With Ukraine distracting much Western military force and policy attention, Commander-in-Chief Biden’s visible mental decline
and Pelosi’s reckless visit, Xi may be correct in gambling that escalating drills will soften up Taiwan, maybe without serious Western intervention.
China’s missile, aircraft and warship live fire drills in sea-space surrounding Taiwan is damaging Taiwan’s economy. This is through slowing airliner, passenger ship and other shipping traffic. Some airlines don’t want to risk being mistakenly hit by missiles MH17 style. Insurance premiums may be rising making it uneconomic for airlines and shipping to/from Taiwan’s area if it is seen as a conflict zone.
Taiwan's already troubled semiconductor sector (eg. TSMC) has global supply chain problems. Greater semiconductor disruption may be an encouragement or deterrent to any timely Western military intervention in support of Taiwan.
China turning up politico-strategic salami slicing may continue for months, even years. This is aimed at
triggering a Western reaction that China can paint as “Western aggression”. In
China's and its ally Russia’s eyes this would justify a Chinese takeover of Taiwan by all
means possible, eg:
- missile impacts on Taiwan
itself
- fighter-bomber airstrikes
- Chinese SSK and SSN submarine blockade, even attack
- Chinese equivalents to US Hammerhead naval smart mines that can discriminate between "friend and foe" shipping and submarines in Taiwanese waters
- economic including food supply strangulation
- cyber attacks
- ending in amphibious landings once Taiwan is severely weakened and Western forces have been cruise and ballistic missile area isolated from assisting.
Western forces, especially SSKs and SSNs under US leadership, could react decisively against Chinese moves, but whether there is the will remains questionable.
10 comments:
Thanks Pete. As I said in an earlier post it will be interesting to see if PLAN ships return to base at the end of the current blockade / demonstration.
FYI this article covers both the Australian and now Brazilian applications to the NNPT regarding naval nuclear powered submarines, which both nations are pursuing. There are weaknesses in both the regulations and the applications in both cases. Of course, China and Russia have only objected to the Australian application.
https://indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/5506-nuclear-submarines-and-the-non-proliferation-treaty-brazil-gets-a-jump-on-australia
An Anonymous has supplied link https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2022/08/china-taiwan-tensions-flare-us-faces-shrinking-window-deter-conflict/375514/
The defenseone link seems to largely carry the assumption China's aggression will mainly become naval actionsparticularly a D-Day style amphibious landing on Taiwan.
The defenseone article goes on to say US Congress is considering bills that would significantly increase funding to Taiwan, implicitly to buy significantly more anti-ship missile from US factories.
I'll write an article tomorrow about the weaknesses of assuming too much about the D-Day scenario.
Pete
Thanks Anonymous [at Aug 10, 2022, 7:03:00 AM]
https://indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/5506-nuclear-submarines-and-the-non-proliferation-treaty-brazil-gets-a-jump-on-australia
is long, complex and interesting.
A key paragraph is:
"Unfortunately, [NSW] Senator Tim Ayres probably is not familiar with the IAEA Statute which prohibits the [IAEA's] involvement in the furtherance of "any military purpose". Also, likely it is somewhat of a stretch to claim that the NPT allows for nuclear-powered submarines—the [NPT] Treaty is silent on this matter, it neither allows nor disallows."
I, as a firm believer in international law being Codified Politics, underwritten by the 5 Permanent (P5) members of the UN Security Council...
see it as progress that P5 members the US and UK have given their blessing that Australia can "legally" acquire nuclear subs powered by HEU.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
https://indepthnews.net/index.php/armaments/nuclear-weapons/5506-nuclear-submarines-and-the-non-proliferation-treaty-brazil-gets-a-jump-on-australia continues words to the effect:
Australia, via the 8 reactors in our future nuclear subs stands to recieve "1.6 to 2.0 metric tonnes" of bomb grade HEU.
Let my say that this would be a good result as I think this bomb grade HEU transferred from the subs to 100 odd Australian nuclear weapons achieves an actual Australian nuclear deterrent.
This is far better than 8 Aus SSNs that each are only capable of projecting around 25 tonnes of merely Conventional explosive at nuclear armed China.
If Australian Conventionally armed SSNs sunk large Chinese ships, subs or even worse fired land attack missiles at the Chinese mainland then Australia could expect nuclear retaliation from China.
So sad to say Aus SSNs with merely conventional weapons are flawed concepts in the China stakes.
Regards Pete
P.S.
Naturally there are other ways for AUS to score bomb grade HEU and mount warheads on non-submarine delivery platforms.
Pete
It only needs 10kg of HEU to make a bomb. I don't think Australia would need 100 bombs to forma deterrent.
So you would only need one "HMAS Unserviceable" to achieve that outcome.
GhalibKabir here. It will again and again come down to the kind of hit China realistically expects in return. If it genuinely thinks there is a danger of a conflict escalating out of hand incl. global nuclear winter, it is likely to respect the power balance and come to a shrewd agreement. I don’t think it will retaliate with nukes against a conventional attack ( yet).
It can go rogue or renege on that promise of NFU in the future. However as things stand Oz is unlikely to suffer nuclear retaliation if e.g. RAN fires conventional tomahawks from an SSN.
Hi Anonymous [at Aug 10, 2022, 3:00:00 PM]
The IAEA mighht not think so, but I recken its good news we only need HEU from Aus SSN "HMAS Unserviceable" for 100 bombs to form a deterrent.
China will also be thrilled (not).
Hi GhalibKabir
I only see a nuclear first strike as an asymmetric strategy from a country with a relatively small conventional force being invaded by a country with a much larger conventional force.
eg. Pakistan might threaten a first strike vs any Indian conventional invasion.
Or, in the future, Australia vis a vis China.
The military great-superpowers US, Russia, China and India (in 10 years time) are a different "balance of nuclear terror" situation, unlikely to risk invading each others territory.
Cheers Pete
Hi Pete this question of NPT perspective for Aus SSN might not be that relevant owing to the probable timing..
By 2050 the inventory of HEU originating from dissassembled nuclear weapons following the disarmemrnt treaties of the 70/80 will run out, even more as the number of sub unlikely to decrease
-3 options to be sorted out by 2030 in the US
-restart HEU process in large for thousands of devices(modern "devices"require sometimes less than 10kg..)
-diassemble further devices, you needs typically 100 to 200 devices per sub..After Ukr and Taiwan ?
-move to LEU see :..https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/u-s-congress-funds-navy-leu-fuel-rd-for-7th-consecutive-year/
this R§D effort is increasing for the last 7 years and not insignificant (20 M USD/Y is about 75 engineers /scientist/year but in an existing lab with all the support equipemt and skills in place).Certainly enough for a lab scale/pilot unit .With the Energy crisis ..LEU is here to stay
Beyond NPTproblem, the US government is at the same time probably ,at ease with HEU as it make the request from allies unanswerable..History tells you that alliance are ephemerous..
remember the Iran shah!
Hi Anon at Aug 12, 2022, 10:12:00 PM
Innovations to produce SSN and/or Bomb grade HEU more cheaply than the gas centrifuge method are in the works.
All hush-hush, between you, me and selectively displeased IAEA :)
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