What would war with China look like for Australia? Part 2
By global affairs editor John Lyons
Should tensions between the US and China flare into a war, there's no question Washington would put enormous pressure on Australia to join them in that conflict.(ABC News: Emma Machan)
Australians could wake up one morning to the news that we are at war with China.
Confronting as that would be, perhaps more confronting is something many people do not realise: such a decision would not require any consultation in parliament.
The decision to go to war would not require a public discussion. It would not require the assent of the Governor General and is entirely in the hands of the prime minister of the day.
Current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would presumably discuss the matter with his National Security Cabinet before any decision is made but there are no checks and balances built into the system before the PM makes the biggest decision that a leader can make – to send our young men and women to war.
Should US tensions with China flare into a war there is no question that these days Washington would put enormous pressure on Albanese, or any future leader, to join them in that conflict.
To use the words of one leading military analyst, Australia could find itself "sleepwalking" into a war with China.
For the US, the bigger the coalition of countries joining it in any war, the better.
As with the Gulf War in 2003, Washington is always keen to enlist as many countries as possible to spread the cost and political risk. It also allows the US to try to promote the notion it is not "an American war".
With that in mind, I sought the views of four of Australia's most experienced military strategists, with 100 years of high-level military and strategic experience between them, to discuss what joining the US in a war with China could mean for Australians.
In the previous column the analyses of Hugh White — a former Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Department of Defence — and Admiral Chris Barrie — who served as Australia's most senior military leader as Chief of the Defence Force from 1998 to 2002 — were explored.
Today, the analysis of Allan Behm, a former head of the International Policy and Strategy Divisions of the Defence Department and Professor Clinton Fernandes, a former intelligence officer in the Australian military, are investigated.
Allan Behm
Australians could wake up one morning to the news that we are at war with China.
Confronting as that would be, perhaps more confronting is something many people do not realise: such a decision would not require any consultation in parliament.
The decision to go to war would not require a public discussion. It would not require the assent of the Governor General and is entirely in the hands of the prime minister of the day.
Current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would presumably discuss the matter with his National Security Cabinet before any decision is made but there are no checks and balances built into the system before the PM makes the biggest decision that a leader can make – to send our young men and women to war.
Should US tensions with China flare into a war there is no question that these days Washington would put enormous pressure on Albanese, or any future leader, to join them in that conflict.
To use the words of one leading military analyst, Australia could find itself "sleepwalking" into a war with China.
For the US, the bigger the coalition of countries joining it in any war, the better.
As with the Gulf War in 2003, Washington is always keen to enlist as many countries as possible to spread the cost and political risk. It also allows the US to try to promote the notion it is not "an American war".
With that in mind, I sought the views of four of Australia's most experienced military strategists, with 100 years of high-level military and strategic experience between them, to discuss what joining the US in a war with China could mean for Australians.
In the previous column the analyses of Hugh White — a former Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence in the Department of Defence — and Admiral Chris Barrie — who served as Australia's most senior military leader as Chief of the Defence Force from 1998 to 2002 — were explored.
Today, the analysis of Allan Behm, a former head of the International Policy and Strategy Divisions of the Defence Department and Professor Clinton Fernandes, a former intelligence officer in the Australian military, are investigated.
Allan Behm
Allan Behm believes a Chinese victory over the US is the more likely outcome beyond 2035.(Supplied)
Allan Behm, who is now head of the international and security program at The Australia Institute, says were the US and China to go to war over the next five to 10 years, the best one might envisage for the US is a stalemate.
He says given the rate at which Chinese forces are modernising and building both capability and capacity, "a Chinese victory over the US is the more likely outcome beyond 2035".
Behm says the impact on Australia of a war with China would be "profoundly and devastatingly different" from any other war this country has participated in since World War II. He believes Australia has a "fundamental strategic pathology – to support the interests of the US at the expense of our own."
Q: For Australia, how different would a war with China be compared with other wars that Australia has fought?
"In its causation, [war with China] would be no different from any of the wars Australia has participated in since World War II. In its consequences, it would be profoundly and devastatingly different.
"Australia is never reluctant to support and participate in American adventurism. Korea was an unnecessary war, as were the conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam and Iraq were illegal wars, with the US Administration(s) lying to their citizens and their allies about the strategic necessity and the morality of the use of armed force.
"Australia has a fundamental strategic pathology – to support the interests of the US at the expense of our own. A war with China over Taiwan, awful as that would be, involves no Australian national interests.
"Yet, as both [Opposition leader] Dutton and [Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence] Richard Marles have indicated in their various pronouncements on the matter, our default position is "all the way with the USA" wherever and whenever.
"Melissa Conley Tyler and I (and others) have dealt with the Taiwan question in our joint paper.
"Notwithstanding their entirely different circumstances, for Australia to support Taiwan against China would be similar to Australia's supporting Catalonia against the Castilians. A separatist democracy against a legitimate government? I don't think so!
"In their use of armed force, the American operational paradigm is largely unconcerned by its own casualty rates, so long as they are lower than those of their adversary. The attrition model appears to be deeply ingrained in the US approach to land warfare. One of the reasons for that is the land force preponderance of the US over the opposing forces.
"But it is an entirely different story with China. According to the late Sir James Plimsoll [in conversation with me], Mao Zedong said to Prime Minister Nehru when the two met in 1954 that, in a war with any adversary China could afford to dedicate 100 million dead. That is massive!
"For its part, Australia is casualty averse, as it should be. It has been since at least Monash's time. The Australian army is extremely careful to preserve the force-in-being by keeping casualties to a minimum.
"So, how would China prosecute the war? Fundamentally, it would follow the strategic prescriptions of Sun Tzu in The Art of War.
"Specifically, China would probably favour four principal avenues for marginalising or defeating Australia.
First, it would seek to ensure that Australia had no allies or support in Asia.
Second, it would seek to spread Australia's forces thin by generating as many responses to feints as it could. It would try to generate war fatigue as quickly as possible.
Third, it would try to drive a wedge between Australia and the US by encouraging as much US overreach as it could.
Fourth, it would seek to impose an economic blockade on Australia by closing the sea lines of communication.
"Given the size of the Australia's forces and the logistic constraints on the US forces, a war against China would be a very hard war to fight.
Q: What would be your assessment of China's military capability compared to that of a joint US-Australian capability, on the assumption that Australia decided to join any such war?
"Australia's armed forces add very little by way of capability to those of the US.
"Conventional submarines offer some additional intelligence gathering capability, and the other force elements provide a small additional capacity to the US.
"The question is really about a force-on-force comparison between China and the US.
"In a war involving Taiwan, US forces would be deployed over long distances from CONUS [Continental United States].
"The bases in South Korea and Japan may not be available, and Guam may also be unavailable. It may be possible for the US to operate from bases in northern Australia, though whether overflight rights would be granted by Indonesia is unlikely. And the operating distances are enormous.
"Were the US and China to go to war over the next five to 10 years, the best scenario one might envisage for the US is a stalemate. Beyond 10 years, who knows?
"Given the rate at which the Chinese forces are modernising and building both capability and capacity, a Chinese victory over the US is the more likely outcome beyond 2035.
"As Carl von Clausewitz noted [in his book On War], defence is the stronger form of war. And in a defensive war, China has the enormous advantage of mass, as Stalin demonstrated after the end of 1942."
Q: Given the capabilities of China, the US and Australia, would you expect any war to be more sea-based than land-based?
"As a continental power, China has a distinct preference for land warfare.
"A China-US war over Taiwan would begin as an air-sea war, with China seeking to impose punitive costs on the US Navy and such US Air Force units as were able to operate.
"China would not seek to deploy land forces to the US (nor Australia for that matter).
"Assuming that China was eventually able to control the Taiwan Strait, it would deploy land forces to Taiwan, both to subdue/destroy the Taiwanese army, any US or allied ground forces that might be in Taiwan, and then to occupy the country."
Q: Would you expect it to become a protracted war, as we're seeing in Ukraine, or given there would be two super-powers involved would you expect it to be short?
"To the extent that China's strategy is informed by Sun Tzu, it would have a strong preference for a short, sharp war. It is for that reason that some commentators, including me, do not think that China is likely to initiate an offensive war in the near future, until it is sure that it has enough mass to win quickly.
"China does have the mass to sustain a war of attrition over a long period as it did, and has continued to do, in Korea and in Vietnam for that matter."
Q: What would the US see as Australia's main military value – would it be securing Pine Gap? Or the value of having US troops and aircraft in northern Australia?
"The joint facility at Pine Gap would be a very important, indeed crucial, element in US intelligence gathering and in Command and Control. But apart from that, Australia has little military value to the US.
"Australia's real utility is as a strategic asset, giving both legitimacy and credibility to the US decision to employ its very formidable military force, and at the same time providing the US with a secure rear that could guarantee logistic and operational support.
"That's what General Douglas Macarthur found in 1942. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was of marginal utility. Australia, however, was a strategic asset.
Clinton Fernandes
Clinton Fernandes believes a blockade against Taiwan is more likely than a cross-Strait invasion.
Professor Clinton Fernandes is a former intelligence officer with the Australian Army Intelligence Corps and now Professor of International and Political Studies at the University of New South Wales.
He believes a blockade of Taiwan by China is more likely than a cross-strait invasion. A blockade, he says, would mean that 80 per cent of ships and aircraft would be unable to pass.
"China's leaders could discreetly offer negotiations to Taiwan's leaders during a blockade before the risky step of ordering an amphibious invasion," Professor Fernandes says.
"If they think the blockade is failing they may declare victory by pointing to the damage already inflicted, or they might escalate to attacking US forces that are supporting Taiwan. Major combat against the US means two nuclear-armed states fighting each other. For China, the worst-case scenario is to have to conduct high-intensity operations against Taiwan, the United States, Japan and other US allies and partners simultaneously."
Q: If Australia were to join the US in any war with China, what role would you expect the US to take and what role would you expect Australia to take?
"The question requires urgent, high-profile debate in parliament and among the wider public. In the recent parliamentary inquiry into war powers reform, the Department of Defence said it didn't think parliament should have authority to decide our involvement because that 'could undermine the confidence of our international partners as a reliable and timely security partner'.
"I hope they don't mean that, just as Britain has the Gurkhas, the Americans have us. If that's what they mean, their view should be rejected in favour of Australian sovereignty and parliamentary authorisation."
Q: Noting that Xi Jinping has said clearly that China would take Taiwan by 'force' if necessary, in your assessment is an invasion of Taiwan by China likely, or achievable, and if not what approach do you think China would be likely to take should it want to 'reclaim' Taiwan – a blockade?
"A cross-strait invasion is the most dangerous scenario from China's perspective.
"It would suffer high attrition and its military modernisation and even its one-party Communist rule would be threatened. We should not assume it will attempt this."
"Rather, there are three scenarios that may be pursued in combination:
Firepower strike
Blockade
Cross-strait invasion
"Invasion may be preceded by a blockade and firepower strikes. A blockade may be preceded by firepower strikes.
"The defence of Taiwan is predicated on a Chinese invasion – but if China's main effort is not an invasion but a blockade, then what?
"Taiwan doesn't have a Plan B – that's the big problem.
"The military centre of gravity is China's integrated air defence system (IADS) in the south. It can deny the United States control of the air within 300 nautical miles (556km) from China's coast. Taiwan is within that zone: 180 nautical miles.
"China's IADS includes an extensive early warning radar network, fighter aircraft, and a variety of surface to air missile (SAM) systems. It has additional radars and air defence weapons on outposts in the South China Sea, which extend its IADS zone out even further, although these latter systems can be destroyed by the US.
"China can impose huge costs on the US and perhaps indefinitely deny air control to the US in that zone. If the United States cannot control the air, it cannot win either at land or at sea. Nor can a military modelled in its image.
"When the US closed down Bagram airbase in Afghanistan the Afghan Army collapsed. Taiwan cannot be resupplied by land. It isn't Ukraine.
The flag of the United States flies over Bagram air base
When the US closed Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan the Afghan Army quickly collapsed because it could not be resupplied. (AP: Rahmat Gul)
"Nor can it rely on the US for resupply by sea once a conflict begins. The area around it would be highly contested and US war reserve stocks in the Pacific are earmarked for US forces that will assist Taiwan — not for Taiwan itself.
"China's IADS makes a blockade the most likely scenario."
Q: How long has China been preparing for the possibility of a war such as this?
"China began planning in earnest for a potential conflict with the United States over Taiwan after the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade."
Q: In your assessment what would the trajectory of such a war look like – in other words, what would you expect to occur in the early stages, the middle stages and then the latter stages of any such war?
"Depending on the scenario, here's what is reasonably predictable:
"Firepower strike can vary from a limited strike against symbolic targets to extensive strikes against energy and transport infrastructure (power stations and petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) storage sites, highways, railways, bridges, tunnels) as well as military targets (air defence systems, coastal defence cruise missile launchers, fighter aircraft, artillery). They may withhold their offensive cyber power to prevent the US learning their operations.
"A blockade means that 80 per cent of ships and aircraft will be unable to pass. It means mine laying by air and naval units, particularly submarines, blockading ports, inspecting maritime traffic including commercial shipping, intercepting aircraft, and attacking adversary military forces as necessary.
"Firepower strikes described above would be accompanied by cyber operations to ensure information is blocked as well. The size of the military mobilisation required to achieve this would involve calling up the reserves and activating the society at large, not just the military, well in advance of an invasion.
"China's leaders could discreetly offer negotiations to Taiwan's leaders during a blockade before taking the risky step of ordering an amphibious invasion.
Taiwan rally
A first step for China might be offering to negotiate with Taiwan's leaders before a risky invasion.(AP: Wally Santana)
"If they think the blockade is failing, they may declare victory by pointing to the damage already inflicted or they might escalate to attacking US forces supporting Taiwan.
"Major combat against the United States means two nuclear-armed states fighting each other. For China, the worst-case scenario is to have to conduct simultaneous high-intensity operations against Taiwan, the United States, Japan, and other US allies and partners.
"A cross-strait Invasion would involve a shaping phase to achieve air, land, sea, and cyber superiority.
"This would be followed by a sea-crossing phase, a landing phase and a consolidation phase.
"The mobilisation for all this would take many months and US intelligence would detect it and know in advance what was being planned.
"Along with military mobilisation China would need to prepare its citizens and economy for a protracted conflict.
"A big unknown is whether Japan would grant expanded rights to the US to use bases located on its territory, without itself joining the combat directly unless its territory is attacked.
"The Kadena air base is 450 nautical miles away from Taiwan and threatened by Chinese surface-to-surface missiles. Guam is 1,300 nautical miles and Honolulu (Pearl Harbour) is over 4,200 nautical miles from Taiwan. Steaming at 25 knots, an aircraft carrier in Pearl Harbour would take about a week to reach Taiwan. US fighters can operate out of Guam with adequate air-to-air refuelling support, but the round-trip transit time for a sortie is about six hours."
Q: Obviously there are many qualifications and unknowns, but in military terms who would you expect to win a war between the US and Australia on one side and China on the other?
"Wars contain elements of the irrational: pride, fear, ego, confidence, humiliation, and other emotions that elude our attempts at calculation. Wherever they start, they finish only when one side decides to give up.
"The irrational elements thus make direct large-scale confrontation between two nuclear powers very dangerous. India and Pakistan take pains to avoid such escalation. I suspect the US under the current president, Joe Biden, despite his various ambiguous statements, will avoid a direct confrontation with China.
"He would rather support Taiwan and enlist countries around the world in sanctioning or condemning China. But unlike Ukraine, where Europe is largely united in condemning Russia, Asia will not be united in condemning China."
Q: What cost do you think Australia would pay for its involvement in any such war?
"Unlike the Taliban, China has an air force. And a navy. It can impose costs on our forces. If we lost a single frigate, that's around 170 lives in an afternoon.
"One can imagine the sociological fracture in Australia with funerals, commemorations, attacks on Australians of Chinese descent, the curtailing of any progressive economic reconstruction agenda for Australia."
Allan Behm, who is now head of the international and security program at The Australia Institute, says were the US and China to go to war over the next five to 10 years, the best one might envisage for the US is a stalemate.
He says given the rate at which Chinese forces are modernising and building both capability and capacity, "a Chinese victory over the US is the more likely outcome beyond 2035".
Behm says the impact on Australia of a war with China would be "profoundly and devastatingly different" from any other war this country has participated in since World War II. He believes Australia has a "fundamental strategic pathology – to support the interests of the US at the expense of our own."
Q: For Australia, how different would a war with China be compared with other wars that Australia has fought?
"In its causation, [war with China] would be no different from any of the wars Australia has participated in since World War II. In its consequences, it would be profoundly and devastatingly different.
"Australia is never reluctant to support and participate in American adventurism. Korea was an unnecessary war, as were the conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam and Iraq were illegal wars, with the US Administration(s) lying to their citizens and their allies about the strategic necessity and the morality of the use of armed force.
"Australia has a fundamental strategic pathology – to support the interests of the US at the expense of our own. A war with China over Taiwan, awful as that would be, involves no Australian national interests.
"Yet, as both [Opposition leader] Dutton and [Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence] Richard Marles have indicated in their various pronouncements on the matter, our default position is "all the way with the USA" wherever and whenever.
"Melissa Conley Tyler and I (and others) have dealt with the Taiwan question in our joint paper.
"Notwithstanding their entirely different circumstances, for Australia to support Taiwan against China would be similar to Australia's supporting Catalonia against the Castilians. A separatist democracy against a legitimate government? I don't think so!
"In their use of armed force, the American operational paradigm is largely unconcerned by its own casualty rates, so long as they are lower than those of their adversary. The attrition model appears to be deeply ingrained in the US approach to land warfare. One of the reasons for that is the land force preponderance of the US over the opposing forces.
"But it is an entirely different story with China. According to the late Sir James Plimsoll [in conversation with me], Mao Zedong said to Prime Minister Nehru when the two met in 1954 that, in a war with any adversary China could afford to dedicate 100 million dead. That is massive!
"For its part, Australia is casualty averse, as it should be. It has been since at least Monash's time. The Australian army is extremely careful to preserve the force-in-being by keeping casualties to a minimum.
"So, how would China prosecute the war? Fundamentally, it would follow the strategic prescriptions of Sun Tzu in The Art of War.
"Specifically, China would probably favour four principal avenues for marginalising or defeating Australia.
First, it would seek to ensure that Australia had no allies or support in Asia.
Second, it would seek to spread Australia's forces thin by generating as many responses to feints as it could. It would try to generate war fatigue as quickly as possible.
Third, it would try to drive a wedge between Australia and the US by encouraging as much US overreach as it could.
Fourth, it would seek to impose an economic blockade on Australia by closing the sea lines of communication.
"Given the size of the Australia's forces and the logistic constraints on the US forces, a war against China would be a very hard war to fight.
Q: What would be your assessment of China's military capability compared to that of a joint US-Australian capability, on the assumption that Australia decided to join any such war?
"Australia's armed forces add very little by way of capability to those of the US.
"Conventional submarines offer some additional intelligence gathering capability, and the other force elements provide a small additional capacity to the US.
"The question is really about a force-on-force comparison between China and the US.
"In a war involving Taiwan, US forces would be deployed over long distances from CONUS [Continental United States].
"The bases in South Korea and Japan may not be available, and Guam may also be unavailable. It may be possible for the US to operate from bases in northern Australia, though whether overflight rights would be granted by Indonesia is unlikely. And the operating distances are enormous.
"Were the US and China to go to war over the next five to 10 years, the best scenario one might envisage for the US is a stalemate. Beyond 10 years, who knows?
"Given the rate at which the Chinese forces are modernising and building both capability and capacity, a Chinese victory over the US is the more likely outcome beyond 2035.
"As Carl von Clausewitz noted [in his book On War], defence is the stronger form of war. And in a defensive war, China has the enormous advantage of mass, as Stalin demonstrated after the end of 1942."
Q: Given the capabilities of China, the US and Australia, would you expect any war to be more sea-based than land-based?
"As a continental power, China has a distinct preference for land warfare.
"A China-US war over Taiwan would begin as an air-sea war, with China seeking to impose punitive costs on the US Navy and such US Air Force units as were able to operate.
"China would not seek to deploy land forces to the US (nor Australia for that matter).
"Assuming that China was eventually able to control the Taiwan Strait, it would deploy land forces to Taiwan, both to subdue/destroy the Taiwanese army, any US or allied ground forces that might be in Taiwan, and then to occupy the country."
Q: Would you expect it to become a protracted war, as we're seeing in Ukraine, or given there would be two super-powers involved would you expect it to be short?
"To the extent that China's strategy is informed by Sun Tzu, it would have a strong preference for a short, sharp war. It is for that reason that some commentators, including me, do not think that China is likely to initiate an offensive war in the near future, until it is sure that it has enough mass to win quickly.
"China does have the mass to sustain a war of attrition over a long period as it did, and has continued to do, in Korea and in Vietnam for that matter."
Q: What would the US see as Australia's main military value – would it be securing Pine Gap? Or the value of having US troops and aircraft in northern Australia?
"The joint facility at Pine Gap would be a very important, indeed crucial, element in US intelligence gathering and in Command and Control. But apart from that, Australia has little military value to the US.
"Australia's real utility is as a strategic asset, giving both legitimacy and credibility to the US decision to employ its very formidable military force, and at the same time providing the US with a secure rear that could guarantee logistic and operational support.
"That's what General Douglas Macarthur found in 1942. The Australian Imperial Force (AIF) was of marginal utility. Australia, however, was a strategic asset.
Clinton Fernandes
Clinton Fernandes believes a blockade against Taiwan is more likely than a cross-Strait invasion.
Professor Clinton Fernandes is a former intelligence officer with the Australian Army Intelligence Corps and now Professor of International and Political Studies at the University of New South Wales.
He believes a blockade of Taiwan by China is more likely than a cross-strait invasion. A blockade, he says, would mean that 80 per cent of ships and aircraft would be unable to pass.
"China's leaders could discreetly offer negotiations to Taiwan's leaders during a blockade before the risky step of ordering an amphibious invasion," Professor Fernandes says.
"If they think the blockade is failing they may declare victory by pointing to the damage already inflicted, or they might escalate to attacking US forces that are supporting Taiwan. Major combat against the US means two nuclear-armed states fighting each other. For China, the worst-case scenario is to have to conduct high-intensity operations against Taiwan, the United States, Japan and other US allies and partners simultaneously."
Q: If Australia were to join the US in any war with China, what role would you expect the US to take and what role would you expect Australia to take?
"The question requires urgent, high-profile debate in parliament and among the wider public. In the recent parliamentary inquiry into war powers reform, the Department of Defence said it didn't think parliament should have authority to decide our involvement because that 'could undermine the confidence of our international partners as a reliable and timely security partner'.
"I hope they don't mean that, just as Britain has the Gurkhas, the Americans have us. If that's what they mean, their view should be rejected in favour of Australian sovereignty and parliamentary authorisation."
Q: Noting that Xi Jinping has said clearly that China would take Taiwan by 'force' if necessary, in your assessment is an invasion of Taiwan by China likely, or achievable, and if not what approach do you think China would be likely to take should it want to 'reclaim' Taiwan – a blockade?
"A cross-strait invasion is the most dangerous scenario from China's perspective.
"It would suffer high attrition and its military modernisation and even its one-party Communist rule would be threatened. We should not assume it will attempt this."
"Rather, there are three scenarios that may be pursued in combination:
Firepower strike
Blockade
Cross-strait invasion
"Invasion may be preceded by a blockade and firepower strikes. A blockade may be preceded by firepower strikes.
"The defence of Taiwan is predicated on a Chinese invasion – but if China's main effort is not an invasion but a blockade, then what?
"Taiwan doesn't have a Plan B – that's the big problem.
"The military centre of gravity is China's integrated air defence system (IADS) in the south. It can deny the United States control of the air within 300 nautical miles (556km) from China's coast. Taiwan is within that zone: 180 nautical miles.
"China's IADS includes an extensive early warning radar network, fighter aircraft, and a variety of surface to air missile (SAM) systems. It has additional radars and air defence weapons on outposts in the South China Sea, which extend its IADS zone out even further, although these latter systems can be destroyed by the US.
"China can impose huge costs on the US and perhaps indefinitely deny air control to the US in that zone. If the United States cannot control the air, it cannot win either at land or at sea. Nor can a military modelled in its image.
"When the US closed down Bagram airbase in Afghanistan the Afghan Army collapsed. Taiwan cannot be resupplied by land. It isn't Ukraine.
The flag of the United States flies over Bagram air base
When the US closed Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan the Afghan Army quickly collapsed because it could not be resupplied. (AP: Rahmat Gul)
"Nor can it rely on the US for resupply by sea once a conflict begins. The area around it would be highly contested and US war reserve stocks in the Pacific are earmarked for US forces that will assist Taiwan — not for Taiwan itself.
"China's IADS makes a blockade the most likely scenario."
Q: How long has China been preparing for the possibility of a war such as this?
"China began planning in earnest for a potential conflict with the United States over Taiwan after the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade."
Q: In your assessment what would the trajectory of such a war look like – in other words, what would you expect to occur in the early stages, the middle stages and then the latter stages of any such war?
"Depending on the scenario, here's what is reasonably predictable:
"Firepower strike can vary from a limited strike against symbolic targets to extensive strikes against energy and transport infrastructure (power stations and petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) storage sites, highways, railways, bridges, tunnels) as well as military targets (air defence systems, coastal defence cruise missile launchers, fighter aircraft, artillery). They may withhold their offensive cyber power to prevent the US learning their operations.
"A blockade means that 80 per cent of ships and aircraft will be unable to pass. It means mine laying by air and naval units, particularly submarines, blockading ports, inspecting maritime traffic including commercial shipping, intercepting aircraft, and attacking adversary military forces as necessary.
"Firepower strikes described above would be accompanied by cyber operations to ensure information is blocked as well. The size of the military mobilisation required to achieve this would involve calling up the reserves and activating the society at large, not just the military, well in advance of an invasion.
"China's leaders could discreetly offer negotiations to Taiwan's leaders during a blockade before taking the risky step of ordering an amphibious invasion.
Taiwan rally
A first step for China might be offering to negotiate with Taiwan's leaders before a risky invasion.(AP: Wally Santana)
"If they think the blockade is failing, they may declare victory by pointing to the damage already inflicted or they might escalate to attacking US forces supporting Taiwan.
"Major combat against the United States means two nuclear-armed states fighting each other. For China, the worst-case scenario is to have to conduct simultaneous high-intensity operations against Taiwan, the United States, Japan, and other US allies and partners.
"A cross-strait Invasion would involve a shaping phase to achieve air, land, sea, and cyber superiority.
"This would be followed by a sea-crossing phase, a landing phase and a consolidation phase.
"The mobilisation for all this would take many months and US intelligence would detect it and know in advance what was being planned.
"Along with military mobilisation China would need to prepare its citizens and economy for a protracted conflict.
"A big unknown is whether Japan would grant expanded rights to the US to use bases located on its territory, without itself joining the combat directly unless its territory is attacked.
"The Kadena air base is 450 nautical miles away from Taiwan and threatened by Chinese surface-to-surface missiles. Guam is 1,300 nautical miles and Honolulu (Pearl Harbour) is over 4,200 nautical miles from Taiwan. Steaming at 25 knots, an aircraft carrier in Pearl Harbour would take about a week to reach Taiwan. US fighters can operate out of Guam with adequate air-to-air refuelling support, but the round-trip transit time for a sortie is about six hours."
Q: Obviously there are many qualifications and unknowns, but in military terms who would you expect to win a war between the US and Australia on one side and China on the other?
"Wars contain elements of the irrational: pride, fear, ego, confidence, humiliation, and other emotions that elude our attempts at calculation. Wherever they start, they finish only when one side decides to give up.
"The irrational elements thus make direct large-scale confrontation between two nuclear powers very dangerous. India and Pakistan take pains to avoid such escalation. I suspect the US under the current president, Joe Biden, despite his various ambiguous statements, will avoid a direct confrontation with China.
"He would rather support Taiwan and enlist countries around the world in sanctioning or condemning China. But unlike Ukraine, where Europe is largely united in condemning Russia, Asia will not be united in condemning China."
Q: What cost do you think Australia would pay for its involvement in any such war?
"Unlike the Taliban, China has an air force. And a navy. It can impose costs on our forces. If we lost a single frigate, that's around 170 lives in an afternoon.
"One can imagine the sociological fracture in Australia with funerals, commemorations, attacks on Australians of Chinese descent, the curtailing of any progressive economic reconstruction agenda for Australia."
Nobody wants a war with China.
ReplyDeleteThe key to preventing a war in the South China Sea or Taiwan is to convince China that the cost of a military solution, whether firepower strike, blockade or cross-strait invasion will be unbearable, even for China.
A cross-strait invasion can be deterred.
In 1952, the average Chinese family had 5 children.
Fresh from the euphoria of Revolution, if a family lost 2 children fighting the hated Capitalist Americans, it was sad but fully supported.
In 2023 or 2030, the average Chinese family has 1.2 children.
If Winnie the Xi sends his invasion force across the Taiwan straits, China could we end up with 100,000 - 500,000 single-child families without descendants.
It would be the greatest Ham Kar Chan in China history, and the Communist Party of China will not survive it.
As I have told my American visitors , who may not realise the cultural significance, the most grievious curse you can throw at a Chinese person is to wish annihilation to all his descendants. The greatest tragedy which can befall any Chinese family is to be left without any descendants.
The Yanks have provided Taiwan with more and more Harpoons which can execute exactly that to a China invasion force.
As for a blockade, the Yanks can play the game as well.
There are almost uncountable number of places in the 7,000 km oil umbilical cord from the Middle East to China where the US Navy cut it off completely. Siberian Oil can only supplement a fraction of it.
I have read similar farts from many of a 台毒 mouthpiece!
DeleteSo, no surprises that a blurred f*ck like u would repeat such similar theme.
"invasion force across the Taiwan straits, China could we end up with 100,000 - 500,000 single-child families without descendants"
What an inconsequential play of numeric from the sky. But then what else can u mfering dickheads raise?
Modern warfare with advanced weaponry supersedes the mentality of those old school military analysts basing their 'analysis' using similarly old school tool that Chinese would engage any war with her superior army of numbers! Thus those numbers plucks from the sky!
A volley of high power missiles firing from Fukien can annihilate anything from the Formosa shore facing China till 50km inland. What anti-missile system has the 台毒 air defense hold - both in number & capability?
Zilch!
& that would exactly be what would happened when the unification war starts. The life of PLA r precious too.
Wakakakaka…
To a know-nothing anmokausai f*ck, u ain't understand yr illogical rant of "the cultural significance, the most grievious curse you can throw at a Chinese person is to wish annihilation to all his descendants".
Many a Chinese family had had such sacrifices since time immemorial. Yet their family names continue to this days to be said in rereverence just as their descendents have existed in presence!
Perhaps a mfering idiot wouldn't understand that the most grievious curse you can throw at a Chinese person is to be acknowledged him/her likening 秦桧.
Ooop… u wouldn't know who 秦桧 was!
As with yr miscalculated blockage - check yr f*cked numbers/data from where they come from. It's not worth a reply to a foul air of nothing!