George Friedman muses about a war in the South China Sea between China and the United States:
There are two scenarios. In the first, China invades Taiwan. In the second, the U.S. decides to block the exits of the South and East China seas, in order to cut China’s global maritime access. I intend to publish the Taiwan scenario today, and the blockade scenario tomorrow. I want to emphasize that these will be extremely high-level analyses, with vital details excluded.
The Chinese strategic motive for seizing Taiwan would be to open a wide gap in the archipelago running from Okinawa to the Strait of Malacca. The seizure of Taiwan, plus a few minor islands to the north and south, would open a substantial passage into the Pacific. As important, it would create a platform for Chinese land-based aircraft and missiles, which would force the border of the contested area in the Pacific east about 1,300 miles, bringing Chinese cruise missiles close to, or in operational range of, Guam and Anderson Air Force Base, a critical U.S. air base.
The oft-discussed Chinese strategy of placing underwater mines around Taiwan would not help for what the Chinese must assume would be an extended war. That strategy might cut trade, but Taiwanese and American aircraft could still use the island to stage operations against Chinese air, missile and naval targets. In addition, the U.S. response to mining might be to mine the areas around Chinese ports. It is a strategy in which the risks outweigh the benefits. Seizing Taiwan has higher risks, but a very substantial payoff in that it could solve China’s strategic problem of guaranteed access to the Pacific, as well as enhance its deep strike capacity in the Pacific.
Taiwan has about 130,000 battle-ready troops, with a reserve of about 1.5 million troops. They are equipped with about 2,000 armored fighting vehicles and substantial self-propelled artillery. Taiwan is a small country, and even taken by surprise, it would be able to amass its forces, if not to defeat the enemy on the beach then to engage them in mobile warfare to impose attrition on them. According to the 3-to-1 rule of combat, the Chinese would need to deploy at least 390,000 troops to defeat this force.
An invasion of Taiwan would mean amphibious warfare, in which the Chinese have no experience. It requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, and especially with logistics. As the U.S. learned in World War II, amphibious operations face this problem. No matter how lavish the supply of amphibious ships and landing craft, the number of forces landed initially is entirely incapable of defeating the defenders. The number of sea-to-land vessels and time of loading and unloading limit the buildup of forces. In other words, the landing area remains extremely vulnerable, particularly against a large, concentrated defense force.
It’s interesting. Read the whole thing.
I have many issues with Mr. Friedman’s observations but I’ll just name two. If China were to invade Taiwan, it wouldn’t be for strategic reasons. It would be for political ones. How would that difference affect his analysis?
More importantly to the best of my knowledge every wargaming of great power confrontation that allowed it ultimately led to the use of nuclear weapons.
Like Mr. Friedman I don’t think there will be war between China and the U. S. but it’s possible that would be for different reasons. There’s too much to lose and not enough to gain.
I agree with both your reservations. Odd leaving nukes out of the picture.
The geography alone is daunting. Without obviously knowing where China would propose to land troops, the distances are quite a bit greater than the UK to France distances. Simply cannot be done in complete secrecy, cannot be done without air superiority, and given that Taiwan (like the UK in 1944) is a really big, unsinkable aircraft carrier, achieving air superiority would be hard, if the Chinese could do it at all.
The complication for us would be (among others) the question of whether the Japanese and South Koreans would back our play. And whether Kim would seize the opportunity to try and push us off the Korean peninsula. Then of course it would also be the perfect time for Putin to roll into Estonia.
But I think the better option for Beijing would be to boil the frog, raise tensions, increase incidents while never quite reaching the point of forcing war. I would start a domestic terror group in Taiwan, carry out cyber attacks, fund opposition groups, raise the temperature in hopes of causing cracks that could then be widened until the Taiwanese cry uncle. I wonder how well the Taiwan government would hold up in the face of what would amount to economic warfare. Taking a Hong Kong option would look pretty attractive.
There is a 3rd reservation on the Taiwan invasion scenario. Assuming China succeeds in an invasion, what’s the plan after? The Chinese government would suddenly have an insurgency of the Iraq/Afghanistan (Soviet and American)/Vietnam variety…. I would like to think that factors into anyone’s thinking before the shooting starts.
As to trying to boil the frog, Beijing has already been doing that. Pressure on TW business that are on the mainland, working with the relatively mainland friendly KMT party against the independence minded DPP, etc. At the same time, the Hong Kong option is seen as an anti-solution because Beijing is failing to hold up its side of the bargain to let HK have real autonomy. The pressure tactics are backfiring, it’s causing Taiwan people to view themselves as not Chinese, Kind of like the Irish in UK prior to independence. And my suspicion is that Taiwan people will be willing to sacrifice a lot economically and in other ways to keep their defacto independence. How much would anyone sacrifice to keep their country and their FREEDOMS once they have experience with both?
By the way, speaking of China. I read some articles which make a good case on how China has helped North Korea nuclear program. I was wrong on this. Makes me think through that any diplomatic solution would probably need to cut out the Chinese.