Those are all facts but don't have much bearing on whether the PRC can take Taiwan. There is no doubt the PRC has built up a large Navy and has been modernizing their military. That military hasn't been battle tested. I think it's a legitimate question how well they would perform in an actual battle. I think it's a very legitimate question if the generation of people in the PRC who have grown up with full bellies, playing video games really is willing to sacrifice their economy and lives to take Taiwan.
Particularly since my son joined the Navy, I've read a ton and listened to a bunch of podcasts on this issue and the strengths/weaknesses of both navies, which would be the critical force in this, it seems. I have no personal expertise or experience with any of this, but here's what I've learned SEEMS to be the general consensus: 1. The Chinese Navy is bigger...meaning more ships. But similar to the way we used to compare the USSR vs USA armed forces, the US wins on quality. The carrier groups alone are a huge advantage for the US...and while China continues to build more and more ships, the US is building more carriers to supplement and improve their fleet. 2. Everything in the Chinese Navy for the most part is new. That sounds like an advantage, but a lot of people who know about this stuff will tell you that it's not the advantage you think it is. The US Navy has tons of institutional wisdom of years in the maintenance of its fleet. That is a huge deal for a navy. It's one thing to build a ship...it's another to make sure she's constant sea-ready and fully operational. 3. The US has a distinct advantage in its air support. While the newest Chinese fighter jets are really really good, no one believes they're comparable to an F-35...and more importantly, they don't have institutional experience in training fighter pilots in the way the US does. There have been recent stories of the Chinese paying UK fighter pilots to come train their pilots...and as I understand it, some of those UK fighter pilots have been prosecuted at home because of it. 4. The US Navy needs better direction in surface fleet. They need to develop new boats to replace existing ones that will be cycled out soon. They've spent a ton of time building a navy that plans around counter-terrorism type operations...that takes away from supporting and supplementing a fleet designed to be a real deterrent. The goal is to have a fleet so strong that no one would dare challenge it. China has countered that by building ship after ship after ship. They have more ships than the US does at this point. They will also have a decided advantage of being able to supply everything way closer to home than the US would. The last "war game" article I saw suggested China would NOT be able to take Taiwan...but the cost to the United States would be massive in terms of lives and fleet. If you're interested, there's a really good podcast called Warships Pod. There's an episode from December titled, "State of the US Navy 2023" that presents a really good view...and a very critical view of the US Navy not being focused enough at the highest leadership levels....that the average US sailor is easily the best trained sailor in the world; but that the leadership at the top in terms of setting direction and working with Congress hasn't been great. That's the overall opinion of the guys they bring in for that show, and I don't know enough to counter it. Interesting listen though.
We spend 800B+ on the official budget, 3X more than the next guy but can't seem to keep our munitions stocked or build enough multibillion dollar boats. This also outpaces any actual spending for all other government agencies that republicans fight to cut off. How in the hell did we fight two consecutive wars during dub**** and only spend around half as much in the official budget? Must be great to feel powerful and batshit terrified at the same time. Thank you military industrial complex!
We spend more than enough...the guys who know more about it than me seem to be saying, we need to spend it smarter with respect to the Navy. They talked about the development of a particular ship that apparently has very little use in the concept of a conflict with another major navy. In fairness, there hasn't been another real major navy to give the US Navy a run since 1945.
Good post and I agree with almost all of it. Just to add most of these discussions are focused around the naval battles but another factor is the geography of Taiwan itself. Even assuming that the PRC could win at sea and land troops on Taiwan actually taking it would still be a hard task. Taipei is a huge and dense city. It would be very difficult for the PLA to take Taipei other than leveling it and that would defeat the point of taking Taiwan if it was just reducing Taipei to ashes. Taiwan itself is very mountainous with jungles and deep river gorges. A determined Taiwanese insurgency would have a lot of places to hide and fight an assymetric war against the PLA. All of this still is on top of how devastating the the PRC and global economy an invasion of Taiwan would cause. The CCP legitimacy is sustained by their promise of improving the material livelyhood of it's people. Since Deng they've pushed economic reform and infrastructure development that has vastly improved the lives of it's citizens. Will the people be willing to sustain a war that undoes all of that?
Those are great points. Admittedly, I didn't know much about the Taiwanese geography factor...my focus had been on the sea. And you're right...it would cripple the Chinese economy. Hopefully they know that too, and that, in and of itself, is deterrent enough.
I've watched some vids about the Gerald Ford being in testing hell for most of its existence. It was supposed to be a prototype for the new class and I guess they learned better ways (from decades of failure) to assemble superlarge carriers to scale? This and the F-35 are symbols of our technical stagnation creeping over our half century of dominance. In some ways I'm glad it's expensive and takes a brazilion man hours, but the paranoid angle would be to optimize shipbuilding before the enemy does it better... I guess a legitimate war among powers would trim that "bloat" real fast not only in our military but our country as well.
Well I was just recently complimenting Taiwanese President Tsai In-Wen on her mountains. https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/jacinda-ardern-is-evil-and-dangerous.317111/page-14#post-14468510
economics will run its course. China has too much to lose; for that reason, don't think that China will invade Taiwan.
At this point, the world economy would be crippled by a 6 mo. standoff/blockade of the Taiwan Straights. Those mini silicon wafers are a big deal and remain the best deterrence strategy for Taiwan. Foundries in Arizona or Europe planned to go online in 3-6 years only cover the current generation of chips and another leading generation or two will be out in Taiwan during that time frame. On the flipside, the retaliatory embargoes against China will be at the other end for the supply chain. No one really wants this to happen. Some online experts have guessed that China has a 3-5 year window to attack before demographics and economic uncertainty starts to unravel. Their best incentive to attack is if their economy craters and they stoke nationalism with a Taiwan invasion while sending their more rebellious citizens into the meat grinder. I think Xi's distrust with the West is centered primarily in ideological differences as the CCP still maintain Marxism is still happening and they're the torch bearers for that ideal. Their stated goal to shift from free market principles into that started after the GFC when the measures they took from the Western playbook didn't really cure their descent. It's ironic that their militancy is tied towards China securing global food and resources through capitalistic means, but that's always been how things work. Taiwan remains to be a burning question beyond our forseeable future, and it looks more and more that its fate ultimately comes from how China rises out of its own current crises.
yeah y'all didn't do to well against those 300 indians with sticks so I'm calling the PRC takes a big L against Taiwan, Japan and the US Navy
You forgot the aussies as well. People hyped up the Russian army for decades claiming they were a near peer when in reality they were a paper tiger. I don't buy any of this bullshit about China either. Their j20 has never been deployed in a training exercise with NATO. Their stealth capabilities are all fraudulent and lies. They have no advanced semiconductor chip capability making and with biden cutting off all their chips access to usa market they're effed. Stealth is everything in the modern era and if you don't have a true stealth fighter you're effed in a real battle. Doesn't matter how many ships you have when you can't compete in the sky. They don't have the tools to produce stealth aircrafts and won't have them for a decade or so.
If we go bigger and take Cuba all the boomers can go retire there and live in the 1950s for real. Spoiler Bonus: remember that ship?
J20 worked in the sense of making every ally stand in line for ungodly expense F35s and make them feel like dumping their F15s like last old PS4s. Even a movie like Top Gun Maverick spread that fear of getting taken over. Goes back to that question of whether spending 800B on the military plus aid packages to Ukraine is still worth it as there's no end or cuts in sight,
$800B is certainly a lot of money but if Russia took Ukraine and was on the borders of Poland other NATO countries do you think that would mean cuts in military spending?
5 years ago the defense budget was around 600B. I definitely have a case of sticker shock and with respect to Ukraine they're still receiving aid 50-90B aid packages that congress authorizes outside of the official budget. To turn this line of thought around, do you think our balooning runaway spending is justifiable in order to keep the lights on or fight all unforeseeable threats and fears when we clearly outpace the next five to ten powers combined? Bush complained about inheriting a broken down military that needed to be rebuilt, except they accomplished their initial assault and occupation but couldn't account for a new type of war. Now these bozos want to burn a trillion a year to account for traditional state to state warfare in order to take on everything. This is is unsustainable and isn't a surefire insurance against unknown unknowns like what unfolded after 9/11. Ironically, Chinese needs our navy to guarantee their goods are safely shipped. They're in no position to keep Taiwan and resume their own trading network even if we somehow lost. We give a free pass for the military and spy industrial complexes because we all feel unsafe domestically and abroad. We are not politically united, even fear civil war, so we've become more trusting what defense leaders say on CNN. Leaving them unchecked comes at the expense of real agencies that could improve public welfare. It took decades to get an infra bill. All this magic money and we still choose guns over butter.
