Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

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Shooting wars between nuclear powers have happened before - 1969 between China and Sov Union and in 1999 between Pakistan and India.

China/US would be the 3rd such example and would likely be similarly limited in scope.

In a China/Taiwan conflict it is likely Taiwan itself that will prevent China from taking over. Wargame scenarios tend to indicate extreme losses on China's side as their invading ships and submarines are sunk and troops on Taiwan's beaches are slaughtered while Chinese coastal cities (where most of the population, wealth and industry are) are pummeled by missiles.

Even if they "win" the outcome will look more like the Soviet invasion of Finland where a Red Army general remarked "we have won just enough land to bury our dead" than a glorious victory.

In such a situation if the US got involved at all it would likely choose to swoop in and mop up after a bruised and battered China retreats, maybe presuming that the CCP has lost moral authority and the leadership could be couped.

The fact that wargamed invasions of Taiwan are so costly for PRC is probably why they resort to saber rattling and economic pressure. It's cheaper.

This seems a little far fetched. China can bring overwhelming force to bear on Taiwan. Without the US being involved, it would only be a matter of time before the PRC had near total air superiority. And they also have medium range missiles.

Taiwan is serious about military defense and they are well prepared. They have been for a long time. But China simply has far greater numbers and they are very highly motivated.

Taiwan is a pain in the arse to invade. Its an island surrounded by deep water.

This means that you need complete air and sea control before invasion. Thats costly and difficult, if you want the island to be intact afterwards.

> Thats costly and difficult, if you want the island to be intact afterwards.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would almost certainly entail a prior reconciliation with extreme, prolonged economic disruption from severe global backlash. China desires to control Taiwan as a matter of territorial integrity (from its perspective), diminishment of U.S. strategic influence, and in general national pride. I wouldn't be surprised if the first inbound missiles targeted TSMC and other important industrial assets--less incentive for the U.S. to come to Taiwan's defense. (Not that I think the U.S's decision to intervene would be predicated on mere industrial ties.)

It's not that hard when the island is 200km away and you have 10 000 precision missiles and ten time as many fighters. Total air and navam superiority is something the Chinese are projected to gain in a day or so.

I doubt overwhelming air superiority would be possible, certainly with conventional aircraft. Taiwan has really good anti aircraft systems. Perhaps if China is in posession of some sort of drone tech as yet unheard of. Even then air superiority only gets them so far.

PRC is obviously massively more powerful but Taiwan can still exact a toll way WAY higher than they'd be prepared to tolerate.

Taiwan's indigenous anti air system has never been tested. The Patriot systems that the US provided are really bad, in Israel they routinely fail to intercept drones, and in Saudi Arabia they failed to intercept low quality cruise missiles. Those are basic targets with no jamming and no anti-radiation threat. In a real war with China it would get absolutely destroyed. What we do know about indigenous Taiwanese systems is that plenty of buyers were sought but none preferred it to the alternatives.

They will not make it more than two days against the Chinese. Taiwanese has pretty bad air defence systems. There's a reason Turkey wanted to buy S-400 and that's because American air defences suck badly.

>The fact that wargamed invasions of Taiwan are so costly for PRC

I don't know what wargames you've been reading but recent western ones finally comport with analysis out of PRC from last few years that a PRC-TW confrontation would be relatively expedient and low cost for PRC, militarily. Current assumption is PRC will secure air dominance within days and enable a lot of relatively uncontested actions in absence of US intervention.

TW barely has enough ordinants to arm their prestige military aquisitions. They certainly don't have enough missiles to damage PRC coastal cities without venturing into warcrime scenarios. It's why currently US is desperately trying to pressure the island into adopting porcupine strategies to bleed PRC in case of invasion. But island isn't biting, the establishment is actively stalling reforms because reinstating civil service and telling population their only hope is to fight like insurgents is politically unworkable.

>invasions of Taiwan are so costly for PRC

The invasion itself isn't and hasn't been for a while. The concern has been dealing with US intervention, i.e. SLOC blockades and potential trade sanctions. Taking TW with relatively little cost is almost forgone at this point. Not to mention PRC has host of other strategies without formal invasion like blockade/quarantine they can do right now without single boot on the ground. There is almost no one except the most deluded actual shills that gets paid by TW (i.e. Ian Easton) who thinks TW can put up much of a fight against PRC anymore.

I read a few that indicated that the US wouldnt do really badly in an "all out" scenario. The US is geared towards fighting colonial wars rather than facing off against equiv-tech adversaries.

They can help a lot (and with relative safety) by firing MCBMs from far away, downing Chinese satellites, supplying arms and materiel beforehand and sending subs to sink chinese invading ships but aircraft carriers, fighter jets and long range bombers would all be useless.

Most wargame scenarios indicate a heavy loss of life on all sides (partly coz the US does insist on using easily sinkable aircraft carriers). China might be able to win if it threw everything it had at the invasion but realistically the government would topple if it deliberately tolerated extreme loss of life (60%+ attrition rate for invading soldiers, perhaps?) - especially if it was doing it invading their Chinese "brothers".

If it were as easy as you said it would already have happened.

If the US is involved that is something else. The issue is that Taiwan might already fall before the US gets seriously in there.

Submarines are complicated. The Taiwan strait is not very deep and any US subs would have to deal with UUVs in large numbers and sonarphones. It would be a difficult target.

Shooting down satellites is a very risky proposition. If the US attempts that, the Chinese will retaliate. The US has a lot more to gain from satellites than the Chinese do.

Once those satellites are shot down though the US has no accurate ballistic missiles. The ATACMS relies on GPS for good accuracy. There is no GPS-independent seeker for ballistic missiles in US service. It's also a slow and easy to intercept missile.

It's not happening because, as a Chinese General put it, why today and not tomorrow? The more time goes on the cheaper and easier and quicker it will be, so there is no reason to rush it.

Really insightful. Can you recommend any resources that discuss this?

here's a very simple piece to get started. I remember seeing much better sources but can't find any at the moment:

https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/why-a-taiwan-invasion-would-...

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