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Those military-age only children are expected to take care of their elderly parents and grandparents. In a world war over Taiwan, it's likely millions of them

Those military-age only children are expected to take care of their elderly parents and grandparents. In a world war over Taiwan, it's likely millions of them would die. Leaving each family as "bare branches" since they have no siblings. And eldest male children are especially important in Chinese culture. Given it would be a mass casualty conflict, the upward mobility "support the troops" impact (and guaranteed "meal tickets") would seem to be have a pretty limited.

dirtyid 5y ago
Bare branches are already a reality due to one-child. See meme of military wives getting knocked up and married and leeching off military housing when troops deploy in the US. That's what will happen in PRC as well, deployed soldiers with increasing perks due to military modernization / restructuring will be some of the most competitive suitors. >likely millions of them would die It would not be a mass casualty conflict. People who don't follow the subject matter still assume PRC has antiquated military capabilities and relies on dangerous Normandy style amphib invasion. Reality is PRC will steamroll TW like US did Iraq, except force balance is even more lopsided towards PRC in quantity and quality. Logistics of taking TW in PRC backyard is multitudes easier than US occupying Iraq or Afghanistan across the globe. Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. The only concern is the risk of fighting the US on the sea, and that still caps casualties to sub 100,000s even if every PLA ship and plane was destroyed. Which bluntly, relative to other social programs at PRC scale, is a completely tolerable amount. Short of going nuclear, the limits of personnel loss in modern combat is not going to impact CCP political thinking.
- someperson 5y ago
  > Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. Do you have a source for this? Everything I've read says that the PLA Navy would struggle to take Taiwan even without US involvement. Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along a Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed.
  - dirtyid 5y ago
    Nothing consolidated. It's _recent_ read between the line consensus from US/PRC strategic thinkers if you follow the space closely. See most recent US war gaming scenarios and current indo-pac PRC proposals. War games mostly conclude PRC accomplishes air superiority and control over TW within days and the US can't credibly operate near PRC shores to defend TW. Think tank blobs are all about blockades or IRBMs within 1st island chain to box PRC in, or making TW porcupine to create deterrence, or making US deployments in Japan more survivable. The TLDR is that defending TW directly isn’t even being contemplated anymore, it's assumed to be lost to PRC. The literature around “rescuing” TW if island can put up a fight is becoming just as sparse. >Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed. TW is well defended the same way Iraq’s Republican guard was well dug in. All of it will be gone after PRC controls the battle space from air, TW won’t be in position to threaten the amphib fleet in the first place. Again think Iraq/Afghanistan not Normandy. PRC military modernization was modelled around these capabilities. PLANavy doesn't even have major amphib acquisitions, they're relying on civilian sealift capacity. PLAN too focused on challenging the USN, large scale landing on TW is a secondary consideration kicked down to the merchant fleet. That's how uncontested they expect the eventual landings will be. Many folks are regurgitating very old talking points made popular by articles like “Taiwan can win a war with China'' by Tanner Greer in 2018, himself regurgitating conventional out of date tropes. He was one of the last holdouts and changed his position after seeing the woeful state of the TW military. I would read this follow up article: Why I Fear for Taiwan [0] from 2020 to get a better understanding of TW reality. And I argue he’s still underestimating because he’s not familiar with developments on the PRC side. Reason why I emphasize _recent_ and publication dates of articles is that PLA is modernizing so fast that assumptions from even a few years ago no longer holds true. [0] https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-t...

dirtyid 5y ago

Bare branches are already a reality due to one-child. See meme of military wives getting knocked up and married and leeching off military housing when troops deploy in the US. That's what will happen in PRC as well, deployed soldiers with increasing perks due to military modernization / restructuring will be some of the most competitive suitors. >likely millions of them would die It would not be a mass casualty conflict. People who don't follow the subject matter still assume PRC has antiquated military capabilities and relies on dangerous Normandy style amphib invasion. Reality is PRC will steamroll TW like US did Iraq, except force balance is even more lopsided towards PRC in quantity and quality. Logistics of taking TW in PRC backyard is multitudes easier than US occupying Iraq or Afghanistan across the globe. Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. The only concern is the risk of fighting the US on the sea, and that still caps casualties to sub 100,000s even if every PLA ship and plane was destroyed. Which bluntly, relative to other social programs at PRC scale, is a completely tolerable amount. Short of going nuclear, the limits of personnel loss in modern combat is not going to impact CCP political thinking.

someperson 5y ago
> Taking TW without substantial losses is more or less foregone in most strategic thinking. Do you have a source for this? Everything I've read says that the PLA Navy would struggle to take Taiwan even without US involvement. Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along a Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed.
- dirtyid 5y ago
  Nothing consolidated. It's _recent_ read between the line consensus from US/PRC strategic thinkers if you follow the space closely. See most recent US war gaming scenarios and current indo-pac PRC proposals. War games mostly conclude PRC accomplishes air superiority and control over TW within days and the US can't credibly operate near PRC shores to defend TW. Think tank blobs are all about blockades or IRBMs within 1st island chain to box PRC in, or making TW porcupine to create deterrence, or making US deployments in Japan more survivable. The TLDR is that defending TW directly isn’t even being contemplated anymore, it's assumed to be lost to PRC. The literature around “rescuing” TW if island can put up a fight is becoming just as sparse. >Amphibious landings are the hardest thing in all of warfare, especially since landings can only occur along Taiwan's well-fortified beaches, and not along its rocky cliff coastline and given the Taiwanese are dug-in and well-armed. TW is well defended the same way Iraq’s Republican guard was well dug in. All of it will be gone after PRC controls the battle space from air, TW won’t be in position to threaten the amphib fleet in the first place. Again think Iraq/Afghanistan not Normandy. PRC military modernization was modelled around these capabilities. PLANavy doesn't even have major amphib acquisitions, they're relying on civilian sealift capacity. PLAN too focused on challenging the USN, large scale landing on TW is a secondary consideration kicked down to the merchant fleet. That's how uncontested they expect the eventual landings will be. Many folks are regurgitating very old talking points made popular by articles like “Taiwan can win a war with China'' by Tanner Greer in 2018, himself regurgitating conventional out of date tropes. He was one of the last holdouts and changed his position after seeing the woeful state of the TW military. I would read this follow up article: Why I Fear for Taiwan [0] from 2020 to get a better understanding of TW reality. And I argue he’s still underestimating because he’s not familiar with developments on the PRC side. Reason why I emphasize _recent_ and publication dates of articles is that PLA is modernizing so fast that assumptions from even a few years ago no longer holds true. [0] https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-taiwan.html https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-t...