Posted on 12/22/2003 7:30:21 AM PST by Theodore R.
Compare this situation to that faced by the French in 1940 after the panzers broke through. The French still had the ability to resist, but their political leadership thought they were broken and an accomodationist/defeatist faction came to the fore.
People mistakenly analogize Taiwan to Israel when it comes to their qualitative military superiority. The fact of the matter is, a lot of their hardware is rather old and they have a real problem upgrading it. China, on the other hand, not only has a massive quantitative superiority, but also access to excellent Russian equipment of recent vintage. Furthermore, Taiwan's young people are creatures of modern culture. The garrison state mentality that existed in the early years is gone. If China were to move on Taiwan, there would be some in the public and the government who would advocate taking a HK deal. It's a question of will, that's the true center of gravity.
Figures for the DF-15 (the workhorse
It's obvious that your knowledge of the Chinese military is at least 5 years out of date - you've shown that with your comments on their ICBMs, submarines, fighter jets, & now their theater ballistic missiles.
A lot has NOT happened in 5 years. The Song class of SSKs turned out to be duds--so the ChiComs have to buy more Kilos. The Type 093 is still "under construction," and will be about as good as a late-build Permit-class boat. Their ICBM forces are, to put it mildly, stagnant.
The DF-15 has a CEP ~50 meters using GPS or Glonass.
Uh-huh. GPS is subject to "selective availability." Glonass simply doesn't work that well--you'd get 300 meter CEP at best.
Only a complete idiot relies on a guidance system controlled by one's enemy.
And, of course, this assumes that nobody in the loop for building the DF-15s walked off with the money and ripped off the PLA--despite fraud and corruption being rampant in the ChiCom military...
Many of them are terminally guided.
Facts and figures, please. What sort of terminal guidance? When was it tested? Did it actually work?
Same with the medium-range DF-21s.
In that case, the DF-21 threat's already been killed--just deceive their GPS systems, and watch the warheads land WAY off target.
Problem is, China now has long-range artillery that can reach Taiwan as well. And while a CEP of 50m is still too high to target individual aircraft it can probably cause big problems for large stationary facilities like hangars or fuel dumps.
And, of course, the ROC AF isn't smart enough to put in underground infrastructure, unlike their wily inscrutable counterparts on the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
BTW, there is an issue with long range artillery--if they are as accurate as their US counterparts, your miss distance will be about 500 meters long or short of target, and 200-300 meters left/right.
You don't have to destroy warplanes to render them unfit for combat.
True. But you have to destroy real targets.
And, even then, you have to follow through with boots on the ground--and unless the ChiComs get Louis Farrakhan to organize a "Million Man Swim," that 80+ miles of Taiwan Strait is going to stop them dead until 2015--by which point, they're going to have some more pressing issues to deal with.
Absent nukes, they don't do enough. They are a particularly expensive means of delivering HE to Taiwan.
And they don't put boots on the ground.
As for their accuracy, no one is entirely sure what off the shelf upgrades have been made with Russian and/or Loral/Clintonian assistance.
No one is sure that those "proving ground" figures will be anything matching reality, either.
Also, nobody is sure the damn things will work as advertised. In testing, where the missiles are extensively checked out and any problems fixed by factory technicians before launch, these things have a 75% reliability rate.
Absent such intense prelaunch workup, what's the reliability figure going to be?
In any event, quanatity has a quality all its own.
True. But without nuclear warheads, the "quantity" of missiles required would be in the tens of thousands.
Between their missiles, sleepers/SF, and their attack aircraft (yes, they're mostly elderly), they can disrupt Taiwan's response. Cause chaos. Sow confusion. Degrade capabilities.
Yes. But friction works both ways. And covert warfare has very finite limits on its ability to influence events. To take down an entire free society solely by blowing some stuff up and causing some chaos? Hell, if you get even slightly unlucky, you're liable to blow away the "accomodationists" you're relying on.
Compare this situation to that faced by the French in 1940 after the panzers broke through. The French still had the ability to resist, but their political leadership thought they were broken and an accomodationist/defeatist faction came to the fore.
After an attack that generated very large numbers of civilian casualties, "accomodationists" would be wise to keep their heads down and call for the destruction of the mainland heathen.
People mistakenly analogize Taiwan to Israel when it comes to their qualitative military superiority. The fact of the matter is, a lot of their hardware is rather old and they have a real problem upgrading it.
A lot of their hardware isn't old. They get a lot of time to practice with their equipment. And, unless they are dumber than a box of rocks, Taiwan has a sizable nuclear arsenal.
China, on the other hand, not only has a massive quantitative superiority, but also access to excellent Russian equipment of recent vintage.
And they get very little training time with it.
Furthermore, Taiwan's young people are creatures of modern culture. The garrison state mentality that existed in the early years is gone. If China were to move on Taiwan, there would be some in the public and the government who would advocate taking a HK deal.
Ah, the standard "the youth are weak and decadent" line favored by all totalitarians.
After a massive attack, anyone advocating taking a HK deal would be tried and found guilty by the Honorable Judge Lynch Mob.
It's a question of will, that's the true center of gravity.
If Taiwan's will holds 48 hours, then the ChiCom government is likely to collapse from a military coup.
And when someone randomly drops 950,000 pounds of high explosive across your island, apparently in an attempt to kill many civilians, the likely result is fanatic resistance.
Your whole theory of war is straight out of Giulio Douhet--and history shows that bombing civilians doesn't inspire them to surrender. It convinces them that their survival is bound up in winning the war. This explains the failures of the 1940 German air campaign against England, as well as the subsequent failure of the Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany.
No, I'm not advocating what a Douhet-style obliteration of Taiwan. It would be counterproductive and would tilt world sympathy to Taiwan -- and if you think the Euros were on our backs about Iraq, wait until they have to choose between a democracy and the "China market." The PRC would try to ape US doctrine and take out C4I targets. And from what's out there in the public domain, they seem to be focusing on cyber-war capabilities as well. They wouldn't have to be anywhere near 100% effective to gain an advantage during the first few days.
And just because they would be wise to have a nuclear arsenal, doesn't mean they do. I would, but hey, who knows?
Initiative is an ephemeral thing, easily lost when things go wrong.
No, I'm not advocating what a Douhet-style obliteration of Taiwan. It would be counterproductive and would tilt world sympathy to Taiwan -- and if you think the Euros were on our backs about Iraq, wait until they have to choose between a democracy and the "China market." The PRC would try to ape US doctrine and take out C4I targets.
Then you're back to using nukes. The miss distances and likely reliability figures on those missiles mean that you HAVE to use nukes to be reasonably sure of a kill.
And from what's out there in the public domain, they seem to be focusing on cyber-war capabilities as well.
Cyberwar is one of those overhyped notions from RAND that promises, at most, mutual assured annoyance. Read The Crypt for a more realistic notion of "cyberwar."
They wouldn't have to be anywhere near 100% effective to gain an advantage during the first few days.
Actually, they would. You're talking about very high-risk operations in return for a relatively modest gain. If ANYTHING goes wrong early on, they're hosed.
And just because they would be wise to have a nuclear arsenal, doesn't mean they do. I would, but hey, who knows?
Never assume that people are dumber than you are just to make your wargame scenario work.
Why do they NEED to?
Also, China has indicated that they may very well use nuclear weapons. That would be the only response they COULD muster.
Instead Taiwan continues to act as if they utterly need our protection, while our own leaders act as if the supposedly obsolete PLA can actually do some real damage. You tell me what's going on here.
For the former: if you can get someone to pay your defense bills for you, that saves you a ton of money. As for the latter, China can do real damage, IF they are willing to pay the political price tag.
The first Type 093 is undergoing sea trial, the Song has now entered serial production,
The first two boats were unsatisfactory in the extreme--that's why China wants more Kilos. As for the Type 093--as I said, it's a late-build Permit. In other words, they busted their butts, and made it all the way into the 1960s. Whoop-de-do.
the DF-31 has been deployed in small numbers
OK, they can nuke Evergreen College of Rachel Corrie fame. What's the downside?
the PLAN's new 052C DDGs are superior to the Russian Sovremennys.
They're still ADCAP bait.
They're obviously not moving quickly but to keep things in perspective, how quickly is Taiwan moving in acquiring the weapons they signed for nearly 3 years ago?
On schedule, except for the subs, but that was expected from the get-go.
Assuming a surprise attack, the first wave of Chinese missiles can indeed use GPS guidance, as 5 minutes is too short for our government to determine how exactly to intervene.
Space Command most likely has standing orders to engage "selective availability" on the outbreak of ANY major regional conflict. They may get one free shot--but that's it.
Thereafter China will still have its own regional navigation satellites (the 3-satellite Beidou constellation destined to be 8), plus 8 electro-optical & radar satellites soon to be launched.
Whoop-de-do. Look up White Sands, New Mexico.
As for long-range artillery, sheer numbers will be a problem for Taiwan.
You still have to explain how the ChiComs get boots on the ground. And lobbing artillery at Taipei still doesn't endear the good folk of Taiwan to the ChiComs. It makes a "settlement" LESS likely.
The biggest threat lies in electronic warfare: Taiwan's C4I infrastructure remains relatively unprotected from EMP/radio-frequency attacks, & China will have plenty of anti-radiation missiles to throw at them.
If you're going to throw technobabble around, learn what the technobabble means.
"EMP/radio-frequency attacks" are massively hyped as opposed to actually used. It would be cheaper to attack the target with a high-explosive warhead--unless you're lobbing a nuke, the radius of effect for an EMP warhead or RF weapon is comparable to that of a 500-pound bomb.
Taiwan can't be invaded successfully, for obvious reasons, but in a few years the PLA can severely impair its defenses & pressure it into an unfavorable political settlement, especially if US remains preoccupied with war on terror.
Ah, yes. You assume that the Taiwanese will do EXACTLY as you describe, and not do anything "crazy" under extreme stress.
My bet's on the "crazy" stuff. People facing the destruction of all they've worked for tend to go with that option.
Please supply the quote in which Bush aimed any warning or caution at the Mainland Reds. Maybe you read or heard something I didn't, but all the reports I saw had him lecturing only Taiwan. IF you know different - - - as your post implies you do -- please supply the evidence.
And we have a weakling president who lectures Taiwan instead of China. Pitiful.
In other words, if you didn't read it in the left-wing press, which seeks to damage Bush at all costs, it didn't happen.
No, in other words, I want to see the quote. If it did happen, then there's evidence. But I haven't seen any evidence that he had any words of reproof, warning or caution for the mainland Chinese. If there were such words, what were they? Where can I find them? If you can't supply them, then you're treating wishes like horses.
Sorry, but Bush is president - and it was Bush who dissed the Taiwanese recently. I don't like Carter as much as the next fellow, but I expected more from Bush - - but apparently we're not getting it. Shameful.
The status quo is de facto independence for Taiwan, and stalemate for the PRC. By opposing a statement from Taiwan, we can oppose an invasion from the mainland. See how that works?
When he told Taiwan to cool it, it was to help us keep our 'neutrality' on the issue. 'Neutrality' keeps the status quo. Taiwan mouthing off inconclusively does not.
This is like saying, Israel is stirring up the nationalistic feelings in the Arab World, which may be forced to act in order to save face. You wouldn't apply that standard to Israel - telling them not to assert their right to exist, lest it offend the Arabs. So why should Taiwan be dissed and the bullies that threaten her, appeased? Maybe it's because Bush isn't all that consistent, or all that strong.
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