Are China's repeated and loud threats to invade Taiwan a result of the importance to China of conquering Taiwan? Or is it misdirection?
Planning before war becomes all the more important as each side seeks to identify the weakness of its enemy and deploy the force needed to rapidly defeat him. The desire of the attacking power is to strike a blow so powerful and so damaging that the enemy will either capitulate or negotiate a satisfactory settlement. First strike is critical.
Central to striking a successful first blow is the element of surprise. If one side is aware of the intent and the plan of its enemy, a peer power will alert its forces and concentrate them to defeat or deflect the blow.
This is basic stuff, of course. Though no less important to repeat. This is why I don't want America to dangle too many important forces forward. That risks heavy American losses when Chinese advantages are maximized. Because I assume China could gain tactical surprise for a first strike in the western Pacific.
This is the most interesting point:
China has done something strange. It has indicated the point of war initiation – Taiwan – and has put in place a force that could theoretically take Taiwan. Announcing the specific target is as dangerous as the Japanese letting the U.S. fleet know that Pearl Harbor was the target....
China’s constant restatement of its intentions toward Taiwan, including on occasion details of how such an invasion might be executed, are bizarre at face value. It is not bizarre, however, if it supposes the United States won’t fight a war over it.
America (and our allies) has certainly reacted to the Chinese rhetoric:
The United States is capable of assisting and defending Taiwan in the event of a military crisis, the commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific said Thursday.
The bottom line is that Friedman doesn't think America wants to initiate war and doesn't think China wants to risk it by attacking Taiwan. Because even capturing Taiwan doesn't solve China's problem of being vulnerable to American blockade.
It is possible that China plans a wide-ranging war in the western Pacific to really break free of the threat of blockade, he says. But he thinks it is more likely that China must be trying to reach a diplomatic settlement with America.
Would a fake threat to invade Taiwan really be the basis for negotiations? Could China "give" America a pledge not to invade Taiwan in exchange for some advantage out there? Would America really withdraw from Japan or South Korea, for example, and merely get a Chinese pledge not to do what they don't want to do?
Could America trust China not to collect that advantage and then change their mind on their pledge a decade later when American ability to project and sustain power in the western Pacific is crippled?
Could China trust any settlement that leaves American forces intact in the western Pacific?
Could China turn off the strongly emphasized pledge to capture Taiwan without angering the Chinese people who have been led to believe it is China's right to do so?
But it is an excellent point that we should consider whether China loudly talks about Taiwan because China has other targets in mind for now.
Perhaps the threat to Taiwan is simply a means of occupying us while China destroys resistance on the mainland in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong.
Perhaps China has a different military threat in mind.
Would China think capturing the Senkaku Islands and Okinawa could break the Japan-U.S. alliance? That would drive America from Japan and now isolated South Korea. Without that logistics hub, could America sustain a war in the western Pacific?
Perhaps China thinks a lunge to take Guam and Palau would push America farther away and make it easy to blockade and starve Taiwan into submission.
Maybe the Philippines is the prize, despite the need for a lot of Chinese manpower to pacify? Is that where the People's Armed Police would come in handy?
Would China want to invade Singapore to block India and hold the southern access to the South China Sea? That would increase the pressure on India.
Heck, what if the misdirection is so total that we don't see that rather than America, Russia is the real target for a Chinese "coming out party" to signal that China is a world power. That would be safer than taking on America directly, no? Would that sort of victory intimidate China's other neighbors?
Given the insane level of Russian hostility toward NATO that Russia needs to fling to conceal their appeasement of China, would America even ponder helping Russia if China wanted a short and glorious victory over Russia?
I've wondered if Russia has decided it must stop appeasing China in five years. Maybe China has tired of pretending that Russia is a friend rather than the biggest occupier of Chinese territory.
Is that why China is building up their nuclear forces?
Huh: "China appears to be moving faster toward a capability to launch its newer nuclear missiles from underground silos, possibly to improve its ability to respond promptly to a nuclear attack, according to an American expert who analyzed satellite images of recent construction at a missile training area."
To deter Russia from using nukes to defend against a small but symbolic defeat at the hands of Chinese forces?
I don't know. But it is a good point that we should not assume we know what China's objective is.
Eventually China wants Taiwan. And their military build up increases their capacity to do that at a reasonable price. Do we know what China's first target is?
UPDATE: The third sentence was edited to clarify that the quote that follows is a general observation about great power war and not an assessment of American and Chinese attitudes. The article goes on to discuss China and America from that foundation.
