PLA Strike Strategies in Westpac HIC

[DeltaGreen]

For a regime, political objectives are based on 1. its own strength (external pressure) and 2. the vested interests of interest groups (internal pressure).

1. If strength is insufficient and political objectives are set too high, even with excellent grand strategy and strategy, the goals may remain unattainable and lead to impaired interests.
   If strength is excessive but political objectives are set too low, then the country will fail to gain potential benefits and easily lose internal support. Present conservatism will also increase the burden on future decision-makers. Interests are still impaired.
2. The vested interests of interest groups refer to the existing interests of the powerful interest groups within a country. Sometimes, even within a new interest paradigm and framework where the country as a whole could gain more benefits, this does not align with the rulers' interests. Therefore, they will still set a less-than-wise political objective.

After determining the political objective, the regime integrates strategies across different dimensions to formulate its grand strategy.

I personally believe that from the mid-2010s to the present, the United States' grand strategy has been to maintain and moderately retract its sphere of influence and world order, in exchange for enhancing its hard power and suppressing China's development. Through this grand strategy, it aims to achieve its political objective, which is to maintain superpower status and the world order most favorable to itself.
Meanwhile, China's grand strategy has been to gradually expand its sphere of influence and reform the world order. Through this grand strategy, it aims to achieve its political objective, which is the faster and higher-ceilinged development of its own comprehensive national power and the enhancement of its position within the world order.

For example, imagine the world as many basketball courts, nations as players, each with different physical abilities and scoring records. The order is the rules of the game, formulated by all players, but players with better scoring records have a greater ability to shape and influence the rules. Different courts have different rules of the game, and every player hopes the rules are as advantageous as possible to themselves, while also having as many courts as possible adopt the rules most beneficial to them. The world order, namely free trade and globalization, is like the rules of the court. It's not a single set of rules, but a term referring to a collection of fragmented, discontinuous rules.
Overall, the stronger the comprehensive national power, the more a country can:

1. Make the order it operates within more favorable to itself.
2. Maximize the reach of the order most beneficial to itself.
3. Make the world order more advantageous to itself.
   And achieving these three points allows a country to gain more benefits and enhance its comprehensive national power.

From the end of the Cold War to the mid-2010s, the US had extremely strong comprehensive national power, being the sole super star player. Naturally, it attempted to push all three points mentioned above more deeply. By the mid-2010s, the US gradually realized that China's hard power had become strong enough to even win within the very order the US itself had built.
After the mid-2010s, what the US has tried to do is: abandon promoting its favorable rules in some less important courts, divert resources from its own club members to buy protein powder (i.e., enhance its own capabilities), and strengthen the adoption rate of its preferred rules in the Indo-Pacific court. And, it seeks to disrupt the Chinese player's daily training and the promotion of the Chinese Super League's rules as much as possible.

From the end of the Cold War to the mid-2010s, China primarily focused on honing its own skills. Around the mid-2010s and beyond, China realized its skill level had become exceptionally high. Consequently, it naturally hopes that the rules of the game will better suit its techniques and style, and that the courts around it will adopt rules more favorable to itself. Only in this way can it maximize its own benefits and further improve its skills.

 

[DeltaGreen]

我觉得你在这种分析方面有点像新手。就像一个刚开始的人，就以为自己比经验丰富的老手懂得更多。

几十年来，我一直关注中美之争。我可以告诉你，美国没有宏大的战略。美国内部四分五裂、分散，被太多事情分散注意力，根本无法制定任何战略。

它有各种各样的权力掮客，他们有各种各样的想法。其中一些人在某个时期有一定的影响力，并采取行动。然后其他人的影响力更大，他们开始实施自己的想法。

事情就这样一直持续下去。

I understand that:
1. You think my lack of knowledge about American practical politics will cause me to make too many mistakes, even "not even wrong" level errors.
I completely agree, I indeed lack relevant knowledge. Perhaps this method of mine is inherently meaningless, but I failed to recognize it.
My improvement measure is: I will stop writing and spend more time reading existing posts to learn.

2. The United States does not have a continuous strategy. Therefore, analysis itself is meaningless.

I partially agree.
But even though American politicians act as they wish, they are still subject to various internal and external constraints - internally, if their propositions don't represent certain public opinions and the interests of certain US interest groups, or aren't appreciated by those representing these things, then no matter how lucky they are, they're unlikely to hold important positions and truly influence policy. For example, the "America First" slogan.

Externally, their ideas don't completely form out of thin air either - they are also constrained by reality.

My improvement measure is: perhaps what's more valuable to attempt analyzing and expressing isn't any strategy they themselves plan and choose, but rather the strategic trends and extensions that observers summarize from what they have done in the past, or what many people have attempted to do.

 

[00CuriousObserver]

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Papua New Guinea approves defence treaty with Australia

Under the Pukpuk defence treaty, Australia and Papua are obliged to come to each other’s aid if attacked.

The treaty would also allow as many as 10,000 Papua New Guineans to serve with the Australian Defence Force, under dual arrangements, the statement said.

The landmark treaty still requires ratification from both nations' parliaments.

The agreement was supposed to have been approved when Albanese was in Port Moresby during celebrations of PNG’s 50th independence anniversary two weeks ago.

The two countries agreed a joint communique on the text of the pact, after a meeting of PNG’s cabinet lacked the quorum required to ratify it.

The United States reached a defence pact with PNG in 2023 to counter China's security ambitions.

(excerpts)

Update: Papua New Guinea's cabinet approves 'Pukpuk' defence treaty with Australia

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[mshrief303]

That is the same think tank that published a paper called "China After Communism: Preparing for a Post-CCP China" which called for Balkanizing China by force and literally deploying American troops to occupy critical regions of the country after its "impending" Soviet-style collapse, among other suggestions like renaming China and disarming it of WMDs.

Whatever it says is unlikely to have any influence on actual USAF planning.

Hudson institute's output is trash, but it's like most of - if not all - US's think tank, and their employees contribute to a lot of blogs, podcasts, events,...etc in the defence space. And it's a major Zionist institute, and their role in US support of Israel is big if compared to other think tanks.
So you can't disregard it like that, because if you do, a lot of US think tanks will be disregarded as well.

More importantly, "balkanizing china" is just the colonial and imperial game the west played for years, and if china was weak and didn't have nukes they would have worked to do it. So the only thing they wouldn't try to do so is because china's strong, not because they don't want to.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Not necessarily totally cope.

My view is that peacetime intercepts are a really bad read on capabilities. If DACTs are to be taken with a pinch of salt due to lopsided scenarios and asymmetric ROEs, then peacetime intercepts need to taken with a whole bag of salt.

Most aircraft never even get to "true" combat. Peacetime interactions(including their outflows into real combat) aren't unimportant.

Ultimately, the ability of of a J-11 to outmaneuver a 5th gen F series means zero given the nature of modern Air-to-Air combat. BVR abilities means you are unlikely to merge. Even if you do merge, HOB LOAL abilities means that WVR combat is also less about getting on someone's six.

Here is wast majority of modern air to air combat. Pay attention to vector, range and altitude.

 

[Heliox]

Most aircraft never even get to "true" combat. Peacetime interactions(including their outflows into real combat) aren't unimportant.

View attachment 162008View attachment 162009
Here is wast majority of modern air to air combat. Pay attention to vector, range and altitude.

Is the above indicative of an engagement with HOBS and LOAL missile against a peer adversary fighter jet?
My understanding is that the above is from a F-16 engagement of a drone/cruise missile with a AIM-9M?

If the above missile is not capable of HOBS LOAL engagement, then how is this indicative of what a merge with modern WVR missiles will be like?

If the target is not even a peer adversary fighter jet, then how is it indicative of what modern air-to-air combat is?

Unless you wish to say that modern A2A engagements are primarily against drones/cruise missiles ... in which case, even more so maneuverability to get on a boey's six is even less a factor than before?

 

[Gloire_bb]

Is the above indicative of an engagement with HOBS and LOAL missile against a peer adversary fighter jet?
My understanding is that the above is from a F-16 engagement of a drone/cruise missile with a AIM-9M?

It's indicative of actual practice. And especially vector, because it shows that normal offbore targeting struggled to lock the (right) target, and drone is engaged instead using AMRAAM's own seeker in reserve mode (which is directly ahead).

Like, what's the point of waiting for True Daylight battlefleet engagement like Italian navy in ww2, when actual practice was midnight teeth and nails, point blank?

If the target is not even a peer adversary fighter jet, then how is it indicative of what modern air-to-air combat is?

Through practice. One of basic traits of peer long range combat appears that it's indecisive, and decisive action role increasingly gets transferred to those who can.
Threat posed by current AAMs is such that only very unpeer engagements with long range engagements are decisive.
Otherwise, sides exchange blows, maybe lose a few aircraft if they overestimate themselves, and that's it.

Unless you wish to say that modern A2A engagements are primarily against drones/cruise missiles ... in which case, even more so maneuverability to get on a boey's six is even less a factor than before?

You need to take firing position from a vector conductive to successful engagement, against slow target flying very low, often hiding in local terrain, trees, buildings and so on.
One may say, that Ukrainians and Americans aren't using best sensors and seekers possible. Counterargument is that shahed isn't even close to the level of mass produced stealth drone modern dark factory can manage.
Imagine hunting waves of cooled electric jet flying wings with return of around -70dB.
Offbore targeting in this situation will mostly kill local infrastructure rather than targets. Which, by the way, already happened with Dutch F-35 against a foam drone over Poland.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Not necessarily totally cope.

My view is that peacetime intercepts are a really bad read on capabilities. If DACTs are to be taken with a pinch of salt due to lopsided scenarios and asymmetric ROEs, then peacetime intercepts need to taken with a whole bag of salt.

A sub tails a ship for days. A pilot gets to within stone throw distance of a OPFOR plane. A soldier stands nose to nose with the "enemy" across a LOC ... all these scenarios can only possibly occur during peacetime and only because one or more parties are simply told to ease off and not respond/retaliate.

I've been involved in opposed Exercises as light infantry. Just like DACT, even these come with some form of scripting to enable the exercise to achieve set objectives. Soldiers being soldiers, men being men, no one likes to roll over and play dead. So everybody plays fast and loose and pushes the ROE and exercise parameters as far as we can. Sure as night follows days, this builds frustration and ultimately results in actual coming to blows when Blue force comes within clubbing distance of Red forces. Now imagine this where parties are not even on the same side and are armed with live shots. Scary.

Infantry exercise may not be quite the same as air intercepts but you can imagine the potential for an international incident if one side does not back off and both sides does not want to "lose" face/bragging rights.
(though I wouldn't mind a F-35/22 being forced to land on Hainan and being sent back to the US in cut segments, preferably with no loss of life like the P-8 incident)

Ultimately, the ability of of a J-11 to outmaneuver a 5th gen F series means zero given the nature of modern Air-to-Air combat. BVR abilities means you are unlikely to merge. Even if you do merge, HOB LOAL abilities means that WVR combat is also less about getting on someone's six.

I wouldn't read too much into this other than for some internet bragging rights.

We all know that, and PLAAF wouldn’t have centered the doctrine around PL-15/16/17 if it didn’t value it.

I just find it extra funny since a lot of the YouTube pilots love bragging how they’ll be able to shoot down J-36 in dogfight and/or Chinese pilots are no good because they fly conservatively in airshows.

 

[Blitzo]

Through practice. One of basic traits of peer long range combat appears that it's indecisive, and decisive action role increasingly gets transferred to those who can.
Threat posed by current AAMs is such that only very unpeer engagements with long range engagements are decisive.
Otherwise, sides exchange blows, maybe lose a few aircraft if they overestimate themselves, and that's it.

I wouldn't say peer long range combat is indecisive.

We have yet to see what a true peer large scale air war looks like where both sides have the will and the fleet size to suffer casualties in pursuit of strategic objectives.

Arguably the greatest example of what a modern peer air war would look like is the PAF-IAF clash earlier this year, and despite the engagement only lasting for less than a night, it was fairly tactically decisive. The major reason it wasn't operationally or strategically decisive is because neither side had the fleet size and the will/rationale to continue putting their aircraft in harm's way of the other side's aircraft, arguably because the initial round of losses was too devastating.

But for a true high intensity conflict where each side wants to gain air superiority and have the resolve and fleet size to push into theater, I expect true large scale peer air war will be devastating and decisive, and the outcome will be determined by the ability to generate high quality sorties capable of out BVR-ing the other side (as the most desirable set of traits inclusive of weapons, sensors, networking, stealth, sufficient kinematics to leverage BVR) en masse, which will prove the highest yield force.
Shorter range, WVR engagements and encounters will only occur in rare occasions if the most devastating rounds of BVR exchanges already occur and there are still enough surviving aircraft on both sides that both make the decision to risk pushing forwards rather than retreat.


All of which is to say, Heliox is right to say that the these sort of WVR peacetime intercepts and tactical cat and mouse games are not that useful in factoring in the most important ways in which a true large scale peer air war would look... however Siege is also correct in that for the purposes of trying to "dunk" on one side or another, that "WVR/dogfight/cat-mouse game" outcomes is instructive to the common denominator and your pedestrian drive-by person who knows nothing about the PLA.

My question is more why those people's "copes" had to be "dunked" on to begin with.

You need to take firing position from a vector conductive to successful engagement, against slow target flying very low, often hiding in local terrain, trees, buildings and so on.
One may say, that Ukrainians and Americans aren't using best sensors and seekers possible. Counterargument is that shahed isn't even close to the level of mass produced stealth drone modern dark factory can manage.
Imagine hunting waves of cooled electric jet flying wings with return of around -70dB.
Offbore targeting in this situation will mostly kill local infrastructure rather than targets. Which, by the way, already happened with Dutch F-35 against a foam drone over Poland.

You are not describing a modern peer air war, you are describing defensive anti-cruise missile CAP.

Instead, think about an air war where each side has hundreds of 5th gen and 4.5th gen fighters contesting a theater of airspace supported by plentiful AEW&C, EW, and in the near future, CCAs and UADFs, where high end BVR and highly networked air to air engagements is not exceptional but rather the baseline ticket for entry to begin with.

We all know that, and PLAAF wouldn’t have centered the doctrine around PL-15/16/17 if it didn’t value it.

I just find it extra funny since a lot of the YouTube pilots love bragging how they’ll be able to shoot down J-36 in dogfight and/or Chinese pilots are no good because they fly conservatively in airshows.

I agree with that, but I also feel like even bringing up the matter of said "cope" to "dunk" on them is detrimental to these flagship threads.

I've written many times about why posting those youtube videos and articles or NAFO equivalents is a waste of time for us, because it just ends up mocking their cope and saying why they are stupid for having poor opinions.
Do we really need to reference them when talking about this news, when we all know that PLA pilots have quite good flight hours and are perfectly competent at BFM? IMO actively using effort to avoid/ignore their opinions is more beneficial to us.

 

[Gloire_bb]

Arguably the greatest example of what a modern peer air war would look like is the PAF-IAF clash earlier this year, and despite the engagement only lasting for less than a night, it was fairly tactically decisive. The major reason it wasn't operationally or strategically decisive is because neither side had the fleet size and the will/rationale to continue putting their aircraft in harm's way of the other side's aircraft, arguably because the initial round of losses was too devastating.

It was indecisive as heck.
One side tried to be tactical and decisive, flew flying colours into WEZ. Got bloodied, and went into safe mode for the rest of the conflict, throwing absolutely safe weapons from deep interior. First day, as much a spectacle it was, accounted for ~1% of Indian air TAF even per most optimistic claims.

After that engagenemt, no one was shot down for the rest of the war...

But for a true high intensity conflict where each side wants to gain air superiority and have the resolve and fleet size to push into theater, I expect true large scale peer air war will be devastating and decisive, and the outcome will be determined by the ability to generate high quality sorties capable of out BVR-ing the other side (as the most desirable set of traits inclusive of weapons, sensors, networking, stealth, sufficient kinematics to leverage BVR) en masse, which will prove the highest yield force.

I may be relying too much on WW2 maritime history as example, but rule of thumb is that for all the decisive preparations, rarely sides truly risked attritable assets (and when they did, more often than not it didn't really end well).
Occasional blood noses for expensive units, and most of war fighting done by attritable/disposable assets.

Because, even for 2 largest modern forces, which both stand at sub 2000 fleet(and production at below 200 mark, i.e. 2 aircraft per 3 days; lower rate for fighter pilots), throwing aircraftat a peer enemy isn't exactly acceptable.
To compare, for WW2, loss rates of couple of thousand aircraft per month and comparable number of crews was like...norm (and even that broke down Luftwaffe and japanese services).
Russia lost several dozen aircraft during spring 22(iirc something around 1 aircraft/day, which is a highly optimistic assumption v US/China), i.e. 1 year of its a/c production in theory(~60 for modern Russia). In practice, much more, because losses weren't spread evenly, and even after campaign switched into indecisive archery phase, additional losses continued.

You are not describing a modern peer air war, you are describing defensive anti-cruise missile CAP.

Instead, think about an air war where each side has hundreds of 5th gen and 4.5th gen fighters contesting a theater of airspace supported by plentiful AEW&C, EW, and in the near future, CCAs and UADFs, where high end BVR and highly networked air to air engagements is not exceptional but rather the baseline ticket for entry to begin with.

I am merely describing majority of actual engagements of last ~2 years. Which are emerging more and more urgent, as these "cruise missiles" collect spectral intel, engage targets of opportunity through AI, mesh/satellite datalinks, drop drones and supplies for sabotage teams...
It's super dangerous to split "lowly" and "knightly" air defense, because at current point "low altitude air economy" simply creates another layer of air superiority, detached from the upper one. Which really questions value of singular focus on upper layer of air dominance - what good is it on its own?

Assuming both sides use effective means of forming airspace picture and weapons - that's exactly where indecisiveness comes from. Especially since defender, usually, has basic WEZ advantage.
Decisive action can come either when (1)side are determined that intensive, risky campaign will be more beneficial to them than to the enemy, and(1.1) it actually turns out this way, and (1.2)enemy can't disengage(which land air force in a big war almost always can). Or (2)when weapons used by one of sides are actually ineffective.
Basic assumption for peer conflict is that they're effective, or effective enough.

I.e.,

plentiful AEW&C, EW, and in the near future, CCAs and UADFs, where high end BVR and highly networked air to air engagements

I think when both sides keep to this level, it leads to a stalemate, not the other way around.
The way to achieve initiative is when there's a viable path to make opponent blind, or his weapons - ineffective. If sides are peers...risktaker just loses.