The Republic of China is getting advice on how to defend Taiwan from a communist attack. The advice is not often good.
For instance, one writer, Gaurav Sen, says that the ROC “urgently needs to overhaul its air defense strategy to prevent the rising threat of low-cost drone saturation attacks from [Red] China.”
Drones
Well sure, witness Russia versus Ukraine. Since the start of operations, “Russia has launched 28,743 Shahed/Geran drones at Ukraine—2,736 of them in June of this year.” But how do you remain unsaturated if hit by 2,736 drones?
Sen invites the ROC to consider “three major reforms: expanding air-defence capability with low-cost weapons; improving survivability with hardening and greater mobility; and strengthening early warning, logistics and resilience through enhanced cooperation with partners.”
This is a strange list.
Russian drone-bombing overwhelms Ukrainian air defense and with (say) 2,736 attacks per month, those air defenses will not be replenished, neither with high-cost weapons nor with low-cost weapons.
The ideas of hardening and greater mobility are at odds. Hardening happens to fixed positions which, being fixed, will get neutralized one way or another. Greater mobility is not possible on a drone-dominated battlefield; moving units are tracked and killed.
So, yes, there is a drone threat, but the suggestions here are not helpful.
What about the naval threat?
Wonders
Stephen Bryen, former U.S. deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, argues that the A-10 ground support aircraft being retired by the United States Air Force should be given to the ROC. Introduced in the 1970s, these planes were designed to support ground combat, a mission that the USAF has never relished. These old and slow planes would need air cover from fighters when deployed in the new ship-busting role that Bryen proposes. Would there be such air cover? And that Red navy which is to be attacked with old A-10s…do not its ships carry armaments designed to shoot down much nimbler, more modern jet aircraft?
Mr. Bryen writes with an enthusiasm that recalls a slew of stories from recent years. We can call the genre Wonder Weapons for Ukraine. The Javelin anti-tank weapons would tip the scale, then HIMARS systems, then F‑16 fighter jets, Leopard tanks, Challenger tanks, Abrams tanks. The list goes on.
You have to love these tidbits from the glory days gone by:
● “Ukraine is finally getting to hit Russia hard with its ‘wonder-weapons,’ and that’s turning the tide of the war: military expert”
● “Spanish Leopard TANKS Are Changing Ukraine’s Armored Fate”
● “Ukraine’s wonder-weapons are decimating the Russian army”
● “What will the next western ‘wonder weapon’ that will change the course of the war in Ukraine be, now that the F16s seem to have failed to do any course changing?”
Yes indeed, the wonder weapons stories will come back bigly should the Chinese civil war resume. Certainly, wonder weapons will be needed when you look at the disparity between forces.
There is, however, one positive in the disparities. The ROC’s reserve manpower pool outnumbers Red China’s standing army by over 300,000. Its 2,310,000 dwarfs Beijing’s half-a-million reserves. By size, Taipei’s reserves rank third in the world.
Men
The Telegraph reports some good news. In a few days, “Taiwan’s largest annual military drills, known as the Han Kuang exercises, will see a record 22,000 reserve soldiers putting on their military uniforms and reporting to gyms, recreational centres, and schools across the island.”
So we have an armed population inhabiting large cities on a mountainous island with few beaches suitable for landing and flat land given over to rice paddies. Drones will not solve an invader’s problems.
The problem of a hostile takeover of Taiwan was faced by the U.S. armed force at the end of World War II. “In 1944 U.S. military planners drafted a plan to invade Taiwan: Operation Causeway. The plan was ultimately rejected by senior leaders due to the high costs and risks.”
During the initial phase of Operation Causeway, which planners assumed would last 27 days, assault forces would move from across the Pacific and into staging areas while over 800 aircraft operating in an area up to 600 miles away from Taiwan attacked surface combatants, airfields, and other high-value targets.
In the second phase, Operation Causeway called for simultaneously overrunning modern Kinmen Island to secure lines of communication while seizing a lodgment in the southern port of Kaoshing with a force of 402,000 soldiers and marines, compared to 98,000 Japanese defenders—a 4:1 ratio. This relative combat power ratio didn’t take into account the overwhelming allied superiority in ships and aircraft or terrain which, consistent with modern approaches, would push the ratio closer to 10:1.
Consider the balance of forces. And yet, U.S. military planners judged an assault on Taiwan to be too risky.
So a Chinese invasion seems very unlikely. America, save your wonder weapons and your advice. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
Also see:
War on the Rocks: “Not So Fast: Insights from a 1944 War Plan Help Explain Why Invading Taiwan Is a Costly Gamble”
StoptheCCP.org: “Three Ways Red China Might Not Grab the Republic of China”
StoptheCCP.org: “What War Between Beijing and Taipei Would Really Mean”
