Without much greater aircraft range or much greater defenses or other protections, can America really risk our super carriers close to Taiwan to deter or defeat China and to reassure and encourage American allies to help defend Taiwan? Committing our carriers to defend Taiwan without those advantages just to send the right "message" to China and allies is insane and counter-productive.
Taiwan, America, and our allies need to think about defending Taiwan from Chinese absorption by pressure or force. But I don't like the implications of this statement:
Openly accepting the premise that US carriers can- not survive Chinese attacks also means openly stating that moving carriers toward Taiwan, Japan, or through the strait is always an American bluff and should not be seen as a serious demonstration of Washington’s willingness or ability to fight.American super carriers and other capital ships are either vulnerable when fighting too close to Chinese anti-ship weapons weighted to China's littoral regions on land and afloat. Or they aren't. That isn't a mere premise to accept or reject.
If they are vulnerable, the problem with refusing to admit massively expensive carriers are vulnerable to avoid sending a bad signal to China or our allies is that losing the carriers and capital ships would be a far worse message for all of them to get. Not to mention what our own people will see.
Could an American super carrier in a multiple carrier task force have
one carrier equipped with long-range drones for naval strikes against
Chinese invading forces with the rest of the carriers optimized for air defense to protect the task force and send some F-35s with tanker
support for escort?*
If the task force stays beyond the range of most Chinese anti-ship escorts with plenty of subs between the PLAN and the carriers plus ample air defenses, we might be able to strike with sufficient disaggregated power to cripple PLA invaders or blockaders.
I'd also like us to figure out if figuratively sailing within the shadows of Taiwan's east coast provides protection against Chinese missile guidance systems. That would really change calculations for deploying American carriers.
And I'd like the AABONE from Guam to help escort the drones or shoot down Chinese transport aircraft carrying PLA airborne forces.
Or maybe we just need to convert container ship hulls into drone-carrying escort carriers (CVEs). Those would be expendable enough to risk within China's A2/AD bubble early in the war to supplement submarines, cheap long-range anti-ship missile carriers, and long-range aircraft, no?
Eventually, as sea control is established, the capital ships can press closer to Taiwan to add more firepower in a power projection role.
I want a debate on how to keep China from absorbing Taiwan. Remember, the Taiwan issue is more than an issue about Taiwan. So let's get the debate right.
NOTE: I drafted this in late February and for some reason left it languishing as a draft until I discovered it by chance. That sentence with the asterisk was written before I wrote the post linked about an article on that topic.
NOTE: The image was created using DALL-E.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
