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1) "Last fall, the latest war game was based on a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region" These a

1) "Last fall, the latest war game was based on a Chinese biological-weapon attack that swept through US bases and warships in the Indo-Pacific region" These are superfluous conditions (i.e. predicting bioweapons), and of course, and you're not going to hear about the 'real' results. And of course it ignores the after effects. 2) Defenders have considerable advantage in that situation, especially with a water gap. The 'amphibious assault' situation is severely hampered by the fact that even with air cover, all Chinese surface vessels are 'extremely vulnerable'. Literally just a single, 2-man style team weapon system, if it could actually be deployed without sabotage, could make it nary impossible for such landings. I think it would be crazy for Taiwan not to have specialty capabilities against that kind of assault. Landing operations very dangerous for the landers. 3) Taiwan has 23M most of whom won't go down without a fight. It's incredibly difficult to occupy a place like that. 4) The 'angle' for China is likely political, and to land a vanguard of political operatives, saboteurs of all kinds, media controllers etc. and possibly to try a 'coup from within' as opposed to a frontal military confrontation. 5) Any direct military engagement would be met with pretty serious repercussions, for the first time maybe, from the West. It would be 'a big deal'. If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence. 90% of the generally anti-war voices will quiet and look the other way while the 'other half' of the US releases the dragons in one way or another. If, as in the stated example there were 'Bioweapons' used against the US, then it would be WW3 level escalation and a nuclear standoff. So again 'military confrontation' is a big deal, but 'military confrontation with Americans' is a much bigger deal they won't forget. In either case, the tide of geopolitics will shift dramatically. NPTO - the Asian equivalent of NATO would be formed instantly, with UK and EU as participating members. TPP v2 - this would happen immediately and China would be de-facto ignored / out of the WTO. There would be a China v. 'Almost Everyone Else' Cold War in which everyone would be forced to choose sides. In that scenario, there are actually very few places that would chose China, if forced. Aside from Russia, which would try to 'broker peace' (and of course Iran/N. Korea/Afghanistan/Syria) I think the only real holdouts would be in Africa, and they wouldn't be consequential. The Arab world would mostly go 'With the US/EU-led rest of the world' and so would South American for the most part. 6) We 'do business' with Taiwan in the hope that they can remain at least at their current levels of independence. If China wants to take Taiwan and leverage the kind of spineless 'look the other way' artefact of our businesses and politicians they'll do it piece by piece, and/or make it look like a popular and legitimate 'coup' - and that Chinese forces are there 'only to ensure order and stability' and to 'protect democracy'. They need to give enough political cover to Nike, Pizza Hut and Apple to not pull out from China etc.. Kind of like Crimea, where we just 'forgot about it'.

nl 5y ago
> If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence. I suspect you are drastically overestimating the US public's appetite for another war. In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.
- porknubbins 5y ago
  Those essentially local attempts at occupation and state building are completely different to a potential hypothetical symmetrical war with China that implicates the whole global order.
  - nl 5y ago
    > US public support for a war over Taiwan is modest: one recent poll found significant majorities of foreign policy elites supporting US intervention, but only about 40 per cent of the American public backing it. (Even that figure likely reflects soft and reflexive backing; the country has not fought a major war against a peer adversary for two generations, and in the event of catastrophic US losses amidst perceptions that the war was unnecessary, public support could collapse very quickly.)[1] And if the last 10 years of US politics has taught us anything it is how vulnerable the US is to arguments that cause division. China has plenty of money, and plenty of people who will be economically hurt by a war. It's pretty easy to make an argument against defending China. [1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/countering-china-s-adventurism-over-taiwan-third-way https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/countering-china-...
mLuby 5y ago
2) A giant smokescreen? Creeping (missile) barrage of the beach? There are plenty of ways to make it hard to target anything on a beach. Air cover and missile defense will be a big deal. 3) You mean the civilian population will fight to the death? Absolutely no way that's true. Russia showed the way in Crimea: offer incentives to those who support the "liberation"; it both erodes defender support and gives the attackers more legitimacy. 5) Headlines for days, sure, but recently the West has shown that its "red lines" are more crossable than they might appear. If the PRC ever manages to take even momentary control of Taiwan, there's no way they let it slip away again. And remember that the ocean supply lines heavily favor China over the US (even from Japan or South Korea) for any sort of protracted conflict. The only wild card is nuclear weapons, and all we can do is hope that neither side is insane enough to use them, "tactically" or "strategically." Pacific NATO was called SEATO. We might be surprised at how few committed and capable allies we'd have. It'd be in most countries' interest to stay neutral in an uncertain war between the current and future economic superpowers. I'd also wager that there'll be much less domestic support for sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to die over Taiwan than there was as a response to Pearl Harbor.

nl 5y ago

> If there were actually even a small US confrontation and say a couple of US frigates were sunk ... don't underestimate how Americans will rally under the wrath of that offence. I suspect you are drastically overestimating the US public's appetite for another war. In the last few years the US has been run out of Iraq by Iran, Syria by Russia and Afghanistan by the Taliban. I don't see much appetite for going back to any of those.

porknubbins 5y ago
Those essentially local attempts at occupation and state building are completely different to a potential hypothetical symmetrical war with China that implicates the whole global order.
- nl 5y ago
  > US public support for a war over Taiwan is modest: one recent poll found significant majorities of foreign policy elites supporting US intervention, but only about 40 per cent of the American public backing it. (Even that figure likely reflects soft and reflexive backing; the country has not fought a major war against a peer adversary for two generations, and in the event of catastrophic US losses amidst perceptions that the war was unnecessary, public support could collapse very quickly.)[1] And if the last 10 years of US politics has taught us anything it is how vulnerable the US is to arguments that cause division. China has plenty of money, and plenty of people who will be economically hurt by a war. It's pretty easy to make an argument against defending China. [1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/countering-china-s-adventurism-over-taiwan-third-way https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/countering-china-...

mLuby 5y ago

2) A giant smokescreen? Creeping (missile) barrage of the beach? There are plenty of ways to make it hard to target anything on a beach. Air cover and missile defense will be a big deal. 3) You mean the civilian population will fight to the death? Absolutely no way that's true. Russia showed the way in Crimea: offer incentives to those who support the "liberation"; it both erodes defender support and gives the attackers more legitimacy. 5) Headlines for days, sure, but recently the West has shown that its "red lines" are more crossable than they might appear. If the PRC ever manages to take even momentary control of Taiwan, there's no way they let it slip away again. And remember that the ocean supply lines heavily favor China over the US (even from Japan or South Korea) for any sort of protracted conflict. The only wild card is nuclear weapons, and all we can do is hope that neither side is insane enough to use them, "tactically" or "strategically." Pacific NATO was called SEATO. We might be surprised at how few committed and capable allies we'd have. It'd be in most countries' interest to stay neutral in an uncertain war between the current and future economic superpowers. I'd also wager that there'll be much less domestic support for sending hundreds of thousands of Americans to die over Taiwan than there was as a response to Pearl Harbor.