In a recent press interview, President Joe Biden confirmed that United States men and
women would fight to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.
This prompted immediate outrage from China, who claimed the US was violating its own One
China policy.
In response, President Biden ordered US and Canadian warships to sail through the Taiwan
Strait.
For decades the US operated under a strategic ambiguity in regards to Taiwan, never truly
committing to its defense but strongly hinting that it would oppose a Chinese invasion with
military force of its own.
This has served as diplomatic lubricant between the US and China, as China sees reunification
with Taiwan as a matter not just of national pride, but of survival for the Chinese Communist
Party.
A free and independent Taiwan is a direct affront to China's attempts to become a global
superpower, something it has yet to achieve.
If the nation can't neutralize one renegade province right off its own shores, it'll never
be a credible global power.
For the CCP, Taiwan's democracy is an existential threat on their own grip on Chinese power.
Now President Biden has said the quiet part out loud, and China can expect to face US
forces if it attempts to invade Taiwan.
But just what would the US do in case of an invasion?
A Chinese invasion of Taiwan could only take place during a two to three week window in
either spring or fall, when the tides are favorable.
Chinese forces could also only land on a limited number of beaches suitable for the offloading
of infantry and vehicles, and all of these are highly defended and booby trapped in advance.
Further, an invasion would take months to prepare, giving Taiwan ample warning and allowing
its navy time to mine the Taiwan strait.
It would be the most costly military operation in terms of life and resources since the greatest
battles of World War II, and even without US aid China is unlikely to succeed despite
its overwhelming size advantange.
Much like the Greeks at Thermopylae, Taiwan is in a strategically superior position that
allows its smaller forces to fend off China's hordes.
In case of war the US respond would be by air and sea, and it's unlikely that US ground
forces would come into play at all in the fighting- however it's not impossible that
US Marine and Army forces be committed to the defense of the island in small numbers
to bolster Taiwan's defenders.
The first thing that would happen in case of war is American submarines would begin
their deadly work of decimating Chinese vessels.
Despite an increasing capability in anti-submarine warfare, China's ASW abilities are still lacking,
and US submarines are very good at remaining hidden.
The American silent service would be tasked with ambushing Chinese vessels attempting
to navigate the Taiwan Strait, striking with surgical precision at troop transports and
support ships, which would be more valuable kills given their limited numbers than actual
warships.
If China can't move troops and equipment across the Strait, it can't invade after all.
The Taiwan Strait would be a perilous place for any vessel to operate in, and US submarine
losses would occur- but losses on the Chinese side would be significantly higher.
Up north, just south of Russia's Kamchatka penninsula, a single American Ohio class submarine
converted to carry cruise missiles would launch a devastating attack against the oil pipeline
connecting China to Russia.
This would leave China with only one route for oil to take over land into the nation,
throttling down China's oil supply.
Oil would be the key to victory, as any modern economy requires it to function.
China however is extremely vulnerable to trade disruption- this is largely the reason that
the US has paid little heed to China's threats.
Approximately 60% of China's trade- including oil- travels by the sea, and this is China's
achille's heel.
The nation may have the world's largest navy, but 'largest' doesn't mean most capable, and
China's navy has some serious deficiencies.
For starters, its numbers are greatly inflated by smaller missile boats, and it lacks the
logistical or defensive capabilities to send its ships far from its own shores.
This means that while China's navy could operate around Taiwan's territorial waters, sending
them much father out to sea than that would be a deadly mistake.
This is a situation that China has tried to rectify by expanding its influence in the
South China Sea via artificial islands.
These man-made floating air fields are packed to the brim with long-range missiles and attack
aircraft- but they simply can't do enough to protect China's oversea trade.
That's because any ship bringing oil to China must pass through the Arabian sea and the
Indian Ocean, giving the United States two chokepoints to strangle China to death economically.
Even before hostilities broke out US naval forces would be moving towards the Arabian
Sea and the Indian Ocean.
American warships stationed right outside the Gulf of Oman would act as a first line
of denial to Chinese oil shipping.
To the east, the Straits of Malacca would be cut off to Chinese ships by US Pacific
fleet.
The end result is a near total oil embargo on China that would leave it reliant on the
its western overland pipelines from Russia, which are for the moment out of reach of US
weapons.
However, it's not unthinkable that in the case of war the US wouldn't fly B-2 stealth
bombers north through India to strike at these connections with stand-off munitions.
With very frosty relations between India and China, India is very likely to allow US bombers
to operate in its air space for the mission.
Even without striking these oil pipelines though China's oil import would be reduced
to a trickle, having immediate repercussions for its economy that would only worsen over
time.
If you've ever wondered why China hasn't actually invaded Taiwan yet, it's largely because the
United States Navy has its foot on China's throat, and it would require minimal pressure
to choke the country to death economically.
US carriers would doubtlessly join the fight in the skies over Taiwan- although to be honest
US forces need never engage China if they simply carry out a blockade strategy.
The only reason US air forces would engage Chinese forces would be to carry out America's
chief objectives in case of war with China- the destruction of its air and naval forces
so as to neutralize it as a future threat.
Flying from airfields in South Korea and Japan, US Air Force fighters could join the fight
over Taiwan with the aid of aerial tankers, and operating out of aircraft carriers in
the Pacific, US Navy aviators would also be on the front lines against Chinese forces.
However American carriers would be under serious threat from Chinese ballistic missile attack,
and that's why the US Navy is working to greatly expand the combat radius of its fighters.
The Navy's next generation fighter, already in development, has a strict requirement of
a combat range increase of up to 50%, meaning the air frame will have to be significantly
larger than the current F-18 Hornet or F-35.
However, in the mean time the Navy is also developing a fleet of drone tanker aircraft
that can accompany fighters and top them off right before entering combat ranges.
This would help put US ships out of range of most, but not all, of China's long-range
missiles- but it's at best a stop-gap measure as missile technology will continue to evolve,
giving the weapons longer and longer ranges.
Yet the US remains confident it can operate its carriers in the Pacific in case of war.
Fleet air defense vessels such as AEGIS cruisers can take on ballistic missiles with their
compliment of SM3 missiles, which intercept ballistic missiles outside of the Earth's
atmosphere.
To aid in their own defense, US carriers are fast, very fast for vessels of their size,
with a publicly listed top speed of 35 miles per hour (56 kph).
However, it's a well known fact that American supercarriers can move significantly faster
than this when required, with a top speed that's classified.
35 mph may not sound like much, but when you're targeting a vessel hundreds of miles from
your launch site, this means that by the time your weapon nears the vessel's original coordinates
it's long gone.
This is why modern long-range munitions require very robust surveillance, tracking, and targeting
capabilities in the form of drones, AWACS aircraft, undersea sensors, and satellites
amongst others.
Each of these assets forms one link in a long kill chain, where platforms feed targeting
data to an incoming missile.
While China has made great leaps and bounds in its ability to hit US ships out at sea,
it remains to be seen if China's kill chains can survive hostile contact with US forces.
This by no means US super carriers are safe, and the platform is likely an outdated concept
that we should be strongly considering scrapping in favor of more, smaller carriers that leave
the US Navy less vulnerable to overwhelming losses from a single attack.
Once American fighters are in the air, China will find itself facing the most advanced
aerospace forces in the world- but this does not make US planes invulnerable.
In fact, China fields a longer range air to air missile than the US currently does- the
PL-15.
This missile has a slightly greater range than the American AIM-120D AMRAAM, giving
Chinese fighters the advantage in a first-look-first-shoot confrontation.
This is set to change in the next few years as the US fields the AIM-260, which has a
classified range but is believed to reach at least 186 miles (300 km), which is the
range China's own next generation missile, the PL-21, is expected to have.
However, to actually hit US fighters, China must detect them first- and this is why the
US spearhead will be its fleet of 5th generation stealth aircraft.
While not invisible to enemy radar, China's frontline fighters currently can't target
American F-35s and F-22s until they're within approximately 35 miles (56 km), which eliminates
China's slight edge in long-range air to air missiles.
American fighters would be opening fire well before China's know they're there.
But stealth comes with a serious vulnerability- a lack of payload capacity.
Flying in stealth configuration, a US F-35 is limited to 4 AIM 120s and 2 sidewinders.
This does not bode well given the fact that China would be committing dozens of aircraft
at a time to the fight.
While US stealth fighters would be able to knock out China's front fighter screens, it's
unlikely they'd be able to penetrate deep enough to strike at Chinese bombers launching
devastating stand-off attacks against Taiwanese targets.
To do so US fighters would have to fly in murder configuration, fully loaded with missiles
on wing pylons and thus destroying their stealth signature.
China has its own stealth fighters for the US to worry about.
The Chengdu J-20 is an inferior 5th generation fighter, the bottom of the pile when compared
to the F-22, F-35, and Russia Su-57.
It has decidedly non-stealthy features such as canards and engine outlets, and it's believed
that it uses inferior radar absorbent materials in its construction.
To boot, China operates only about 150 of these aircraft, meaning they are in limited
supply.
Yet even inferior stealth is still stealth, and Chinese J-20s would pose a serious threat
to American air support assets such as tankers and AWACS, both critical platforms badly needed
for modern air campaigns.
Armed with long range PL 15s, J-20s could easily stay out of detection range of an American
AWACS and fire their missiles, all but certainly bringing these valuable air assets down.
To date, the US does not have a firm solution to this problem, which would be magnified
by the fact that Chinese aircraft would be operating so close to home and thus within
easy range of ground and naval based air defenses.
The battle in the sky over Taiwan would turn into one of attrition, which the US would
inevitably win over time, but not without taking significant losses of even its precious
5th generation fighters.
The sooner the American public accepts that the F-22 and F-35 are not invulnerable, the
better position America will be to accept combat losses and continue to muster the will
to fight, because China would be looking to knock the US out of the fight not by military
might, but by eroding public support for war.
After 20 years of disastrous adventurism in the middle east, the American people have
little stomach for yet another protracted military campaign against a foe that isn't
necessarily threatening them directly.
It's China's hope that it can cut the knees out from under America by inflicting large
losses and shocking the American people.
Yet defending Taiwan is of critical national defense importance to the United States.
Allowing the island nation to fall to China would severely undermine US dominance of the
Pacific, as it would give China the ability to break what's known as the First Island
Chain of containment.
This is a chain of islands that hems China in from Japan down to the Phillippines, and
has served as a barrier to Chinese naval expansion into the Pacific.
Taiwan however is important to the US, and to the entire free world, for another reason.
Right now, the island nation supplies much of the world's supply of microchips and other
computer components.
Allowing this manufacturing capability to fall into the hands of the Chinese means that
along with its own production capability, China would become the largest global supplier
of these components critical to modern industry and militaries both.
The Taiwanse embargo alone was a crippling blow to Russia's ability to manufacture new
precision munitions.
With China in control of the world's computer component manufacturing, it would effectively
give the nation the ability to blackmail any other nation in the world and bully it into
doing its bidding- this includes even the United States.
Do what China wants, or else you get cut off from the critical supplies needed to keep
your modern economy working.
This is a strategic threat so great that even European powers have pledged some amount of
support for Taiwan's continued independence.
Luckily for Taiwan though the world's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has put a
serious damper on China's ambition to conquer Taiwan.
The unprecedented response from the west has shown China the lengths its willing to go
to in order to counter the aggression of authoritarian governments against free nations.
Rumors swirl that China was actually planning to take military action this fall, but the
Russian invasion of Ukraine completely derailed those plans.
The last thing that China wants is to become a second global pariah, specially as its own
economy faces some very serious internal disasters in the very near future.
Now go check out World War 3 Hour by Hour, or click this other video instead.