TO TAKE TAIWAN, FIRST KILL A CARRIER

China's communist leadership has long anticipated that to militarily subdue democratic Taiwan it will first need to win a battle against the United States. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is now preparing for one specific, and key, battle. It is developing methods to disable or sink American aircraft carriers and gathering the specific force packages to do so. With such a strike, Beijing hopes to quickly terminate American involvement in a Taiwan War.

SHIFTING PRIORITIES
The early 1990s saw much evidence of carrier-related research and nationalist-political advocacy, particularly from the PLA Navy (PLAN), to build a Chinese aircraft carrier. But, following the political crises of 1995 and 1996, which saw the Clinton administration deploy two battle groups around the carriers Independence and Nimitz near Taiwan in response to threatening PLA exercises in March 1996, sinking a U.S. carrier became much more pressing than building one.

In developing that capability, Beijing hopes to deter U.S. military assistance to Taiwan, and by actually sinking one, to terminate U.S. attempts to save the island. This strategy follows from the bias--a potentially dangerous one for China--that America's aversion to military casualties equates to its unwillingness to risk a real war over the fate of Taiwan. This is apparently a widely held view. It was expressed most boldly by Major General Huang Bin, a professor at the PLA National Defense University, in Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao daily newspaper on May 13:

"Missiles, aircraft, and submarines all are means that can be used to attack an aircraft carrier. We have the ability to deal with an aircraft carrier that dares to get into our range of fire. Once we decide to use force against Taiwan, we definitely will consider an intervention by the United States. The United States likes vain glory; if one of its aircraft carrier should be attacked and destroyed, people in the United States would begin to complain and quarrel loudly, and the U.S. president would find the going harder and harder."

SUMMONING COURAGE
General Huang's statement is in fact not especially audacious, considering that since the mid-1990s the weakness of aircraft carriers and the methods to attack them has been a frequent topic in China's military press. It would appear that the PLA is mustering its courage, trying to convince itself that it can with some success attack U.S. carriers. In October and November 2000, for example, after Russian Pacific-based fighters and bombers made surprise runs against the carrier Kitty Hawk, the People's Liberation Army Daily could barely conceal its glee, devoting three articles to the incident.

GATHERING FORCES
The PLA's apparently growing confidence is likely bolstered by the fact that it is also gathering the forces needed to confront U.S. carriers at a useful distance from the Mainland.

--Sensor Package. Finding an aircraft carrier group is aLMOST as important as attacking it. Understanding this, the PLA is investing in multiple layers of reconnaissance and surveillance systems. In space, it is expected to soon deploy the first of new generations of high-resolution electro-optical satellites and radar satellites, which are especially useful in piercing cloud cover. The PLA has been developing over-the-horizon (OTH) radar with ranges up to thousands of kilometers for a long time. And its Air Force will soon take delivery of its Russian A-50E AWACS to find ships at sea. But because radar can be jammed, it is likely that the PLA will also use hundreds of small fishing boats, as well as agents in Japan, to track U.S. naval forces.

--Air Strike Package. The PLA Air Force (PLAAF) is now beginning to cooperate with the Navy in conducting naval strikes. Later in this decade, elderly PLA Naval Air Force H-6 (Tu-16) bombers will be supplanted by eighty to 100 PLAAF Russian Sukhoi Su-30MKK and about twenty indigenous Xian JH-7A fighter bombers. Both will carry long-range antiradar or antiship missiles, some of which will have supersonic speeds that can defeat U.S. close-in weapon systems (CIWS) for defense against such missiles. Both will also have new long-range self-guided air-to-air missiles (AAM) like the Russian R-77 or the indigenous Project 129 AAM, that will approach the usefulness of U.S. missiles like the AIM-120 AMRAAM. This means that PLAAF fighters will soon have half a chance fighting their way to their targets.

--Sub-Strike Package. According to Russian press reports, China signed a contract on May 2 to purchase eight Project 636 KILO class conventional submarines, to be delivered in five years. The PLAN already has four KILOs, including two Project 636s, with advanced quieting technology that makes them very difficult to detect. The PLAN's new KILOs, however, will be armed with the Russian Novator CLUB antiship missile system. The CLUB-N is a 300km range cruise missile that looks like the American TOMOHAWK and can be configured for land-attack missions. The CLUB-S has a subsonic first stage with a 220km range, but also uses a rocket-powered second stage to defeat CIWS. In addition, the PLAN may now be building its fifth Project 039 or SONG class conventional submarine. Early difficulties with this class appear to have been solved: Series production is centering on an upgraded Project 039A version. For most of this decade, the PLAN will also have some twenty older MING class conventional submarines and approximately five older Project 091 HAN class nuclear-powered attack submarines. While these may be less effective than the KILOs or the SONGs, they will nevertheless greatly complicate the task of the defenders.

--Surface Strike Package. The PLAN is adding two new modernized Sovremenniy class destroyers to two already acquired. Armed with their hard-to-intercept supersonic 300km range YAKHONT and the 120km range MOSKIT missiles, these ships would likely wait behind the submarines and attacking aircraft. But the PLA may also be considering purchasing a SLAVA class cruiser from Ukraine. These are armed with sixteen 550km range GRANIT supersonic antiship missiles.

Surveillance/Targeting
--2-4 A-50E Awacs
--2-4 Optical and Radar Satellites
--Over The Horizon Radar

Air Strike
--80-100 Su-30MKK w 4x antiship missiles
--20 JH-7A w 2x antiship missiles
--?? J-10 w 2x antiship missiles

Missile Strike
--DF-21 intermediate range ballistic missile
--DF-15 short range ballistic missile
--Yakhont antiship missile
--Sunburn antiship missile
--Club Sub-launched antiship missiles
--Air-launched antiship missiles

--Other Strike Options. Another option mentioned in PLA literature is to attack carriers with long-range ballistic missiles. The former Soviet Union had considered this in the 1960s. With proper targeting, satellite navigation guidance and perhaps an enhanced radiation warhead, ballistic missile strikes could disable a carrier. The PLA can also be expected to make great use of deep-sea mines, such as its rocket-propelled EM-52, which could break the keel of a large ship. In addition, the PLA may use Special Forces to attempt to disable carriers in port and attack U.S. aircraft on foreign bases. This is especially critical, given that carriers now rely increasingly on land-based Navy and Air Force support aircraft.

CAN THEY DO IT?
It took the former Soviet Union more than twenty years to build a credible threat to U.S. carriers. China is trying to do so within this decade. To its credit, the PLA is rapidly gathering the right kinds of forces. Skeptics, however, will always question whether the PLA can use them in a sufficiently coordinated fashion to create maximum stress on carrier defenses. Once it has such forces in hand, the PLA will then have to marry layers of long-range sensors to force packages of air, submarine and surface ships armed with new long-range missiles. It may be that the Ukranian carrier Varyag, now being refurbished in a guarded Dalian shipyard, will best serve as a target ship to refine PLA carrier-attack doctrine and tactics. If properly used, the forces China is gathering could--at a minimum--stop one U.S. carrier battle group.

IMPLICATIONS FOR WASHINGTON
In a surprise attack scenario, given its strategic dependence on naval forces in East Asia, the United States might be able to muster only one carrier to support Taiwan. Strategic and economic pressures have reduced its fleet to thirteen carriers with smaller and less capable air wings. Former distinct fighter and attack aircraft are now melded in one platform, the F/A-18E/F. While this might be a convenient economical compromise for the Navy, it is not clearly superior to the Su-30MKK. Since 1999, the long-range antisubmarine function has been taken from the superb S-3 VIKING aircraft, and the number of E-2C HAWKEYE radar warning aircraft have been cut from five to four per air wing. It is time to reverse this trend. It is time to consider the systems needed to defeat China's gathering anticarrier forces if deterrence is to be sustained on the Taiwan Strait.

Fourth, the PRC leadership are not stupid or ignorant and are patient.

Exactly, and this is the key. The Chinese are not stupid. If the guns don't go off, China will absorb Taiwan economically regardless of what flag is flying where. Taiwan is to China as Canada is to the U.S., and the Chinese have about as much reason to invade, save for one imponderable.

The wild card, of course, is that Taiwan's combination of econmic success with an evolving democracy rips away the rationalizations for the dictatorship on the mainland. Hong Kong was a threat for the same reason. An attack on Taiwan would be motivated by a regime crisis in Beijing. The thing to watch here is China's internal political evolution. I think if they can get through the next generation without an explosion, China will be ready to join the civilized world, and welcome. (Formidable competitor though it will be.) I tend to be optimistic about China in the long run, but we need to stay prepared nonetheless.

I tend to agree. We would not use a tac-nuke response to a conventional assault on Taiwan.

If... we respond, I would expect a Chinese Declaration of War with the United States exists within hours.

Expect soon after, North Korea announces its alliance with China and crosses the 38th Parallel.

In this scenario, American carriers would be target #1... our “foot on far”, as Napoleon called his artillery.

If they are neutralized... game over. Taiwan and South Korea exist no more and Japan is a ripe plum, ready to be picked.

Just another opinion.

"Our former president would have tucked his tail at this point."

"Do you mean like Bush did when the Chincom brought down our survelience plane?"

I'm glad someone remembers that little incident last year. Our resolve was tested and Dubya failed. How the hell are we going to defeat the Chinese military machine if we can't/won't even take out Saddam Hussein once and for all? We're a nation of wusses, with a military weakened after eight years of Klinton, and two years of RINO leadership. I think China can and will take Taiwan whenever it damn well wants, because they know we won't do a thing to stop 'em.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

the American people would clamor for the extermination of Communist China. Don't think so? We're pretty much on our way to eradicating militant Islam for knocking down two buildings.

I agree, especially since a military strike by another *nation* would provide a very clearly-defined enemy. If the Chinese use a tactical nuclear weapon against a carrier group, they will buy a nuclear retaliatory strike. If they use conventional weapons, maybe we won't go nuclear either. Much depends on how the attack against us is initiated.

If this comes to pass, what *will* Wal-Mart and K-Mart stock their shelves with?

Anyone have info on the "surprise runs that the Russians carried out against the carrer Kitty Hawk in Oct/Nov. Please post.

Going purely from memory of what I read at the time. The Hawk was conducting UnRep (Underway Replenishment) with an AO or AOE at the time and was not conducting flightops.

The Russian planes (Su-24s and -27s, iirc) came in and buzzed the ship. The first plane off the Hawk's deck was an EA-6B (electronic warfare variant of the now-retired A-6 Intruder) ... which found itself in the unenviable position of getting into a firball with several Flankers.

The buzzing was the equivilant of you or I walking down the street eating an icecream cone and suddenly getting jumped and stomped in the 'nads. There's no way to compare what happened to what WILL happen if the ChiComs ever try something against a US carrier. The carrier WON'T be operating without a CAP. The carrier WON'T be operating at a reduced threat condition. The carrier WON'T be operating without escorts. And the carrier WON'T be steaming slowly with a big fat, slow pig of an oiler a hundred or so feet off the starboard side.

This isn't saying that the ChiComs can't get in a first blow that will hurt, hurt badly or even sink a US carrier. But it's sheer idiocy to say that the ChiComs gained anything (other than a good laugh) at the little stunt the Russians pulled. If anything the US gained from that experience ... I'm willing to bet that our UnRep proceedures have changed substantially, at least when conducted in close proximity to a potential adversary.

Major General Huang Bin, a professor at the PLA National Defense University, [stated] on May 13:
"...The United States likes vain glory; if one of its aircraft carrier should be attacked and destroyed, people in the United States would begin to complain and quarrel loudly, and the U.S. president would find the going harder and harder."
The Professor should get a copy of the book I'm reading right now; Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture. I'm just now into the section on the disasterous Roman defeat at Cannae. Hannibal's forces slaughtered ~75,000 legionnaires in 216 BC; one of a string of victories. But as horrible as this lose was for the Romans, it did not break them. Within a few years, the Roman army was at Carthage.

I cannot bring myself to believe that the Chinese Communist Party would risk its existence by taking out a US aircraft carrier...

You know, its a funny thing but aircraft carriers have been vulnerable since satellite reconnaisance came into being.

Are the Chinese military planners so stupid as to believe that either the US military response would collapse without carriers or that the US public's patriotism would collapse for the same reason??

Boy are they in for a nasty surprise if they try it...

What wasn't mentioned in the article was the new torpedo developed by the Russians, which will likely end up in the Chinese arsonal. I can't remember the exact method this torpedo uses, but somehow, it can create a pocket (or many pockets) of air around it's outer surface, allowing it to travel much faster than our ships could effectively respond to a torpedo attack.

This torpedo has a SLIGHT problem you don't see in the typical World Net Daily and Newsmax hype articles....

It can't turn. Just runs straight. No homing capability.

"The United States likes vain glory; if one of its aircraft carrier should be attacked and destroyed, people in the United States would begin to complain and quarrel loudly, and the U.S. president would find the going harder and harder."

The fools. If one of our carriers is attacked and destroyed, China will be reduced to a vast wasteland of smoking rubble within minutes.

"If China sinks an American aircraft carrier during an invasion of Taiwan, do you think the United States would just go home?"

Yes, but not before taking care of business.

"Taking care of business," however, should not take more than ten or fifteen minutes.

If they are neutralized... game over. Taiwan and South Korea exist no more and Japan is a ripe plum, ready to be picked.

Japan's air force and navy (err, "Self Defense Forces" technically..but don't buy the euphemism...they have some of the most capable and modern and well-trained military forces in the world) are superior to that of China, right now.

Only thing China has an advantage over them is in quantity of land forces, which is irrelevant to Japan, and nuclear forces. Japan could have an ICBM force superior both in accuracy and numbers to China within a year or two, whenever they felt like it.

And China can't invade Taiwan even if the US does nothing to stop them, as I've noted, and it's not totally obvious that North Korea could overrun South Korea, were the US not to provide any assistance.

With such a strike, Beijing hopes to quickly terminate American involvement in a Taiwan War.

Hmmm. That's kind of funny...He-he...ho ho. HA HA...HA HA HA...HO HO HO!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry. I lost my composure for a second. <snicker, snicker>

"But it's sheer idiocy to say that the ChiComs gained anything (other than a good laugh) at the little stunt the Russians pulled."

I've always believed that the only reason the Russians were able to pull that stunt was because we knew they were not a risk to us. IOW, it's like your cousin sneaking up behind you and going "Boo!" You may jump, you may even drop your ice cream cone, but you know that he's not gonna kill you.

With the chicoms, on the other hand, there are no such assurances. Quite to the contrary, we are well aware of their oft stated goals of destroying us. If we are operating in an area where they pose a risk, I expect we will not be going along with our guard down and our vulnerabilities exposed. If they make a false move, they'll pay for it, and dearly. Chang has to get it through his head that he's not Ivan. My cousin can get away with all kinds of things that the ex-con across the street better not even think of pulling.

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