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China won't march into Taiwan until they can win a naval war with the US to keep the US from retaliating. And if China can do that, they won't have to march int

China won't march into Taiwan until they can win a naval war with the US to keep the US from retaliating. And if China can do that, they won't have to march into Taiwan. 2050 Indo-pacific naval war is my prediction.

neilpanchal 6y ago
Just broadcast the entire battle on the world stage and we shall watch the show. No human deaths, no civilian casualties, the whole battlefield would be completely remote controlled, streaming in a 128K VR extravaganza. I think the future of war sounds fun.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  No way the future will only be robot vs robot in some sterile symbolic chess game. The endgame is robots getting past robots to kill people.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Indeed. A proxy robot war is just a very expensive game. And if you can settle your differences this way, you may as well do that in Quake 3 Arena for cheaper. And if you can settle your differences with Q3A, you may as well do that over the negotiating table. All of these depend on mutual cooperation; both parties agreeing to respect the outcome of the game. Real war starts when one party is unhappy about the outcome and unilaterally decides to no longer cooperate.
    - magicsmoke 6y ago
      Also when the two parties misjudge their relative military strength. If both parties were in relative agreement about what the outcome of their war would be they wouldn't have to fight one in order to negotiate changes to the status quo. That's why espionage can be a stabilizing force and the US and USSR had treaties during the latter parts of the cold war allowing each side to fly spy planes into the others territory to count missile sites.
      - jbay808 6y ago
        Well, you have to make sure those spies also report that neither side would decisively win. The US and USSR must both have already been confident enough in their own strength to openly allow the other side to see it.
chmod775 6y ago
A naval war in 2050? I suspect that in 2050 mach 20 missiles are going to be the norm, not the exception, and point defense is essentially... pointless against those. It's already inadequate against today's (~mach 5) supersonic missiles. And china has literally tens of thousands with thousands of kilometers range stationed along their coast. A navy that pokes its head out is not going to last long. China's missile superiority in the (western pacific) region has long been a thorn in the US side, but there's little that can be done given that their territory is there, and the US can at best station some in allied territories nearby or put it on ships, which are easy targets. So you pretty much have to keep your ships hidden at all times, but being hidden they are going to be pretty much useless except as missile platforms.
- riffraff 6y ago
  what about submarines? It seems likely one of the first moves the US could do is disrupt china's economy by simply blocking their sea routes.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    The question is, who would that harm more? March 2020 has shown us that disrupting sea routes between two continents hurts everyone.
    - solstice 6y ago
      Right now you are right. But I suspect that a lot of governments are furiously at work right now to figure out to turn back globalization a bit to lower their dependence on products being manufactured far away. So I think that the equation will change to some degree and that in turn lower interdependence of countries and therefore possibly the threshold for conflicts...
    - magicsmoke 6y ago
      Certainly not the US. One of the US's greatest geopolitical advantages is that it actually does have all the natural resources it needs in the America's. That's why calls for isolationist policies can be so enticing, because unlike for most countries dependent on oil or metals from international trade, there's no physical barrier to the US taking the option of turtling up. China would suffocate on its lack of oil as it tries to sip what it can through the straws it has to Russian oil fields on the other end of Eurasia if it ever had international oil shipping barred from it.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
No country wants to start WWIII. I don't think the PRC is in a position to finish off the ROC, and I don't think it would be in their interests, either. But equally I don't think that the US want to intervene directly should the PRC take over Taiwan. This would be madness. The problem is thus to imagine how the US would manage to politically 'sell' their inaction. But at the same time, would the PRC dare to take the bet that the US wouldn't intervene? Taiwan is not much different from Crimea on many aspects, but it is different in one key aspect: It's been given much more international prominence, mostly because it is a pawn to annoy the PRC. But the downside is that it makes non-intervention (which is the reasonable course of action, like in Crimea) more difficult to sell. Then, should the PRC invade (which is unlikely) while I'm sure that the Taiwanese would put up a good fight they would lose anyway. There would be plenty of grand speeches and maybe sanctions, but the reality is that everyone would just be looking for the right time to recognise the situation and move on (that's what happened with the existence of the PRC itself, and I'm sure is what will happen with Crimea).
- throw51319 6y ago
  Yeah but isn't it the definition of a slippery slope?
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Not really. Taiwan really is an internal Chinese issue and Crimea is essentially 'repairing' the issue of a Russian territory (with majority Russian population) that was split from Russia relatively recently. Everyone knows that and thus no-one is going to start a direct war over these territories. But even if you were contemplating a direct war the issue would be that direct wars against Russia or China are not realistic because they are nuclear powers and, in any case, too big to invade. Any direct war would certainly require a major aggression from these countries against the US themselves, which they obviously won't do in the same way as the US won't directly attack them. It's all boils down to relative strengths and outcome of a war. There are wars that are never worth starting.
    - 6y ago
barrkel 6y ago
China can almost certainly win a naval war with the US already; or rather, negate the US's naval force projection tool of choice, the aircraft carrier, with anti-ship ballistic missiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26 - range of 2500 miles
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  Every Carrier Battle Group has two ships in it that are essentially devoted to just protecting the carrier whether from missiles or other threats. We've yet to see how effective systems like Aegis are against anti-ship missiles (though I'm sure the DoD has done plenty of tests) but it's far from clear that anti-ship missiles obsolete carriers. And given that China is starting their own carrier fleets I'm guessing they don't think things are so clear cut either. The Exocet was made way back in the early 70's yet carriers and surface fleets in general still aren't obsolete.
  - barrkel 6y ago
    https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-likely-tested-missiles-can-kill-aircraft-carriers-south-china-sea-65881 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-likely-tested-m... https://globalnews.ca/news/4810853/china-railgun-warship-weapon/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4810853/china-railgun-warship-wea... https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/3/22/incoming-can-aircraft-carriers-survive-hypersonic-weapons https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/3/22/i... https://news.usni.org/2019/03/05/report-u-s-carriers-need-new-lethal-unmanned-aircraft-new-fighter-to-stay-relevant https://news.usni.org/2019/03/05/report-u-s-carriers-need-ne... https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-apparently-gets-its-ass-handed-to-it-in-war-games-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-apparently-gets-its-a... Of course a lot of this is self-serving stuff designed to drum up more money to spend, but defence against missiles is fundamentally asymmetric. The defender need to get lucky every time, while the attacker only needs to be lucky once or twice. And MIRV is a big multiplier in favour of the attacker. Carriers are great against countries or factions without anti-ship missile capability.
  - jbay808 6y ago

neilpanchal 6y ago

Just broadcast the entire battle on the world stage and we shall watch the show. No human deaths, no civilian casualties, the whole battlefield would be completely remote controlled, streaming in a 128K VR extravaganza. I think the future of war sounds fun.

threatofrain 6y ago
No way the future will only be robot vs robot in some sterile symbolic chess game. The endgame is robots getting past robots to kill people.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Indeed. A proxy robot war is just a very expensive game. And if you can settle your differences this way, you may as well do that in Quake 3 Arena for cheaper. And if you can settle your differences with Q3A, you may as well do that over the negotiating table. All of these depend on mutual cooperation; both parties agreeing to respect the outcome of the game. Real war starts when one party is unhappy about the outcome and unilaterally decides to no longer cooperate.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Also when the two parties misjudge their relative military strength. If both parties were in relative agreement about what the outcome of their war would be they wouldn't have to fight one in order to negotiate changes to the status quo. That's why espionage can be a stabilizing force and the US and USSR had treaties during the latter parts of the cold war allowing each side to fly spy planes into the others territory to count missile sites.
    - jbay808 6y ago
      Well, you have to make sure those spies also report that neither side would decisively win. The US and USSR must both have already been confident enough in their own strength to openly allow the other side to see it.

chmod775 6y ago

A naval war in 2050? I suspect that in 2050 mach 20 missiles are going to be the norm, not the exception, and point defense is essentially... pointless against those. It's already inadequate against today's (~mach 5) supersonic missiles. And china has literally tens of thousands with thousands of kilometers range stationed along their coast. A navy that pokes its head out is not going to last long. China's missile superiority in the (western pacific) region has long been a thorn in the US side, but there's little that can be done given that their territory is there, and the US can at best station some in allied territories nearby or put it on ships, which are easy targets. So you pretty much have to keep your ships hidden at all times, but being hidden they are going to be pretty much useless except as missile platforms.

riffraff 6y ago
what about submarines? It seems likely one of the first moves the US could do is disrupt china's economy by simply blocking their sea routes.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  The question is, who would that harm more? March 2020 has shown us that disrupting sea routes between two continents hurts everyone.
  - solstice 6y ago
    Right now you are right. But I suspect that a lot of governments are furiously at work right now to figure out to turn back globalization a bit to lower their dependence on products being manufactured far away. So I think that the equation will change to some degree and that in turn lower interdependence of countries and therefore possibly the threshold for conflicts...
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Certainly not the US. One of the US's greatest geopolitical advantages is that it actually does have all the natural resources it needs in the America's. That's why calls for isolationist policies can be so enticing, because unlike for most countries dependent on oil or metals from international trade, there's no physical barrier to the US taking the option of turtling up. China would suffocate on its lack of oil as it tries to sip what it can through the straws it has to Russian oil fields on the other end of Eurasia if it ever had international oil shipping barred from it.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

No country wants to start WWIII. I don't think the PRC is in a position to finish off the ROC, and I don't think it would be in their interests, either. But equally I don't think that the US want to intervene directly should the PRC take over Taiwan. This would be madness. The problem is thus to imagine how the US would manage to politically 'sell' their inaction. But at the same time, would the PRC dare to take the bet that the US wouldn't intervene? Taiwan is not much different from Crimea on many aspects, but it is different in one key aspect: It's been given much more international prominence, mostly because it is a pawn to annoy the PRC. But the downside is that it makes non-intervention (which is the reasonable course of action, like in Crimea) more difficult to sell. Then, should the PRC invade (which is unlikely) while I'm sure that the Taiwanese would put up a good fight they would lose anyway. There would be plenty of grand speeches and maybe sanctions, but the reality is that everyone would just be looking for the right time to recognise the situation and move on (that's what happened with the existence of the PRC itself, and I'm sure is what will happen with Crimea).

throw51319 6y ago
Yeah but isn't it the definition of a slippery slope?
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  Not really. Taiwan really is an internal Chinese issue and Crimea is essentially 'repairing' the issue of a Russian territory (with majority Russian population) that was split from Russia relatively recently. Everyone knows that and thus no-one is going to start a direct war over these territories. But even if you were contemplating a direct war the issue would be that direct wars against Russia or China are not realistic because they are nuclear powers and, in any case, too big to invade. Any direct war would certainly require a major aggression from these countries against the US themselves, which they obviously won't do in the same way as the US won't directly attack them. It's all boils down to relative strengths and outcome of a war. There are wars that are never worth starting.
  - 6y ago

barrkel 6y ago

China can almost certainly win a naval war with the US already; or rather, negate the US's naval force projection tool of choice, the aircraft carrier, with anti-ship ballistic missiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26 - range of 2500 miles

HideousKojima 6y ago
Every Carrier Battle Group has two ships in it that are essentially devoted to just protecting the carrier whether from missiles or other threats. We've yet to see how effective systems like Aegis are against anti-ship missiles (though I'm sure the DoD has done plenty of tests) but it's far from clear that anti-ship missiles obsolete carriers. And given that China is starting their own carrier fleets I'm guessing they don't think things are so clear cut either. The Exocet was made way back in the early 70's yet carriers and surface fleets in general still aren't obsolete.
- barrkel 6y ago
  https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-likely-tested-missiles-can-kill-aircraft-carriers-south-china-sea-65881 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china-likely-tested-m... https://globalnews.ca/news/4810853/china-railgun-warship-weapon/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4810853/china-railgun-warship-wea... https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/3/22/incoming-can-aircraft-carriers-survive-hypersonic-weapons https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/3/22/i... https://news.usni.org/2019/03/05/report-u-s-carriers-need-new-lethal-unmanned-aircraft-new-fighter-to-stay-relevant https://news.usni.org/2019/03/05/report-u-s-carriers-need-ne... https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-apparently-gets-its-ass-handed-to-it-in-war-games-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-apparently-gets-its-a... Of course a lot of this is self-serving stuff designed to drum up more money to spend, but defence against missiles is fundamentally asymmetric. The defender need to get lucky every time, while the attacker only needs to be lucky once or twice. And MIRV is a big multiplier in favour of the attacker. Carriers are great against countries or factions without anti-ship missile capability.
- jbay808 6y ago