PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

doggydogdo said:

China could just strike those bases and cut off US presence in the Asia-Pacific, bringing the war to the US is too costly and realistically isn't going to achieve anything.

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No I think it will be a huge deterrent on US intervening in China's backyard. Right now US think it can just send planes and ships and cause absolute destruction inside China while staying safe in the CONUS. If China can change this to a situation where most parts of CONUS are under threat of Chinese missile attacks, that will change the political calculation of fighting China. Fighting a distant war is a completely different conversation from fighting a war where your constantly seeing missiles explode near you.

Moreover, if CONUS is under threat of missile strikes, US will have to spend huge money trying to develop air defenses inside CONUS, which means it will have less resources to put into offensive platforms. US will also put less forces forward deployed. They will have to keep alot more planes and ships back in order to defend CONUS. That will mean much less forces can come into the first island Chain to fight.

The way China can strike CONUS could be a strong combined fleet of Carrier strike groups that can essentially penetrate US forward deployed forces and strike deep into the Pacific. Kind of like how German force penetrated the Maginot line. If US puts too much forces in the first island chain, then China can bypass them and strike deep inside in a surprise attack.

Another option could be ultra long range bombers with standoff missiles. They can also develop ultra long range cruise missiles that can fly 10K miles and strike into CONUS.

Finally, submarine force with large cruise missile arsenal could be another option.

tamsen_ikard said:

No I think it will be a huge deterrent on US intervening in China's backyard. Right now US think it can just send planes and ships and cause absolute destruction inside China while staying safe in the CONUS. If China can change this to a situation where most parts of CONUS are under threat of Chinese missile attacks, that will change the political calculation of fighting China. Fighting a distant war is a completely different conversation from fighting a war where your constantly seeing missiles explode near you.

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They could only cause absolute destruction if they can get pass Chinese Navy, Airforce, and SAMs which is basically impossible.

tamsen_ikard said:

Moreover, if CONUS is under threat of missile strikes, US will have to spend huge money trying to develop air defenses inside CONUS, which means it will have less resources to put into offensive platforms. US will also put less forces forward deployed. They will have to keep alot more planes and ships back in order to defend CONUS. That will mean much less forces can come into the first island Chain to fight.

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It would be harder much harder for China to bring the war to the US than it is just to destroy all the ships and planes US sends.

doggydogdo said:

They could only cause absolute destruction if they can get pass Chinese Navy, Airforce, and SAMs which is basically impossible.




It would be harder much harder for China to bring the war to the US than it is just to destroy all the ships and planes US sends.

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you missed the very important point from @tamsen_ikard

antiterror13 said:

you missed the very important point from @tamsen_ikard

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None of those points would change the fact that it's going to be too expensive. There would need to be a large-scale bombing campaign to break American Morale, the most China could do is to do a few terroristic bombings which would make Americans more eager for war. Best to stay out of America.

doggydogdo said:

None of those points would change the fact that it's going to be too expensive. There would need to be a large-scale bombing campaign to break American Morale, the most China could do is to do a few terroristic bombings which would make Americans more eager for war. Best to stay out of America.

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As history and experience has shown, when dealing with Nazi-level fanatics, nothing short of decisively defeating the enemy on their own soil is going to suffice, which means China and the larger Axis of Resistance needs to be able take the fight to enemy and win even if the enemy was going at 110%.

montyp165 said:

As history and experience has shown, when dealing with Nazi-level fanatics, nothing short of decisively defeating the enemy on their own soil is going to suffice, which means China and the larger Axis of Resistance needs to be able take the fight to enemy and win even if the enemy was going at 110%.

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Exactly. This is, I believe, the primary reason for China to continue to delay moving on Taiwan. Essentially any AR will become a broader Sino-American war.

In such a war, even assuming the wildest best case scenario for China of total victory in the pacific and even conquering the whole of the Japanese home islands, that’s only taking out America’s local henchmen. Even taking Hawaii is an almost impossible ask.

That means at present, the best possible dream scenario is still basically a sub-WWI armistice level victory for China where the American homeland is effectively untouched and its government unchanged. And we all know what happened last time such a half-victory was accepted.

Rather than rush into a major war in which your very best possible outcome is a half victory and a prelude to an even bigger war shortly after against a rejuvenated enemy seeking to redress their earlier losses, is it better to wait longer and just fight one war and be able to achieve total, uncompromising victory?

If I am right, expect China to invest crazy amounts of resources into ABM in the coming years and decades. As there is zero change of America not using nukes if it looks like it’s about to loose, and loose completely.

Luke Warmwar said:

This is where things get a bit less certain.

The US can rely on submarines for naval dominance, and China doesn’t yet have a full response.

In a shooting war, the US can degrade China’s construction capacity via strikes from submarines and local bases, whereas China will struggle to strike the US mainland conventionally.

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How exactly would that work when they would have to pay/lose much more men in order to break through Chinese defenses just to destroy something China can easily replace?

Luke Warmwar said:

That means US response to a blockade and degradation of Taiwan can be to blockade and degrade mainland China.

The Chinese response has to be to force the US out of the second island chain, including their bases and submarines.

The questions roughly are:

1. Does China have the capacity to blockade/degrade Taiwan? (Yes)
2. Does the US have the capacity to blockade/degrade China using its submarines and local bases? (Yes)
3. Does China have the capacity to destroy the US submarines and local bases? (Probably not yet)

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The distance to Liaoning from the closest area US can realistically use is even further away than Lviv is to Belgorod. US only has about as many bombers as Russia, and there's a reason we haven't seen Russian bombers overfly even an Ukraine that has maybe 1/10 as good defenses as China has.

Air defenses become the more powerful the greater the tyranny of distance is. An US sub shooting from where it is relatively safe (deep middle pacific) would give Chinese platforms so much time to shoot down the salvos that you'd probably need 100s of missiles to get 1 through. In operation True Promise, only SRBMs were able to penetrate, against a much worse air defense network, and only like a dozen at most out of 200+.

And that's only the coastal dockyards, which are by far the most vulnerable because ships under construction are easy to sabotage even with the low explosive power of a single missile. Most of China's power comes from building tons of missiles deep in the mainland, in unreachable areas.

China doesn't need to worry about attacking mainland US, because they can just focus on destroying US offensive capabilities until they island hop right up to the mainland US, during which all the time they'll be in full war production mode.

US would not dare attack the mainland either, not because they don't want but because it's not realistic.

In the best of worlds, they can launch a salvo of like 300+ missiles without losing a bomber or submarine, out of that, maybe 2-3 will make it to the Chinese coast, with the equivalent power of a few large artillery shells. Nothing significant is gonna take damage from so little firepower, except maybe dry docked ships under construction.

And if anything goes awry, like a SSN running into ASW/SSKs, bombers being ambushed by J-20s, that's gonna be a horrible calculus for the Americans.

So US would focus on attacking far dispersed PLAN assets, and maybe launch raids on Taiwan where Chinese air defenses don't have much coverage, but not on the mainland.

I find this the confidence in US submarines to be misplaced. a submarine vs a surface combatant would be dangerous yes, but to perform a blockade is really stretching it. the danger of a submarine is that it can be anywhere in the ocean, to perform a blockade requires the submarine to be present in a specific area.

also a submarine can carry only a limited number of ordinance to engage surface combatants, once it is out, it has to return to base for replenishment. even if we are assuming that the PLA does not go after those bases/ships, it still takes time for a submarine to travel between them and the area of operation.

lastly, submarines still need ISR support from other platforms to be effective, so if those platforms are neutralized a few submarines cannot do as much damage as one would like. the amount of conventional firepower a submarine can deliver is also very small compared to what it is purported to destroy.

drowingfish said:

I find this the confidence in US submarines to be misplaced. a submarine vs a surface combatant would be dangerous yes, but to perform a blockade is really stretching it. the danger of a submarine is that it can be anywhere in the ocean, to perform a blockade requires the submarine to be present in a specific area.

also a submarine can carry only a limited number of ordinance to engage surface combatants, once it is out, it has to return to base for replenishment. even if we are assuming that the PLA does not go after those bases/ships, it still takes time for a submarine to travel between them and the area of operation.

lastly, submarines still need ISR support from other platforms to be effective, so if those platforms are neutralized a few submarines cannot do as much damage as one would like. the amount of conventional firepower a submarine can deliver is also very small compared to what it is purported to destroy.

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No submarine can avoid detection if PLA surface ships use active sonar. No matter how quiet you are, active sonar is like Radar under water. It sends sounds and sends reflection back. Yes, PLA submarines will not use active sonar but PLA surface ships have no reason not to use active sonar since they are exposed anyway. They will come in force, use active sonar and aircraft based sunobuoys, perform a grid search and detect every single US submarine no matter how quiet it is.

US submarine will be a non factor against PLA surface ships due to chokepoint and shallow nature of the first island chain. Yes, they might be able to sink merchant ships with ease and try to impose a blockade that way, similar to battle of the atlantic in WW2. But we know what the solution to that problem is, its called convoy system.

CMP said:

The same way they have already been trying to win. Balkanize China into as many pieces as possible. That's why the Tibetan rebellion movement was started by the CIA after WW2. And then obviously the Xinjiang nonsense. And CIA even tried reexamining and testing out "Manchuria" and "Inner Mongolia" as candidates for rebellion in recent years, though that hasn't gained much traction and funding.

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Balkanising China isn't going to work.

91% of the Chinese population is Han. That means for every ethnic minority person, there are 11 Han.

In comparison, in the USSR, ethnic Russians were outnumbered by the minorities.