PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Ringsword

Junior Member
Registered Member
My assessment is that the Taiwanese government and military is thoroughly penetrated, and no such programme could be kept secret. And which plausible foreign partner is going to produce the nuclear weapons for Taiwan?

But let's say your scenario somehow happens and Taiwan ends up with a small number of nukes AND also delivery vehicles.

These would likely still be tactical-level bombs with small warheads in the beginning. In such a scenario, I still think that this wouldn't deter the Chinese military. Look at how South Korea's doctrine, which is a lightning, pre-emptive conventional strike against North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles.



As I said, the scenario of China imposing a trade embargo on the USA, is if China thinks a war is inevitable and also imminent.

1. If the war happens, then China made the right move
2. If there is no war, because China successfully deterred the USA, then again, China made the right choice, because a war has been avoided



You have to distinguish between policymakers and politicans in the American elites.

The politicians in the USA are either:
1. thoroughly compromised by the Israel lobby
2. religious nutjobs that believe Israel must exist for their biblical prophecies to come true

Also remember that in the attacker versus defender cost equation, defending Israel is far more costly.
This will divert the US military towards the Middle East and away from the Western Pacific.

I don't see how rational American policymakers will be "happy" at this scenario.



First off, Iran would welcome an inflow of Chinese weapons. After all, they've just been humiliated and are looking for vengeance. Note Israel is 1000km from Iran, with is comparable to the distances from China to Japan. And if Iran were to effectively become a Chinese proxy, I reckon the supply routes from Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon would be reopened.

But again, I don't expect this scenario to happen, unless China sees a war with the USA as inevitable.




Here's the crux of the issue.

What happens if the American security guarantee simply isn't credible?

Remember that China can already project far more military power onto the Korean peninsula than can the USA.
That extends to the Western Pacific in general.

---

My guess is that if required, China can successfully impose an indefinite air-sea blockade on Korea, Japan and the Philippines. And that the US military will be unable to break this blockade.

And in a long war, Chinese industry would be able to build a bigger Navy than the US, despite US attempts to attack Chinese industry.

Then the US Navy would be defeated in a blue-water naval battle in the Pacific.
So the US would lose control of global sea lanes and the US would then be subject to a Chinese naval blockade.
Ah,yes I have some of these mil-fiction pulp novels in my collection circa 1985-1995-so prevalent after 1991 fall of USSR/Desert Storm where TW actually gets a working 100 kT atomic warhead on a Tomahawk cruise missile "reversed engineered" and assembled in of all places Antarctica with the Hai Long Class SSK to launch at China threatening to destroy Shanghai and Beijing whereupon TW not only declares independence but has formalized a full defence treaty with USA and a "special protectorate" of Japan.Thank Heaven only some whitefanboy fapfiction -fast forward to today and hopefully a wonderful Chinese successful future,Entertaining and madly irritating to the max-oh,BTW CPC collapses and China breaks up with USA(Central China).Japan(NE China)UK(HK-Southern GuangDong) and guess who ?india(Tibet)/Qinghai Plateau )all taking chunks of China in every direction because we Chinese can't manage our own
country!!!Grrrrrrr.:mad::mad::mad:
 
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zyklon

Junior Member
Registered Member
I do have a question for the Taiwan nuke in question. Why doesn't China simply tell the U.S. publicly, that if Taiwan find itself in possession of a nuclear device, China will automatically assume that it is from the U.S. or with U.S. involvement?

There is a chance that Beijing may very well feel a need to communicate such a warning to Washington down the road, but if it's to happen, it'll occur in private, if not through back channels, at least initially.

Maybe someone has told you this in the past, maybe not: deterrence and escalation are — frequently, if not usually — two sides of the same coin.

As such, such a course of action will not be without its own set of hazards.


And that if Taiwan were to fire a nuclear device against China, that China will treat it as if it were getting nuked by the United States and respond appropriately?

For starters, from Beijing's position: Washington has no business in, with regard to, or otherwise when it comes to Taiwan whatsoever.

Moreover, would Washington receive such a warning seriously?

Ask yourself: would it make much sense or otherwise be responsible of Beijing to drag a peer with a significantly larger nuclear arsenal than itself into the equation, should Taiwan nuclearize?

Not to say this will happen, but since we're talking hypotheticals . . .


Rather than threaten retaliation, Beijing should make it abundantly clear — should things ever have to go there — that should Taipei nuclearize, it will be subject to multiple pre-emptive nuclear strikes without warning.

That might sound excessive, and there will be tradeoffs, but that's how you minimize their ability to even so much as maneuver: "you try, you die."
 

zyklon

Junior Member
Registered Member
Not actually looking or here to dig at you . . .

You're in fact marginally likable, at a minimum you're sophisticated and learned enough to be familiar with concepts — close to my heart or what's left of it — like LCOE, or so you appear.

However, if you want people to take you seriously, it will behoove you to keep your wilder guesses and reckonings to yourself, until you're prepared to present or reference credible deep dives that backstop such incredible and incredulous claims as:


My guess is that if required, China can successfully impose an indefinite air-sea blockade on Korea, Japan and the Philippines. And that the US military will be unable to break this blockade.

And if Iran were to effectively become a Chinese proxy, I reckon the supply routes from Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon would be reopened.

1. No.

2. You might want to take a look into the amount of trade that China engages with the GCC, in particular with the KSA and the UAE, vis-a-vis with Iran.




And which plausible foreign partner is going to produce the nuclear weapons for Taiwan?

Ukraine is one obvious candidate. There's also Poland, and the Baltic three: as I said, it doesn't necessarily even need to be a full-blown sovereign nation state. ;)

Japan and South Korea are in some ways less likely candidates as they're next door to China, and they're more invested in sustaining a constructive relationship with China than European middle powers and post Soviet "mini-states."

However, if South Korea is to nuclearize; North Korea will do something provocative if for no other reason because "North Koreans will North Korean;" the Japanese will get
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, feel a need to follow suit, and some
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more candidly than usual; China will get upset and say things that'll make the Japanese even more anxious; the Japanese will then actually follow suit; China will respond with indignation; and Japanese anxiety will redline, and they'll start believing that it'll be a "good idea" to help some of their bastard cousins in Taiwan do the same; and the Americans will of course egg the Japanese on since "fucking with China" is the default setting.


It's a "slippery fucking slope," friends. :confused:

The broader issue is that a number of American allies or vassals or whatever you want to call them are worried that Uncle Sam is increasingly unable and/or unwilling to protect them, and the alternative is to either be "someone else's bitch" or to nuclearize. Looking at the writing on the wall, there will be candidates for the rogue regime in Taipei to partner with for developing a nuclear capability, should things unfortunately move toward that direction.

Transitioning from one hegemon to the next tends to be messy, and there's no fighting humans repeating history, ladies and gentleman.



2. If there is no war, because China successfully deterred the USA, then again, China made the right choice, because a war has been avoided

This is a bit reductionist, as significant secondary and tertiary effects will emerge as a result of a total embargo against the US, never mind more immediate tradeoffs, but for the sake of discussion, let's keep this simple . . .

What happens in a decade or two down the road, especially should America reasonably re-industrialize?



What happens if the American security guarantee simply isn't credible?

Those American security guarantees are reasonably credible so long as the US military got tens of thousands of troops on the ground to serve as tripwires.

Nothing quite guarantees American military intervention like a chalks packed with flag covered caskets:

hfjivhrhjja.jpg

This is also why the US maintains a relatively limited and far less official (i.e. no SOFA) presence on the island of Taiwan: they're not sure if it's worth the American blood and treasure.



You have to distinguish between policymakers and politicans in the American elites.

What's the distinction?

I don't see how rational American policymakers will be "happy" at this scenario.

What rational American policymakers?! :D
 

bsdnf

Junior Member
Registered Member
ROCA wants to develop "military-civilian shared image system monitoring capabilities", refer to Ukraine in early 2022.

The necessity of PLA to attack power infrastructure and network infrastructure has increased

I bet that in the next few years, there will be a highly redundant, distributed, small monitoring station solution based on solar, with certain power storage capabilities, and data transmission via Starlink
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zyklon

Junior Member
Registered Member
ROCA wants to develop "military-civilian shared image system monitoring capabilities", refer to Ukraine in early 2022.

The necessity of PLA to attack power infrastructure and network infrastructure has increased

The PLACSF unit known as "Volt Typhoon" — a/k/a "Bronze Silhouette" a/k/a "Vanguard Panda" a/k/a "Voltzite" — should already have that largely covered.

They wouldn't have gone out of their way to penetrate and establish a persistent presence within the internal networks of multiple US public utilities — including and in particular some
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, much to the
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— unless they've already pwn'd every 弯弯 equivalent of note, if not imaginable. Can't be too hard for an APT of this caliber, especially when there can only be so many public utilities — including power companies and telecom operators — on that island marginally larger than the Netherlands.

Granted, American
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and
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about "Volt Typhoon" has been rather ironic in itself.

The NSA has reportedly and presumably been developing and deploying TTPs for
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, and
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since at least the 2000s.

Between leaks from sources like Edward Snowden and
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, the NSA is presumably well versed at emplacing implants on targeted systems responsible for controlling and managing critical infrastructure and/or industrial systems.

Theoretically speaking, a threat actor like the NSA, GCHQ or Unit 8200 could even penetrate and implant victim systems years or even a decade plus in advance, thereby effectively granting the US and other nation state actors the ability to disrupt adversarial industry and infrastructure, or even
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in the event of or in preparation for conflict, or as an escalatory option short of a shooting war, at will.

According to
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from over a decade ago:

Idaho National Lab has a cadre of researchers who investigate vulnerabilities in computerized control systems that run critical infrastructure. Researchers there probed the specific control system used for the Iranian enrichment program, a former U.S. official said.
"They found out how you could make them destroy themselves," the former official said.

One could only assume the MSS and PLACSF to possess analogous capabilities, otherwise "Volt Typhoon" and its sister units wouldn't have garnered so much attention these last several years, even if said APT in particular may not necessarily represent the most salient Chinese threat actor in this domain.

I bet that in the next few years, there will be a highly redundant, distributed, small monitoring station solution based on solar cells, with certain power storage capabilities, and data transmission via Starlink
View attachment 156767

Such a scenario is plausible,
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. You see, Starlink isn't available on the island of Taiwan despite the local authorities effectively begging for access.

Everyone's favorite African American, Elon Reeve Musk, FRS is not stupid.

Mr. Musk knows that
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of SpaceX's satellite services by the regime in Taipei would give the authorities in Beijing immediate cause for sanctions against Tesla, if not measures that'll Chapter 11, if not Chapter 7 Musk's EV venture.

Inevitably, everyone's favorite effeminate dorks on 弯弯 have been forced to pursue
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, and appear to be doing so with satellites being purchased from foreign manufacturers
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.



More reason for China to build up her arsenal to 2000+.

The CMC agrees with you: things are reportedly
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in that direction.
 

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
Am I not equipped mentally because I find personal attacks have no place in debates and you prove my point that you only believe it because he is saying what you agree with, that’s called confirmation bias btw. And so bases are imporant but only for China not the US? Or maybe they didn’t steamroll Ukraine because war is unpredictable and there is no way to know who will win and winning is objective some say Ukraine is and some say Russia is. And since when has this forum been about gate keeping and not allowing disagreeing opinions even if “wrong”, this is a professional forum not where we should get to decide if we don’t like what your saying it shouldn’t be allowed.
I must point out that Ukraine actually outnumbered Russia in February 2022 and Russia was counting on combined military pressure and soft power to inflict a morale collapse. That's not impossible and in fact Russia did just that in 2014. US does the same all the time. It sucks to be in a war against a major power, after all.

When it was clear that Ukraine wouldn't surrender and Russia suffered heavy losses, they switched to a hard power attrition strategy to minimize own losses and maximize opponent losses.

The major difference is that China doesn't count on a soft power win or collapse of morale.
 

Thecore

New Member
Registered Member
Curious, what is the likelihood of military high command "letting one through" to a strategically less important target on the mainland to create impetus to push total war all the way to Japan's shores and into her interior? Am I just creating completely impossible scenarios in my head or is there a non-zero chance this has been considered in some war planning room at some point?...

Chinese construction capability, capacity and capital is now at a point where reconstruction from such a scenario would be unprecedented and unlike anything else seen in history.
 
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4Tran

Junior Member
Registered Member
Curious, what is the likelihood of military high command "letting one through" to a strategically less important target on the mainland to create impetus to push total war all the way to Japan's shores? Am I just creating completely impossible scenarios in my head or is there a non-zero chance this has been considered in some war planning room at some point?...
Probably none. If Japan is at war with China at any time, and for any reason, China already has the internal capital it needs to attack Japan full force. Nobody in China has forgotten the Second Sino-Japanese war, and there are a lot of people in China who are itching for payback. The leaders of Japan are fully aware of this, and it's probably the most important reason for avoiding a war with China.
 

PLAwatcher12

Junior Member
Registered Member
Curious, what is the likelihood of military high command "letting one through" to a strategically less important target on the mainland to create impetus to push total war all the way to Japan's shores and into her interior? Am I just creating completely impossible scenarios in my head or is there a non-zero chance this has been considered in some war planning room at some point?...

Chinese construction capability, capacity and capital is now at a point where reconstruction from such a scenario would be unprecedented and unlike anything else seen in history.
It’s possible but unlikely that China would purposely let something hit that could kill or injure civilians just to attack Japan, it would seem like a risky and stupid idea
 
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