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The Chinese would have to pull off the most difficult military operation in the books (i.e., a contested amphibious landing into heavily defended shores), with

The Chinese would have to pull off the most difficult military operation in the books (i.e., a contested amphibious landing into heavily defended shores), with a force that has never conducted a major operation of any kind, while using uncle's modifed freighter and dad's fishing vessel in place of built for purpose amphibious assault vessels. All in a sector who's commander has turned over 4-5 times (I forget the exact count at this point) in the past 24 months. It would take the miracle of a lifetime for the Chinese to be able to land such a force let alone sustain such an effort if Taiwan is paying any attention at all. I don't know of any successful amphibious landing in circumstances anywhere near that challenging. Unless China can catch Taiwan asleep at the switch, their loses would be catastrophic. Blockade favors the west because they only need enough mass for denial of area operations. That center of mass is growing as we speak with Japan arming up and larger US forces in the Philippines and Japan. This includes new Marine litorral forces built specifically for the Asian theater and the new breed of warfare we're seeing in some of the Russian/Ukraine War. China imports most of it's food and oil. It is difficult to see how their economy can sustain a blockade and sanctions, especially considering their debt crisis that will take 10 years or more to unwind the way China is currently handling things. In a prolonged comflict, their losses would be horrendous in both human, material, and capital terms. Mass drone attacks are whiteboard fantasies with present day capabilities. Why even bring them up? I would point out that Taiwan also has plenty air, surface, and anti-ship missles. This includes long range, supersonic surface to surface cruise missles. While traditionally Taiwan has opted for for area denial operations that makes them a very unappealing target, they now have the ability to strike China's mainland at will, and there is little China can do about it. The way Ukraine (and the West) is taking it to Russia I would imagine would give Xi pause. I would think twice if I were him, assuming the west maintains their support. From a geopolitical perspective, after Russia, China is the biggest potential loser in the Ukrainian War. The west and partners in the East are revving up their defense industrial capacity and arming up in a big way. If the Ukrainian war keeps going the way it is, the Russians will be far less help if they're able to provide any significant help at all. China can't take on the entire free world by themselves without major help.

dirtyid 4y ago
>pull off the most difficult military operation in the books (i.e., a contested amphibious landing into heavily defended shores) West keeps insisting on this outdated Normandy comparison with the PLA from the 60s, PLA WILL NOT be doing a contested landing because they're not stupid like west keeps assuming. Modern precise modern munitions = there won't be Normandy beach heads. If anything an uncontested maritime transit is much easier than say US logistic ops in MENA because open ocean sensor environment makes contesting mid transition difficult. Uncles modified RO/RO is literally just a military amphib ship with defenses stripped out, i.e it does 90% of the job. The actual defense platforms will be on the plethora of dedicated grey hulls. As for ambush, PRC rockets / mlrs can give TW max 10minutes warning even according to TW can stand alone shills like Ian Easton. The reality is TW ISTAR/command will be gone in opening salvo and major hardware that can contest actual maritime transit will be gone within hours, while light forces like infantry will be picked from stand off distances. It won't be Normany where millions of tons of preshelling couldn't dislodge defenders. >mass Did you read any of the analysis for token force reorientation in theatre? Japan merely committed southern islands, i.e. basically the minimum concession vs opening up main islands of ACE basing and AOs already in previous PLA war planning. Marine MLR in Okinawa death even less supportable death sentence. PH doesn't allow perm deployment, i.e. they're basically the minimum US analysts have hoped for in their PRC containment vision. As for blockading PRC, who's going to do that anymore? Hint no one. Reality is the US has just as much energy and food _security_ as PRC. This isn't Zeihan koolaid from the 2010s, the second PRC energy is disrupted, they'll run blockade and if intervened, start hitting comparable CONUS infra like refineries that support energy and ag output. That's the fundamental new security reality with PLA modernization, US may have better resource autarky, but it has lost resource security, basically Saudi at this point. All the Malacca blockade / wank only works when US has unilateral ability to enforce without homeland vulnerability. That era has closed, blockading PRC is unlikely once PRC has the ability to inflict mutual US homeland disruption. >Mass drone Because PRC actually has mass drone options and mass industrial production to make mass drone feasible, they're not Turkey who brags about delivering a handful of low performance MALE drones that depend on western components. Meanwhile TW literally doesn't have "plenty" of missile inventory, that wouldn't barely make a dent in mainland infra. Like the amount of concrete in PRC and the sheer scale of hardened targets is staggering, sinking limited TW missiles is an easy trade if they can even be launched in first place. Which again, every inch can be preempted with less than 10 minutes of warning before ISTAR gone and most missile stockpiles become paperweight. The mistake is thinking TW will be defending as a modern country (currently state of preparedness is not remotely true), functionally TW's "modern" defense will exist for a few hours before reverting to the capabilities of taliban. >UKR PRC is a large winner, cheap energy and commodities for a long time. Meanwhile the EU dramatically weakened that they can't substantively back up the US even if they go all in atlanticist camp. As much as RU is a reduced state, so is the EU as a block. Have you seen west "ramped up" proposals, nothing that affects IndoPac theater in a meaningful way, if they even get realized (ditto with JP) with direction economies are trending. DE is already stalling. JP with their 400 tomahawks, enough to destroy 3 medium sized air fields with 50%+ interception rates using 80s Soviet anti-air. Of course that's backstop, but one needs to actually put headlines / developments into perspective. Force balance is trending towards the free world not having a chance in PRC's backyard even if they band together. Like if actually follow the developments closely, it's hard to overstate the preponderance of mass PRC building out, relative to everyone else. Like PRC alone is ~50% of global ship building capacity and testing more advanced missiles per year than most countries acquire. What they learned from UKR is the entire west can supply UKR and an incompetent RU can still fight them to relative stand still with limited special operations tier commitment.

dirtyid 4y ago

>pull off the most difficult military operation in the books (i.e., a contested amphibious landing into heavily defended shores) West keeps insisting on this outdated Normandy comparison with the PLA from the 60s, PLA WILL NOT be doing a contested landing because they're not stupid like west keeps assuming. Modern precise modern munitions = there won't be Normandy beach heads. If anything an uncontested maritime transit is much easier than say US logistic ops in MENA because open ocean sensor environment makes contesting mid transition difficult. Uncles modified RO/RO is literally just a military amphib ship with defenses stripped out, i.e it does 90% of the job. The actual defense platforms will be on the plethora of dedicated grey hulls. As for ambush, PRC rockets / mlrs can give TW max 10minutes warning even according to TW can stand alone shills like Ian Easton. The reality is TW ISTAR/command will be gone in opening salvo and major hardware that can contest actual maritime transit will be gone within hours, while light forces like infantry will be picked from stand off distances. It won't be Normany where millions of tons of preshelling couldn't dislodge defenders. >mass Did you read any of the analysis for token force reorientation in theatre? Japan merely committed southern islands, i.e. basically the minimum concession vs opening up main islands of ACE basing and AOs already in previous PLA war planning. Marine MLR in Okinawa death even less supportable death sentence. PH doesn't allow perm deployment, i.e. they're basically the minimum US analysts have hoped for in their PRC containment vision. As for blockading PRC, who's going to do that anymore? Hint no one. Reality is the US has just as much energy and food _security_ as PRC. This isn't Zeihan koolaid from the 2010s, the second PRC energy is disrupted, they'll run blockade and if intervened, start hitting comparable CONUS infra like refineries that support energy and ag output. That's the fundamental new security reality with PLA modernization, US may have better resource autarky, but it has lost resource security, basically Saudi at this point. All the Malacca blockade / wank only works when US has unilateral ability to enforce without homeland vulnerability. That era has closed, blockading PRC is unlikely once PRC has the ability to inflict mutual US homeland disruption. >Mass drone Because PRC actually has mass drone options and mass industrial production to make mass drone feasible, they're not Turkey who brags about delivering a handful of low performance MALE drones that depend on western components. Meanwhile TW literally doesn't have "plenty" of missile inventory, that wouldn't barely make a dent in mainland infra. Like the amount of concrete in PRC and the sheer scale of hardened targets is staggering, sinking limited TW missiles is an easy trade if they can even be launched in first place. Which again, every inch can be preempted with less than 10 minutes of warning before ISTAR gone and most missile stockpiles become paperweight. The mistake is thinking TW will be defending as a modern country (currently state of preparedness is not remotely true), functionally TW's "modern" defense will exist for a few hours before reverting to the capabilities of taliban. >UKR PRC is a large winner, cheap energy and commodities for a long time. Meanwhile the EU dramatically weakened that they can't substantively back up the US even if they go all in atlanticist camp. As much as RU is a reduced state, so is the EU as a block. Have you seen west "ramped up" proposals, nothing that affects IndoPac theater in a meaningful way, if they even get realized (ditto with JP) with direction economies are trending. DE is already stalling. JP with their 400 tomahawks, enough to destroy 3 medium sized air fields with 50%+ interception rates using 80s Soviet anti-air. Of course that's backstop, but one needs to actually put headlines / developments into perspective. Force balance is trending towards the free world not having a chance in PRC's backyard even if they band together. Like if actually follow the developments closely, it's hard to overstate the preponderance of mass PRC building out, relative to everyone else. Like PRC alone is ~50% of global ship building capacity and testing more advanced missiles per year than most countries acquire. What they learned from UKR is the entire west can supply UKR and an incompetent RU can still fight them to relative stand still with limited special operations tier commitment.