They did. You only were lucky that they had to concentrate on fighting the US after 1941.

Don’t forget the Commonwealth in Burma and else where. Some of the most brutal fighting of the war occured at Imphal-Kohima.

I really wouldn’t underestimate the PLA’s ability to adapt to new doctrines and ways of thinking.

This one I’m not sold on.

So much I’m going to start a new thread about it

You assume…I assume…

Yup! Tis the way these games are played. :eagerness:

May not be the case by 2025. China is beginning to make a lot of investments in Arab countries, and if the US becomes less dependent on Arab oil, they’re far less likely to simply side with the US in any conflict. Furthermore, history shows us that Arabic loyalty to the US is really not that strong or outstanding.

I don’t doubt the Arabs are disloyal to US. I was more thinking about the money they’ve invested in US bonds, infrastructure and commercial enterprises.

I didn’t assume that the US wouldn’t ramp up militarization. I just don’t believe that it would translate as quickly to increased force strength on a Chinese war front due to a deployment lag. That’s one of the drawbacks of fighting a war from afar (though in the end it keeps the US relatively safe).

The US already has a large amount of troops and materiel in Asia and is shifting more in as part of Asian Pivot. By 2025 (year of scenario), this should be completed.

US does maintain large rapid redeployment forces too – an airborne division, a fleet of 20 carriers/large amphibs as well as numerous expeditionary forces.

If a Taiwanese leader declared independence, it could only happen in protracted conflict, in part because Taiwan would have to ready itself before hand for conflict, and in part to try to rally as much support as it could.

Haven’t certain Taiwanese Presidents toyed with this in past – hence all that Chinese sabre rattling in 1990s?

A longer engagement occurs if China and the US are stalemated at Taiwan, and either side decides that winning means going for each other’s logistical assets, and in the US’s case, China’s war making capacity. Again, force build up becomes a factor if we’re assuming a long engagement.

In that case China’s in strife as it doesn’t have many ways of reaching out and touching US logistical assets and won’t by 2025 either (even the Russians didn’t except for nuclear missiles).

Because one way to force a revoke of the declaration is to capture the capital before help can arrive.

Fair enough.

Taiwan’s coast is not Normandy. The side facing China is very exposed, and the size difference between the two militaries is tremendous, which is why bleeding may not happen quick enough.

Size difference can be irrelevant – remember Arab-Israelis.

Also you underestimate some of the logistics of amphibious operations. Not only are there tides you have to worry about but things such as the consistency of beaches (you don’t want vehicles bogged in sand), access to deep water ports/harbours, as well as type of terrain inland.

You might land on a beautiful beach only to be bogged by dunes further inland.

Lacking deep water port access means issues with unloading supplies etc etc.

The logistical and geological questions imposed by amphibious assaults have not changed since WWII.

And this is certainly not some low level batallion type operation. It’s an invasion of an entire country.

I’m not assuming China’s military will operate at 100%, but keep in mind the PLA isn’t the only untested military. Taiwan’s will be as well.

Taiwan’s military has more experience operating as a modern style force than China’s which only started modernising in 1990s and whose generals generally have not been trained in “modern military thought.”

This will change by 2025 but bare in mind that your average staff officer in his 50s and even late 140s was trained and had their formative military experiences under the old system.

Mentality of officer classes is a key component of successful military operations – it’s dictates things such as using initiative, embracing new tactics etc etc.

1. Fair enough, but the point still stands that Taiwan’s coast is very exposed.

And it’s more about just “exposed” coastline.

2. We’d both probably need to know a bit more about the details then.

Yes.

3. Taiwan’s a VERY small place, and very close to China. I wouldn’t be surprised if very little asymmetric advantages can be had through home turf advantage given the amount of intelligence gathering on geography can be done far in advance of a conflict.

Small place of which a big chunk is mountains.

Also intelligence needs to cover every single aspect – road networks, bridge capacity (e.g. whether you can load up a 50t tank on them), terrain etc etc.

And you have to get this to the troops.

Even the Americans who have experience in conducting interventions every few years or so stuff up this kind of thing.

Iraq is 10 times bigger than Taiwan, and China is 100 times closer to Taiwan than the US was to Iraq.

Actually Kurdistan was already effectively in US hands. US for most part had a clear drive up to Baghdad in perfect tank territory.

0 experience which is matched by Taiwan’s lack of experience in defending a full blown invasion or mounting an insurgent campaign.

Defensive ops are often easier than offensive ones.

Again harkening back to an older age, Russian units at start of WWII were fine when they could set up a nice defensive position.

They sucked on attack for which far greater coordination, flexibility and initiative.

And remember the Taiwanese are technically on home ground. That’s a big advantage when you know the terrain.

The Taiwanese also have a longer history of practicing combined arms in a modern setting, unlike the PLA which has just awoken from a long term slumber.

EDIT: I should probably apologize a little for detracting from the original focus of this thread. Most of my points have been about how easily it would be for China to take Taiwan before the US could get involved, and not about what would happen if the US and China found themselves locked in a protracted conflict.

Assumption of ease is itself a faulty one.

You have an untried force doing something it’s never tried in its history – a massive combined arms amphibious landing coupled with a simultaneous campaign to destroy opponent’s navy and airforce.

I do think though that there are some faulty assumptions underpinning your original scenario, mainly the idea of how many countries would instantly side with the US instead of choosing to stay out of such a war,

Without that assumption, US doesn’t have a toehold in Asia. Hence the scenario is moot completely.

Mind you my assumption was quite unfavourable to USA – only Japan, Philippines, Australia and maybe South Korea. No mention of SE Asian countries, Canada or any NATO partners.

and how likely it would for a war over Taiwan to escalate to the degree your original scenario laid out (such as China striking airbases in Japan) given that that the strategic aim is the control over an island and not an existential or total war scenario.

It’s not that outlandish and it was posed as a question.

Would PLA tolerate US strikes from Japan? Would they tolerate US Navy using Japanese bases for refuelling etc? Would they tolerate US troop build up in Philippines and Japan?

Also Japan is becoming more militaristic. Assumption was continuation of this refocus.

Assuming a Kuwait situation where the international community collectively decides to force China to release Taiwan might be feasible, but that would be more China vs the World than China vs the US.

Finally, such a coalition would be difficult to build through the UN given China’s permanent veto power in the Security Council, and given that China is no Iraq, with much greater international influence and ties, and being a much more formidable opponent.

As you state, that is completely unfeasible due to UNSC.

US rhetoric is already anti-Chinese. The US is building up China as an existential threat, just like it built up USSR as an existential threat.

Same has been done in Australia – 2013 White Paper being an exception. Current government is realigning back to US view.

So most likely USA would just ignore USNC and go into bat for Taiwan.

Also if USA does not come to aid of an ally, then the whole US based security system gets put into question. All of a sudden NATO and Asian security treaties lose any value they had.

That’s a massive loss for US and basically gives China and Russia a free hand at doing what they please (e.g. retaking Baltic states).

If this thought exercise takes place in the future you can’t treat the current percentages as an actual war time percentage. In the future China will likely have begun exploiting its large natural gas supply, and they will also have pipelines connecting to the resource rich -Stans. Offsets will also occur when sources dry up. For example, China could end up purchasing more oil from Russia if Saudi Arabia doesn’t give. Similarly, in a war economy domestic uses of oil would be rationed and redirected to military uses. Alternative energy may even be developed to help alleviate oil demand (or developed before a war time situation but reduce pressures on oil uses). Then there’s also the liquefaction of coal, which may become more economically feasible in a war economy. We also can’t just assume that every US ally will stop exporting oil to China during a war time scenario. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, would have to be pressured to stop making sales, and that would depend on the political climate and their relationship to each country at the time. Finally, because of China’s large land border and its focus on developing infrastructure along its West, there’s more than a good chance that naval shipments that would be blockaded would be redirected along land routes if possible. The general take away is that we need to think of these variables as adaptive, and not fixed.

The US can always sink or capture China bound tankers in Indian Ocean if Arab allies won’t play ball. Quite a common practice in warfare.

And USA’s diplomatic might in Middle East is unsurpassed and won’t change by 2025 – remember a lot of Arab regimes are in power thanks to US diplomatic support. The Arabs also have considerable holdings/investments in America that would be jeopardised by not playing ball with the USA.

Adaptive offsets to land routes, though that will only resolve some of the resource pressure. Furthermore, China losing access to all sea lanes may not be as guaranteed as you think. Not every ASEAN country would side with the US. I imagine the majority of them will actually try to maintain neutrality. On a side point, losing direct access to the Pacific doesn’t make much sense as an impactful argument since most of access to Pacific trade is regionalized around the China Sea for every East Asian country.

Again they can maintain neutrality but that won’t stop USN from flexing it’s muscle against Chinese ships.

China has access to the Middle East through Land. Cash flow and wealth is less important than resource acquisition in the initial stages of war economy. It does matter if you’re trying to purchase resources from abroad, but China won’t really be starved of monetary capital, even if trade routes are closed, at least initially. After attrition sets in it’s a different matter.

Totally agree. But China loses massive European and American cash flows.

1.3 billion people is a large population to multiply your military manpower with, and part of a war economy is increasing your production capacity for military hardware. If the conflict were to prolong itself, the initial fighting strength of a country would not be an accurate reflection of its fighting strength a few years in conflict, contingent on any number of factors which can either weaken or strengthen that country.

Large population doesn’t help in an air-sea war which is contingent on technology and well trained humans far more than ground warfare.

Training air and sea units to be capable enough is time consuming. Even in WWII it took several months to a year or more to get naval and air units trained to any level of capability. Unless you embrace 1941 style Russian doctrine and start feeding massed numbers of untrained units to the enemy. Chinese did this in 1950s as well.

However building a T-34 or MiG-15 is far less time consuming than a Destroyer or 4+ generation fighter aircraft.

And right now and by 2025 USA has numerical superiority here, not China.

Assuming that war fatigue doesn’t set in. It costs far more for the US to wage an offensive war, which can weigh down on US persistence. Vietnam and Afghanistan should not be overlooked as lessons on waging long wars abroad.

Those were COIN affairs with ambiguous goals, not conventional wars with set piece battles where USA has advantage. And especially as US rhetoric is slowly starting to portray China as next USSR/Nazi Germany.

And China’s geographic factors and lack of force projection tools (even by 2025) means that the USA has certain advantages.

Taiwan isn’t an ideal place to wage guerilla warfare either. As of right now Taiwan hasn’t really made the necessary investments in anti-access and area denial technologies. Furthermore, the more urbanized areas are more likely to have Mainland sympathizers. While I would expect small resistances that could last a very long time, overall control and surrender by the government may not take nearly as long. Due to proximity and sheer difference in manpower China wouldn’t have the same logistical barriers to mount a mass invasion to take control of Taiwan. For the US, a Taiwan conflict could very quickly become a question of whether to liberate Taiwan as opposed to defend it.

I agree with this. Taiwan’s main contributions to any war against China are time delays and any attrition they can inflict on PLA.

Given the very real difference in air superiority and military power, I find this unlikely. Even without surprise, the PLA would probably start with a saturated shock and awe campaign at stand off range to soften Taiwan as much as possible, before getting within range of any of Taiwan’s offensive capabilities, if any are left. By then Taiwan would have little conventional strength left to do any real damage against an invading force.

That assumes no Taiwanese military prepardness, no foritifcation, no mobilisation, no nothing.

Amphibious assaults in modern warfare would look very different than during Normandy, given the rise of air superiority and aerial striking capabilities. It’s unlikely that China would go in with an amphibious assault until well after the the PLAAF and PLAN had secured the landing zones.

Again this assumes lack of preparation by Taiwanese.

As past wars proved (including more recent ones) you can pound the #$%^ out of a position and still not neutralise heavily fortified troops in dense terrain.

PGMs increase accuracy but that doesn’t completely neutralise the defender. And you can’t PGM every single machine gun nest, AT nest, SAM etc. Even the USA couldn’t do this in Iraq.

In amphibious/ground assault operations, even smaller strongpoints can delay or stall advance considerably.

In real life the only true way to “secure a landing zone” is troops on the ground.

I would be VERY careful about this generalization for China. While China’s modernization is absolutely staggering, China isn’t so generationally removed from both poverty and war psychology to get cold feet in war that they would most certainly perceive as a direct threat by Western powers. This is coupled with a state controlled media in an undemocratic society. If the US directly struck the Chinese mainland, that would harden resolve, not weaken it.

I agree with this.