https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/03/09/america-and-china-are-preparing-for-a-war-over-taiwan

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[                    ]
Briefing | Storm warning

America and China are preparing for a war over Taiwan

It would spread far across the region, with devastating consequences
for the world

A U.S. Air Force 1st Special Operations Squadron loadmaster looks out
the back of an MC-130J Commando II, after the completion of a mission
over Okinawa, Japan, Feb. 22, 2023. Loadmasters are in charge of
securing cargo and personnel during a flight, ensuring safety
operations aboard their assigned aircraft. (POLARIS)Credit: Polaris /
eyevineFor further information please contact eyevinetel: +44 (0) 20
8709 8709e-mail: info@eyevine.comwww.eyevine.com
Mar 9th 2023 | GUAM, HONOLULU, OKINAWA and TAIPEI
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THEIR FACES smeared in green and black, some with Stinger
anti-aircraft missiles on their packs, the men of "Darkside"--the 3rd
battalion of America's 4th marine regiment--boarded a pair of Sea
Stallion helicopters and clattered away into the nearby jungle. Their
commanders followed in more choppers carrying ultralight vehicles and
communications gear. Anything superfluous was left behind. No big
screens for video links of the sort used in Iraq and Afghanistan: to
avoid detection, the marines must make sure their communications
blend into the background just as surely as their camouflage blends
into the tropical greenery. The goal of the exercise: to disperse
around an unnamed island, link up with friendly "green" allies and
repel an amphibious invasion by "red" forces.

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Ignore the polite abstractions. The marines are training for a war
with China, probably precipitated by an invasion of Taiwan. Their
base in Okinawa, at the southern end of the Japanese archipelago, is
just 600km (370 miles) from Taiwan. The two islands are part of what
American military planners call the "first island chain": a series of
archipelagoes and islands, big and small, that stretches from Japan
to Malaysia, impeding naval passage from China to the Pacific.
Whether by harrying Chinese ships from a distance or--much less
likely--by deploying to Taiwan to help repel a Chinese landing, the
marines will be early participants in any conflict.

The hardest part, says Lieutenant-Colonel Jason Copeland, Darkside's
commanding officer, would be dealing with "an adversary that's coming
at you in mass". As China's military power grows, predicting how a
war over Taiwan might unfold, and thus improving the odds of fending
China off without unleashing a nuclear calamity, is getting ever
harder. The only certainty is that, even if all nuclear weapons
remained in their silos, such a conflict would have horrific
consequences, not just for the 23m people of Taiwan, but for the
world.

China's Communist leaders have claimed Taiwan since Nationalist
forces fled to it after losing a civil war in 1949. America has long
pledged to help the island defend itself. But in recent years, on
both sides, rhetoric and preparations have grown more fevered.
China's forces often practise island landings. Its warships and
fighter jets routinely cross the "median line" (in effect Taiwan's
maritime boundary) and harass military ships and planes of America
and its allies. After Nancy Pelosi, at the time the Speaker of
America's House of Representatives, visited Taiwan last year, China
fired missiles towards it.

Dire strait

America, meanwhile, is sending more military trainers to Taiwan. The
Taiwanese government recently increased mandatory military service
from four months to a year. Prominent congressmen have urged
President Joe Biden to learn from Russia's attack on Ukraine and give
Taiwan all the weapons it may need before an invasion, not after one
has started. Adding to the sense of impending crisis are America's
efforts to throttle China's tech industry and Mr Xi's growing
friendliness with Russia.

American military commanders and intelligence chiefs say Mr Xi has
ordered the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to develop the capacity to
invade Taiwan by 2027. Some think conflict is closer. "My gut tells
me we will fight in 2025," General Michael Minihan, head of America's
air mobility command, recently warned subordinates. Both sides fear
that time is running out: America worries that China's armed forces
may soon become too strong to deter, while China frets that the
prospect of peaceful reunification is evaporating.

"War with China is not inevitable, and it's not imminent," declares
Admiral John Aquilino, commander of America's Indo-Pacific Command,
who would oversee any fight with China. Speaking in his headquarters
overlooking Pearl Harbour, scene of Japan's pre-emptive strike in
1941, he says his first mission is "to do everything in my power to
prevent a conflict". Nonetheless, he adds, "if deterrence fails, you
must be prepared to fight and win." As Russia's invasion of Ukraine
shows, he warns, "There is no such thing as a short war."

The first question for America's strategists is how much warning they
would get of an impending invasion. The PLA, with an estimated 2m
active personnel, versus Taiwan's 163,000, would need extensive
preparations to conduct what would be the biggest amphibious assault
since the D-Day landings in 1944. It would have to cancel leave,
gather landing ships, stockpile munitions, set up mobile command
posts and much more.

But in a war of choice, with Mr Xi able to pick his timing, many of
these moves could be disguised as military exercises. American
defence officials say they might see unambiguous signs of imminent
war, such as stockpiling of blood supplies, only a fortnight ahead.
For smaller operations, to seize islands Taiwan controls close to the
mainland, say, there might be only a few hours' warning--if that.

America would want to expose China's preparations early, as it did
with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and rally an international
coalition in opposition. That would be easier if Mr Xi embarked on an
outright invasion. But China may try to exploit the ambiguities of
Taiwan's status: it does not have diplomatic relations with most
other countries. If Mr Xi cites some "provocation", and begins with
actions short of war, such as a blockade, America or its allies might
equivocate.

America must also weigh how far its preparations risk precipitating
conflict. Send aircraft-carriers to the region as a show of force?
Deploy troops to Taiwan? Threaten China's oil supplies through the
Strait of Malacca? All might be deemed provocations by China, if not
acts of war.

As war approaches, Taiwan will move navy ships from its vulnerable
western coast to the east, behind the mountain range that runs along
the eastern side of the island. It would seek to hide jet fighters in
underground shelters and mobilise its 2.3m reservists. It would also
have to control widespread panic, as multitudes attempted to flee and
as transport links to the outside world were cut.

America, too, would be dispersing jets from exposed bases. The
marines would deploy around maritime choke-points. American
submarines would slip under the waves, some mustering close to
Taiwan. Some American and Taiwanese military commanders would no
doubt press for military strikes against China's gathering invasion
force. They would probably be overruled by those seeking a diplomatic
solution, or at least not wanting to be blamed for firing the first
shot.

China, for its part, would have to take a momentous decision. Should
it limit its attack to Taiwan, hoping to create a fait accompli as
America and its allies dither? Or should it strike America's forces
in the region, in a new Pearl Harbour? The first option leaves
America free to attack the invasion fleet; the latter all but
guarantees its wholehearted entry into the war, and probably Japan's,
too, if China attacked American bases there.

An invasion would almost certainly begin with massive missile and
rocket strikes on Taiwan. These would quickly destroy much of
Taiwan's navy, air force and air defences. Wang Hongguang, a former
deputy commander of the PLA region opposite Taiwan, predicted in 2018
that there would be 24 hours of bombardment--first on military and
political targets, then on civilian infrastructure such as power
plants and fuel depots. He suggested that China would blind Taiwan's
satellites, cut its subsea internet cables and use electronic warfare
to scramble its command-and-control systems, hobbling co-ordination
with American and allied forces.

General Wang said the onslaught would cause enough havoc to open at
least a two-day window for invasion. If American forces did not
arrive within three days, he blustered, "don't bother to make a trip
in vain". China will also do its best to sap Taiwan's will to fight.
Its cyber-forces will try to hack local television and radio, and
bombard Taiwanese soldiers with text and social-media messages,
offering rewards to mutineers and deserters.

China must then confront the formidable challenge of an amphibious
assault, one of the most difficult forms of warfare. The beaches of
Kinmen, a Taiwanese island just 3km from the mainland, are dotted
with relics from an attempted invasion in 1949, when Nationalist
forces killed or captured almost the entire advance party of 9,000
Communist troops who landed in small fishing boats. The PLA has come
far since then, acquiring advanced weaponry and studying precedents
such as D-Day, the American-led landings at Incheon in Korea in 1950
and Britain's recapture of the Falkland Islands from Argentina in
1982.

Walk of strife

Yet the risks are still great. China has not fought a war since
invading Vietnam in 1979. Although the Taiwan Strait is only 130km
wide at its narrowest, its currents and tides are powerful and
erratic. Conditions are usually propitious only in March-May and
September-October. Just 14 of Taiwan's beaches are suitable for
landings and they are heavily fortified, especially the ones close to
Taipei, where Chinese forces would probably prefer to start an
invasion (see map 1). Taiwan has built lots of bunkers and tunnels in
the area.

[20230311_F]

Nor is it certain that the PLA has enough ships to transport an
adequate landing force quickly across the strait. It would need
300,000 to 1m troops to be sure of subduing Taiwan. It has six
amphibious army brigades stationed nearby, with a combined 20,000
troops, plus a similar number of marines. But China's amphibious
landing ships could probably ferry only about 20,000 soldiers across
in the first day or two, depending on how much equipment they take.
Likewise, the PLA's transport aircraft could probably convey only
half of its 20,000 airborne troops in the opening phase. The PLA
recently practised using ferries and other civilian ships, which
could bring across many more units but, for that to work well, China
would need to capture a still-usable port.

The war in Ukraine has raised fresh doubts, too, especially about
China's ground forces. Its combined-arms battalions, including its
amphibious ones, are modelled on Russia's battalion tactical groups,
which have struggled in Ukraine. Even if China succeeded in swiftly
decapitating Taiwan's leadership, it might still face protracted
fighting against forces replicating the Ukrainians' use of portable
missile-launchers and drones.

Taiwan's strategy, meanwhile, is to thwart China's initial landing or
prevent it from bringing enough troops. Taiwanese forces would block
ports and beaches with sea mines, submerged ships and other
obstacles. Backed by surviving aircraft and naval vessels, they would
strike China's approaching force with missiles and pound disembarking
Chinese troops with artillery and rockets. Some PLA texts suggest
that Taiwan has underwater pipelines off its beaches that could
release flammable liquid. Some of its outlying islands are protected
by remote-controlled guns.

If the PLA broke out of its beachheads, it would face a slog through
arduous terrain to reach Taipei and other urban centres. Then both
sides would face a challenge for which neither is fully prepared:
urban warfare. Taiwan is reluctant to fight in its cities, fearing
high civilian casualties. The PLA does train for urban warfare, but
had long banked on a quick victory if it reached Taipei. Since the
war in Ukraine began, however, both sides have been practising
fighting in built-up areas more.

Taiwanese soldiersCommissioned by Catherine Phillips No easy way past

Even if a Chinese invasion got bogged down, though, time would not be
on Taiwan's side. "We can fend them off for one or two weeks but no
longer," says Si-fu Ou of Taiwan's Institute for National Defence and
Security Research, a think-tank. Unless Taiwanese forces resist
steadfastly, everything else is futile. But, by the same token,
Taiwan cannot hope to defend itself in the long run without American
help.

As an island, Taiwan is not just harder to invade than Ukraine, but
also harder to support. Its ports might be destroyed by China, its
own forces or even America's. Attempting to bring reinforcements or
supplies to the island as Chinese missiles rain down would be almost
as difficult as attempting to invade.

At the very least, America and Taiwan would need help from allies.
Japan, which hosts tens of thousands of American troops, has capable
forces. The Philippines is weak militarily but close to Taiwan.
Australia is closely allied but modestly armed and farther away.
Countries in the Pacific could provide rear bases. More distant
allies, such as Britain, might send naval vessels. A big uncertainty
is how much India would help. A lot would depend on how the crisis
unfolds and who is blamed for it.

[20230311_F]

America's plans to help Taiwan used to hinge on aircraft-carriers. It
sent one to the area after China fired missiles near Taiwan in 1995
and again after another salvo in 1996. But China has since invested
heavily in "anti-access/area-denial" (A2/AD) weapons, designed to
fend off American ships and aircraft. They include the DF-26 missile,
which can strike deep into the Pacific (see map 2), and new
hypersonic missiles that are harder to intercept. China's navy is now
the world's largest, with a fleet of submarines to attack approaching
American ships. Its long-range bombers are also a menace. David
Ochmanek of the RAND Corporation, a think-tank that has run
classified war-games simulating a Taiwan conflict, argues that old
American strategies now "lead to defeat".

American planners' alternative is summed up with three D's: disrupt
Chinese operations within the first island chain, defend allies on it
and dominate the sea and air beyond. America must overcome daunting
problems: the "tyranny of distance" in the vast Pacific Ocean, the
growth of China's "weapons engagement zone" to encompass American
bases in the western Pacific and the sheer mass of China's manpower
and weapons, which exceeds America's in many categories.

[20230311_F]

The risk of Chinese attack, by missiles or bombers, decreases with
distance (see chart). But even Guam, America's big military hub some
3,000km from China, is vulnerable. What is more, America's air
defence is worryingly thin. It also has few means of passive defence,
such as concrete aircraft hangars.

American officers speak of the prospect of war with a mixture of
dread at China's growing power ("Every day I am astounded by their
capabilities," says one), and optimism that new tactics can achieve
victory. They emphasise "distributed lethality", meaning the
scattering and constant movement of forces to avoid becoming easy
targets, while maintaining the capacity to gather or co-ordinate in
attacks. This will rely to an unprecedented degree on America's
experience of fighting as a "joint force", in which separate military
branches and weapons systems reinforce each other.

Military jets would disperse from big bases, gather in the air for
battle and settle where they can on specks of land. They would repeat
the pattern as quickly as possible by "hot-pit" refuelling with
engines running. Sometimes planes would perch in civilian airports;
sometimes on austere airfields, many dating from the second world
war, which are being refurbished. Adding ever more concrete to
protect aircraft "is a fool's errand", says Brigadier-General Paul
Birch, commander of the 36th Wing at Andersen air base, in Guam.
"Being in the air is much safer."

Engineers, meanwhile, would aim to repair cratered runways within
about six hours. Ground crews would set up pop-up hangars as well as
traffic-control centres and data links. A big headache would be how
to get fuel and munitions to the right places. One aim of this "agile
combat employment" is to force China to expend its large but finite
stock of missiles.

Rather than fight near Taiwan, American surface ships would probably
hold back, to survive, provide air defence for Guam and other rear
bases and blockade Chinese trade. They would "pulse"--sailing briefly
in and out of the danger zone--to shoot at Chinese ships and planes.

Brothers with arms

Marines would deploy to "key maritime terrain", especially islands
dominating the straits that separate Taiwan from Japan and the
Philippines. They would reinforce the local troops, reconnoitre
Chinese dispositions and, armed with new missiles coming into service
in the next few months, fire on enemy ships. The marines are creating
three new "marine littoral regiments", each with more than 2,000
troops, giving up their tanks and many of their howitzers.

Read more of this package
How to avoid war over Taiwan
Special report: Frontline Formosa

Some critics say these units would be too vulnerable; others reckon
that, without deployment to Taiwan itself, they would be too distant
to help much in the main battle. The marines, though, argue that they
would multiply the threats China must face, "canalise" Chinese ships
into vulnerable positions and, above all, "sense and make sense" of
Chinese deployments. General David Berger, the marines' commandant,
talks of "turning the tables" on China by using an A2/AD strategy to
defend the first island chain. America won't have to fight its way
in, he says: "We are there persistently, 52 weeks a year."

Dispersed warfare sacrifices efficiency for resilience. To succeed,
though, lots of things need to go well. First, command-and-control
networks must be able to withstand Chinese electronic attack.
Planners talk of a yet-to-be-perfected "kill web", in which
artificial intelligence helps "sensors" and "shooters"--including
those of allies--operate together even when far apart. Marines on
islands, stealthy F-35 fighters, drones and more can all act as
nodes. Second, America would need more sophisticated logistics to
supply far-flung units. Last, it must persuade allies to risk China's
wrath. Their willingness would become clear only as hostilities
erupt, which complicates planning.

Early in the war the job of sinking China's invasion fleet--the
critical task in defending Taiwan--would fall mainly to submarines and
long-range bombers. Though its boats are outnumbered by China's,
America retains the edge in underwater warfare. Its attack submarines
carry torpedoes, cruise missiles and sea mines. Sooner or later,
however, they would run out of munitions, and would have to sail away
for several days to replenish in places such as Guam, where they
would be vulnerable.

Too far away

Bombers flying from Hawaii, Alaska and the American mainland,
meanwhile, would be using munitions that can be fired from beyond the
reach of Chinese anti-aircraft missiles. But America's Long Range
Anti-Ship Missiles, which can travel 200 nautical miles or more,
would probably run out within a week. Thereafter, American forces
would have to move closer to Taiwan to sink ships. America's hope is
that, by then, China has also run short of long-range munitions.

America and China would debate whether and when to attack each
others' satellites, potentially turning low-earth orbit into a
scrapyard. Some war-games suggest they might refrain from doing so
for fear of harming themselves. But as a senior American military
official puts it, "The side that shoots first gets a big advantage."

Every stage of the war would be fought in the shadow of nuclear
weapons. Mr Biden has talked about reducing America's reliance on
nukes, and China espouses "no first use". But the risk of disaster is
presumably rising as China expands its arsenal. It will grow from 400
or so warheads today, the Pentagon reckons, to 1,000-odd by 2030
(still less than America and Russia have). A recent war game
conducted by the Centre for a New American Security, a think-tank,
suggested that both sides underestimate the risk of escalation. This
grows if either attacks the other's mainland, or if the conflict
becomes protracted.

The toll of even a purely conventional war would be devastating, for
the victors as well as the losers. A war game by the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, another American think-tank,
found that under its "base scenario" Taiwanese, American and Japanese
forces typically severed PLA supply lines after about ten days,
stranding some 30,000 Chinese troops on the island. Taiwan survived
as an autonomous entity, but was left with no electricity or basic
services. America and Japan suffered, too, losing 382 aircraft and 43
ships, including two American aircraft-carriers. China lost 155
planes and 138 ships.

The economic cost would be enormous, too. RAND estimated in 2016 that
a year-long war over Taiwan would reduce China's GDP by 25-35% and
America's by 5-10%. The Rhodium Group, a consultancy, concluded in
2022 that the disruption to the supply of semiconductors (Taiwan
makes 90% of the world's most advanced computer chips) would cause
global shortages of electronic goods, leading to "incalculable"
damage to the world economy.

Given the appalling consequences, would America and China really go
to war? Chinese officials say their preferred option is still
peaceful unification, and deny there is any timetable for an attack.
China also has many options short of an all-out invasion. They
include economic coercion, a full or partial blockade and the seizure
of outlying islands such as Kinmen. China may well embark on this
sort of "grey-zone" operation as a substitute for, or a prelude to, a
wider attack.

Mr Xi has strong incentives to bide his time, not least because his
forces are growing, whereas American defence spending is near an
80-year low as a share of GDP. But he may also feel pressure to
attack if Taiwan abandons all pretence that it might ever reconcile
with the mainland, and formally declares independence, or if America
deploys troops to Taiwan. The year-long conflict in Ukraine is proof
that an irredentist autocrat can miscalculate appallingly. Zhou Bo, a
former senior officer in the PLA, notes that to achieve its aims,
China does not need to exceed America's global might; it just needs
an edge in the western Pacific.

Many strategists in America and Asia fear that the loss of Taiwan
would replace the American-led order in the region with a Chinese-led
one. Japan and South Korea might feel obliged to develop their own
nuclear weapons. Rather than constraining China, the first island
chain would become a platform for it to project power farther afield.
"Taiwan is the cork in the bottle," as an American military official
puts it.

America draws solace from Russia's failures in Ukraine, believing
they have increased Mr Xi's doubts about his ability to take Taiwan.
But to preserve the precarious balance across the Taiwan Strait,
America must act with exquisite skill. It needs to reinforce Mr Xi's
hesitation by strengthening itself, its allies and Taiwan, but not go
so far that he thinks he must attack fast or give up on seizing
Taiwan for ever. #

Correction (March 11th 2023): The original version of the chart in
this article had the wrong scale on the y-axis. This has been
corrected.

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition
under the headline "Storm warning"

The struggle for TaiwanThe struggle for Taiwan

From the March 11th 2023 edition

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