Friday, May 31, 2019

Death x Time = Freedom

Taiwan counts on being able to make the conquest of their free island too costly in lives and take too long to be sure America won't intervene in order to deter China.

One aspect is practicing how to use highways as runways if Chinese aerial attacks knock out the Taiwanese air fields:

Taiwan displayed how its fighter jets can land, refuel and rearm on the island's highways Tuesday as part of its largest annual exercise simulating defence against a Chinese invasion.

The self-ruled island has long lived under the threat of invasion by Beijing which views Taiwan as part of its territory and has vowed to take it back by force if necessary. ...

Taiwan would be massively outgunned in terms of troop numbers and firepower in any war with China but it has developed sophisticated asymmetric tactics to hold out for as long as possible and make any invasion of the island hugely costly for Beijing.

I imagine rapid runway repair equipment and skills is far more important to keeping Taiwan's fighters in the air. I doubt Taiwan has many stretches of highway suitable for use as a runway and so China will hit those as well. Or Chinese agents could dump quick drying cement on the eve of invasion or blow up stretches of the highway/runway.

But forcing China to do more and more to win can only help the equation that results in Taiwan's freedom. China should never doubt that they will suffer heavy casualties and in the end fail to defeat Taiwan before America can lead the regional cavalry to the rescue.

My old invasion scenario holds up well, I believe,