=military =china =russia
The government of China has said it plans to take control of Taiwan. Here's how I envision that going.
Taiwan farms 24% of its land area
and imports 70% of its food. It also relies on coal and oil imports for its
energy. It's very vulnerable to a blockade.
Invasion of an island is
relatively difficult. I expect China to blockade Taiwan rather than invade
it directly. The main potential opposition to that would come from the US
Navy, so let's first look at its military doctrine.
The US Navy uses
carrier strike groups. They contain 1 carrier, which provides long-range
offense, and several ships (destroyers + cruisers + submarines) that protect
it.
The destroyers and cruisers have
powerful radar and are
mainly armed with vertically launched missiles. They have missiles that can
target ships and aircraft, but their main purpose now is destroying incoming
anti-ship missiles. They also have some anti-submarine capability, but
anti-submarine warfare (ASW) is conducted more by helicopters and US
submarines, in order to intercept submarines at greater distances. The
combination of radar and anti-missile missiles is usually called
Aegis.
There are 2 obvious potential ways to defeat such a carrier group:
either shoot more missiles at it than it can stop, or attack ships with
something they can't stop. The US Navy's counter for mass missile attacks is
destroying their source with aircraft before it gets in range, possibly
using stealthy aircraft to penetrate anti-air defenses.
The
approaches China has taken in response are:
A) Long-range
land-based anti-ship missiles, that can mount a mass missile attack on a
carrier group but can't be destroyed as easily as a few ships.
B)
Copying Aegis.
C) Anti-ship ballistic missiles that Aegis might not be able to stop.
D) Constructing airbases on artificial islands, which are immobile but
otherwise superior to carriers.
E) Making more nuclear weapons.
F)
Developing maneuverable hypersonic vehicles to potentially defeat potential
US ballistic missile defenses.
The main US anti-missile missiles
are now the SM6, $4.3M each, and the
ESSM, $1.8M each. A
Burke-class can
carry 96x SM6s or 384 ESSMs, and itself costs $1.8B - probably more than
that for a new one, now. China can do the basically the
same thing at perhaps 1/3 the cost. Note that it's cheaper to hire SpaceX to
launch SM6 missiles into orbit than it is to buy them. So, ICBMs are
potentially a cheaper way to deliver payloads than US Navy ships.
So,
what has the US Navy been up to? Well, there was the
Zumwalt program, which
failed. The CG(X) program, which failed.
It made some Littoral Combat Ships, which are almost useless. Plans to arm ships with railguns,
which is a stupid idea that obviously failed. Plans to use
guided artillery
shells on ships, which are of course as expensive as comparable guided
missiles, and were cancelled when people realized that.
The
shipyards supplying the US Navy are obsolete. Its ship designs are obsolete
- except for the Ford-class carrier design, which is retarded rather than
obsolete. (It has many points to make fun of, but I like to laugh at it
using linear motors for elevators.) The US Navy needs new shipyards, and it
needs new ship designs, ones designed to be made at those new shipyards. And
it needs new people making the ship designs. Will any of those things
happen? I have my doubts.
As for the US Air Force, it decided it wants
a long-range stealthy subsonic
bomber that could operate from Japan. That's
a reasonable decision; the main problem is that it's overpriced.
When China goes for Taiwan, I expect it to have conventional superiority over the US Navy around its land-based missiles and island bases, but be weaker in other regions. Things might go as follows:
1) China declares that any unauthorized ships in a
region will by sunk, and ships currently at ports aren't allowed to leave.
2) Commercial ship operators stop sending ships to China, but operators
associated with China don't.
3) The US Navy sends a Burke to escort a
transport ship carrying food.
4) China shoots enough missiles to sink the
Burke and transport.
5) The US declares that any ships going to China
will be sunk.
6a) The US attacks Chinese island bases and missile sites
on the mainland with cruise missiles and stealth bombers.
7a) China
shoots down some US satellites used for targeting.
8a) The US shoots down
some Chinese satellites.
Alternatively...
6b) China and Russia
make a joint statement saying that attacks on the Chinese mainland will be
responded to with nukes.
7b) The US attacks Chinese island bases and some Chinese satellites.
8b) China shoots down some US satellites.
The pessimistic outcome is, of course, a game of Global Thermonuclear War.
China expects (5) and has been preparing for it. China's main imports are fuel, chemicals (mainly for plastics), semiconductors, heavy machinery, food, and ore. China has invested heavily in substitutes for all of them, even when they're not economically competitive. Its plans are:
for fuel:
- coal to
methanol, and blending methanol with gasoline
- importing oil and natural
gas from Russia
- producing solar panels and batteries
- increasing
domestic coal production
for chemicals:
- coal to methanol, methanol to olefins, and methanol to aromatics
for semiconductors:
- investing in domestic chip
production
- stockpiling chips
China stockpiling chips is the main
reason for the semiconductor shortage. US media blamed COVID reducing car
sales for that shortage, which is so absurd that I wonder if the Chinese
government was involved in the creation of that narrative. US car sales fell
less than in 2009, the chip foundries didn't halt production, and the
shortage is wide-ranging. Companies have also started to notice that
whenever they're missing a part, there's a Chinese supplier with a large
amount that will sell it for 20x the normal price.
for heavy machinery:
- investing in domestic production
for ore:
-
stockpiling steel
- importing ore from Russia
- seizing ore from mines in
Mongolia
for food:
- increasing farming
- fines for wasting food
-
importing food from Russia
Based on these preparations, I expect
China to blockade Taiwan starting sometime from 2024 to 2028. Getting fuel
and food from Russia is a key part of its plans, so I don't expect the US
and Europe will be able to convince China to stop trading with Russia. (US
foreign policy towards Russia should have focused on preventing that
Russia-China alliance, but that's a lost cause at this point.)
Yes,
cutting off all trade would still be economically painful for China, but
because it's at least preparing for that, it could be worse for the USA and
Europe, which to the Chinese government is a win.
After
taking Taiwan, what's next? Probably Russia claiming deposits of fuel in the
Arctic and China claiming some land in Africa.