On May 2, local time, the U.S. "Foreign Policy" magazine and a think tank Quincy Institute jointly organized an event, think tank "National Defense First" project expert Leel Goldstein believes that another U.S. think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), previously made a report on the simulation of war in the Taiwan Strait was too optimistic, and the United States will not be able to afford the scale of the war with China.
So, once a war breaks out between China and the United States, Japan, and Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait, will the United States be able to withstand such a large scale of war?
PLA military parade
The United States and Japan will enter the Taiwan Strait by force?
No matter how credible the conclusions of the two think tanks are about a simulated war in the Taiwan Strait, they make us realize an inescapable fact, that is, once the PLA attacks Taiwan, the Taiwan military will not fight alone, and the United States and Japan will be their supporters.
We should not be surprised by the involvement of the US military. Although successive US presidents have avoided this issue, all senior US military officials have unanimously said that China and the United States will break out into war in the Taiwan Strait. Such preparations are mainly for the allocation and deployment of troops and all military resources on the inner and outer fronts.
U.S. fleet
The so-called internal and external forces are mainly divided according to the difference in the position of engagement with the enemy. The inner line refers to the concentration of forces and the launch of centrifugal attacks on the enemy, and the general internal line forces are mainly used for defense; The outer line refers to the dispersion of troops and the launch of a centripetal attack on the enemy, and the general external line forces are mainly used for attack.
For a long time, the US military in the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, and Europe has attached more importance to the deployment of troops on the outside line than to the deployment of troops on the internal line. This is mainly because the U.S. naval and air forces and long-range precision weapons are more suitable for fighting on the outside, while fighting on the inside line is more important for the use of light tactics.
The US Marine Corps plans to equip light amphibious ships
Earlier, domestic media also said that the United States is determined to withdraw from the first island chain and fully retreat to the second island chain. In fact, this is a misreading of the US military arrangement, and it is true that the US military is stepping up the defensive bases of the second island chain, but they have not abandoned the first island chain, and their plan for the first island chain is to use lightly armed troops, unmanned combat systems, and the troops of the host country to conduct joint operations.
Since the war in Iraq and Afghanistan basically ended, it is clear that the U.S. military is slimming down the ranks of the Army and Marine Corps. For example, the two major branches of the armed forces have purchased a large number of M777 light howitzers and "Hippocampus" wheeled multiple rocket launchers, and the US Marine Corps has also developed light rocket artillery and campaign-tactical missile launchers based on the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) chassis.
"Hippocampus" rocket artillery
While slimming down traditional weapons and equipment, the U.S. military attaches the most importance to unmanned combat systems, which mainly comes from the inspiration brought by the Russian-Ukrainian war. We know that the Russian-Ukrainian war has entered a protracted war, and one of the important weapons is unmanned combat systems, including: FPV micro drones that constantly blow up tanks and Ukrainian unmanned surface speedboats that frequently sneak attack the Black Sea Fleet.
The U.S. military's focus on building interior forces is to use unmanned combat systems to form the first line of resistance to the PLA's offensive forces. At present, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks is in frequent contact with U.S. civilian high-tech enterprises, hoping to develop a set of artificial intelligence-based "replicator" unmanned combat system, which integrates unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned boats, unmanned underwater vehicles and other unmanned combat equipment.
Ukrainian soldiers fly FPV drones
As for the armed forces of the host country, the United States is stepping up its arming of them. Among these Asia-Pacific allies of the United States, Japan and Australia are the most important ones for the United States. With regard to Japan, the United States has mainly assisted Japan in enhancing its national defense capability within the framework of the US-Japan alliance, including the sale of F-35 fighter jets, the "Aegis" carrier-based combat system, and the joint development of hypersonic missile interceptor missiles.
As for Australia, the United States has formed the Aukus alliance mainly by enlisting the United Kingdom, and of course, other Asia-Pacific allies such as Japan and Canada will also be involved in the future. However, the United States and Britain used the nuclear submarines of the most core secret as bait to win over Australia, which is somewhat surprising to many people, because after all, this is the ability of a military power to take care of the house, and the sale of this kind of technology to foreign countries shows that the United States and Britain have a very strong intention to form a military alliance.
The launching ceremony of the "shoulder-to-shoulder" military exercise between the United States and the Philippines
In addition to its core allies, the United States has also encouraged and wooed some allies who had previously wavered in their positions, such as the Philippines and India. As for the Philippines, the United States has mainly courted the Philippines through economic and diplomatic efforts to get the Philippines to agree to establish nine military bases on its own territory.
With regard to India, the United States has launched a strategy of wooing India in almost all fields, and US President George W. Bush even proposed to "donate" the "Kitty Hawk" aircraft carrier to India, but India finally refused. Because the United States only promised to send aircraft carriers, but did not include carrier-based aircraft, India still needs to buy dozens of "Super Hornet" fighters from the United States, which will cost billions of dollars, which undoubtedly binds the strategic capability of the Indian military.
Japanese aircraft carrier "Kaga".
Most of us are still very unfamiliar with Japan's military involvement in Taiwan, because Japan's pacifist constitution is very confusing, and many people believe that Japan will only send its Self-Defense Forces to defend itself when it is invaded by a foreign country. However, Japan's defense white papers in recent years have clearly stated that "if there is something wrong with Taiwan, there is something wrong with Japan," and its ambition to assist the US military in intervening in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait has been clearly exposed.
Due to its traditional lack of offensive capabilities, Japan is stepping up the procurement and development of offensive weapons, including "Tomahawk" cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, etc. On the basis of the eight "Aegis" destroyers already possessed, Japan will also build two large destroyers of the 10,000-ton class and reach an agreement with Britain and Italy to jointly develop sixth-generation aircraft.
Japanese Soryu-class conventional submarines
It is expected that the Japanese Self-Defense Force's participation in the war will mainly support the US military on the periphery of the theater, and the number and quality of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's conventional submarines, anti-mine ships, and anti-submarine patrol planes are among the best in the world, and they are also a difficult opponent for the PLA in attacking Taiwan.
As for the strength and tactics of the Taiwan military, its basic strategy can only be to "trap itself on an isolated island and wait for help." This Russian-Ukrainian war has inspired Taiwan a lot, thinking that as long as the Taiwan army can hold the PLA for three months, military aid from allies such as the United States and Japan will come, but this is obviously too optimistic, if there is no foreign aid to eat, it is a question of whether the Taiwan army can hold out for 10 days.
How the PLA responds to the battlefield in the Taiwan Strait
In classical military theory, the offensive force is at least three times the strength of the defense. We estimate that the United States, Japan and Taiwan will mobilize at least 500,000 people, including 100,000 in the US military, 100,000 in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and at least 300,000 in the Taiwan military (including reserves), so theoretically the PLA will have to mobilize at least 1.5 million people.
However, because the PLA has obvious naval and air firepower and technological superiority against the Taiwan army, the PLA does not actually need to dispatch so many people, and basically only needs to maintain a slight advantage in local forces, that is, the PLA can actually dispatch 500,000 to 750,000 troops, and experience tells us that modern warfare is a war under high-tech conditions, and it is no longer a manpower-intensive mechanized war, and 1-1.5 times the strength of troops is also reasonable.
The PLA in training
As for the tactics adopted by the PLA, there are many similarities with the combination of the internal and external lines of the US military. In external operations, the PLA's naval and air forces and rocket forces should establish an anti-access/area denial theater with a radius of at least 100-200 kilometers around Taiwan to prevent the United States, Japan, and other foreign military forces from intervening. Among them, China's two active aircraft carriers and the Fujian ship, which is undergoing sea trials, will have a great deal to offer, because they are key to China's establishment of a defense zone in the far waters east of Taiwan.
In the internal line operations, the PLA's marines, army aviation assault units, and airborne troops will form the first wave of assault forces on the island. Among them, the Marine Corps will take two types of air-cushion landing craft, Type 726 and Type 728, to break through the gap in the Vale in northern Taiwan to Taiwan's political and economic center city, and establish fire support points after seizing important places.
Type 728 hovercraft
The army aviation units and the airborne troops will carry out surprise attacks on targets in depth in the interior of Taiwan Island, and the armed helicopters and general-purpose helicopters of the army aviation units will cooperate to drop the commandos to the periphery of the targets at night; after destroying the enemy's air defense system on the periphery, the airborne troops will break in in large numbers and occupy the enemy's defense area with superiority in troops.
In short, the PLA's tactics for attacking Taiwan can be summarized as follows: the forces on the outside line are responsible for counter-intervention against the United States and Japan, precision strikes on the island, pulling out important air defense and artillery fire points, and leaving secondary military bases and dual-use targets for the forces on the inside line to solve them one by one. Therefore, the accuracy and reliability of the PLA's naval and air forces and rocket forces with precision-guided weapons and ammunition are very important, and this will have a direct bearing on the smooth progress of the war among the troops on the inner line and the casualty rate of the grassroots troops.
Z-10 training take-off and landing on an amphibious ship
epilogue
Think tanks in the United States and the West play a very important role in government decision-making, and we should not take their simulations of war between the United States, Japan, Taiwan and China in the Taiwan Strait lightly. As for the CSIS's view of the "crushing victory" of the US-Japan-Taiwan meeting, we must see a reasonable analysis of the overall combat power of the US, Japan and Taiwan, but we must also see their misjudgment caused by their lack of understanding of China's war potential.
Taiwanese people marched against Taiwan independence
With regard to the conclusion released by another think tank that the United States will fail miserably, we should also be cautious in our analysis and not be overly optimistic. After all, war is a complex process, and it is easy to start a war, but it is difficult to end it, which may be the main reason why Russia and Ukraine, as well as the United States and the West, cannot cease fire.
In short, once the United States, Japan, and Taiwan and China go to war, it will be an all-out contest in the economic, trade, scientific, technological, and military fields, and the war will affect the normal life of everyone in the region.
Part of the information in the article: US think tank: If both the United States and China have the worst intentions due to a lack of trust, they will face the risk of war Global Times