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Only the deployment of ships signals the weakness

 


There is a dangerous trade-off between defense and deterrence in Taiwan. Spending Western leaders believe that the deployment of a token naval force in Asia to signal their commitment to defend Taiwan against Chinese invasion will prevent the war from happening.

For example, rather than deploying ground forces to Taiwan or the Philippines, the United States transited through the Taiwan Strait 118 times because 2007.

Allied fleets joined the United States, including Australia, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom. Most of the multinational forces have explicitly stated that they intend to stabilize East Asia.

However, the problem is that efforts to deterrence, which is the threat of inflicting punishment on an attacker, are tempting for the greater effort of defense preparation.

It is the technique of gunboat diplomacy, which is inexpensive because fleets can be redeployed quickly and inexpensively.

Conditions of deterrence

Deterrence has three necessary conditions: it must have sufficient capacity, be credible in the sense that the parties will effectively fight if an attack occurs, and the sanction must be communicated. It is not the same as defense.

Chinese president Xi jinpings recent public pledges of peace unification with Taiwan report that Beijing believes that the West will eventually rise up to defend Taiwan, and therefore the conditions for credibility and communication are met, despite the legal ambiguity of The United States guarantees the defense of Taiwan.

Xi Jinping at a conference.
Xis “China Dream” is a prosperous China, economically and militarily powerful, and reunited with Taiwan by 2049. Photo: Aleksey Nikolskyi / AFP

When an attacker knows he will oppose it, he begins preparations for a done, or in this case, a rapid invasion of Taiwan designed to be completed within two months, which is the likely delay that a Chinese fleet can impose on the first wave of a Western counter-invasion force.

Deterrence in previous wars

In fact, it took five months for the United States and its allies to deploy during Operation Desert Shield in 1990-91 against Iraq, which could not resist the build-up. Under these new conditions, gunboat diplomacy becomes a critical and costly defense distraction.

During World War II, in a desperate attempt to secure a deterrent against a Japanese attack on Singapore, the UK sent two large warships.

the United States deterrence effort consisted of redeploying its Pacific fleet from California to Pearl Harbor in May 1940 and stationing 23,000 US troops in the Philippines. This greatly exaggerated the speed with which the United States would be able to muster its fleet to the Philippines, break up the Japanese attack there, and travel to Japan for a decisive showdown.

Instead, within 48 hours of the outbreak of war, British warships had been sunk, 120,000 Commonwealth troops in Singapore surrendered within three months, and American troops in the Philippines surrendered to the five months.

These deployments were wasted attempts at deterrence by peacetime politicians seeking cheap postures, ultimately undermining the defense.

The battle

If China rushes towards Taiwan, the United States will repeat the same flawed strategy of concentrating a fleet for decisive engagement as the Orange war plan in WWII, which will take months.

Fearing the heavy losses from a hasty landing of heavy ground forces in the Taiwanese ports of the east coast of Taitung or Toucheng, the United States will delay the intervention, just as it recalled the convoy of Pensacola, which could have saved the American garrison in the Philippines in 1942.

Taiwan will be lost.

Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait

The most apparent tactical problem with deterrence in the Taiwan Strait is that carrier fleets are designed for invisible operations on the high seas, where their planes can overwhelm enemy fleets and small island bases. Aircraft carriers are vulnerable and will be summarily sunk if deployed off the coast of China or several hundred nautical miles from Taiwan.

Land-based aircraft in China are operated cheaply and have greater range, payloads, and sensor support than any sea-based aircraft. To keep these carriers safe from harm. Chinese anti-ship missile DF-21D will require a dangerously escalating measure of removing all Chinese satellites from orbit.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Barry in the South China Sea earlier this year.
The USS Barry crossed the Taiwan Strait in October 2020, provoking China, which claims sovereignty over the territory. Photo: Samuel Hardgrove / AFP

NATO’s latest war against a competitor similar to China was Serbia in 1999 (population 7 million, not 1.4 billion), who successfully harnessed sensor technology from the 1970s to shoot down an F-117 stealth bomber.

The West no longer has a decisive technological advantage over China and will eventually have to fall back on a dangerous threat of tactical nuclear escalation to maintain the balance.

Tactical nuclear warfare at sea is much more escalating than on land as it is tempting to use nuclear depth charges against enemy submarines in a location inhabited by fish rather than towns and then the mission slip will push these attacks on coastal air bases, ports and deeper land targets.

Defeating a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and therefore deterring it, is actually relatively easy and inexpensive, given the application of three measures, backed by a strong dose of political will.

Troop deployment and air cover

First, Western states must make a bold statement, as they did with the defense of West Berlin and the UN’s commitment to South Korea during the Cold War, to deploy army troops and air cover in Taiwan.

Such a move should be coordinated, as a weak deployment is likely to trigger a Chinese equivalent of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, involving an attempted blockade, overflights and threats of nuclear war.

This deployment does not necessarily require immediate recognition from Taiwan, although it may evolve into it. A little like NATO’s current deployment in the Baltic to deter Russian harassment, a ground deployment among friendly Taiwanese will remove any Chinese incitement to a desperate surprise attack.

A single US division (like the 2nd US Infantry Division deployed to South Korea), plus a brigade from Japan, Australia, UK and Canada would make any amphibious landing impossible given Chinese force structures planned for the next 10 years, barring a major Chinese buildup which could then be easily matched.

An American division and two air squadrons of about 100 planes will cost the same as two American aircraft carriers and will be much less vulnerable while providing much more defensive power. It would all cost a lot less than the war: the Korean War cost the United States 15% of its GDP in each of its three years.

Engage Taiwan

The main obstacle is not China, or even the West, but the Taiwanese themselves. The Taiwanese government and people have a strong preference against hostility from Beijing due to their commercial dependence on trade with China. Therefore, they place less emphasis on military defense than on deterrence based on the likelihood of Western intervention.

Taiwanese soldiers
Taiwanese soldiers undergoing combat exercises. Photo: AFP

Taipeis’ preference is to keep the options open for a de-escalation of the crisis. This is a serious parasitism problem, but no more intractable than Negotiating with West Germany on its defense during the Cold War. This means engaging more actively with Taipei as a second step.

Useful naval base

The third measure is diplomatic and aims to secure the in-depth air and naval bases necessary to operate a supply chain to Taiwan, as well as administer a profitable blockade of Chinese commerce in the event of war, without the need for vulnerable people. aircraft carrier.

American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan defined a useful naval base as one that frees up more resources than it consumes for its defense. the US Marine Corps and Okinawa Air Base, located off Shanghai, is not a useful base as it will be vulnerable to the isolation of the Chinese navy.

The main air base locations that would significantly improve Taiwan’s defense are north of Luçon in the Philippines, Natuna Island in Indonesia, and an Air Force complex on the Japanese island of Fukuoka.

This effort will be rejected by some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and will require a complex effort of engagement and compromise with democratic regimes in the region.

Deployment for solid deterrence

The joint recognition of Taiwan by the major powers will hamper China’s selective application of retaliatory sanctions, which it currently uses to pit Democratic allies against each other.

The immediate deployment of battalion-sized American and Allied garrisons to Taiwan will alert Beijing to the futility of intervention, when Chinese amphibious forces are not yet capable.

The subsequent deployment of permanent democratic brigades and divisionally pre-positioned equipment and supplies would allow Taiwan to withstand the crushing for months.

A network of air bases on the Philippine islands of Luzon and Leyte, protected by Philippine troops, would create an air bridge that would deprive China of air supremacy and therefore the conditions for a safe amphibious attack.


Portrait of Julian Spencer-ChurchillDr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is Associate Professor of International Relations at Concordia University, author of Militarization and war (2007) and Strategic nuclear sharing (2014) and former operations officer, 3 Field Engineer Regiment. He has published extensively on South Asia, conducting research in Pakistan for over 10 years.


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