Venezuela and (West) Taiwan

What does Winnie the Flu do about Taiwan now?

My previous couple of posts have discussed the Maduro capture in terms of how it affects Chicom ambitions in the Americas. There is also the question of how it affects Chicom ambitions closer to home. i.e. their plans to forcibly make Taiwan a part of West Taiwan. I think that, on balance, it’s put those plans on hold for a couple of reasons.

The first and simplest is that they can be absolutely certain that the Trump/Hegseth Department of War will act if the PRC attempts to invade or bombard. Despite Bidumb saying things, there was considerable doubt that the previous regime would actually come to the defense of Taiwan and plenty of chance that any force that was deployed would have been required to have a diverse chain of command and probably a special rainbow and unicorn as well. Even more than the B2ing of Iran’s nuclear bunkers, the Maduro op shows that the Pentagon can deliver serious amounts of force if it wants to and that if it does, there is no way to detect it let alone stop it. Which leads us to reason 2

The second reason is Chinese military hardware failed to cover itself with glory during the raid. In fact its primary role in the first few minutes appears to have been as target and subsequently as fire hazard. Now it is true that the Russian systems failed just badly and that there are indications that the CIA may have suborned some of the Venezuelan forces but even so. As far as I can tell, the only anti-aircraft attacks were by MANPADs - i.e. some brave soldier standing up on a roof and manually firing a missile in the direction of a US helicopter. None of the Chinese radars did anything beyond burn and they certainly didn’t detect the US F-35s and F-22s that cleared the way for the helicopters. That suggests that F-35s operating at night over the seas around Taiwan would likely be equally invisible and thus equally destructive of PLAN and PLAAF assets.

This is not just my opinion BTW. It seems to be shared by, at the very least, senior officials in Taiwan (archive). It is important because Taiwan is an island a considerable distance from the mainland and thus taking it by force is challenging. Anything that makes it more challenging to the PLA is to be applauded.

My friend Jon LaForce¹ wrote an article a few years back on how bad invading Taiwan could be. Sadly that article has been eaten by the internets and is no longer available but he has kindly dug up a version of it, updated it and it now appears in a separate section below, along with a link to my article discussing how operations once on Taiwan would be tricky assuming any kind of opposition. This is important context. Even under ideal circumstances isolating, let alone invading Taiwan, is challenging. If the defenders have more capable weapons then challenging turns to impossible.

Bluntly, a solid fraction (a clear majority as of recent polls) of Taiwan’s population do not want to be ruled from Beijing. They will resist attempts to force them and the charm offensive failed after Beijing cracked down on Hong Kong. Although Chairman Winnie the Flu declared that Taiwan would be reunified in 2027, Beijing can only achieve that goal by force, and see invasion discussion below, that’s hard given the current state of US and PLA technology. A likely result of trying is that rather than successfully taking (or blockading) Taiwan the invading or blockading forces are shot down or sunk. A certain result is that some of those forces will be lost, the big question is whether enough of them will survive to complete the mission. That question in turn depends on the capabilities of the US (and Japan) to assist Taiwan.

The question is therefore whether Winnie the Flu and his fellow Chicom leaders are willing to take the risk that the US is unwilling or unable to commit sufficient force to stop the attack or not.

In terms of ability, while I think people like CDR Salamander make excellent points about the gradual reduction in capability of the US armed forces and their preparedness for a battle in the Western Pacific, unless the Chicoms successfully manage an overwhelming Pearl Harbor style opening strike on Japan, Guam, Saipan, Korea and so on I expect the US forces to prevail, and that any invasion or blockade attempt will eventually lead to US involvement. I also think that prior to the recent demonstration of how to do combined arms attacks in Venezuela, the PLA top brass may have been over confident that a few dozen extra missiles here and there would be enough to swing the odds in their favor for an overwhelming assault.

However, it is now clear to even PLA admirals that doing that would be very risky and require close coordination between multiple PLA fleets, missile commands and airforce units of a sort that the PLA has yet to demonstrate. They might be able to do it. There might be enough factor P in missiles to get through. But it’s an “all in one throw” existential (literally) gamble and if they are wrong they get to play Japan in 1945

Risk Taking vs Risk Averse Leaders

This leads to another important reason to be optimistic about a lack of action against Taiwan. The temperament of the people at the top.

In the US there’s Donald Trump and he is ably advised in combat operations by Pete Hegseth. Hegseth is clearly unafraid of taking calculated risks. That doesn’t mean he will casually throw lives away, far from it, but he understands that you don’t do things half-assed and will be willing to attack hard and fast rather than wait and see. The Donald may not be a military man, but he certainly exhibits the same mentality. These people are willing to fight and they will back underlings who do the same. They may well decide that a pre-emptive strike is a good idea if the PLA starts threatening a blockade and an engagement of US forces.

On the other side we have a career bureaucrat leading other career bureaucrats. Xi Jinping has been in government all his life. So have practically all the people he has under him, especially those he has personally appointed. Bureaucrats are by definition risk-averse and Xi has not shown any signs of deviating from that trend. His wikipedia hagiography is full of stuff like:

Arriving in Xiamen as vice-mayor in June 1985, Xi drafted the first strategic plan for the development of the city, the Xiamen Economic and Social Development Strategy for 1985–2000.[47] From August, Along with helping to prepare Xiamen Airlines,[48] the Xiamen Economic Information Center,[49] and the Xiamen Special Administrative Region Road Project, etc., he oversaw the resolution for Yundang Lake’s comprehensive treatments.

and

In 2002, Xi left Fujian and took up leading political positions in neighbouring Zhejiang. He eventually took over as provincial Party Committee secretary after several months as acting governor, occupying a top provincial office for the first time in his career. In 2002, he was elected a full member of the 16th Central Committee, marking his ascension to the national stage. While in Zhejiang, Xi presided over reported growth rates averaging 14% per year.[62] During this period, Zhejiang increasingly transitioned away from heavy industry.[63]: 121  Xi’s career in Zhejiang was marked by a tough and straightforward stance against corrupt officials. This earned him a name in the national media and drew the attention of China’s top leaders.[64] Between 2004 and 2007, Li Qiang acted as Xi’s chief of staff through his position as secretary-general of the Zhejiang Party Committee, where they developed close mutual ties.[65] During this period, Xi and Li drafted the Double Eight Strategy, which listed eight comparative advantages of Zhejiang and eight corresponding actions to improve the province

He made this plan, he reformed that. He was appointed to some other committee and so on. Not mentioned directly is he stabbed this other bureaucrat in the back and sucked up to that boss but those clearly happened too.

None of this shows risk taking behavior. Indeed one of the big criticisms of his handling of the Wuflu was his insistence on Zero-COVID long after that concept had proven ridiculous.

Furthermore Winnie the Flu has, probably deliberately, made the transfer of supreme power in the PRC much harder than it was under the last couple of leaders. The good news, for him, is that makes it hard for him to be deposed or involuntarily retired. This, one assumes, is why he did it. The bad news, though, is that if he fails and can’t pass the buck then change or leadership is likely to occur kinetically. This must therefore inspire him to be less bold because nothing is going to convince underlings to revolt unanimously than a botched invasion of Taiwan.

Against a US government led by Commie La Whoreish and her advisors the gamble would be worthwhile. They might have managed to just threaten to attack US forces and not actually done so, with the threat being enough to make the US decide to leave its Western Pacific allies in the lurch. Particularly with the previous Japanese leader. Against President Trump and his team? That’s how you get a nuke on Beijing, another on Shanghai and a third taking out the Three Gorges Dam.

The fact that we can be certain that this is the case is why I doubt Winnie the Flu will attempt to invade. Success requires the US not to be involved and all the factors Jon and I list below.

---

The Challenges of Amphibious Operations Around Taiwan

by Jon LaForce

A lot of people have expressed concern about the potential for an invasion of the Republic of China (ROC) by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). I do not blame folks for this line of thought. The scenario does invoke valid concerns. However, we would be remiss if we did not take the time to examine the scenario and properly quantify it.

Does the PRC possess the world’s largest combination of military forces? At present, assuming what reports we possess are correct, yes.

Does the PRC possess a vast quantity of firepower? Again, all things being equal, yes.

Can the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), PLAN, and PLAAF project power onto foreign shores? Yes and no. That, folks, is where we have to look beyond statistics regurgitated off the back of playing cards.

I will admit up front, I don’t have certain pieces of knowledge. I am not an expert on amphibious doctrine in all its multifaceted glory. I am not a graduate of any service school which directly addresses such matters, though I do own and have read copies of the course material. What I am is a serious student of history, a veteran of the USMC who put my time in uniform to good use learning, and a man who has paid attention to those more educated than me on these topics over the last twenty-five years as I have sought to be educated on martial matters. War was my profession, war is my preferred topic of study at all times and in all places, and the lessons from this rich field are highly instructive.

The way I see it, there are are three options of invasion available:

Option 1) airborne.

Option 2) amphibious.

Option 3) a combo of the above.

All have serious risks involved. They each deserve equal consideration.

Option 1 - Airborne

There exist four international airports on the island of Formosa capable of receiving and launching large cargo aircraft. Which is what you’ll need to rapidly deploy enough troops to hold those positions. Each airport is a large, complex structure, with a perimeter measured in the thousands of meters. A battalion is not going to cut it, especially since they’ll quickly be facing stiff resistance. You’ll need an infantry regiment for each to build defense in depth against expected counterattacks, so assume 3,000 men per site.

Either all your infantrymen are jumping out the door of a cargo plane as it flies through the air, or try to come busting out of an Airbus hold as it taxis to a stop near the terminal. We’ll assume you packed the hull to max capacity, that you safely delivered 100 men and their gear on target. Thirty aircraft will be necessary, just to deploy one regiment.

Overall, you’re looking at 120 cargo planes, packed tighter than a Japanese subway car, flying in formation to their drop zones, for the first wave. Certainly nobody will notice that moving eastward through the sky.

Not at all.

Congrats, you’ve now got your grunts on the ground. You were limited on weight you could bring over, which means they’ve got personal weapons and ammo, whatever crew-served and anti-tank weapons they could carry, and most of a basic combat load. Which will all be necessary to maintain an established position when anything with more steel than Elvis Presley’s Cadillac rolls up and starts shooting at you. Please let me know how well you think grunts on bare tarmac are going to fare when the ROC Army starts serving air bursts in 155mm portions overhead?

Just dig in? Ever had to try digging through earth compacted so it can take aircraft? I got to watch that once. I laughed at the people involved then zipped up my tent and went to bed. Telling your E-1s to try digging in through that, while they begin taking contact, is a recipe for madness.

Capturing the airports alone is not enough. I know, you didn’t want to hear that. You’ve got to reinforce those positions and maintain an air bridge. Your cargo planes, if you’re smart, will have enough fuel for the return trip, and yes they must leave. Dee-dee mau now! If they are sitting on a tarmac, they are targets. Unless you want those grunts to stop defending the perimeter and play firefighter, get the planes gone immediately. You will have a scene on par with the Berlin Airlift occurring, and I hope you remembered to train that up beforehand, or we’re going to see mid-air collisions piling up real quick. Which absolutely won’t crush morale when your troops watch an entire company of their buddies turn into flambéd lawn darts at five-thousand feet and two hundred miles an hour.

*sound of intercom clearing*

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. If you look out either window, you’ll have a front row seat to the largest air engagement since the Battle of Britain. And I severely doubt the ROC Air Force is going to let us peacefully fly back to Western Taiwan. Please assume the upright seated position, put your head between your legs and prepare to kiss your ass goodbye.”

Realistically, assume you’re going to lose half the aircraft assigned to each airport. Expect those losses, plan as if 1 in 2 of those planes are not coming back. Otherwise you’re lying to yourself. Oh by the way, the PLAAF has less than 300 transport aircraft. So you’ll either need to double the number of transport aircraft in your inventory (good luck with that, Commies, we’ve seen your idea of quality control play out on Shein and Temu), or take aircraft from all those airlines you’ve got in operation, totally not tipping off anybody with half a brain about what you’re doing as you severely disrupt domestic and international flight schedules.

Now that we’ve covered the Taipei Turkey Shoot, let’s have a look at the Formosa Strait Shark Festival.

Option 2 - Amphibious

Congratulations, you’ve elected to sail to battle! This is a wise choice, as warships and their support elements do not fall out of the sky. Normally.

Before we get to enjoy an ice cold beer or forty on the smooth sandy beaches of Formosa, we have to consider the prior, pressing, obligations.

Your timetable is not dictated solely by political considerations. Oh sure, the commissar told you it’s the final determining factor, but anybody who has an ounce of realpolitik understanding knows better. You’ve got to pick landing sites based on the right combination of tide, time of day, season and weather. Had Operation Neptune not set sail in the narrow window available on the 6th of June, the next time available was not for 2 more weeks. And that window has to accommodate everything you’ll need for the initial beachhead plus sufficient supplies to establish piers, docks, and breakwaters. Look at the Mulberry model. Do you have the means to make that possible? You better if you want to rapidly bring supplies from the waterline to an inland fighting position. Hope your supply clerks and log platoons are good at moving while under fire and know how to use their crew-served weapons properly, otherwise they’re so much dead meat in an ambush. Because, you know Urban environments are not famous at all for being the death of mechanized formations, never mind ambushing a vehicle convoy with RPGs in an environment allowing for little in the way of cover or room to maneuver.

Where was I? Oh that’s right. You’ve pre-staged everything, your artificial docks are cured and ready to move. Great job. Good work. I’m proud of you. By the way, how are your troops doing?

What’s that? You forgot about them?

Oh son, lemme explain a fact of life to you: men are not boxes. Men are not steel and iron. They are men.

Operation Neptune had 24,000 men staged and waiting to go ashore at Normandy. Men far from home, far from comfortable beds, far from good-smelling and curvaceous female companionship, and very far from good food or drink.

How long can your NCOs maintain good order and discipline amongst idle men, eating rations and smelling each other’s BO for hours without reprieve, before they start making comments at the officers? How long before tempers flare under the emotional pressure and men with automatic weapons lash out in the heat of the moment? We joke about my Marine Corps being a collection of alcoholics with machine guns, but there’s a certain level of truth to that. Private Tang decides he’s had it up to here with Private Chang taking his hard earned renminbi at his platoon’s impromptu pai gow tournament, so he decides to settle the matter with his service rifle’s giggle switch set to “donkey show.” Private Tang empties the magazine whilst Al Capone’s ghost chortles about Valentine’s Day. Private Chang plus a dozen poor onlookers get treated to the PLA’s infamous Unhealthcare plan. Got that mental image firmly affixed in your mind, right?

Good. Now remember that in a formation the size of what landed during Overlord you had not one platoon but 400 such (assuming an average size of 60 men per platoon). You’ve got the scene between Tang and Chang playing out 400 times, simultaneously. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

I want you to remember this hypothetical. Because it too is a reality. Once you lose good order and discipline, all you’ve got is an angry mob. Mob Rules make for a great song, and utter piss for a martial force.

So you’ve made the weather call, you’ve got everything loaded, staged, and the troops are primed. You’re crossing over 100 kilometers of open ocean. 130 at the minimum, 180 at the widest. That’s a lot of space for Very Bad Things to happen.

Each wave of transports has a specific role. The first is going ashore to create a beachhead, the second is reinforcing that initial position. Bad news: it might take several waves to fully secure that initial hold. Look to Tarawa and Saipan for the utter mess that can be made of plans when you don’t have proper maps of the underwater terrain.

Once you’ve got the initial perimeter and a “safe” place at each location for engineers to build a temporary pier/dock, they’ll be coming in. By now your enemy is going to be fully aware of your presence. They will make probes at your perimeter. You’ve got to continue bringing in reinforcements or you’re going to run out of grunts. Who, by the way, are hungry, thirsty, sore, bleeding, angry, tired, and want to sleep. Forget Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed running across the sand. The average man going ashore weighs 160 pounds, and is wearing that much weight again in equipment and clothing.

Yes. Really. Shocking, I know.

Look, if you don’t believe me, we have complete lists of what the men who went ashore at Utah, Omaha, Juno and Gold were carrying on their backs. Read Currahee or Band of Brothers for what the paras were wearing when they jumped in the night before. Those poor bastards on the beach are playing a lethal game measured in inches, and they know the only way they’ll see sunset is if they get off the mother loving beach. The enemy knows it too. And they get a vote in this scenario.

Let’s talk about delivery. Once your big, wide, slow troopships have been filled to capacity with troops and supplies, an act which we know absolutely nobody to the east would’ve noticed at all, an evolution where absolutely nothing goes ever wrong, they will leave their harbors to cross the strait of Formosa, preferably under cover of darkness to limit optical observation. Do we see the list of variables stacking up? I hope so. Because I’m about to add another one- how many ships will make it across the strait. You need to expect that the invasion force will get spotted somewhere during it’s preparatory loading. And if you think the ROC Navy won’t try to intercept your surface fleets, you are very badly mistaken. Never mind the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, stationed in Japan. They are still the Big Man on the Block in that part of the world.

Go ahead, ChiCommieBoos, rant all you want in the comment section or your scripted bot replies on Quora, tell yourself you’ve got a bigger navy than the United States of America. Last time I checked we have more tonnage in storage than you have currently sailing. Seethe over it. Cope over it. Go sit in the corner and cry at your pictures of that bad haircut which rivals his limpid fashion sense. I’m sorry, I meant to say that fat vainglorious child raping sack of filth which is Mao Sucks Donkey Dong.

Pardon me, I had that in the margins of my notes.

If the US Navy, specifically Seventh Fleet, wanted to cover themselves with glory, let us look no further than an attempted invasion of Taiwan, courtesy the PRC, by sea. The Formosa Strait would play host to the largest open water engagement since Surigao or Savo Island. USN Surface Warfare Officers dream of such scenarios. Submariners too. The collective lot of them would be entirely too happy to oblige you. Their erections will last well after they get delivered to the old sailors’ home in old age.

Taking a step back, let us assume you’ve made it across the Strait. You are now staring at an empty beach. But you’re 3,000 meters offshore. Those angry, hot, sweaty, vomiting men in the hold are not going to walk from the ship to the shore. Which means you need to transfer them to a platform with a shallow draft which can run into shore. Because this is the PLAN, you lack the means to load troops any way except the same method used for hundreds of years.

Park the Higgins boat (LCVP) beside the troopship, drop a cargo net down, and the troops will go down the rope ladder to the waiting LCVP. Simple! Except we’re talking about scaling a multi-story height, transferring from one ship moving simultaneously through several dimensions at once, to a smaller vessel doing the exact same thing, independent of the larger ship and much more violently while the Coxswain is trying to maintain steerage.

The men doing this are sick, tired, overburdened, puking, scared and unless they have practiced this particular series of dance steps oodles of times, it is going to be a disaster. We here in America would call this “YouTube worthy.”

Did I mention taking fire? No? Oh shucks, I forgot. You’re likely going to be taking fire at the same time. From anti-shipping missiles, not just projectile artillery. The captains of those big, slow troopships will be anxious to leave with all haste. Hope you’ve spent time training the captains not to jump the gun on that. Meanwhile, infantry are breaking hands, arms, fingers, and noses, as they sway on the ropes. Some men are losing their balance and falling onto the open deck of their LCVPs. Look out, that’s 160 pounds of human being plus 160 pounds of equipment! It doesn’t stop gently when falling from a height onto that most forgiving of substances- a pitching metal deck. Perhaps if Private Tang is lucky, some of his squad mates will break his fall for him. With their bodies. Yeah boy, we’re off to a rollicking great start!

We, the US, learned a plethora of lessons from WW2, as well as WW1’s British fiasco which was Gallipoli. Teaboos, thank you for writing the checklist of what not to do. Our current amphibious assault carriers reflect this knowledge and learning- we can do the loading of troops inside the carrier’s hull, in a well deck constructed for this purpose. Forgot scrambling up and down rope nets, our guys can get in their Amtracs and ride to the beach, where they will unass, relatively dry. The PLAN has taken some steps in this direction over the last few years, but little if any of their equipment is really tested, or proven. Will it work on game day? Maybe. I rather doubt it. Again, we need go no further than a cursory examination of tofu dreg construction projects via Open Source Intelligence to see how well you can’t build bridges or buildings. Apply to warships and you start to see how this can go tits up faster than Anna Nicole Smith trying to make rent.

Let us suppose your craft have gone ashore and dropped off the first round of grunts. We’ll assume that both are encountering moderate resistance. Your craft will be getting shot at as they drive across the water, back to the mothership, after having been shot at on the way in. Your grunts will be fighting for their lives across sand.

What’s that you say? How could that happen? You didn’t really think that you were gonna cross over a hundred miles of Strait with roughly 250 landing ships in your amphibious group, at 15 knots, in complete secrecy and never be spotted the entire time, did you?

Oh dear.

Your landing vessels took contact coming in. The ROC is waiting at the highwater line, hull down, in trenches. The ROC infantry started popping LCACs and amtrac equivalents with Javelins, while the tankers are playing the equivalent of darts with 120mm sabot rounds. Which means the PLAN has to now earn it’s pay supporting the grunts with naval gunfire and surface to surface missile strikes.

If you don’t maintain fire support for the grunts, they’ll get stuck on the beaches as they take contact. If the training has not been good enough, if discipline breaks, the grunts will stall out.

Meanwhile, you’ll have the Republic of China performing a call up of reservists and any existing national militia, in a manner fit to wake ancestors dead since before Kublai Khan was busting heads. Even if, by some outrageous miracle of the Divine, you have light resistance in the opening hours, you’ll have moderate resistance forming to contest and counter-assault your lead elements now. Meanwhile, the fat-ass tankers will continue to roll out of their garrisons, at which point they can engage both the amtracs, the grunts, and any naval vessels which stray too close to shore. Same goes for unfriendly artillery coming from the ROC Army. It will be chaos all around, but the majority of outgoing fire is going to be headed towards the PLA and PLA-N.

Where is your air support, you ask? What has happened to the vaunted PLAAF? Well, while the ROC Navy may not possess Aegis Combat Systems (yet), the USN’s Seventh Fleet does. The US Navy also operates the world’s second largest Air Force, after the US Air Force. And the USN has not shown an interest in letting the PRC come across the Formosa strait, under water or above it in a long damn time. The PLAAF will be justifying the last 50 years of budget fights and weapons development, because if the second-rate knockoffs of 80s era Russian equipment can be defeated with 80s era technology, imagine what an introduction to the 21st century will involve. It will require serious effort between Naval Aviation and the USAF to fairly split the target rich environment they’ve been presented. Fifth and Seventh Air Force are nearby, and Eleventh Air Force is just over the horizon. If you think we can’t get them into the fight, whilst reminding that balding sanctimonious cuck in Moscow to stay home and worry about Ukraine, you’re horribly wrong.

Tom Cruise will make a movie about this day, written by Michael Mann, produced by Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay. Hans Zimmer doesn’t have enough french horns to produce the soundtrack this requires. Ray Ban will run out of aviator frame sunglasses to sell. Russian aerospace manufacturers will be receiving Christmas baskets from the executives at Lockheed, Raytheon, GD, GE, and Boeing for providing them with the next twenty years’ worth of marketing footage.

Yes, yes, I see another hand in the back. How can we justify the budget for this? Surely that’s too expensive?

No.

You look confused. How can we spend ordnance faster than grunts buying soju shots on payday weekend in Osan?

Industrial capacity. The United States of America possesses it. And the deeply capable workforce necessary to keep it running.

Because we do not possess a Military Industrial Complex. We ARE one. With deeply held aspirations of sovereignty and a desire to be left alone. To that end, we build and build and build. Refer yourself to imagery from the Philadelphia Naval Yard circa World War Two for an idea of what Team Appalachistan can and will achieve when they have a case of the ass.

In more modern times, I’ve had conversations with… interesting people, in forums such as Quora. Indian fellow I was conversing with started going on about how expensive live fire artillery exercises are in his country, because the ammunition is so expensive.

“It cost us over a thousand dollars per round!” Says he.

“I’m sorry. Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“It cost less than a hundred for me to fire regular HE. Even with a Charge 5 Hotel MACS.”

“You liar!”

Conversation devolved from there.

Ammunition will always be cheaper than lives, cheaper than land, cheaper than having to take back land. America has stockpiles of munitions for precisely this sort of matter. And as of 2025, we’re making scads more. Because that’s what we do.

Option 3 - Combined

Well let’s just go for broke why don’t we, comrades? Launch an amphibious invasion and an airborne assault all at once. Surely this will overwhelm the ROC before a proper defense can be mounted. This will be easy, right?

Nope.

Remember, if it’s chaotic for the enemy, it’s chaotic for you.

Tell me how you can maintain four contested drop zones, fighter cap for your cargo planes, air support for your amphibious assault, anti-shipping interdiction, submarine hunters, and run the largest naval surface engagement since Task Force 77.2 told Nishimura’s Southern Force “Hippity hoppity, get off my property” then backed it up with 16-inch naval artillery?

Tell me how you’re going to train for that event, be honest enough with yourselves and your superiors about the state of your readiness, and break through the cultural memes which have restricted Chinese culture for millennia.

Tell me how you’re going to stage for that event, keeping the Tibetan-mountain sized flow of men and materials a secret so secure that the Republic of China or the US don’t find out what you’re doing.

Tell me how you’ll keep them from responding long enough to seize control of, conquer, then solidify your grip on Taiwan, without being bled dry. Bonus points if you don’t use nukes to do so.

Tell me how you’re going to keep the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force from getting involved- they’ve already stated publicly their intention to assist in the defense of Taiwan from hostile action on the part of the PRC. Because if there were ever an event which would spike Japanese nationalism straight back to the Meiji era, which would resurrect Isoroku Yamamoto’s IJN any harder or faster, I don’t know that it exists.

Tell me how you’re going to prevent retaliatory strikes. Raytheon’s finest non-nuclear vintage might run Uncle Sam $2 Million a pop, but Uncle Sam will spend those like water turning every major shipyard, harbor, and dock good enough to launch something larger than a canoe into a crater. Remember the Tianjin mess in 2015? Out of 173 reported casualties from that debacle, 104 were firefighters. All dead from an industrial accident. Now imagine if Uncle Sam decided he really wanted to make Tianjin go away. Multiple kilotons worth of conventional munitions detonating across the length and breadth of Tianjin. And it gets worse. Because you have no way to predict when we’ll start performing follow on strikes. I’m sure your rescue workers trying desperately to save people trapped inside burning buildings and stop the fires will appreciate tip-toeing around FASCAM munitions.

I’d say ask Saddam for an eyewitness statement, but he’s dead, piss be upon him.

Now imagine trying to staunch such metaphorical bleeding from the Western Korean Bay all the way to the Gulf of Tonkin. That sucking sound you just heard was the involuntary sphincter clench of every emergency management coordinator who might be involved saying “OH HELL NO.” And it won’t just be a matter of stopping the fires. Never was. Because if you want to regain commercial shipping traffic, you’ve got to open those ports back up. Every hour of delay is dollars lost. Every day is a lacerated wound on the body which is your economy. Every day you cannot safely receive and send out consumer goods is another pint of blood poured out and lost. How many such body blows can you take before your economy slags down into a heap?

Tell me how you’ll resort to the use of ICBMs and MRBMs that you can’t actually use because the troops of your strategic rocket forces, having followed the brilliant and entirely honest examples set for them by their officers totally haven’t been selling rocket fuel and swapping it out for water, thus rendering your nuclear arsenal a non-starter.

Go ahead. Tell me. I’ll wait.

Finale

It is entirely possible that Xi Jinping and his lackeys could choose to assume the port of Mars. But he didn’t get to be premier by being stupid. Evil does not equal stupid. However, as we’ve seen with Vladimir “Thirty-two days to flatten Ukraine” Putin, evil men can and do make bad choices, based on the bad data provided by subordinates worried more about loss of face or status than ensuring their soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are properly prepared for armed conflict; that the enemy’s present status is not a repeat of your own propaganda campaigns; that there is domestic support for engaging in such efforts.

I’m not going to hold my breath while I wait, I’ve got better things to do. But I see no reason to run around a la Chicken Little, screaming that the sky is falling. That is senseless and foolish. Your time, my time, is all spent more profitably in other, less hazardous pursuits. I suggest we do so.

---

I have but one thing to add to Jon’s “tour de force”

I imagine some people will have seen pictures like the one above. Those things will work as long as they can be protected from incoming fire. For obvious reasons these things are static and close to the shore. I’m not sure what the Chinese for juicy target is, but those are the perfect illustration of one. They will not survive unless every artillery piece within range has been suppressed and all aircraft too.

My older article is here: Taiwan - The Map Is Not The Territory and starts like this:

To invade, the PRC has to get an army across the ~200km (100 nautical miles /125 miles) separating Taiwan from the mainland (see map above) and defeat the government and military once it has done so. Mr La Force concentrates on the journey, which is challenging – and seasonally limited (see below) – I’m going to talk more about the destination. I’m also assuming that, at least initially, Taiwan is on its own and the US and Japan do not get overtly involved, his article explains the wet dream that a Taiwanese invasion fleet would be to US Navy surface and submarine assets.

…

Very little of it needs changing in the almost three years since I wrote it. Drones and autonomous mines are going to make differences in tactical execution but not overall.

A final note: under new PM Takaichi, Japan has definitively said it would come to Taiwan’s aid and has also put some weaponry on Yonaguni (the closest Okinawan Island to Taiwan) to back up that rhetoric. That also makes both blockade and actual invasion less likely IMHO, particularly since Japan does have F-35s and two small aircraft carriers that can launch them. Blockading is now far harder since Yonaguni to Keelung is a mere 80 miles/130 km which is entirely within the range of the missiles being deployed there. Yes I know the obvious counter to that is for the PLA to attack those missiles and take them off the table, but that will 100% trigger the JSDF and escalate things from there. And we’re back to the risk-averseness of Winnie the Flu.

1. Also author of this excellent “tactical romance” novel: Hell’s Belles