Pentagon, Chinese analysts agree US can’t win in Taiwan Strait

Asia Times ^

[FarCenter]

China’s satellite coverage in the Western Pacific has doubled since 2018, the Pentagon reported last week in its annual assessment of the Chinese military. That gives China the ability to detect American surface ships with an array of sensors that can guide its 2,000 land-based missiles to moving targets, including US aircraft carriers.

The Defense Department’s November 29 report “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” reflects a grimly realistic rethinking of China’s military capacity in its home theater.

China hawk Elbridge Colby, a prominent advocate of a Western Pacific military buildup to deny China access to its adjacent seas, tweeted on November 6, “Senior flag officers are saying we’re on a trajectory to get crushed in a war with China, which would likely be the most important war since WWII, God forbid.”

The strategic takeaway is that the United States cannot win a firefight close to China’s coast, and can’t defend Taiwan whether it wants to or not. That view in the Joe Biden administration’s Department of Defense (DOD) persuaded the president to discuss “guardrails” against military confrontation in his November summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Republican hawks appear to have come to the same conclusion. The United States will enact a scorched-earth policy in Taiwan, destroying its semiconductor industry, if the PRC seizes the island, former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien told a conference at the Richard Nixon Foundation on November 10, reports army-technology.com.

“If China takes Taiwan and takes those factories intact – which I don’t think we would ever allow – they have a monopoly over chips the way OPEC has a monopoly, or even more than the way OPEC has a monopoly over oil,” O’Brien said.

[oldasrocks]

Talking with friends in Taiwan the rumor it that Taiwan will destroy the chip plants themselves if it looks like china will win. This may be just talk to make the chinese think twice about an invasion.
Other talk is about the ability or plan to take out the Three Gorges Dam. That would destroy a major portion of chinese farmland possibly killing 100 million chinese in the process.

[HighSierra5]

The Pentagon and Numbnuts that we have in charge now are not capable of winning. We need patriotic and moral leaders.

[Thunder90]

If Russia decides to do so they can win the war in Ukraine easily. They don’t at this time as the slow drip weakens NATO military readiness and our economies, without provoking an arms race. China could very well do something similar with Taiwan.

[Chunga85]

People in Taiwan should take note of what happened to the former state of Ukraine after the US came along and used it as a launching pad for weapons.

[sauropod]

.

[noiseman]

I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Anyone seen “Rapid Dragon”, which utilizes America’s huge advantage in heavy airlift capacity to drop thousands of stealth cruise missiles on the CHICOMs (OK, it doesn’t spell out the intended enemy, but it’s obvious) via palletized racks dropped out the rear doors of cargo aircraft? They’re already testing it (successfully so far), and it looks devastating. In a full-on conflict, dozens or even hundreds of cargo aircraft could loiter well outside the range of China’s combat aircraft and SAM batteries, and drop hundreds or thousands of stealthy missiles which then race toward their targets, either land or sea-based. It’s a brilliant idea because 1) it leverages one area where the U.S. far outclasses the CCP - strategic airlift, 2) it is easily scalable to the level of the threat, and 3) it doesn’t place any naval or combat air assets at risk during the initial confrontation. They can sit well outside CCP air and missile range while the initial “blitzkrieg” of stealth missiles does its work to degrade CCP capability (the long-range version of the JASSM missile being developed for this purpose is rumored to have at least a 1,500 mile range). I think if you can wipe out China’s land-based anti-ship missiles in the first phase of a conflict, then head to head our navy would mop the floor (surface?) with theirs. And this isn’t even considering the role that the new B-21 would play in roaming the Chinese coast and taking out SAMs as well as surface to surface and anti ship missile systems.

Of course, timing is key here, especially considering the B-21, which won’t be operational in any significant numbers for several years. But Rapid Dragon appears to be heading toward being ready pretty quickly, and there are already several thousand (out of a planned total of 4,900) JASSMs in inventory, though I don’t know how many are the long-range variant. Just go watch the YouTube videos on Rapid Dragon, and then try to imagine being the ChiComs facing an absolute wall of incoming missiles like that.

[Jewbacca]

They successfully battled off a numerically superior commie foe?

Just like Taiwan would do? The Taiwanese might lose, but they’d have a 30:1 kill ratio. China doesn’t have that kind of young men to spare anymore.

And Trying to blame the USA for the damage to the Ukraine is pathetic. It’s like blaming the USA for Poland for being invaded by the Russians and then Nazis.

[Jewbacca]

Lol. We can make more.

Russia has lost. It’s only a matter of how bad will the loss be at this point.

Putin will probably be doing his best Mussolini impression within a year.

[kenmcg]

When one observes what the military academies are graduating and the fact that the military is more concerned with WOKE and vaccinations; we aren’t what we used to be.

[bert]

In addition to America, in the China seas, China faces the navies of Australia, India, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, UK, the Netherlands and South Korea

[central_va]

“If China takes Taiwan and takes those factories intact – which I don’t think we would ever allow – they have a monopoly over chips the way OPEC has a monopoly, or even more than the way OPEC has a monopoly over oil,” O’Brien said.

If.

Easy. Embargo all eletronic importation and make EVERYTHNG in the USA. Short term pain log term victory and prosperity.

[central_va]

The 3 Gorges Damn is over an hour away at supersonic speed. I think the ChiComs will be able to handle that attack.

[Chunga85]

“And Trying to blame the USA for the damage to the Ukraine is pathetic.”

It all began when the World Police orchestrated the Maidan Coup in 2014 and interfered with Minsk II agreement. Most Americans accept no responsibility for any of their actions. Many others aren’t even aware of what they are, but blindly support them out of a perverted sense of patriotism.

Go back to your safe space at “Fox and Friends”.

[Jewbacca]

Sure, comrade

[central_va]

My theory is the war in Ukraine is a diversion and it’s main purpose was to drain NATO of reserve weapons caches. After NATO is bled dry in the west then the dragon will strike in the east.

[central_va]

The biggest problem is the hollowed out indudtrial base. We ( USA) can resupply weapons at snails peactime trickle pace but we lack the balls to the wall industrial capability needed to sustain a protracted fight with a major power. The Dragon wins.

Thanks Republican Free Traitors™

[TexasFreeper2009]

we need to be working on drone swarms.

[central_va]

NATO is almost out of ammo. Unfortunatly Russia wins next year. China is watching.

[Jewbacca]

Lol, no