PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

5unrise said:

If the South Koreans don't comply, and the PLA attacks South Korea pre-emptively as a result, how could this be legally and morally justified? Surely, there's no reason for China to fight South Korea if they are not prepared to initiate hostilities.

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Comply or not, THAAD is one of the first to get taken out. Adequate warnings have been given out many years ago.

the way to defeat antimissile system is to launch a bunch of dummy missiles along with the real one. The enemies dont know which one is the real one so they end up wasting antimissile to shoot all of them down.

Also you can use EW and countermeasures (like flare) to make antimissile miss their target.

They will deplete all of their antimissile inventory.

bebops said:

the way to defeat antimissile system is to launch a bunch of dummy missiles along with the real one. The enemies dont know which one is the real one so they end up wasting antimissile to shoot all of them down.

Also you can use EW and countermeasures (like flare) to make antimissile miss their target.

They will deplete all of their antimissile inventory.

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Why? The time and money to make dummies is the same as a real one. All require an engine and fuel. Only difference is a explosive load. Just spam missiles until all targets eliminated.

5unrise said:

If the South Koreans don't comply, and the PLA attacks South Korea pre-emptively as a result, how could this be legally and morally justified? Surely, there's no reason for China to fight South Korea if they are not prepared to initiate hostilities.

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I don't see China doing a pre-emptive strike on the US THAAD radars in Korea.
There's no need for it, as it looks like the US (and Japan) have accepted that declaring war on China is no longer an option.
That compares with both the Japanese Prime Minister and US President publicly saying this was an option a few years ago.

So it's just sanctions on China and trying to resupply Taiwan.
But given that China can effectively blockade Taiwan, that resupply won't work.

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Alternatively, if China and the USA do get into a war, then it makes more sense for North Korea to launch a limited attack on the THAAD radars, and likely get away with it.

I really doubt that the US and SK want a ground war against North Korea and China.

tamsen_ikard said:

Both SK and Japan has complete agency about their foreign policy. They can easily impose a govt decree to kick out US forces in heart bit. Check how a weakling like Niger did it.

SK and Japan just have a worldview of western worship where everything US and western is seen as superior and they feel happy to be pawn of the US. You can talk to any South Korean about how they view US compared to China and their distorted view is quite apparent.

SK also feel China to be huge threat cause they think inferior Chinese are rising up and they don't like that one bit. They want US to be in SK not for North Korea, but for China.

Its not a surprising worldview when even ethnic Chinese Hong Kongers and Taiwanese have that kind of worldview. Its just a matter of how wealthy and powerful China can be. If China becomes as wealthy as western europe and becomes superior to SK and Japan in every way, you will see an automatic transformation in worldview and subsequent change in foreign policy.

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I would add that in the event of a Taiwan blockade, it is not in China's interests to be cruel or vindictive.

1. As per Gaza's deliberate mass starvation, this is acknowledged to be a war crime.
2. On a practical level, mass starvation in Taiwan doesn't look good in the global media
3. You have all sorts of personal ties between China and Taiwan. For example, as far as I'm aware, Xi Jinping's sister still lives in Taiwan
4. Taiwanese are recognised as equal citizens to anyone in China, albeit with some caveats.

In comparison, suppose China was to flood Taiwan with aid ships carrying food to a hungry Taiwan?

1. It looks better in the global media narrative
2. It helps maintain domestic Chinese support for a war
3. This would likely be a propaganda coup in Taiwan. Remember lots of Taiwanese have a really distorted view of China. China's goal is to win "hearts and minds"

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On the other hand, if Japan were to declare war on China, it would be a different story.

NB. As per McNamara's comments, the US bombing of Japanese cities like Tokyo or Hiroshima back during WW2 was also a war crime, and the personnel in charge of this knew it when they gave the order. However, the lesson here is victor's justice means you can get away with it. And in the aftermath, Japan became a compliant vassal state of the US.

PiSigma said:

Why? The time and money to make dummies is the same as a real one. All require an engine and fuel. Only difference is a explosive load. Just spam missiles until all targets eliminated.

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Or just shoot a couple of missiles the target isn’t able to effectively defend against, like a HGV.

It’s kinda ironic that China and America has swopped places where America now needs to rely on weight of numbers spam (rapid dragon) whereas China has the silver bullets (hypersonics).

ACuriousPLAFan said:

US Spies See China, Russia Militaries Working Closer on Taiwan

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Sounds awesome, actually.

Even without Russia directly participating in hostilities together with China vis-a-vis Operation AR, the Russian Eastern Military District can be extremely useful in tying down some of the US, Japanese and South Korean forces in the Sea of Japan and the Northern Pacific, alongside providing vital intelligence on key US&LC force compositions and movements to China, while China's doing her own thing around the ECS and SCS.

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Russia can also "condemn" China for the H-20 and J-20 "trespassing" their airspace exploiting peacetime posture of Russia.

plawolf said:

Or just shoot a couple of missiles the target isn’t able to effectively defend against, like a HGV.

It’s kinda ironic that China and America has swopped places where America now needs to rely on weight of numbers spam (rapid dragon) whereas China has the silver bullets (hypersonics).

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I don't think you can compare hypersonics to a silver bullet these days.

If the cost of a hypersonic DF-17 is only $2 Mn, that is the same cost as a JASSM being spammed from Rapid Dragon.

hypersonic is a good bullet but not a silver bullet.

I preferred to a 10 hypersonic rather than a 10 JASSM salvo in exchange of fire.

If you see the freshly manufactured cars parked at huge parking lots ready to be shipped out, I am confident they can produce that many missiles on the go.

China is the leader of produce anything in huge quantity in the world. To win next conflict requires quantity, cheap low cost and unmanned drones and ships.

hypersonic missile on submarine, all drones and UUV, aircraft, ship ftw. It is a serious area denial combo.

Just on the Korea point, if Elbridge Colby is indeed appointed NSA in a 2nd Trump admin then it is likely that US forces will leave South Korea, at least most of them: