PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

zbb

Junior Member
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The fatal February 14 incident near Kinmen where two mainland fishermen died after their boat was rammed by Taiwan coast guard was quietly resolved on July 30th.

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After several twists and turns, the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan finally reached a consensus on Tuesday over the fatal boat incident on February 14 in the waters near Kinmen, with the mainland recovering the bodies of two fishermen and their seized vessels.
 

gpt

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20207? I was belligerent when Pelosi dumped in Taiwan, but I think that date is too early. I don't Xi is interested in taking that gamble when aircraft carriers, submarines, fighters, etc are not sufficient in numbers yet. Can't count on drone warfare yet.
The 2027 date gets thrown around a lot because of a congressional testimony claiming their goal was to be ready to invade by 2027.
But the broader concern in the Pentagon is because of a convergence of factors towards the end of the decade. US forces are currently in a transitional period where they are retooling[1] to fighting a peer conflict. This takes time though and the minimum relative peer strength of the Navy is expected to be late in the 2020s.

[1] I'll see if i can find patchwork's comments from 2022 but a lot of the capabilities they're going for (sea & air launched SM-6, LRASM) are stopgaps to the rapid rise of PLAN

But Mark Milley the Chief of Staff rebuked those comments saying he has 'not seen any indication' of an imminent invasion. There is this prevailing narrative in Washington that China is running out of gas on its growth model and has an enormous demographic catastrophe coming their way by the mid 2030s and thus the CCP faces a “now or never” moment with regards to forcing the Taiwan issue in the last few years of this decade.

Maybe Comrade Gordon Chang is advising them?
 

gpt

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Which is why that date is more about the relative strength of the USN to the PLAN rather than any actual invasion plan, with the USN overhaul, cost runs and missile procurement issues (due to atrophy of solid rocket motor industry) there are serious concerns about their ability to deter. The RAND report I provided earlier basically admits this.
 

CMP

Senior Member
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I'd be more worried about the imperialists doing something extremely radical to create or trigger another crisis, given their time is running out before they're weaker in literally every area of competition except Olympic medals, homeless, prisoners, genocide, legalized corruption, and shootings.
 

Index

Senior Member
Registered Member
Which is why that date is more about the relative strength of the USN to the PLAN rather than any actual invasion plan, with the USN overhaul, cost runs and missile procurement issues (due to atrophy of solid rocket motor industry) there are serious concerns about their ability to deter. The RAND report I provided earlier basically admits this.
I don't think US will invade just because they believe that after 2027 China will have a better fleet than US. If they don't believe they can take Taiwan today, it makes no sense to wait until 2027, where odds will be even worse.

What I see US is doing now is kicking the can down the road and hope it fizzes out and everyone forgets the grandiose claims US made.

RAND hinged US ability to plan a possible Taiwan invasion on "total" victory in Ukraine for US, whatever that means, we can all agree that the chances of that are extremely slim as Ukraine has already been near emptied of military aged population.

In reality, I think they took up that condition to pass the responsibility to someone else. They can just blame the international "conditions" not being right and retreat from Taiwan with dignity.
 
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