PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Blitzo said:

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.

Click to expand...

You are making the logical fallacy of comparing a hypothetical future US position with a static past Chinese position.

The kind of hardening work you describe are not quick or easy to do, and the Chinese will not just sit on their hands and wait for the US to finish before making their own counter-preparations.

The inescapable realities of logistics and geography overwhelmingly favours China here.

As the Ukraine war has demonstrated beyond all possible doubt, commercial grade tech is very much battlefield relevant, and who is the factory of the world when it comes to commercial products?

For China, building a few hundred thousand Gerans is trivially easy, quick, cheap and basically doesn’t come with any opportunity costs for the PLA in terms of procurement of high end dedicated military munitions. That alone will hard counter America’s entire land based AD arsenal and the 7th fleet from pure munitions attrition alone.

I would also suggest that trying to use carriers to supplement the defences of US forward bases is falling into the sunk costs fallacy where you just end up shackling your mobile assets into defending indefensible fixed location assets and end up at best massively limiting the capabilities of your mobile assets, and at worst making your mobile assets easy targets as well.

Of course there are benefits to throwing the first punch, but the key determinant on who is more likely to throw it is to see who has the better plan B. The PLA doesn’t need a sucker punch to win, it has the mass, endurance and determination to see the fight through. The US OTOH, not so much. Without a strong alpha strike to significantly degrade the PLA, it’s hard to see how they can survive a stand up fight over Taiwan. That, will force America’s hand if and when it thinks war is inevitable.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

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.

Click to expand...

This is very much getting into a hypothetical of a hypothetical, but it could range from terms of peace where the PLA has no military presence on Taiwan island, or simply using it as an excuse to degrade the PLA's warfighting capabilities, or targeting key aspects of Chinese military and civilian industry to put them back a few years (either in terms of industry as a whole or just a few key projects), or using Taiwan as an excuse to maintain a long term economic sanctions regime with buy in from US partners/allies/western world etc to weaken China as a whole, or any combination thereof.


Now, some of these suggestions are more viable and more useful than others, but my overall point is more that I think the PLA and Chinese leadership should be under no illusion that even if the PLA were successful in taking the key infrastructure and areas of government in Taiwan island within a relatively short time period, and even if they're able to start shipping in military forces daily by the brigade, it does not mean that the US will simply shrug and go home.
It is very possible that during this period, the US will aim to initiate or continue waging active high intensity conflict rather than simply accepting the new reality, with the goal of creating what opportunities and minor advantages it can eke out.

Fedupwithlies said:

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.

Click to expand...

Look at it this way.

If the US had made a decision to definitely go to war with China on a set timeframe, there is absolutely no way this could be kept a secret. Too many preparations would have to be made and too many people told of the decision.

Plus who would decide on the date/time for a US war on China? Is it President Joe Biden, who is senile and can barely make any decisions for himself? Is it the Joint Chiefs, Congress or even the Blob? And what happens when Joe Biden likely loses the next election and the Republican party takes over?

plawolf said:

You are making the logical fallacy of comparing a hypothetical future US position with a static past Chinese position.

Click to expand...

I am comparing a hypothetical future US position with a hypothetical future Chinese position, namely a near future time period where China has started an AR operation but China has not struck US westpac positions due to not wanting to guaranete US involvement into the war, giving the US given ample time to surge and reinforce its westpac positions, who then proceeds to initiate and intervene in the conflict on its own schedule.

plawolf said:

The kind of hardening work you describe are not quick or easy to do, and the Chinese will not just sit on their hands and wait for the US to finish before making their own counter-preparations.

The inescapable realities of logistics and geography overwhelmingly favours China here.

As the Ukraine war has demonstrated beyond all possible doubt, commercial grade tech is very much battlefield relevant, and who is the factory of the world when it comes to commercial products?

For China, building a few hundred thousand Gerans is trivially easy, quick, cheap and basically doesn’t come with any opportunity costs for the PLA in terms of procurement of high end dedicated military munitions. That alone will hard counter America’s entire land based AD arsenal and the 7th fleet from pure munitions attrition alone.

Click to expand...

I am sure that China will be capable of procuring munitions and utilizing certain aspects of production to augment its fires bandwidth/capacity and try to counter a US wartime surge/reinforcement prior to commencement of hostilities between the two.

That said, Harpy/Shahed/Geran (or in Chinese service, JWS-01) pattern drones aren't a great argument for it. Such low end prop driven suicide drones would not be countered one for one by Patriots, but rather by equally low end but networked counter-UAV systems such as vehicle mounted c-UAS or even lower end systems like Iron Dome equivalents.
Depending on the robustness of the guidance systems on the mass produced suicide drones (or indeed other munitions), soft kill by EW may end up taking out large swathes of them as well.

plawolf said:

I would also suggest that trying to use carriers to supplement the defences of US forward bases is falling into the sunk costs fallacy where you just end up shackling your mobile assets into defending indefensible fixed location assets and end up at lost massively limiting the capabilities of your mobile assets, and at worst making your mobile assets easy targets as well.

Click to expand...

That depends what the system of systems fires exchange and ISR balance is, which again is in turn dependent on the mass and efficacy of fires vs defenses.

plawolf said:

Of course there are benefits to throwing the first punch, but the key determinant on who is more likely to throw it is to see who has the better plan B. The PLA doesn’t need a sucker punch to win, it has the mass, endurance and determination to see the fight through. The US OTOH, not so much. Without a strong alpha strike to significantly degrade the PLA, it’s hard to see how they can survive a stand up fight over Taiwan. That, will force America’s hand if and when it thinks war is inevitable.

Click to expand...

I think this discussion has gone a bit into the weeds.

My overall point is that the PLA's likelihood of being able to win a conflict (and with better exchange ratios) against the US is far higher if it chooses to use a knock out sucker punch, rather than waiting and allowing the US surge and reinforce its western pacific forces prior to intervening/entering the conflict on its own time schedule.

In such a situation where the US is able to have the time surge/reinforce its position, I am not saying that the US will be able to walk all over the PLA, and depending on what the goals of victory are, it may even be that the US will not be able to attain victory over the PLA.
But I also believe that for the PLA, it would be in a far more advantageous position if it were able to be the one who strikes the US westpac positions first, but that has the dilemma of guaranteeing US involvement with a conflict, whereas if they don't strike US westpac positions first then it opens up the risk of having to fight a more difficult war when the US is more prepared.

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

Click to expand...

@Blitzo

Whilst an invasion and occupation of Taiwan in 1-2 weeks would be very difficult and likely not possible - this is enough time to set the stage for its conclusion.

Let's say Taiwan's electricity, fuel, water and telecoms fixed infrastructure is destroyed within 1 week. That should be doable with less than 10K aimpoints. At the same time, the airports and seaports are destroyed and under continual attack. Taiwan is just too close to China to prevent this happening indefinitely. Food imports stop and the food distribution system collapses.

So after the first week, everyone knows Taiwan only has a matter of weeks before it suffers complete societal breakdown into chaos. And crucially, this applies even if a fully mobilised US military gets involved.

Blitzo said:

That said, Harpy/Shahed/Geran (or in Chinese service, JWS-01) pattern drones aren't a great argument for it. Such low end prop driven suicide drones would not be countered one for one by Patriots, but rather by equally low end but networked counter-UAV systems such as vehicle mounted c-UAS or even lower end systems like Iron Dome equivalents.
Depending on the robustness of the guidance systems on the mass produced suicide drones (or indeed other munitions), soft kill by EW may end up taking out large swathes of them as well.

Click to expand...

I've already considered the effect of EW on Shaheed Type drones.

Remember that GPS signals will be used by lots of other munitions types.

And the EW equipment on Taiwan will be easily detected, and they should be a high priority for Harpy drones or aircraft specifically looking for EW emitters.

---

What does an EW soft-kill look like for a Shaheed? If it loses GPS signal, then it can just loiter or come around 180 degrees for another pass. Or perhaps it goes towards a pre-programmed secondary target elsewhere. It's not a supersonic missile that can't turn around.

In any case, it should be straightforward to add 2 smartphones, which gives you stereoscopic vision. That means terrain guidance and terminal optical guidance to a target. You would want to do this anyway, because you would get bulls-eye accuracy instead of a 3 metre CEP with GPS.

---

Shaheeds would not be sent in by themselves. They would almost certainly be part of a coordinated airstrike including SEAD aircraft whose specific role is to hunt down air defences who have to reveal themselves when they try to shoot down incoming Shaheeds or the strike aircraft carrying heavier munitions.

Iron Dome equivalents still cost a minimum of $100K each, on par with the Stinger example I mentioned earlier.
You don't get Western SAM systems any cheaper
That is still 5x more expensive than a $20K Shaheed.

In an arms race, large numbers of Shaheeds win against the Iron Dome or Stingers.

Blitzo said:

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.

Click to expand...

I agree the PLA is not yet ready for such a quick operation, but attaining that capability should be a key priority over the next few years.

What I don't believe is that the US would still attack China after the fait accompli. China would not be unprepared, so any initial US strike wouldn't do much damage. And they would start an unprovoked war with a nuclear power. Reaching nuclear parity should be another key priority. There would be complete decoupling, yes. But the US isn't going to start a war it doesn't expect to win, just to destroy some Chinese assets. Even if China loses half its fleet and air force but keeps Taiwan and avoids the wider escalation of a Pacific/world war, that's still a good outcome. Any "unfavourable" peace along the lines of the 50 years of Hong Kong one country two systems option seems fine. By 2049, the terms of such an agreement won't matter anymore

AndrewS said:

I've already considered the effect of EW on Shaheed Type drones.

Remember that GPS signals will be used by lots of other munitions types.

And the EW equipment on Taiwan will be easily detected, and they should be a high priority for Harpy drones or aircraft specifically looking for EW emitters.

---

What does an EW soft-kill look like for a Shaheed? If it loses GPS signal, then it can just loiter or come around 180 degrees for another pass. It's not a supersonic missile that can't turn around.

In any case, it should be straightforward to add 2 smartphones, which gives you stereoscopic vision. That means terrain guidance and terminal optical guidance to a target. You would want to do this anyway, because you would get bulls-eye accuracy instead of a 3 metre CEP with GPS.

---

Shaheeds would not be sent in by themselves. They would almost certainly be part of a coordinated airstrike including SEAD aircraft whose specific role is to hunt down air defences who have to reveal themselves when they try to shoot down incoming Shaheeds or the strike aircraft carrying heavier munitions.

Iron Dome equivalents still cost a minimum of $100K each, on par with the Stinger example I mentioned earlier.
That is still 5x more expensive than a $20K Shaheed.

In an arms race, the Shaheed wins against the Iron Dome.

Click to expand...

To note, I did mention counter-UAS systems, to clarify, I meant gun based systems (including but not limited to SPAAG) networked with radar.

Minm said:

I agree the PLA is not yet ready for such a quick operation, but attaining that capability should be a key priority over the next few years.

What I don't believe is that the US would still attack China after the fait accompli. China would not be unprepared, so any initial US strike wouldn't do much damage. And they would start an unprovoked war with a nuclear power. Reaching nuclear parity should be another key priority. There would be complete decoupling, yes. But the US isn't going to start a war it doesn't expect to win, just to destroy some Chinese assets. Even if China loses half its fleet and air force but keeps Taiwan and avoids the wider escalation of a Pacific/world war, that's still a good outcome. Any "unfavourable" peace along the lines of the 50 years of Hong Kong one country two systems option seems fine. By 2049, the terms of such an agreement won't matter anymore

Click to expand...

China would not be unprepared for the US, but the US would also not be unprepared for China as the US would have had time to surge and reinforce its westpac presence unmolested.

If the US chooses to intervene at that stage (assuming the PLA has been able to "occupy" Taiwan 2 weeks after AR was initiated), the military and geopolitical goals could greatly vary based on the regional geopolitical environment, the PLA's own losses in the 2 weeks of AR, US political will etc.

However, if I were the CMC, I would be assuming that the PLA may still have to face and fight the full might of the US military that has had some time to be substantially redeployed to the western pacific, and to achieve an outcome that allows the greatest flexibility and options to pursue a lasting peace on their own favourable terms into the future both in the region at large, but on a global scale.
The fact is that even at the conclusion of the Taiwan-oriented conflict and assuming China is able to win, the US-China animosity will not end and indeed is likely to escalate afterwards. The goal for the PLA would be to attain victory and peace on a form which positions China in the best possible way in all domains to compete in the years and decades afterwards.

Blitzo said:

This is very much getting into a hypothetical of a hypothetical, but it could range from terms of peace where the PLA has no military presence on Taiwan island, or simply using it as an excuse to degrade the PLA's warfighting capabilities, or targeting key aspects of Chinese military and civilian industry to put them back a few years (either in terms of industry as a whole or just a few key projects), or using Taiwan as an excuse to maintain a long term economic sanctions regime with buy in from US partners/allies/western world etc to weaken China as a whole, or any combination thereof.


Now, some of these suggestions are more viable and more useful than others, but my overall point is more that I think the PLA and Chinese leadership should be under no illusion that even if the PLA were successful in taking the key infrastructure and areas of government in Taiwan island within a relatively short time period, and even if they're able to start shipping in military forces daily by the brigade, it does not mean that the US will simply shrug and go home.
It is very possible that during this period, the US will aim to initiate or continue waging active high intensity conflict rather than simply accepting the new reality, with the goal of creating what opportunities and minor advantages it can eke out.

Click to expand...

Regarding the demilitarization of Taiwan, one interesting corollary is the situation in Tibet, where the Dalai Lama for a very long time consistently argued for the demilitarization of Tibet. Hu Yaobang even considered such a demilitarization to obtain more favorable relations with the US. Ultimately however, without any hard way to dislodge the PLA in Tibet, the exiles had to revise their original demilitarization plan.

In order to get PRC to even accept the demilitarization of Taiwan, US must be capable of degrading the PLA garrison there to the point where demilitarization is acceptable. Simply harassing Chinese shipping/resupply won't cut it: Khampa guerillas systematically harassed PLA convoys to Tibet for decades and it didn't change the final outcome. Similarly, the PRC might accept such harassment as a temporary measure to permanently control Taiwan and tolerate it until the US realizes that 1. it won't help them reach a settlement with the PRC, and 2. PRC is more than willing to absorb the losses if it can control Taiwan.

My point is that once the PRC takes the island, the US can only obtain leverage if it is able to systematically destroy any Chinese resupply efforts, which includes destroying the Chinese navy and air force. Otherwise the PRC will shrug off the damages and wait for the US to realize it's efforts are wasted.

Everything I've read on this thread indicates to me the absolute criticality to the PLA of having substantial numbers of H20 and especially 09V available to hold CONUS targets at threat and interdict US reinforcements in mid Pacific before an AR is attempted.