I’ve read some analysis along these lines in the defense wonk journals, and while there’s truth to the old saying “everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth” and maybe China would surprise us, I am very skeptical of China’s capacity to execute a land invasion across the strait if it is actively resisted by U.S. Naval and Air Forces. (Note that America with its much more capable Navy would likely be unable to launch an amphibious invasion across a strait against China’s Navy) a lot of the issue comes down to how important missile technology is, how badly boats are going to fare in a high missile use scenario, and how relatively easy it is to launch a lot of missile.
I am completely unqualified to poke any holes in your military analysis. I would just point out that it all depends entirely on China agreeing to limit the battle to the Taiwan straight, and to not respond by attacking our bases and allies within range of their missiles. Martin_Hyde beat me to it with the “hit in the mouth” quote.
Yeah, I agree with this. A forced entry seaborn invasion is one of the most challenging and difficult military exercises out there. I doubt that the US could invade a well-defended island off our own coast, and our capabilities are much greater than China’s wrt training, personnel, equipment, doctrine, and tactics as well as practical experience. The wild card is China’s vast…and unknown capabilities wise…missile systems, both short, medium, and even long-range as well as things like their carrier killer systems and, perhaps, hypervelocity missiles if recent reports are true (and they are actually deployed and working).
All that said, what matters wrt whether the CCP pulls the trigger on war is their perception of what their chances are. A lot of the top PLA leadership are, basically, political hacks and party members without much, if any practical or operational experience. Lower down the food chain you get folks who have, at least in theory, decent knowledge of these things but little practical experience. So, what are these folks telling their political masters? That’s the $64k question, and my WAG is…they are telling them what they want to hear. Same as the economics guys and the infrastructure guys, and their medical guys. They tell the party what the party wants to hear at all levels, and it trickles up, so to speak…the lower guys lie to their immediate superiors, who then extend and enhance the lie going up until it reaches the top, where the top guys lie.
Ok, sorry then, I have no idea what your point was. My apologies for not following what you are getting at.
Interesting, and alarming discussion.
Most of the thinking seems about repelling a Normandy style landing.
That one almost always end with China failing.
Alternative: PRC announces that regaining possession of the island of Taiwan is more important than the people of Taiwan, and therefore on a given day, if the the island isn’t surrendered to PRC they will simply nuke the fuck out of the place. I believe the merkin vernacular thrown around is to “glass the place”. Would the US be prepared to launch a retaliatory or preemptive nuclear strike on PRC in defence of Taiwan?
My thinking is PRC using more of a monetarist approach.
PRC continues to buy US debt to an unsustainable level, then offers to forgive the debt in exchange for PRC control over the South China Sea and all its island and Taiwan.
In which case the US would simply hand over the keys.
This would make the Chinese state a complete pariah and rogue state that no one would deal with going forward. I don’t think this is a viable option. However, a slight change to your scenario. Beijing decides, as you indicated, that a forced entry invasion would be too risky and costly, but still decides to attack Taiwan. They impose a blockade…and then set about systematically launching their vast store of missiles (both ground to ground and air/sea to ground) at both civilian and military targets, warning off any nation to stay out of the blockade zone. Would the US go to war then? Hard to say, but that is more plausible than nukes…and more realistic for a decent outcome from the Chinese perspective with at least slightly less international condemnation. China could, in theory, bombard Taiwan extremely heavily using only conventional means and attempt to force them to submit…which, if no one came to their aid, would be a real possibility. At least eventually.
I have…doubts. The majority of US debt is owned by citizens of the US, and I seriously doubt China would go into a spending spree to buy up a larger percentage. And they wouldn’t ‘forgive’ the debt, it doesn’t really work that way. I suppose they could try and sell it and manipulate things so that this floods the market with US treasury bonds and such, but I again doubt you could substantially chance the equation even doing this. Certainly, I don’t see them being able to use this against us in the fashion you are saying here. More realistically and in line with what they actually do is to subvert our elites, get them to tout the CCP and get them to say that the US shouldn’t assist Taiwan, that it’s unwinnable and too costly, blah blah blah…and get them to influence the narrative and public opinion that way. THAT is a real issue, and is actually what the CCP does all the time.
My point, which obviously I am clearly doing a poor job in making, is that a shooting war with China would be an unmitigated disaster, even if we won. China is by far our largest trading partner. They hold 1.1 trillion of our debt. If they stopped trading with us tomorrow, our economy would grind to a halt for months. They can cause terrible damage to our Pacific bases and allies. They have missiles that pose a realistic threat to our carriers. I do not think a military response in defending a committed invasion by China, even if we “win” is worth the risk or consequences.
I think penultima thule’s scenario is a lot more plausible than we may like to imagine, because China is well aware that it’s going to be an international pariah no matter what the war outcome is, or how it was waged. Even if it never went nuclear, or threatened nukes, it would be a pariah. Win or lose, it would be a pariah post-war. Since its international reputation will be trash once the war is over one way or another, why not try the nuclear blackmailing at the very beginning?
And in fact, this could be the most decisively effective outcome. If Taiwan did, in fact, surrender because of nuclear threats (maybe China detonates a few underwater nukes east of Hualien for dramatic effect), this would mean a war that was won without firing a single shot. In fact, maybe a bloodless war. Is the international community going to be that pissed off if China annexes Taiwan without spilling a single drop of blood? They might slap a few sanctions on China but that would be it. In fact China may be less of a pariah for doing things this way than with the conventional Normandy-type landing in which thousands are killed.
Yes but the U.S. economy is going to suffer serious harm even if America never intervenes in the war at all. Not only would trade with China be cut off (you can’t do trade when the region is a shooting zone; all commercial planes and ships are grounded during that time) but the U.S. high-tech industry counts on Taiwan for a lot of semiconductor chips.
That’s certainly our thinking. It’s less certainly that of PRC.
Maybe that’s a price they think is worth paying.
That the US would defend an invasion force crossing international waters to Taiwan would be probable.
It is much, much less likely that the US would launch air strikes or missiles on PRC territorial bases that are bombarding Taiwan with conventional weapons.
[BTW Understand the actual debt mechanism involved, was just trying to be illustrative for purposes of concision]
PRC’s preferred option was and remains that all it’s renegade territories voluntarily return. Whether that is achieved within a century or centuries. What has happened is that the timeframe now seems to be within Xu Jinping’s lifetime.
No worries…thanks for your patience. I am often reading and replying to these threads via phone, so I sometimes miss a lot of context and the point.
Ok, so I agree with you…a shooting war would be a disaster, no doubt, full stop. For the US, for China and for the world. But…that doesn’t mean that China and the CCP see it that way or make the same calculation…or value the same things you and I are wrt their economy and such. Basically, they don’t do any of that…they don’t make the same calculations, they don’t value the same things and the have different priorities.
As far as our largest trading partner, this is true, but frankly it would hurt the Chinese a lot more than the US if there was a full disconnect in trade due to a war. Again, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean this would stop the CCP. For one thing, they might calculate that we would huff and puff, but fairly rapidly come back to them for trade. Even if not, they might calculate it’s still worth it for them.
As for the $1.1 trillion, that’s, again, fairly accurate (it varies, so not sure where it is exactly right now, but that’s a good ballpark)…and that’s less than 5% of our total debt. Also, it’s not like they can do much with that aside from selling it, which wouldn’t affect the US one way or the other.
Bottom line is, our economy would be hurt, but not grind to a halt. The US, simply, is too vast and has too large a domestic market for any one nation, even China, to do that. We’d be in a huge recession, or maybe even a deflationary period since you’d have plenty of capital chasing too few goods and services due to supply chain disruptions. I’m not enough of an economist to know, but China would be hurt MUCH more. They are almost completely reliant on exports, and their exports are mainly lower end products or to act as supply chain conduits or end points for assembly and moving products on. It would be devastating for them.
Rationally, all of this SHOULD indicate that China would be crazy to go after Taiwan, and that would be true…from our viewpoint. But there are a ton of other factors involved in this that I can get into if you really want, though is beyond the scope of this thread.
That’s fine, and it answers the OP, so thank you. 
This is an honest point of debate. I disagree, obviously, but I can see your view point and think it’s a valid stance from your perspective.
Really because the use of nukes, besides being counter productive to their goal of taking Taiwan and using it, not just glassing it over, is that this step is seen as beyond the pale at the international level. There would be no coming back from an unprovoked nuclear strike against 23 million people and against a non-nuclear power. It would irrevocably sever them from the international community and burn all their bridges…and what would they gain? A glassed out Taiwan? Of what use to them would that be in comparison to the cost?
Even the CCP understands how bad the use of nukes, especially in this context, would be…IMHO of course. They might threaten to use them (they recently threatened Japan with just this…it went over really well with the Japanese populace too, as you can imagine 
), they might chest thump about it, but actually doing it? I just don’t see it…especially when they have other options that they would think were more viable.
Of course, the one they REALLY want is for their combination of threats and subversion to essentially get the Taiwanese to give up and surrender and voluntarily…for some definitions of that term…join the mainland. A lot of this is geared towards that goal…they threaten, they coerce, the subvert and then step 3…PROFIT! But if that doesn’t happen (and, frankly, they seem to be actually losing ground on this, by their own actions), then they might (I’d say probably will, unless they really think they will lose) still try to do it by military force. But not using nukes.
Yes, I agree…certainly I concede that it’s an open question as to what we might or might not do. It’s kind of the point of strategic ambiguity after all, though as I said this is a double edged sword since the CCP might calculate we’d do nothing, then we do something. But air strikes are plausible…and I don’t think people really appreciate how large the PLA rocket forces and general missile inventories are across the board. It’s been a major focus of their spending.
True enough, though this isn’t just Xi or even just his faction. Still, Xi’s faction has put a lot of political capital on this, so I think this whole things is coming to a head in the next 5 years or so. We’ll see what the CCP does, and to me more importantly what they spend their money on…or don’t spend their money on…going forward, but my WAG is that IF they are going to attack, it will be in that 5 year time frame. But, yes…their preference is definitely for Taiwan to ‘voluntarily return’ (even though Taiwan was never part of the CCP).
If China started air and missile strikes on Taiwan, the US would have plenty of options aside from invading or retaliating with airstrikes against mainland China. Attacks on shipping (for example) could be devastating to the Chinese (and yes, world) economy and could be preportianate without nearly as high levels of civilian casualties and relatively low levels of risk to US forces.
This is why those expendable countries considered as US allies with defense treaties get real nervous as to the US bona fides regarding US interests rather than US obligations and US rhetoric.
China launches a sustained missile attack on Taiwan and in response the US starts sinking container ships?
Is that what they call in global strategic think tanks “asymmetric warfare”?
Or, more likely, China sinks a bunch of container ships by accident (or ‘accident’) in the region. The only way the US would be sinking container ships is if we were actually fighting the Chinese, and those container ships would be most likely loaded with Chinese soldiers, or Chinese flagged ships trying to bring in resources though, say, the Malacca Straight or maybe down from Russia. These would be legitimate targets in a shooting war, so not sure what your issues is here. Can you explain why you are putting this on the US and don’t seem concerned with all the death China would be heaping on the Taiwanese? I’m trying to figure out where you are coming from or what point you are trying to make here.
And actually Taiwan has some counter strike potential as well. They have some (not that many) short and medium range missiles of their own they could use to hit logistics and staging points for the PLA. I think they even have a missile that could, in theory, hit something like the 3 Gorges Dam, though I seriously doubt they would use it for that purpose as it would take away the high moral ground they will be on. But, yes, the US would have a lot of options wrt counter strikes against the Chinese. Most likely we’d be fighting more defensively and cautiously, depending on what the Chinese would be doing. If China were just attacking Taiwan, we’d probably limit the conflict to be focused there. If China decided to strike, say, Guam or other US military targets then that would open things up to broader strikes against Chinese military targets in the SCS and mainland. If China went for basically unrestricted (conventional) war against the US, the US would probably respond in kind. My WAG is that the US would try and limit the conflict as much as possible, and the ROE would be dictated by what the PLA and CCPs actions were and what they were doing.
If Taiwan is facing conquest, as far as they’re concerned nothing is off the table. What good is the moral high ground if you no longer exist?
And that’s how you lose a war - by letting the other side set the rules. They get to escalate when it’s advantageous for them, and they get to do it first.
The difference between Afghanistan and China is that Afghanistan had little to lose, while China has a lot. The way to dissuade China from invading is to convince them that the losses they are sure to suffer, in terms of lives, property and money, will greatly outweigh any benefits they hope to achieve.
It wouldn’t be a strategic target, more a terror target…and it would be unlikely to phase the CCP. They will most likely be using these sorts of things to hit at the logistics points and ship and troop concentrations instead.
True enough, though the flip side of this is it if spins out of control it could go nuclear. The US would be trying to fight in as limited away as they could to keep things from spinning out of control. If the CCP didn’t go after Guam or our bases in Japan, then we would almost certainly limit our strikes on mainland targets, instead of focusing on air defense, missile defense, and, perhaps, going after the ships involved in the softening up and invasion in the later stages. Whether the US could actually do this is another question.
If Hawaii were to undergo a communist revolution, declare de facto independence and ally with China, what would it take to convince the US that the losses that we would be sure to suffer in retaking Hawaii would greatly outweigh any benefits we hoped to achieve?