PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

gelgoog said:

The problem is that in a major conflict like that using SRBMs or MRBMs with conventional warheads would not be cost effective.
Let alone ICBMs or the likes. I doubt China even has conventional warheads for ICBMs.

The V-2 was not effective because it had little accuracy and next to no destructive potential in relation to its cost.

You will have to take cost benefit into consideration when you use those missiles. So let us say you use the tactical nukes to hit US bases in the Pacific or carrier groups. I think that would be the most likely scenario.

Click to expand...

ougoah said:

I think there's a higher chance of the US turning to nuclear war if the US is to lose a conventional war to the point of its economic and hegemonic redemption is untenable by the remaining military industry and conventional forces, than it would be for China to turn to nuclear war if China is to lose a conventional war to a similar degree.

This isn't just losing factories and military resources but a devastation of its military to the point it cannot support its prior state and accumulated power.

Why? personal speculation based on cultural tendencies. Chinese generally are indoctrinated to think and behave patiently and for the long term goals. Stumbling with conventional defeat is not justification to end everything. American and western cultures and people are generally all out all in types. Hyper aggressive and assertiveness is more then norm than the exception. Even with individuals. Of course evidence to the contrary exist like with everything but if we're so careless as to generalise with this, then come on... the underdog taking a decades long stumble and pushing the red button or the privileged class out of touch after centuries of dominance (slowly ending in the last 50 years), much too fine and precious to deal with struggles and certainly not happy to accept defeat and a climb down?

This is quite removed from the mechanisms of escalation to nuclear exchange though. We're ignoring the fact that it would be impossible to tell or ascertain truth from intentions of the other party. Nuclear escalation could be triggered by myriad factors and forces not simply conventional defeat on devastating scale. Light or mild losses aren't enough to even consider nuclear exchange except for the US since China can deal with light or mildly heavy losses and not be in a significantly altered position.

The US taking even insignificant but noteworthy conventional losses if China were not to would show its relative inabilities and only enhance that cycle of decline while boosting China's even if the diplomatic and political dialogue around the world be full of various copiums and the usual narrative spin or downright condemnation without pause for understanding and taking in all the nuance i.e. this is at the very least something the US is doing to itself.

It would be the US that could not stand to live in such a world and potentially (however remote) trigger what they might believe to be a winnable escalation. It all depends on which people are in charge and the pressures they have on their shoulders. And of course many other factors ... old men convinced of virgin blessed afterlife (or whatever personal belief) may be more willing to push the red button for example. Especially if they feel they are righteous in their own mind. China as bad and insane or unstable as it could be is simply FAR from this.

Click to expand...

FairAndUnbiased said:

I disagree in terms of psychology. Actually, westerners aren't the ones who go all in, Asians are.

Watch western high school bullying movies like US The Heathers or even Arab movies like Al Rawabi School for Girls vs. Asian high school bullying movies like Chinese Better Days (少年的你）and Korean movie Pluto (冥王星).

In The Heathers the bully mean girls just keep pushing the victims around until they can't take it and fight back. They start slow by spreading rumors, then escalate to small violence, then finally killing one. You can see that they follow a chain of escalation where every step is tit for tat. In Al Rawabi School for Girls, Miriam gets jumped, framed as gay and humiliated. She slowly escalates and revenge on each of her bullies, first by humilating one by tricking her into taking a revealing selfie, then getting one expelled by exposing her at a party serving alcohol, then finally getting one killed in an honor killing.

In Better Days the bully mean girls starts off by forcing a girl to commit suicide. Then they gang up and beat Chen Nian, the protagonist. She vents to her semi-boyfriend Xiao Bei, who then ambushes them with a knife, a huge escalation from bare fists. The bullies then ambush Chen Nian and strip her right before gaokao. The bullies then mysteriously end up missing from school and are later found dead.

In Pluto, the main character Kim Joon gets arrested for murder because one of his bullies is found dead in the woods. But there was no proof he ever did it, he refused to confess, and he lets go. A few days later, tricks his bullies into the school basement and walks in with a bomb.

Asians will accept humiliation up to a degree, but when pushed too far they'll go all out for revenge.

Westerners will escalate slowly.

This is reflected in Chinese defense policy too. It is why US and Russia both like to poke a little and test the waters with a spectrum of use of force and do slow escalation, hybrid war, gray zone warfare, etc while for China the philosophy is 牵一发而动全身 - moving a hair will move the whole body.

Click to expand...

AndrewS said:

I think these analogies are a stretch...

Click to expand...

Mohsin77 said:

Key part is @ minutes 21:50

Analysts in the US are finally coming to the conclusion that the only chance they have to win is to "fire the first shot." As soon as the US detects enough Chinese forces gearing up (probably based on some threshold), the US should be expected to pre-emptively attack, even if the stated Chinese intention is to hold 'exercise drills.' Logically, this makes sense (that's what I'd do), because the US knows that there's no chance of winning decisively if China succeeds in attacking first.

What this means, and going back to something I mentioned in one of the threads, is that the actual Chinese deployments need to be masked, in order to stay below the enemy's pre-emptive threshold and preserve the initiative. 'Large scale exercises' is not good cover if your enemy is planning to pre-emptively launch based on a threshold.

There's obviously a lot of other variables e.g. future US economic conditions might necessitate a drawdown in the Pacific anyway. Also, some of the assumptions in the wargame are still too optimistic for the US. But regardless, whichever side succeeds in attacking first is expected to come out on top, as of right now, in 2022.

Click to expand...

Mohsin77 said:

Analysts in the US are finally coming to the conclusion that the only chance they have to win is to "fire the first shot." As soon as the US detects enough Chinese forces gearing up (probably based on some threshold), the US should be expected to pre-emptively attack, even if the stated Chinese intention is to hold 'exercise drills.' Logically, this makes sense (that's what I'd do), because the US knows that there's no chance of winning decisively if China succeeds in attacking first.

Click to expand...

FairAndUnbiased said:

Chinese forces can be dispersed and under cover of forest, mountain, urban areas, etc.

Click to expand...

Mohsin77 said:

Casually brushing aside the threat of a first strike by an enemy is ill-advised, let alone when that enemy is the US. There are no IADS in existence which can't be saturated by swarms of CMs/BMs/Drones etc. Whichever side launches first will have the advantage, as they will significantly dilute the other side's response.

Click to expand...

vincent said:

Why do you think the Americans can move thousands of CMs/BMs/Drones etc. to the West Pac region without anyone knowing?

Click to expand...