When You Start to Invade Taiwan, Invade Taiwan
Does strategy really involve adding enemies to your war?
An author looks at history before World War II and early in the Cold War to evaluate America’s response to a new axis of authoritarian threats. I’ll focus on the Chinese threat to Taiwan.
I think the author’s “plausible” Chinese options to gain control of Taiwan have a critical flaw in risking the expansion of a war against Taiwan to a war against America and its allies fighting to help Taiwan defeat China. I think China’s most plausible scenario is to go for the jugular by rapidly seizing Taipei before Taiwan can mobilize and before America can intervene. And China has a Plan B as part of this ambitious scenario to set the stage for eventual victory.
This article spends a lot of time on historical patterns that may provide a template for a U.S.-led alliance confronting China over Taiwan. Not gonna lie, I skimmed ahead to the heart of the author’s assessment for China’s likely options for bringing Taiwan under control:
I see three main plausible scenarios:
Pearl Harbor. China combines an invasion of Taiwan with an attack on U.S. installations, at least in Guam, and possibly on Japanese territory as well. The United States, and possibly Japan, are immediately at war with China, with high likelihood of rapid escalation to general war.
Korea 1950. China attacks Taiwan, probably associated with preparations for invasion. Though, as in South Korea in 1950, the U.S. defense commitment is ambiguous, the brazen character of the attack raises the odds of at least U.S. and Japanese intervention, and all prepare for the possibility of escalation to general war.
Indirect control. China implements air and sea border controls to make Taiwan a self-governing administrative region of China. There is no need for a direct attack on Taiwan or any blockade of usual commerce. Without initiating violent action, the Chinese can assert sovereign control over the air and sea borders to Taiwan, establishing customs and immigration controls. This is not the same thing as a blockade. A blockade would instead become one of the possible consequences if the other side violently challenged China’s assertion of indirect control.
The author assesses this narrowed set of options: “America’s military and 99 percent of the public commentary focus on the first two scenarios. The third one seems more likely to me.”
I don’t think these options include the most plausible. And I think each of the author’s most plausible options have flaws from China’s point of view that make them worse than my scenario as the most plausible.
What I don’t get is the claim that the burden of escalation in the more likely third option falls on America. I don’t see that as all. If China pretends it has administrative authority over Taiwan, the burden of stopping that falls on China. America and its allies could escort commercial ships into and out of Taiwan. Perhaps using coast guard ships to avoid using formal warships to support Taiwanese warships that meet the convoys at their territorial water limits.
Heck, Taiwan’s allies could create modularized auxiliary cruisers used as white hull cutters to quickly expand coast guard capabilities.
In that scenario, the ships continue to sail unless China escalates to violence. Am I taking crazy pills? Isn’t this obviously the situation in that Chinese course of action?
Further, the option gives Taiwan time to prepare for invasion and provides America and its allies time to prepare for war. This would include deciding to invade, establishing logistics, and mobilizing and moving forces to within easy reach of the theater of war.
And it gives America time to start interfering with Chinese overseas trade with a counter-squeeze that starts with sanctions. Is that really optimal from China’s point of view?
The other two scenarios have problems, too.
I think it is unlikely that China would go for the first “Pearl Harbor” option, even though I worry our forward forces packed into too few bases within China’s strike envelope would tempt China to strike first to get in a good first shot to buy time. If China wants to keep the war over Taiwan localized and formally not even a war because China claims Taiwan is Chinese territory, immediately bringing America and Japan into the war makes the decision to intervene against China automatic. This option may maximize the chance to take Taiwan by visibly isolating Taiwan from immediate allied help. But it makes it less likely that China can rapidly establish peace after the conquest and restore trade relations with America and Japan.
The second option’s problem is that it gives Taiwan time. While the first option includes a Chinese invasion, the second option assumes a lower level of violence—an attack—while China prepares to invade. By telegraphing the invasion, China gives Taiwan a chance to mobilize and deploy ground forces away from bases; and provides America a chance to rally allies, gather forces, and decide to intervene. China forfeits the element of surprise for an invasion, giving Taiwan time to get over the shock of war and bolster their resolve to fight. And perhaps as an aside, calling this the Korea 1950 option is odd given North Korea massively invaded South Korea to gain a quick win, yet the scenario for China versus Taiwan doesn’t include an immediate invasion. But I suppose I shouldn’t quibble over an analogy when the purpose is just to provide a general comparison rather than arguing for exact comparisons.
And a lower level of mere attack gives Taiwan a chance to start striking the Chinese mainland ports and airfields needed to invade, to lay sea mines to block Chinese ships, and to disperse and prepare naval and air assets to fight. Taiwan would also have time to round up any Chinese covert operatives/special forces on the island.
All three options forfeit a localized Chinese war against Taiwan by creating additional enemies either by directly attacking non-belligerents or by giving non-belligerents time to decide to oppose or fight China to keep Taiwan independent.
I have a fourth more plausible option based on my view that China’s goal would be to defeat Taiwan and delay America long enough to win.
Let me expand on my rejection of the 1944 D-Day model of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. I think that China would invade Taiwan while pretending Taiwan is an internal matter. Modeled on Germany’s 1940 invasion of Norway, China’s invasion rests of completing four missions:
The Chinese will have four main missions for their military in an invasion: One, landing nine army divisions and one Marine division on Taiwanese territory plus dropping three parachute divisions and one air landing division. Two, securing the sea and air lines of supply and reinforcement from China to Taiwan. Three, keeping American forces away from Taiwan long enough to finish the conquest. This will also include non-military measures. Fourth, the Chinese must defeat the Taiwanese army and conquer the island.
The objective would be to quickly win and convince other countries that it would be too hard to reverse the conquest. Many nations might think a Chinese promise to resume Taiwanese high tech exports would be superior to going to war.
And if Taipei is too difficult to capture quickly before America intervenes? Well, I later concluded that the fourth mission can be delayed. As I wrote in Military Review, I think defining victory for a Chinese invasion can be broad enough to include establishing bridgeheads on Taiwan followed by a ceasefire. Many nations might wrongly conclude that failing to capture Taipei means China lost the war. America and others might fear the cost to eject the Chinese troops. With worries about the depth of our munitions stocks bolstering a willingness to end the fighting. And the idea of maintaining peace and trade relations with China—or fear of nuclear war—might be persuasive enough to convince nations that China lost and it would be best to let the Chinese troops remain on Taiwan with a ceasefire. That’s one misconception that flows from wargames that don’t extend the campaign past a few weeks.
In reality, China could wait for foreign attention to wane, subvert Taiwan’s government, and build up forces in its bridgeheads. In a couple years Taiwan might succumb to this kind of pressure. Or China could resume the war but this time have troops and supplies built up on Taiwan itself for the final blow.
That is the most plausible scenario for China to gain control of Taiwan. It partially relies on a short war that isolates Taiwan rather than bringing potential enemies into the war. And it has a Plan B that has a chance to keep America out of the fight to buy time.
Russia’s path to conquering Ukraine certainly follows this path to conquer Taiwan, eh? Crimea 2014, Donbas 2014-2015, “peace”, military upgrades, then renewed invasion 2022. Indeed, a ceasefire in Ukraine now would simply go back to the “peace” step and move forward from there. And keep in mind that Taiwan has far less space to trade for time than Ukraine still controls after multiple Russian invasions.
NOTE: I made the image with Bing.