Thread by @GrayConnolly

Re Taiwan/China: I have been asked what is my 'position' on China & Taiwan. Herewith a brief thread on the matter, as an Australian, but, also, as, hopefully, a sober realist of military affairs. This is just my opinion & am happy to be wrong (well, not to a nuclear escalation).

As I have said before, I am a small "h" hawk on China. I think the Chinese like the Russians (aka the #DragonBear) require vigilant watching. This is not because they are repressive or evil per se but because they will, geopolitically, tend to dominate the Eurasian landmass

In the case of the PRC, China faces now - and will into the future - the problem that it is a rising power that cannot feed itself & power itself in its own currency. Great powers are hungry for energy & food. The PRC & esp the CCP face the daily purchase of food & energy in USD

When you are a great power looking to launch a military assault - which is incredibly costly in money, food, energy, as well as manpower - you are really at a disadvantage if you cannot procure these from "home". This is China's problem. Could it rely on Russian help in a war?

The other part of being a great power is having your own military at war, somewhere, as a continually learning entity. The Romans had this, so did the Habsburgs, so did the Romanovs, so did the British & now the Americans. The PRC's most recent war was losing to Vietnam in 1979.

One other macro matter is that, since the Lin Baio coup of 1971 (we have no idea what really happened) no Chinese leader has done other than ensure he controls the PLA. This means loyalist apparatchiks as senior PLA leaders cf Voroshilovs, who almost lost the Soviets WW2 in 1941

The Russians, by contrast in #DragonBear, have serious military leaders who have come up through the Soviet system and fought in the Russian periphery, Syria, etal, and possibly with Wagner, Slavonic & other Russian operations. The PLA/PRC just do not have this officer corps.

So, in short, I do not see how the PRC resources any military move it makes, nor do I see how the PLA has the competent leadership class to effect it. Beginning and running a War is staffing & personnel dependent & is not something you learn "on the job" except at enormous cost.

As for Taiwan, I think too much is made of the US' position and not enough of Japan (esp), my own country, Australia, Singapore etal, who would be most affected by China invading Taiwan. It is unthinkable that Japan would not defend its former colony (and go nuclear afterwards).

In terms of any PRC invasion of Taiwan: the only good half day would be the first few hours (perhaps). The PLA's nvading force would have been visible to the Allies well in advance and, given the 200kms distance between PRC & Formosa itself, a veritable target rich environment

For the PRC/PLA, days 2 & 3 would be awful. The Allies would, if intervening, have sunk/shot down most of what was to be relied on for food/ammunitioning/resupply. Comms would be down to HF/VHF, which the PLA has no operational experience of maintaining against 1st world enemies

For the PLA's leadership, every hole in their preparation esp of their officer corps would become quickly apparent, as would the hollowness of much of the PLA-AF's airpower (which is pretty bare). Who will keep fighting on here?

One could go on but you get the idea. You can be sure that the upper echelons of the PLA are all aware of how difficult their task would be, even if it was just the Taiwanese defending their island themselves. And no one rises to high rank in the PLA to die in a very brief war.

At the back of Xi's mind (true of the Mullahs in Iran) is that for all their strategic relations with Russia, they would be aware that the closest the world came to Nuclear War was in 1969,when China & the USSR fought over the Ussuri River border area. Russia's ambitions≠PRC's.

The PRC will, likely, instead, bide its time. The Chinese will not purchase in war what they think history will give them for free, esp as the Chinese view of the US society is basically a decadent society run by decrepit & weak elites that the PRC has corrupted for decades.

I will leave it there for now & may add to this thread in future. I am happy to be wrong but the above is my perspective as of now. I would add that this strategic assessment in June 1950 by General MacArthur (annexed here) repays constant reading⬇️

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