exert significant military force to meaningfully degrade PLA capability even after AR is "completed". For example, the US can aim to substantially degrade and target PLA air and naval capabilities in the eastern theater command (or even westpac region overall), and to target Chinese shipping/resupply efforts between the mainland and Taiwain island. The goal of such a campaign obviously would not be done for the health and wellbeing of the civilians on Taiwan any longer, but rather as a punitive way to degrade PLA capabilities to try and force China to accept terms of peace that are less favourable than China would prefer.

.... of course, both of those reasons 1 and 2, can still be mitigated by a "simple solution" --- which is to say, having a much more capable PLA.

If the PLA were capable of successfully prosecuting AR in a very short timespan with very short warning, and/or, if the PLA were also capable of fighting and credibly winning (i.e.: not a pyrrhic victory) in large scale westpac conflict against the US even if the US were able to have some time to surge/reinforce its westpac position, then yes that would be a solution indeed.

plawolf said:
What you are suggesting in terms of the US massed forward deploying forces in Asia is little different from the Ukrainians stuffing their trenches, which are in artillery range of many many Russian guns, to the gills with more men and equipment.

That’s literally threatening the PLA with a good time.

The primary issue with American forward bases is one of distance and support. Those bases are well within range of massive amounts of PLA firepower, with so little in the way of strategic depth to manoeuvre and relocate that putting more forces there is basically the worst thing you can do since that just makes it a far more target rich environment for PLA munitions. In the modern age, when attack massively overmatches defence, no amount of additional AD or makeshift hardening is going to be able to stop the kind of overwhelming firepower the PLA can easily bring to bare, in a sustained manner.

The USN deploying more carriers will give the PLA planners a headache as those are highly mobile assets that are hard to find and keep tabs on.

But the US wanting to cram more aircraft and SAMs and troops into its forward bases around China is no threat to China at all. Even the US realises this, which is why it is investing in new bases in Australia, while at the same time trying to develop disposable unmanned long range strike capabilities to forward deploy so it can do its own alpha strike without risk loosing its fist and entire arm after throwing the first punch. But it is still only are the infancy stage with those developments. So unless and until the US makes massive progress in that regards, China can afford to let the US throw the first punch, because it is poised to rip that entire arm clean off as soon as that punch is thrown.

I cautiously agree, to an extent -- it depends on the extent and scale of the US to reinforce and harden its existing bases, not only in terms of SAMs and missile defense and EW (both land based and naval/surface combatant), but also in terms of materiel, repair equipment and redundant logistics equipment, and so on.

From the US's point of view, the ideal situation is to be able to harden and defend those bases so well such that their ability to defend them is able to prevent the PLA's strike systems from outmassing them. That, supported by a large surge deployed US carrier force operating at a distance where the PLA is less able to sortie large naval strike packages, would be naturally further supported by more distant bases (such as Australia, Hawaii) acting as more distant logistics nodes and transport hubs as well as staging areas for longer range bombers.

In such a situation, over the near future I am not sure if the PLA has the capabilities to fight and credibly win such a conflict on comprehensive terms that can lead to a negotiated peace in its favour.
Part of this is because we don't know how well the PLA's missiles can match up against US SAMs and missile defense systems in a hypothetical wartime surge/reinforced fashion, and also because we don't know just how big each strike package can be, and how many reloads the PLA has.

In absence of that information, I think erring on the edge of caution is not only prudent but necessary.

FriedRiceNSpice · Aug 12, 2023

Blitzo said:
For example, the US can aim to substantially degrade and target PLA air and naval capabilities in the eastern theater command (or even westpac region overall), and to target Chinese shipping/resupply efforts between the mainland and Taiwain island. The goal of such a campaign obviously would not be done for the health and wellbeing of the civilians on Taiwan any longer, but rather as a punitive way to degrade PLA capabilities to try and force China to accept terms of peace that are less favourable than China would prefer.

In such a scenario where Taiwan has been occupied, what "less favorable," peace terms could be pursued? Unoccupy Taiwan? Return to the status quo? Since to force recognition of Taiwanese independence would require far more than degrading PLA capabilities.

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

ACuriousPLAFan

Brigadier

Overbom

Brigadier

Fedupwithlies

Junior Member

Serb

Junior Member

FriedRiceNSpice

Captain

plawolf

Lieutenant General

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

Minm

Junior Member

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

FriedRiceNSpice

Captain