That sounds remarkably unlikely and irrational. If China touched the US mainland it would mean immediate full-scale war, the opposite should be assumed.
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...
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.