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.

[bert]

The Navies listed are presently sailing in the China Seas.

[Wuli]

“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.”

That statement IGNORES that the U.S. has every one of those 2,000 land based missile sites in its set of possible Chinese targets and can easily counter China’s use of those missles, and deter their abilities.

[FtrPilot]

That statement IGNORES that the U.S. has every one of those 2,000 land based missile sites in its set of possible Chinese targets and can easily counter China’s use of those missiles, and deter their abilities.

You are correct!

Also, the U.S. Navy can temporarily blind every low earth satellite as they pass overhead.

U.S. Space Command knows the location of every satellite in orbit and, most likely, is able to destroy any satellite actively tracking a U.S. Navy asset.

[Farmerbob]

[...some limited independence, like the CCP did to Hong Kong.]

Unfortunately that independence was measured in months.

[Thunder90]

Definitely not a Putin loving troll. Putin is a Communist tryingto rebuild the Soviet Union. But also the West needs to understand the true nature of the threat from Russia. We’re being had. And our leaders are acting like idiots dealing with Putin. Russia is draining our resources and crippling Europe’s energy supplies and the best they can do is push green initiatives and close down their nuclear plants, instead of exploiting their natural resources and crashing the energy markets, which would actually put a hurt on Putin. Also cutting off trade with China would directly hurt Russia as it would crash China’s economy, also crashing oil and raw materials prices.

[FreedomPoster]

Had this thread up on an old secondary device, and just saw your post.

Perfect summary. No good guys involved, except civilians caught in the middle.