> Is the idea of a hot, but non nuclear war with China realistic? I have a hard time picturing scenarios where China is sinking carriers which don't quickly escalate to full blown nuclear war.
It could be if there isn't a meaningful conventional deterrent.
Thought experiment--if the US only had strategic nuclear weapons, what would they do if China attempted to, for example, blockade Taiwan or the Philippines? It would be insane and homicidal to immediately escalate to nuking Beijing. What if the US had conventional forces, but not ones strong enough to hold off Chinese forces? They might take the risk that we wouldn't attempt a first strike.
Conversely, if it happened today, it would be proportional and reasonable to deploy conventional naval forces to escort merchant ships across the blockade. Maybe one of the Chinese ships would fire on one of the American ships, or one of the merchant ships under American protection, and maybe there might be a naval skirmish. But it wouldn't immediately escalate into a nuclear exchange. There would be an "incident", the Chinese would realize that they would have to escalate to a nuclear first strike because their naval capacity is hopelessly outclassed by ours, and thus they would probably stand down. Furthermore, China already knows this is exactly what would happen in this situation and that's one of many reasons they don't try anything.
Despite an infamous 1995 quote from a Chinese general that "in the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei", Chinese posturing in the Taiwan Straits in 1996 led to a large US naval deployment to the seas around Taiwan, at which point China stood down. A full-on war could still escalate to a nuclear exchange, but that is all the more deterrent against starting even a conventional war with US forces. (For similar reasons, note how Russia's bullying tends to be targeted towards countries that haven't joined NATO.)
There would be an "incident", the Chinese would realize that they would have to escalate to a nuclear first strike because their naval capacity is hopelessly outclassed by ours, and thus they would probably stand down.
Or, they might plan a secret saturation anti-ship missile strike that would take out a big chunk of the US fleet, calculating that we wouldn't escalate to full war or nuclear over Taiwan.
Despite an infamous 1995 quote from a Chinese general that "in the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei", Chinese posturing in the Taiwan Straits in 1996 led to a large US naval deployment to the seas around Taiwan, at which point China stood down.
Basically it comes down to this: At what point is maintaining the Taiwan "cork in the bottle" no longer worth the cost for the US to maintain global dominance of the oceans? Keep your eye out for a naval arms race between the US and China.
> Or, they might plan a secret saturation anti-ship missile strike that would take out a big chunk of the US fleet, calculating that we wouldn't escalate to full war or nuclear over Taiwan.
This is similar to the strategy behind Pearl Harbor. Which isn't to say that it's the exact same, or that the Chinese wouldn't attempt it--likewise, we should expect and prepare for such a threat.
> Keep your eye out for a naval arms race between the US and China.
Agreed.
I think the anti-ship missile threat in particular is something the Navy is planning for, judging by the strong investment in directed-energy weapons.
This is similar to the strategy behind Pearl Harbor. Which isn't to say that it's the exact same, or that the Chinese wouldn't attempt it--likewise, we should expect and prepare for such a threat.
All of the ways it's unlike Pearl Harbor favor the Chinese over what the Japanese had to work with in WWII. For one thing, they already control China. For another thing, they wouldn't have to reach all the way to Hawaii. They could mount pressure requiring a US response, then take out our carrier groups relatively close to their shores.
I think the anti-ship missile threat in particular is something the Navy is planning for, judging by the strong investment in directed-energy weapons.
Things that make you go "hmmmm." Even directed energy weapons have a saturation point. Such weapons are also dependent on detection and targeting, which can also be jammed and saturated. Submarines would already mitigate a lot of that threat. The US has a strong submarine force with considerable experience in such "cold war" activities. They have a strong track record of winning a war of stealth and signals intelligence far from their home shores.
> All of the ways it's unlike Pearl Harbor favor the Chinese over what the Japanese had to work with in WWII. For one thing, they already control China. For another thing, they wouldn't have to reach all the way to Hawaii. They could mount pressure requiring a US response, then take out our carrier groups relatively close to their shores.
While true, I was referring more to the idea that immediately destroying a significant amount of American naval power would cause the United States to immediately fold. In that respect, China's possession of nuclear weapons is the most relevant difference.
On the other hand, China would get one shot at 2, maybe 3 carrier groups. If their attack fails, it would be a massive strategic backfire. If their attack succeeds, they gain only the immediate operational advantage of not having to worry about US carrier groups. They would also gain the strategic advantage of tying the hands of the US in terms of deploying ballistic missile defenses against a potential Chinese nuclear strike. But, as you point out, we could adapt and deploy submarines to blockade China while exerting diplomatic and economic pressure.
In other words, even if China manages to prove themselves invulnerable to the projected power of American carriers, they would still not gain a sustainable advantage and would remain in a protracted state of hostilities. The best case outcome of a Chinese first strike against American carriers would still be pretty awful for them.
> Even directed energy weapons have a saturation point. Such weapons are also dependent on detection and targeting, which can also be jammed and saturated.
It's hard to say at this point. If you're discussing the claim that cruise missiles are cheaper than carriers, a fair response is that megawatts are cheaper than cruise missiles. Maybe it won't work out, but it's worth a try and that's the stage we're at.
The best case outcome of a Chinese first strike against American carriers would still be pretty awful for them.
If the Chinese are going to take the risks and roll the dice on a first strike, then they're going to be playing for some pretty enticing stakes, like Taiwan. That's the point of such a move. It would come at the end of a series of escalations. For such a move to pay off, they'd have to be confident that they could control the seas around Taiwan long enough to mount a successful invasion. Prior to that, there would need to be a buildup of China's submarine forces. Perhaps they would have built a SOSUS style listening array, along with a surface fleet buildup which would only hit a level that the US Navy brass would still scoff at. If I were China, I would consider building a great many attack subs with ultra quiet but cheap surface independent propulsion and anti-ship capability. Many of these might come in the form of even quieter, smaller, and somewhat expendable autonomous drone subs. To make such a plan work, they will also have to solve the logistical problem of landing an enormous number of troops and their supplies. That last factor will likely be detected by US intelligence long beforehand, but might be camouflaged to throw off the time estimate.
If I were the Chinese top brass, I would be conducting a highly secretive program of drone sub building. As an alternative or an adjunct, perhaps do a huge air force buildup with very potent anti-submarine capability. The idea would be to neutralize the US Surface advantage with saturation missile strike, then make it very dangerous and miserable for the US submarines, but achieve those advantages while still having the US Navy brass scoff at your capabilities.
If you're discussing the claim that cruise missiles are cheaper than carriers, a fair response is that megawatts are cheaper than cruise missiles. Maybe it won't work out, but it's worth a try and that's the stage we're at.
The question is not if cruise missiles are cheaper than megawatts. The question is not even if cruise missiles are cheaper than the high-tech ship that deploys those megawatts. (Which is a less favorable question for the US.) The question is if the price of those cruise missiles and Chinese lives is worth getting Taiwan. Given that Taiwan is a stepping stone for China's ascendance to the level of global superpower, I suspect the price they're willing to pay is rather high.
The problem with Taiwan is that to take Taiwan, they have to actually take Taiwan. That means transporting troops across the straits in sufficient force to establish a beachhead and transporting supplies and reinforcements to that beachhead. That requires a lot of Chinese surface shipping that would be even more vulnerable to cruise missiles and air attack. And that’s assuming an RoE where the US doesn’t just immediately (conventionally) bomb all of China’s coastal ports preemptively. Even if they solve that problem, it would be logistically very difficult to cross even the Taiwan Straits in sufficient force, and would require destroying and alienating Taiwan and causing a possibly bigger problem in the long run.
This is why the South China Sea is so important—it provides a potential outlet to the open sea while keeping open the possibility of gradual, peaceful reintegration with Taiwan.
The only caveat—and it’s a big one—is that China is in a demographic situation where it wouldn’t hurt them to lose even ten million men due to the heavy gender imbalance of the military-age generation created by the one-child policy.
As for DEWs, cruise missiles and saturation attacks work because you can launch so many cruise missiles that no system can track all of them in enough detail to acquire a firing solution and launch SAMs. DEWs simplify this a lot. The firing solution is just line-of-sight to a contact, you can fire the DEW as quickly as you can generate power rather than having a set amount of ammunition you need to conserve, and if it’s a choice between firing at an unconfirmed target and losing the ship and you can fire the laser, you fire the laser. The question is simply generating enough power to fire the DEW at the necessary rate to handle a saturation attack. Hypersonic cruise missiles make this harder, but at the cost of the cruise missiles themselves being more expensive. It’s not obvious where the balance is going to end up.
The flip side of "in the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei" that always gets ignored is that China also cares more about Shanghai/Beijing/etc than they do Taipei.
It could be if there isn't a meaningful conventional deterrent.
Thought experiment--if the US only had strategic nuclear weapons, what would they do if China attempted to, for example, blockade Taiwan or the Philippines? It would be insane and homicidal to immediately escalate to nuking Beijing. What if the US had conventional forces, but not ones strong enough to hold off Chinese forces? They might take the risk that we wouldn't attempt a first strike.
Conversely, if it happened today, it would be proportional and reasonable to deploy conventional naval forces to escort merchant ships across the blockade. Maybe one of the Chinese ships would fire on one of the American ships, or one of the merchant ships under American protection, and maybe there might be a naval skirmish. But it wouldn't immediately escalate into a nuclear exchange. There would be an "incident", the Chinese would realize that they would have to escalate to a nuclear first strike because their naval capacity is hopelessly outclassed by ours, and thus they would probably stand down. Furthermore, China already knows this is exactly what would happen in this situation and that's one of many reasons they don't try anything.
Despite an infamous 1995 quote from a Chinese general that "in the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei", Chinese posturing in the Taiwan Straits in 1996 led to a large US naval deployment to the seas around Taiwan, at which point China stood down. A full-on war could still escalate to a nuclear exchange, but that is all the more deterrent against starting even a conventional war with US forces. (For similar reasons, note how Russia's bullying tends to be targeted towards countries that haven't joined NATO.)