> Taiwan will be surrounded by half a dozen Chinese aircraft carriers
Every time U.S. aircraft carriers enter a discussion, the reams of developments in anti-ship missile and swarming tactics with aerial or maritime drones (or fast boats) comes up.
Every time U.S. aircraft carriers enter a discussion, the reams of developments in anti-ship missile and swarming tactics with aerial or maritime drones (or fast boats) comes up.
In contrast, the weapon-platforms of Taiwan / US Navy are simply more constrained. Sure, US Destroyers / Cruisers are good missile platforms and US Aircraft Carriers / F35 fighters are also good delivery mechanisms for anti-ship missiles...
But China has the advantage of land-based missiles, land-based air force, AND sea-based naval forces to triple-team up against the US Navy.
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Chinese Carriers hanging around the Straight of Taiwan and hugging their coastline (under protective cover of Chinese missile-forces / Chinese air-forces) is the expectation.
We're not concerned about Chinese Carriers trying to say, attack Hawaii (which would be the opposite situation: US Air Force supporting US Navy in defense). The near-term threat is the gross geographical advantages of the China-Taiwan fight.
There's a mild expectation that if a Chinese / Taiwan fight were to occur, US Marines might be forced to make landings in the Chinese mainland to destroy Chinese land-based missile forces and even the odds.
If Taiwan is loaded with anti-ship missiles, cruise missiles, naval mines, loitering munitions, artillery, modern fighter jets, etc., any Chinese invasion is at the very least going to come at very steep cost in life/military hardware.
And then the economic costs (to everyone in the world) are going to be extreme.
Better than nothing, but the Chinese mainland has literal highways and railroads to deliver more-and-more missiles.
When all else is equal, the winner is decided by logistics. Who can "deliver" more missiles to a location first? I'm willing to bet that Chinese highways and Chinese railroads have superior logistics / delivery than Ishigaki Island or the Batanes.
That is: the winner will be decided by "number of missile deliveries to the Strait of Taiwan". (A lot of people get caught up in thinking about the "last mile" of delivery: F35 jets or Destroyers or MLRS systems. But the "first mile" of railroads / highways is just as important, and leans severely to a Chinese advantage)
> If Taiwan is loaded with anti-ship missiles, loitering munitions, artillery, modern fighter jets, etc., any Chinese invasion is at the very least going to come at very steep cost in life/military hardware.
Putin just proved to the world that "Just because its a bad idea" doesn't mean it won't stop the autocratic dictator from doing something stupid.
China attacking the world-capital of semiconductor manufacturing would piss off the world for sure. But "pissing off the world" doesn't seem to enter into the calculus of these leaders. EDIT: I'm also willing to bet that Xi Jinping cares about Chinese soldier's life only a _little_ bit more than Putin cares about Russian soldier lives.
Which is why it’s almost public policy that the opening salvos of this war would involve raining down missile fire on those logistical chains.
That's an interesting point.
One on hand, rail/highways are superior to anything ocean-going for transport, and cargo ships are easily taken out and would need extremely effective escorts.
On the other hand, rail/highways are much harder to protect because of their length.
If cargo ships could still reach Taiwan with escorts, I wonder if Taiwan could have enough supplies to deny China access to their rail/highway systems such that it negated their numerical advantages.
1. As you said, and China is aware, a war between Taiwan and China will harm both countries and strengthen the US.
2. The world would react extremely negatively (more so than the Ukraine response) if half the world's semi-conductors supply disappeared.
3. Taiwan has cruise missiles that can reach Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, etc. Most of China's development is in the East. [1]
What I do believe might happen is China will reach the point that they can economically bully Taiwan until Taiwan decides it's best to play ball.
Point is if China leans into its fleet for fire support (it’s currently not clear if they will do this or rely on land-based or aerial firing platforms), there are anti-ship missile systems Taiwan could be outfitted with to compensate for far cheaper than those ships cost.
That sounds remarkably unlikely and irrational. If China touched the US mainland it would mean immediate full-scale war, the opposite should be assumed.
Then your assumptions need to be set appropriately.
That is: China will have its full set of highways and railroads in-tact to deliver missiles to the US Navy. That will be the US Navy fighting at a severe disadvantage.
Furthermore, US Marines will largely be sitting around doing nothing. Having additional troops from a separate branch of the military doing __SOMETHING__ would at least help even the odds. (Marines do have some ships, but the Marines specialized in Sea vs Land situations, not sea vs sea kinds of battles)
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In any case, the Taiwan situation is a very difficult fight to think about. US Navy will be at a severe disadvantage in almost every concievable scenario, and its difficult to see how other branches (US Army, US Air Force, or US Marines) can help in a significant manner. (Sure, some islands here and there can station some US Air Force, US Army can also station some troops in Taiwan. But is it enough to make a big difference?)
Your scenario presumes we are in open conflict with Chinese troops, in which case landing marines is merely an escalation of a war that’s already begun.
Agree landing marines is aggressive. But missiles strikes should be assumed.
China would be the aggressor. And the things being attacked would be directly militarily relevant. If China retaliated by hitting Guam, I would call that fair play. (Hawai’i, for historical reasons, would be a stupid thing to hit.)
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What about a Marine WASP-class assault ship launching helicopters to do the same thing (except cheaper)?
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What about a few Marine Special Ops units infiltrating the beaches under the cover of darkness to support those helicopters? If they're discovered, they could be "plausible deniability" units and arguably the USA never even landed in China.
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What about the regular Marine infantry establishing a beach-head to support those Special Ops units, but never advancing further than just the beach?
Etc. etc. Its a smooth and slippery slope. Its not exactly clear where or how to draw a line. In any case, the Chinese missile forces are going to be a severe issue. I expect at a minimum, F35B fighters from Carriers to be utterly destroying any missile-site they discover. That absolutely means attacks on the Chinese mainland.
Something like this is almost a necessity, so that US Marines could do "something" to support the US Navy. Its probably too much to ask the US Navy to solo all of China by themselves.
> Something like this is almost a necessity, so that US Marines could do "something" to support the US Navy. Its probably too much to ask the US Navy to solo all of China by themselves.
We aren’t striking Russian forces despite their deliberate targeting of civilians and numerous war crimes. Why would we attack a far more dangerous adversary first? The moral argument is clearly not enough, and we have no defense pact.
We’d risk giving them their Pearl Harbor moment, and facing the carefully directed rage of a 1.4 billion population command economy under single party authoritarian rule.
Isn't that scenario already happening, just with barely plausibly deniability?
This isn't an accurate understanding of current US military or foreign policy thinking.
https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/249127...
> Military strategists, planners, and force requirements developers should anticipate America’s civilian leadership needing effective military options short of mainland attacks on China. RAND analysts seem to appreciate the risks of homeland attacks, suggesting that “as low as the probability of Chinese first [nuclear weapons] use is, even in the most desperate circumstances of a prolonged and severe war, the United States could make it lower still by exercising great care with regard to the extensiveness of homeland attacks and by avoiding altogether targets that the Chinese could interpret as critical to their deterrent.”
Attacks against the mainland are certainly possible, depending on circumstances, but it's neither the default nor expected.
Russia is currently the aggressor and Ukraine has far more Western support than Taiwan could reasonably expect. Still no Western countries are "closing the skies" or attacking Russian military assets. China is a far stronger opponent than Russia, so I don't see why that would change.
The US would be going it comparatively alone against China in a Taiwan conflict. I believe the best way to protect them is helping them arm themselves to the teeth such that China sees only a brutally pyrrhic victory as a possibility.
AUKUS and the Quad are explicitly aimed at changing this.
China is a weaker strategic threat despite being a stronger local conventional threat. That would seem to me to make outside direct intervention more likely (though not necessarily more likely than not.)
> The US would be going it comparatively alone against China in a Taiwan conflict
There is nothing as centralized as NATO or the EU in the region, but there are numerous US bilateral and a few small multilateral security arrangements, and China is one of the main things motivating those arrangements.
Kendall, Air Force Secretary, said “When you look at it objectively, China is a much greater strategic threat than Russia is”.[1]
1. https://spacenews.com/air-force-secretary-were-worried-about...
The Chinese need not resort to mere land batteries. The Chinese have a fleet of well over 200 Xian H-6 strategic bombers to launch whatever anti-ship standoff PGM they can mount to the wings or fuselage. And the new H-6N is aerial refueled.
A few years from now when these are operationally armed with sufficient quantities of supersonic/hypersonic/flocking/maneuvering/whatever anti-ship missiles China will have absolute control of the sea around Taiwan; foreign war ships, cargo ships and anything else that isn't a submarine will be permitted to remain in the area at China's pleasure.
There is a reason that foundries are rapidly being built in the US, Europe, etc.: the shot callers at the top of these semiconductor manufacturers know that one day in the not too distant future Taiwan will be blockaded in China's play to reunify and there is nothing the West can do about it without risking the destruction of capital ships full of propulsion reactors.