PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
Its all part of a steady process of normalizing these activities. It'll eventually become routine, and nobody will care, Taiwanese complaints will become a 'boy who cried wolf' situation.
Yes I'm aware of all that. It's just such a stark contrast to 2024B, where everything was highly publicized.
Not discounting the fact that the trailer or info or whatever could come closer to the main event but looks like we'll get to enjoy the normalization in real time then.
Do Pan Green think that their power disparity against the PRC is more favorable than that of the Chen Dynasty against the Sui Dynasty?
Varying the size and format of responses is good; it keeps observers off balance and guessing. Surprise is a critical part of holding the initiative.
If I had to guess, it's probably because these predictions are coming from Western institutions who have spent the last 70-80 years thinking about a Korean or Warsaw Pact drive across the DMZ or inner-German border, respectively.
An actual invasion of Taiwan was such a low possibility for so long that no one ever gave thought to how it would play out. So for these people, they just replace Korean infantry or Soviet tanks with Chinese amphibious vessels and expect them to zerg rush across the Strait, which is the new proverbial DMZ/Fulda Gap.
You see this with AirSea Battle. My understanding of it is that it is quite literally AirLand Battle but on the sea, using shore-based ASMs, subs, destroyers etc. networked to a network of eyes (sats, recon planes, drones, etc.) that are expected to hit Chinese ships as they "advance" into the Pacific. No consideration is given to what would happen if the PLAN just hung out around Taiwan, how the US would break through a Chinese blockade of Taiwan, etc. The strategy hinges on a Chinese seizure of the entire 1IC.
Studying WWII is important here. The US did not bum rush the Philippines, it took its time and cut off the islands first, mostly with submarines. Every major amphibious assault was preceded by a major naval and air battle. Only in instances where a target was virtually undefended (US, British, and Dutch forces in most of the Pacific were abysmal in '41) did amphibious assaults tend to come immediately, but even then there were mop up operations and air strikes well before any troops landed.
I'd argue the JSDF, for as little contingency planning as it is allowed to do, is a little more clear eyed in this regard. The reason they say a Taiwan contingency would be an threat to Japan warranting intervention is that on account of being founded by former Imperial military officials, they have the institutional memory of the US occupying outlying islands around the main target and setting up radar stations and emergency landing fields around them before going in. Yonaguni and Ishigaki make perfect targets in this regard.
That said, it's still a silly notion, part of why China is building aircraft carriers is probably to avoid having to do that and being able to fully cover the Pacific side of Taiwan (land-based fighters could do it too, but there might be gaps depending on mission cadence).
This is the strategy they used in the CMANO DLC Chains of War lol.
On a serious note, boots on the ground in Japan may be short-sighted. Any war should be fought so as to end as quickly as possible. If Taiwan is blockaded and bombarded, regardless of the will of its leaders, its military will be destroyed in a matter of time. Then the PLA can land with relatively little resistance. If that happens, Japan and the US will have no choice but to give up.
But how is China supposed to end the war if there are still troops engaging in combat on Okinawa? Or Japanese and American aircraft actively harassing naval and air forces, perhaps even launching sporadic cruise missile strikes on the mainland?
The idea of seizing just Okinawa reminds me of the US decision to "just" deploy troops around Danang Air Base. It's an escalation with no off-ramp. If the ROC falls, will the PLA just suddenly evacuate Okinawa? Won't that look like a defeat in the eyes of the West and Chinese public?
Seizing Okinawa will also trigger the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty. The US will be obliged to fight hard until Okinawa is retaken. Taiwan is a political commitment, but defending Okinawa is a legal commitment of the US. Losing it would raise serious questions about NATO and other alliances. It's also covered by US nuclear deterrence, unlike Taiwan, and therefore its permanent loss could result in a nuclear exchange.
On this forum, I've seen a hypothetical war against Japan be compared to the 1979 war against Vietnam; a brief action that bowed Vietnam from challenging China. The two situations are not comparable, IMO. Soviet support to Vietnam was limited, it was essentially a backwater in the eyes of the CPSU. The USSR was not treaty bound to defend Vietnamese territory. The US is the opposite of these two things to Japan; the two are strong allies and the US is obliged to defend its territory. Besides defending South Korea, defending Japan is literally INDOPACOM's biggest responsibility. The Soviets never had anything like that with Vietnam.
If there are going to be boots on the ground in Japan, it will require a significant expansion of the war. It will require defeating Japan in much the same way as Taiwan. That would be all fine and dandy if there was no security treaty with the US, but there is.
IMO, long-range strikes against Japan are enough. The JMSDF cannot replace itself, it's lagging in recruitment goals as it is, it would be impossible for the Escort Flotillas based at Sasebo and Kure to be reconstituted if they were fully destroyed. The JASDF has the same problem, although attriting the JASDF would be harder given the distances involved. Japanese politicians, for all their nationalist bluster, are highly opportunistic. Look at Abe's lukewarm response to Obama's efforts to get American allies to rally round the flag against the seizure of Crimea. If what remains of the DPP has been removed to a mainland MSS blacksite, the Kee Lung class are at the bottom of the sea, and CCTV is airing images of smiling PLA troops handing exhausted Taiwanese citizens packages of food and water: and then this is contrasted with grieving family members of the crews of sunken JMSDF ships, smoke rising in the air from repeated strikes on Japanese air bases, etc... a Japanese politician will be able to see the writing on the wall. Those guys may dress up like Tojo but they do not have his will.
This isn't about Taiwan, this is about China and US, Taiwan isn't a player, Taiwan is just the trigger. The escalation with no off-ramp is American decision to attack PLA, at which point it's a China-US war and China's objective become defeating the US, not Taiwan.
There are no consideration for US-Japan treaty because it's not a war against Japan. It's not complicated, America attacks China, America is the one at war, America has bases on Okinawa, Okinawa becomes target. If Japan joins, Japan becomes a target, if Japan doesn't join, Japan can sit it out.
If US escalate past point of no return, all territory hosting US bases becomes valid targets, Okinawa is just the first stop, the war will only end in nuclear exchange or American capitulation and loss of all bases to China, Okinawa will be integrated into China just like all other barbarian territory in the past, and Taiwan will be the last stop, not the first.
And the war won't be short, short war only benefit the side without industry, China's industrial dominance means it's not China that wants to keep the war short. Once China mobolizes its industrial power, it can and will fight for as long as it takes.
Of course the above won't happen, because it requires the US fire on Chinese troops to begin with, and if they had the balls to do that they'd let Ukraine join NATO already.
If the alternative to total victory is nuclear war, that's not a good strategy. I'm of the opinion there should be more options on the escalation ladder, and that the US, Japan, and whoever else joins the "Coalition of the Willing" will try to find a way out after suffering heavy losses.
It's up to China to give them a way to do that without losing more face than they already have. If a Taiwan contingency escalates to regional war, victory will mean asserting dominance on the global stage. The US isn't going to magically disappear after Taiwan is taken, thought needs to be given to how the relationship with the US will be managed afterwards.
I'm unaware of any instance where modern China has demonized an actual country and vowed to destroy it to the end. Despite the decades of propaganda about the evils of social imperialism, it even restored relations with the Soviets once Gorbachev came to power and rolled back the Soviets' bid for hegemony over China.
Xi Jinping has talked a lot about building a shared future for humanity and like it or not the US is included in the ranks of humanity.
Of course, the Americans have to do their part too, suck it up, and come to terms with the fact they won't be No. 1 in the world anymore.
I like to think the US supports Taiwan in the same way it supported Ukraine; lead them along a road of tension until it erupts in conflict, then use them to "bleed" the big power without getting directly involved. Unfortunately for the US, Taiwan is an island.
But I've been reading recently about US attitudes to China's nuclear arsenal, and its pretty disturbing. There is little to no recognition of China's deterrent, the question about how to think about China is literally framed as "is China a little Russia or big North Korea" (to be deterred or defended against). And the way the US is planning for conventional war, it seems the attitude leans towards the latter.
Only after Xi shows up at a massive ceremony declaring the operational status of the new silo fields do I think we can say for sure the US won't intervene. There's still a lot of skepticism towards China's nuclear arsenal, along with no discussion of what its expanded arsenal would mean for escalation dynamics in a conflict with China. Xi in PLARF fatigues talking about the increase in the arsenal being necessary to meet the changing international environment will change that.
Or at the very least, that's the best China can do to change thinking in the US prior to a conflict breaking out. China's no first use policy is predicated on the US fearing nuclear strikes more than China; not in a military sense but in a political sense. The only reason the US threatens to use nukes is because it itself fears nukes so much. And China does not (or at least fears them less than the US).
But at the end of the day its an American with their finger on the button. If they really want to kill millions, if not billions over what flag flies over Taipei, that is up to them. One way to influence a person away from making a decision like that is to give them options to cease the conflict.
bajingan
Senior Member
From my understanding is the u.s is painfully aware it has no hope of defeating PLA conventionally in taiwan strait therefore is contemplating or planning to strike PLAN forces across Taiwan strait with tactical nuclear weapons.
Their calculation is, since they thought that China lack low yield nuclear weapons and can only resort to city buster megatonne nuclear weapons, it won't risk MAD nuclear exchange with the u.s over a say 10kt tactical nuclear strike on PLAN vessels. So they are hoping China will back down after suffering a tactical nuclear strike.
Which is delusional and lunatic thought process in my view, there is no way in hell CPC won't retaliate after getting hit by tactical nukes. The most likely response would be PLARF striking American bases in Japan or Guam with tactical nuclear strikes on its own.