Pentagon, Chinese analysts agree US can’t win in Taiwan Strait - US mulls ‘scorched earth’ strategy for Taiwan instead of defense

[Beny Karachun]

Whatever cost means that China will go to all out war with US if it comes to that in the end.

That same can be said its cheap, irresponsible and pure evil for you Americans to beat the drums for Taiwan to go to war with China all the time.

You are the ones that want to invade and destroy Taiwan how is the US the evil one

 

[SIPRA]

China is not Iraq, US never fares well when waging wars at China's doorway, Korea, Vietnam, China was engaged in both wars, directly and indirectly, and that was a time that China was economically and militarily nobody in the world.

Yes. China has a good historical record of screwing US in it's wars, in the vicinity of China.

 

[beijingwalker]

You are the ones that want to invade and destroy Taiwan how is the US the evil one

Taiwan is republic of China, Taiwan issue is the result of the unfinished Chinese civil war, what does it have to do with Israel and US? Did China try to intervene The US Civil War?

 

[Beny Karachun]

China is not Iraq, US never fares well when waging wars at China's doorway, Korea, Vietnam, China was engaged in both wars, directly and indirectly, and that was a time that China was economically and militarily nobody in the world.

And the US and its allies aren't the same as they were in Korea and Vietnam.

They enjoy an overwhelmingly qualitative edge over China and its only ally North Korea.

 

[beijingwalker]

And the US and its allies aren't the same as they were in Korea and Vietnam.

They enjoy an overwhelmingly qualitative edge over China and its only ally North Korea.

Yes, we saw that in Afghanistan in recent years, and you believe China was the same China in 1950 when China couldn't even make screws and bolts and US boasted 52% of the world total GDP?

Today's China

 

[etylo]

You are the ones that want to invade and destroy Taiwan how is the US the evil one

Taiwan is chinese territory, shut up your foul mouth, dont want to engage in meaningless argument with you China hater.

 

[Beny Karachun]

Taiwan is republic of China, Taiwan issue is the result of the unfinished Chinese civil war, what does it have to do with Israel and US? Did China try to intervene The US Civil War?

When was Israel mentioned?
I always get banned from threads when they start to talk about Israel, let's not go there.

You guys seem to be deluded like Russia. Russia thought Ukraine would meet them with flowers, and thought they would be freeing them from Nazis that oppress the local population in Ukraine.

They were wrong, and the local population doesn't want to have anything to do with Russia.

Same about Taiwan, you believe you are freeing Taiwan from the "evil west" but in reality they don't want anything to do with you, and you will be met by the same resistance Russia met in Ukraine. Except it would be 10 times harder for you because of the distance and the sea, and the fact Taiwan is a richer and more military capable nation than Ukraine.

 

[beijingwalker]

When was Israel mentioned?
I always get banned from threads when they start to talk about Israel, let's not go there.

You guys seem to be deluded like Russia. Russia thought Ukraine would meet them with flowers, and thought they would be freeing them from Nazis that oppress the local population in Ukraine.

They were wrong, and the local population doesn't want to have anything to do with Russia.

Same about Taiwan, you believe you are freeing Taiwan from the "evil west" but in reality they don't want anything to do with you, and you will be met by the same resistance Russia met in Ukraine. Except it would be 10 times harder for you because of the distance and the sea, and the fact Taiwan is a richer and more military capable nation than Ukraine.

This is China's business, none of your business

 

[etylo]

Don't know why this sort of articles still appears. Meaningless. Really, the US has said repeatedly they will not interfere militarily.

Remember, US gov words are not to be trusted, they can change their intention overnight for no good reason. Besides, US presidents before like George Bush and now Biden have repeatedly said US will intervene militarily if war break out in the strait. It would be foolish for Chinese military to count out US military intervention if war break out between the two sides becos of some ambiguous statements on the matter from US state department.

 

[Beny Karachun]

Yes, we saw that in Afghanistan in recent years, and you believe China was the same China in 1950 when China couldn't even make screws and bolts and US boasted 52% of the world total GDP?

Today's China

What did you see in Afghanistan? American military superiority?
The American military performed really well in Afghanistan, however it was given a task that's not the role of a military - to establish a new government. ANA was weak and never stood a chance, US defense minister told Netanyahu he could do the same with the Palestinians and offered him a secret visit to Afghanistan to see the ANA, Netanyahu laughed and told him that the ANA will crumble days after the Americans leave, and this happened in reality a few months later.

US and Vietnam technological gap was much smaller than US-Chinese gap today. US-Vietnam was mostly a ground war, aircraft were lacking guided munitions, artillery was unguided, infantry lacked NLOS weapons and NVGs, the enemy was hiding in the woods with AKs and RPGs and this was what made problems to the US.

But here the story is different, China needs to take the offense on an island, there are no trees to hide in, no way for guerilla warfare, this war would be a pure conventional conflict. Much more similar to Iraq in the 90s than it is to Vietnam or Korea.

 

[Beidou2020]

An empire that lost to 1950’s China thinks it can take on China now. A war over Taiwan will be the end of the American empire. Even in their own war games, China comes out on top. Even they know it, which is why there is so much panic. Anyone following China’s military developments can see the obvious. Only the deluded ones still stuck in a bygone era.

 

[LeGenD]

China is not Iraq, US never fares well when waging wars at China's doorway, Korea, Vietnam, China was engaged in both wars, directly and indirectly, and that was a time that China was economically and militarily nobody in the world.

China certainly demonstrated its capacity to fight a war by liberating North Korea and making inroads into South Korea but US-led forces managed to liberate South Korea and redraw 38th parallel by 1953. The Korean War concluded with Armistice Agreement for the Restoration of the South Korean State. No sensible historian would write-off this battlefield outcome.

Spoiler: My analysis of the Vietnam War

Vietnam War in retrospective

USA fought a war in Vietnam in the 1960s when its military technologies were nothing like in 1991 (vs. Iraq) and beyond. Vietcong and American troops could NOT defeat each other due to technological limitations and geographical factors and were locked in a stalemate for a long period of time.

Technological limitations

For perspective; USAF could NOT knock out a Vietnamese bridge (Dragon's Jaw) with "standard munitions" for a long period of time in Vietnam:

"At the outset of the Vietnam War, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff rated the Dragon’s Jaw as No. 14 on the list of the most important targets in North Vietnam. It carried the only railroad in the North Vietnamese panhandle and was a key link in the supply route supporting the war in the south. When the Rolling Thunder air campaign began in 1965, the bridge was selected for early attack.

On April 3, 1965, Lt. Col. Robinson Risner led a strike force of almost 80 aircraft from bases in Vietnam and Thailand against the Dragon’s Jaw. The actual attack was conducted by 31 F-105s from Korat Air Base in Thailand, half of them carrying Bullpup missiles and half with 750-pound general-purpose bombs.

Planners had expected the attack to drop the bridge. However, neither the missiles nor the bombs caused any appreciable damage. One pilot said the Bullpups, which had lightweight 250-pound warheads, simply “bounced off” the target.

The next day, Risner led a restrike by 46 F-105s. This time, they left the Bullpups at home and hit the bridge with some 300 bombs, but the results were no better than before. Two further strikes in May closed the bridge briefly for repairs. Large mines, dropped upriver by transport aircraft, floated into the bridge abutments but they had little effect.

By 1972, the Air Force and the Navy had sent 871 sorties against the Dragon’s Jaw, losing 11 aircraft but failing to knock out the bridge.

The Emergence of Smart Bombs | Air & Space Forces Magazine

Precision-guided munitions in Vietnam wrote the book on ground attack.

www.airforcemag.com

Geographical factors

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Topographic-map-of-Vietnam_fig1_233808418

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11483-coastal-living-a-growing-global-threat/

Vietnamese geography prevents mechanized thrusts in numerous sectors of the country. USA had NO choice but to use helicopters to insert troops in such sectors to confront Vietcong forces and/or to conduct bombing runs in numerous sectors to soften Vietcong infrastructure. American troops could win battles but gains on the ground remained limited.

Locked in a stalemate

Major battles of the war and their respective outcomes are identified as follows:

Battle of la Drang	1965	Indecisive
Battle of Khe Sanh	1968	Indecisive
Vietcong's Tet offensive	1968	Victory (US-led forces repel attack of Vietcong)
Operation Apache Snow including the battle of Hamburger hill	1969	Victory (US-led forces secure thung lũng A Sầu region but are withdrawn due to political reasons).

Although American military forces could win battles, Vietcong remained intact and launched Easter Offensive in another show of force to weaken South Vietnam in 1972.

Negotiations

Nixon administration was under domestic pressure to bring an end to war in Vietnam and ordered drawdown of American troops to signal its intent for the needful but Vietcong saw an opportunity in this development to launch its Easter Offensive to weaken South Vietnam in 1972. This put Nixon administration in a predicament and it authorized use of overwhelming force to stop Vietcong in its tracks and bring it to the negotiation table instead: Operation Linebacker II was launched to achieve desired outcome in this case.

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Improvements in American military technology such as emergence of smart bombs made it possible for the USAF to achieve results that were NOT possible before. For example, USAF used smart bombs on the Vietnamese bridge Dragon's Jaw for a change:

The F-4s hit the bridge with 26 laser-guided bombs, several of them heavy 3,000-pounders, and did what all of the previous attacks had not been able to do. According to an Air Force review of the action, “The western span of the bridge had been knocked completely off its 40 foot thick concrete abutment and the bridge superstructure was so critically disfigured and twisted that rail traffic would come to a standstill for at least several months.”

The Emergence of Smart Bombs | Air & Space Forces Magazine

Precision-guided munitions in Vietnam wrote the book on ground attack.

www.airforcemag.com

The North Vietnamese Bridge That Took Seven Years to Destroy

The road and railway bridge at Thanh Hoa south of Hanoi spanned the Ma River and was a vital link in the movement of communist troops and supplies. For the better part of a decade, U.S. Navy, Marine and Air Force aviators braved the flak-filled skies over North Vietnam on missions to destroy the...

www.historynet.com

- and Dragon's Jaw collapsed.

Operation Linebacker II showed that it was possible to defeat Vietcong but Nixon administration was not interested to stay on course.

My analysis shows that American military was learning from its battlefield experiences and began to produce results in every battle that was fought in Vietnam since 1968. More importantly, a new generation of technologies emerged and could be employed to devastating effect in Operation Linebacker II in 1972 - this operation showed that technological supremacy could help turn the tide of war in Vietnam but domestic pressure on Nixon administration to give up on Vietnam was immense by the time and it followed through.

Vietnam War provided valuable lessons for restructuring and re-equipping American military to fight a competent adversary much more effectively at some point in the future.

Iraqi military was very large and well-equipped for a regional power in 1991. You can see in the shared article how it was hypothetically evaluated before the war. But the actual outcome of the Persian Gulf War surprised everybody including China. US-led forces demonstrated both technological supremacy and tactical brilliance in this war and managed to liberate Kuwait at a low cost.

Now - I am NOT asserting that China is a pushover. Americans are NOT taking Chinese military advances for granted in fact. But you need to understand that Taiwan has its own defenses which can produce battlefield effects on the one hand and US-led forces continued to learn and evolve from various wars on the other hand. China might get bogged down in Taiwan if US and other countries decide to support the island. This is a scenario that China would like to AVOID in the foreseeable future.

But nothing is certain until it happens. The benefit of doubt extends both ways.

Yes. China has a good historical record of screwing US in it's wars, in the vicinity of China.

See above.

An empire that lost to 1950’s China thinks it can take on China now. A war over Taiwan will be the end of the American empire. Even in their own war games, China comes out on top. Even they know it, which is why there is so much panic. Anyone following China’s military developments can see the obvious. Only the deluded ones still stuck in a bygone era.

See above and think rationally.

War simulations are not reality but supposed to be learning instruments. The enemy is assumed to be very tough in them by default. There is nothing to learn from an easy foe.

 

[beijingwalker]

Now - I am NOT asserting that China is a pushover. Americans are NOT taking Chinese military advances for granted in fact. But you need to understand that Taiwan has its own defenses which can produce battlefield effects on the one hand and US-led forces continued to learn and evolve from various wars on the other hand.

Communists fought KMT and know very well about them, besides, there are significant number of people both civilians and military people in Taiwan are pro reunification, they would surrender or switch sides right after the first shot was fired.
In case of war over Taiwan, China and very centralized Chinese government can mobilize the whole 1.4 billion population and all the available resources for a this single cause, how much US can commit to that war?
Now US ammo is running low just for supporting the war in Ukraine.

 

[beijingwalker]

I have no faith in US for a war of attrition due to its poor manufacturing sector, remember how US begged China for PPEs and ventilators when covid outbreak hit US .
60% of the world total steel output is made in China.

China’s steel output at 1.05 billion t for 2020, accounts for 58% of the global steel output

CONF: China’s steel output at 1.05 billion t for 2020, accounts for 58% of the global steel output Source：MysteelDec 21, 2020 09:45See Full-size Table Here China Crude Steel Art Abyss https://www.steelguru.com/author/strategic-research-institute China’s crude steel output will probably reach...

defence.pk

 

[beijingwalker]

To support a war involves many factors of the economy, not military alone, why US couldn't start any new wars overseas in recent years? because it lost the global supply chain, this supply chain now is firmly in China's hands. People won't see US wage any wars in coming years, withdrawing on all fronts is the only choice for US due to its fast declining industrial and manufacturing power.