PLA strike strategies in westpac HIC

Patchwork_Chimera said:

The most important thing though, is that most of our modeling suggests the United States would have it somewhat worse than the PRC in this regard. Thus, I would consider the economic side of things to somewhat favor the PRC if anything. Further, I don't consider there to be a likely reality in which the PRC initiates hostilities while the US has such a knife to their throats in being able to cause general economic "collapse" (which I don't view as very likely. serious recession? yes, that's unavoidable; but not collapse).

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Both. Back in 2013 the PRC would certainly have come off much worse, but today that's somewhat different. The PRC's domestic market is the largest in the world these days, and given the amount of production that occurs domestically, it is much better able to continue relatively normal economic activity than the US is. Both sides would suffer. A lot. Most of our models put GDP contraction in the 25-35% range conservatively, which is *huge* when dealing with the kind of economic scales we are discussing. However, this shrinkage would manifest pretty differently in the PRC and the US's case, due to the economic profiles of both nations - with the US's "hit" being to more critical sectors (i.e. manufacturing, resource imports, etc.) while the PRC's hit would be taken more on the export side of things, but would not necessarily end their ability to produce those goods.


Oh certainly. I think that frankly, in 15 years time, a lot of the picture is going to be completely different. I suppose I should specify, I am only discussion possibilities out to ~2030 or so (and even that is a bit of a stretched timeline). It's near impossible to accurately quantify both sides (especially in the granular fashion needed to meaningfully conduct analysis) out past even the late 2020s, so it's something I frankly don't even attempt. Once the US has firmly declined from "sole superpower" status, I think the likelihood of US intervention drops dramatically.

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AndrewS said:

I'm just circling back to some of the statements on the economic effects of a US-China war.

1. A 25%-35% decline in GDP isn't just a serious recession. Both China and the US would see something worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s which was only a 26% decline in GDP.

2. If the US suffers a greater GDP decline than China on both a relative and absolute basis, that implies the US decline is closer to 35% whilst the Chinese decline is closer to 25%. This is based on the latest GDP figures in PPP terms: China = $30 Trillion and US = $25 Trillion. So whilst both China and the US would experience a depression, the US depression would be significantly worse. Is this correct?

And if we look to say 5 years into the future when China is significantly bigger, the figures should favour China even more.

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tphuang said:

Ok I just say this kind nihilistic talk is too disturbing to me. This is not a great direction to go, just my opinion.

I think the best thing we can hope is that the DC elites understand how terrible a war with china is and back off from that. Because their recent behavior suggests that they think a war between the two countries is only destructive to china.

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vincent said:

How is it nihilistic when @Patchwork_Chimera already confirmed America will intervene in the renewed Chinese civil war?

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LawLeadsToPeace said:

I didn't closely follow this discussion, so do you know which post indicated that such a situation will occur?

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Note, I predicated this upon the fact that the PLA is unlikely to afford the US time to mobilize and position itself for a more advantageous starting position if it were to intervene in future. The "US intervention is de-facto guaranteed" is a result of me considering the PLA weighing the potentiality of a US intervention to be sufficiently likely and concerning that any scheme of operations that does not ensure the US is unable to intervene would be considered a non-starter. IF the PLA were to initiate hostilities without striking US forces, there is a non-zero chance that (depending on the geostrategic environment) we would not intervene kinetically. However, again, I (and most of my colleagues) assess that the PLA deems that non-zero chance to be too small to count on.

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tphuang said:

Ok I just say this kind nihilistic talk is too disturbing to me. This is not a great direction to go, just my opinion.

I think the best thing we can hope is that the DC elites understand how terrible a war with china is and back off from that. Because their recent behavior suggests that they think a war between the two countries is only destructive to china.

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lzmfVw said:

In the event of a conflict, the opposing participants won't be limited to U.S. & client states in the Pacific, but also NATO. Especially if the PLA were to utilize first strike advantage. While not discussed here since this is a westpac focus thread, the entire west ganging up on China is an entirely real possibility with precedence.

Given the preponderance of that line up, the West may decide that it is willing to pay the price (especially if the benefits are shared among western powers) for stopping the ascendancy of a non-western power by forever locking it behind the first island chain. That is the puzzle China has to solve.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Not necessarily declare war, but US+JP forces at a minimum are absolutely considered H+0 targets in the event of a conflict. Giving us time to reposition, withdraw and disperse assets, and time to elevate our readiness is a huge disadvantage in the event that we do intervene (Even in the course of a single day, our forces can drastically complicate PLA ISTAR and weaponeering). If the PLA is committed to reunification, we currently do not assess that they would afford us the advantage of free time. The best time to kill something is when it's unprepared. Allowing us any time at all would be a significant blunder in the event we do opt to intervene - which I can confidently say is extremely likely in our current geostrategic environment.

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Patchwork_Chimera said:

Indeed, but the calculus adds up if it's assessed that America wouldn't back out in the first place. Essentially, "If they're gonna fight us, we may as well do as much damage as possible while they're still at a peacetime posture."

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