This is interesting posturing, but ultimately I think the Ukraine drone war has made an invasion of Taiwan by China virtually impossible.
- Surface naval assets are extremely vulnerable to drones, so a blockade probably can't be maintained
- a marine assault will get utterly obliterated by drones as well as conventional military defenses
- urban warfare with drones is now even more difficult
- wars like this expose governmental corruption on a massive scale, so the mainland military won't want it to happen
- the Malacca Straits will be blockaded by a deep water navy (ours) that can't be reached by Ukraine-style drones, so China's economy collapses without oil for fertilizer, energy, and transportation
> Surface naval assets are extremely vulnerable to drones, so a blockade probably can't be maintained
> the Malacca Straits will be blockaded by a deep water navy (ours) that can't be reached by Ukraine-style drones, so China's economy collapses without oil for fertilizer, energy, and transportation
Then don't use Ukraine-style drones. Also, blockading Malacca also tanks the Phillipines, Japan and Korea.
Feel like this is way too optimistic. The Chinese strategy isn’t to actually put boots on the ground - it’s to make invasion inevitable by having a massive mismatch in power. Then they present a fait accompli to the American President, making grandiose promises in exchange for taking Taiwan with minimal loss of life. If the American President is a transactional person who can be bought cheap, it’ll work.
They’ve managed to address a lot of their disadvantages as well
- Energy is a lot less oil dependent as they’ve transitioned to solar, wind and nuclear, while also electrifying cars and buses.
- Of course oil is important, which is why they have a 2 billion barrel reserve. That could last them 6 months with zero imports.
- But in practice they have reduced their reliance on oil imports through the straits of Malacca because they can get oil through Pakistan (Gwadar).
- Exposing corruption is something Xi is very comfortable with. He’s purged the PLA leadership multiple times, even men he’s appointed personally. Certainly a chunk of the military budget is siphoned away, but the spending is so high and their manufacturing so solid that they have enough of everything they need (missiles, transport ships, destroyers, submarines, fighter planes).
- Drones have changed the game, but it is unclear that Taiwan is prioritising them in the quantities they need. Ukraine needs thousands of drones per day of different kinds. They’re going all in on drone innovation and manufacturing and the Taiwanese aren’t (although they could be keeping it secret). They waste money on prestige kit like fighter jets that will never be allowed to leave their airfields.
If Taiwan has 50k unjammable, unhackable drones covering every approach to the island, both air and underwater, with enough personnel to manage them all, distributed across the island, then maybe they have a hope. But my sense is that when America abandons them in exchange for a few soybean sales, they’ll struggle to survive on their own.
I caution against using whatever the Russian army and, especially, navy is going through as a guideline on what can or cannot happen to a competent, well equipped force. Putting it bluntly, their equipment is not only subpar, it is also poorly mantained and crewed by people who were not properly trained for its operation, and commanded by leaders who were almost never promoted for their competence.
The US's master plan for aiding Taiwan revolves around assuming China will magically forget that transport helicopters exist and then dumbly force their entire armed forces into 1940's Higgins boats for conga line suicide charges into Taiwans most defended + mined beaches.
...It should go without saying that these are brain dead assumptions. China definitely has a much better plan than this.
This is interesting posturing, but ultimately I think the Ukraine drone war has made an invasion of Taiwan by China virtually impossible.
- Surface naval assets are extremely vulnerable to drones, so a blockade probably can't be maintained
- a marine assault will get utterly obliterated by drones as well as conventional military defenses
- urban warfare with drones is now even more difficult
- wars like this expose governmental corruption on a massive scale, so the mainland military won't want it to happen
- the Malacca Straits will be blockaded by a deep water navy (ours) that can't be reached by Ukraine-style drones, so China's economy collapses without oil for fertilizer, energy, and transportation
> Surface naval assets are extremely vulnerable to drones, so a blockade probably can't be maintained
> the Malacca Straits will be blockaded by a deep water navy (ours) that can't be reached by Ukraine-style drones, so China's economy collapses without oil for fertilizer, energy, and transportation
Then don't use Ukraine-style drones. Also, blockading Malacca also tanks the Phillipines, Japan and Korea.
Feel like this is way too optimistic. The Chinese strategy isn’t to actually put boots on the ground - it’s to make invasion inevitable by having a massive mismatch in power. Then they present a fait accompli to the American President, making grandiose promises in exchange for taking Taiwan with minimal loss of life. If the American President is a transactional person who can be bought cheap, it’ll work.
They’ve managed to address a lot of their disadvantages as well
- Energy is a lot less oil dependent as they’ve transitioned to solar, wind and nuclear, while also electrifying cars and buses.
- Of course oil is important, which is why they have a 2 billion barrel reserve. That could last them 6 months with zero imports.
- But in practice they have reduced their reliance on oil imports through the straits of Malacca because they can get oil through Pakistan (Gwadar).
- Exposing corruption is something Xi is very comfortable with. He’s purged the PLA leadership multiple times, even men he’s appointed personally. Certainly a chunk of the military budget is siphoned away, but the spending is so high and their manufacturing so solid that they have enough of everything they need (missiles, transport ships, destroyers, submarines, fighter planes).
- Drones have changed the game, but it is unclear that Taiwan is prioritising them in the quantities they need. Ukraine needs thousands of drones per day of different kinds. They’re going all in on drone innovation and manufacturing and the Taiwanese aren’t (although they could be keeping it secret). They waste money on prestige kit like fighter jets that will never be allowed to leave their airfields.
If Taiwan has 50k unjammable, unhackable drones covering every approach to the island, both air and underwater, with enough personnel to manage them all, distributed across the island, then maybe they have a hope. But my sense is that when America abandons them in exchange for a few soybean sales, they’ll struggle to survive on their own.
The Malacca Straits not being that wide, would make it easier for China's carrier killer missiles to destroy them.
I caution against using whatever the Russian army and, especially, navy is going through as a guideline on what can or cannot happen to a competent, well equipped force. Putting it bluntly, their equipment is not only subpar, it is also poorly mantained and crewed by people who were not properly trained for its operation, and commanded by leaders who were almost never promoted for their competence.
The US's master plan for aiding Taiwan revolves around assuming China will magically forget that transport helicopters exist and then dumbly force their entire armed forces into 1940's Higgins boats for conga line suicide charges into Taiwans most defended + mined beaches.
...It should go without saying that these are brain dead assumptions. China definitely has a much better plan than this.