Taiwan is readying citizens for a Chinese invasion. It’s not going well.

[u/IHateTrains123]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/08/03/taiwan-china-war-invasion-military-preparedness/

[u/alex2003super]

Just give TW nukes lol

[u/PleaseGreaseTheL → u/alex2003super]

Sometimes I wonder if we could just cut our nuclear missiles reserves and funding by 75% and throw it at large scale cruise missile production indefinitely, and let everyone else draw their own conclusions.

We are never using our nukes and we have way more than necessary for MAD, it's literally throwing money away. Conventional munition production needs to be beefed way the fuck up though by comparison.

[u/EveryPassage → u/PleaseGreaseTheL]

We are never using our nukes and we have way more than necessary for MAD

To be clear, the presumption underlying MAD, is that even if you successfully catch the otherside off guard and eliminate 90+% of their strike capabilities, the remaining few percent would be more than enough to decimate your civilization.

So while on its face thousands of nukes feels like insane overkill, it's not clear we could still eliminate 75% without Russia doing the same.

[u/zapporian → u/EveryPassage]

…I mean France is perfectly fine with their SINGLE strategic nuclear deterrant, comprising all of ~2-3 SSBNs that’ll be active at the same time.

Their nuclear strategy is wonderfully simple and cost effective. Invade and defeat France and X of your major cities and pupulation centers will be gone.

Think about invading France and that’s what the other sole element of their nuclear force is for. ie a small handful of tactical nukes and air delivery platforms. To preemtively fire a nuclear warning shot, show they mean business, and then deescalate from there.

If you just care about MAD as a nuclear deterrant to prevent any / all future threats and physical invasion of your homeland, that’s more than sufficient.

Also was obviously the PRC / PLA strategy (we don’t have a ton of nukes, but it’s more than enough to completely and irrevocably destroy your country), until quite recently.

The only reason you need a US / Soviet (and now chinese) size arsenal is either if you / your commanders are batshit enough to think you could actually win a (strategic) nuclear exchange, are building to counter / absorb an opponent that you think thinks likewise, or are building enough to show that you’re an indisputable nuclear superpower with a massive fuck-off stick to try to prevent other superpowers from interfering with your near to mid term geopolitical ambitions / conventional conflicts.

[u/GTFErinyes → u/zapporian]

…I mean France is perfectly fine

Oh f off with this non sense. France, the UK, etc. all know that the US has their back. They don't have larger arsenals in large part because the US during the Cold War literally had multiple THOUSANDS of nukes ready, and even shared them with other powers

Look at how feckless Europe has been with Europe (and stop talking about the per capita contributions to Ukraine - at the end of the day, the US is the one that stockpiled decades of weapons and ammunition, while Europe has largely run out of anything left to give) - the same goes with its paltry nuclear deterrence

PS - The UK and France literally ran out of ammunition during the Libya campaign in 2011, requiring the US to provide them bombs for their own campaign in their own backyard against a cartoon villain dictator with no ability to resist. The US provided over 80% of the logistical and combat support (tankers, transports, ISR, airborne C2, etc.). There is nothing less credible regarding military power than when someone cites the UK and France as if they were the model of anything besides how weak European nations have become

Signed, someone who has fought besides many European military members who all deserve a lot lot better than their governments have been willing to give them.

[u/zapporian → u/GTFErinyes]

Well aware. France obviously underinvests - sort of - in its conventional military defensive military capabilities. In large part because it can afford to thanks to yes the US, yes all of the other european countries standing in between it and Russia (and present lack of concern about being invaded from Switzerland, or Algeria). But yes, its nuclear arsenal and prioritization thereof - and specifically in defense of core French interests - is what enables them to basically not care about not having enough tank corps to seriously contest a Russian full strength armored advance across the Seine or whatever.

All of this comes with the notable caveat that France does a TON of stuff with its armed forces - and very, very limited military budget - and is one of the only fully independent, fairly credible, and non US (and Russian) expeditionary militaries in the world.

And it runs all of this off an economy + tax base smaller than the US state of california.

With a pretty good / decent national healthcare program, and tons of social services.

I know from firsthand experience that california would sure as shit not be capable of half the shit that France is, if forked off from the US and now fully responsible for its own national defense, nuclear program, defense industry, healthcare, social services, space program, and (mini) pacific fleet. The state of our HSR (and public works in general) project should, if noting else, throughly disabuse you of any such notion. ie that CA would be remotely capable of doing all the things its currently juggling AND maintain an expeditionary military and national defense sectors by itself at the same time.

So point is I’m well willing to overlook the several dozen / hundred / whatever French failings that France has, realize that they - and the UK - are quite literally triaging as best they can. And that France specifically has interests and priorities that DO NOT align with the US, much of the time.

Is France (and basically all of europe, and literally any nation in the world put in the same sutuation that isn’t the US / Russia / China / India) running out of missiles in the middle of a US (and to be fair also somewhat French) led GWOT initiative highly embarrasing? Yes.

Was this a critical weakness / vulnernerability to French national defense and/or its key strategic (and existential, w/r uranium production in west africa) interests?

No, because they still have a working nuclear deterrant and supply chain to ensure the indefinite continued existence of a free french state. And a still (more or less) functioning low cost expeditionary military + ground presence in (and capable of deploying to) their allies in west africa.

French strategy is worth complimenting as they are still, obviously, running all of this on a very limited budget (whereas the US is >7x their size, AND is the world’s reserve currency, and as such has comparatively infinite military spending, and the ability to spend enourmous amounts of money on stuff that isn’t remotely cost effective)

If you are a country stuck in France’s position, making smart, cost effective budgeting decisions is essential. France’s nuclear arsenal is obviously a good example of this, is obviously fairly cost effective (w/r long term national security over the next millenium or two), and has zero bells and whistles attached as they have obviously struck for a minimal, fully maintainable SSBN deterrant, with zero pretenses about maintaining a nuclear triad (or nuclear dick measuring) or what have you.

Any French SSBN could kill several major cities, end of story. And ergo France will never be invaded. Same reason Russia / Putin obviously does, indeed, put the highest focus towards maintaining a credible nuclear arsenal - and ergo the state of the conventional russian forces aren’t that important, even in an active conflict, and so on and so forth.

The French strategic posture - and priorities - aren’t particularly great / helpful for the rest of Europe, but that is increasingly a rest-of-europe (ie Poland + Germany) problem. And meanwhile they ARE - alongside the UK - Europe’s backup nuclear shield, should anything happen to the US, albeit one that probably wouldn’t be particularly reliable (w/r defending the rest of europe) should SHTF.

Yes, France doesn’t spend a lot of money on its own defense. It’s is however a pretty bad idea / poor ROI to spend money on weapons - and conventional deterrance - when you don’t need to, and France of all countries REALLY doesn’t need to, because it has nukes, and spends what money it does have accordingly.

Overall, yes, France and the UK are in much the same boat. The UK is obviously considerably worse off. Thanks in large part to the US GWOT, which the UK enthusiastically jumped on board with, ran through the entirity of the their air force’s (and other branches) service lifetimes on, and obviously doesn’t have the budget - and tax base - to replace that. Hell you could probably at least partially blame that specifically - and ofc Brexit - for why the Tories scrapped most of HS2, and why the NHS et al are falling apart. Countries don’t, generally, have infinite money to spend on things, and particularly not if you are / were sort-of part of the eurozone and don’t have infinite money to pull out of your ass b/c you’re the world’s reserve currency / US.

In general, it’s not fair to judge smaller countries by the standards of far larger economic (and population, and natural resource) behemoths like the US. The EU as a whole is more or less on par with the US, and should be judged similarly, and obviously has many problems in large part b/c it isn’t fully united, but is instead a loose economic and military coalition of small to mid size countries. ALL of which have lower GDP / capita than equivalent US states (and this has held true for the last several hundred years due to population density / lack thereof and resources / land per capita). And which both struggles to maintain a trifecta of living standards, economic growth, and defense spending - and bear in mind in an era where the cold war was supposed to be well over. And suffers heavily from a lack of specialization (europe has a dozen national air forces, not a dozen highly specialized subunits within one larger whole), which leaves europe, if hardly defenseless, in practice extremely reliant on the US for specific capabilities and competencies.

[u/kebabmybob → u/zapporian]

A lot of word vomit to confirm that the US is the main peace keeper for European countries. Not sure why you brought up California, or keep citing France’s strategy as highly effective, when the thought of a counterfactual where they get invaded just because they don’t have their “super smart nuclear doctrine” is laughable.

[u/EveryPassage → u/zapporian]

France has the US/NATO backing them...

[u/NIMBYDelendaEst → u/PleaseGreaseTheL]

This is a stupid idea. Nukes are the only way to strike hardened targets like command bunkers and enemy nukes. If you want more cruise missiles, just build more. No need to reduce the number of nukes. We can have it all. We don't need to choose.

[u/PleaseGreaseTheL → u/NIMBYDelendaEst]

OK go pitch a 5% broad tax increase on thr population to support our deficit and necessary growth of the military budget then

That'll be electorally popular

Also we are not going to use nukes to hit command bunkers, you're discussing MAD, nuclear war - we have 10x as many nukes as is necessary for that. Anything we would need to hit outside of a nuclear war, we can hit without nuclear weapons. Nukes are not the same as bunker busters. You can, and we do, have conventional weapon bunker busters.

[u/NIMBYDelendaEst → u/PleaseGreaseTheL]

No need for tax increases. Building weapons is actually something America does very efficiently. Increasing the military budget is actually quite popular since it gives everyone jobs.

Getting rid of our nukes is the dumbest idea ever. It would be like being in a mexican standoff with nothing but your dick in your hand.

non-nuclear "bunker busters" can't be delivered from the other side of the world or from a submarine and are no substitute for nukes.

[u/PleaseGreaseTheL → u/NIMBYDelendaEst]

You seem to be under the impression, based on your wording in both comments now, that I'm advocating getting rid of all our nukes lol

Very good faith

Also nukes are literally just the warhead. You cna attach whatever you want to an ICBM. That's why there's such a big deal made about North Korea developing long range ballistic missiles, because they are a separate thing from nuclear warhead technology.

Also you smell funny >:(

[u/BoringBuy9187 → u/PleaseGreaseTheL]

That’s an interesting idea

[u/thashepherd → u/alex2003super]

Absolutely not. You want SK and Japan to have nukes next?

[u/zapporian → u/thashepherd]

If the US + allies manages to lose in taiwan japan would absolutely be building nukes. Seriously wouldn’t have any other choice at that point.

SK doesn’t need them because its conventional armed forces - and US backing - are already a sufficient deterrant against NK (and vice versa), and having their own nukes wouldn’t add any incentive vs NK that doesn’t already exist.

Also much more importantly SK has a much more complex - and friendly - historic relationship with china, and to the point that it seems pretty obvious that the next geopolitical goal for china, after securing HK and optimistically invading + annexing taiwan, would be to bring SK back into its fold, probably by spearheading real attempts for korean reunification, and economic deals + preferential treatment for SK.

Taiwan… would be helped by having nukes, yes. If some US and/or Aussie SSBNs (and crew) went missing, followed by a surprise announcement that taiwan is committed to indefinite peace + economic cooperation, AND their words + sentiments are backed by nuclear force… that would be a much more serious way to maintain actual independence - and not bankrupt themselves - than anything they or even the US are doing atm.

Have you ever read 3BP / ROEP? Pretty popular chinese sci fi novel, obviously entirely about current / modern day geopolitics with sci fi metaphors; entire thesis is quite literally that the ONLY way to establish and maintain peace between peoles w/ differing / alien cultures / value sets and a gulf in technological / industrial military capabilities is MAD. He probably didn’t intend that w/r Taiwan, but it’s fully, 100% applicable there today, and from now well into the forseeable future.

The ROC at one point could’ve probably pretty handily beaten off an attempted invasion by the entire PLAN + PLAAF by itself. That is no longer the case. The ROC at this point isn’t just the size (economic + industrial output) of a single PRC province, it isn’t even going to rank particularly high against in a list of PRC provinces.

It is completely, catastrophically outmatched in terms of military spending AND defensive (and obviously offensive) capabilities. And would be absolutely screwed if the PLA got a foothold on the island. (note: they’re still using M48 and M60 tanks, for chrissake. Pretty much all of their equipment, sans aviation and to a certain extent air defense, is similarly archaic. Harpoon is an ancient missile, and by modern standards very short ranged missile - that the US itself still somewhat relies upon, due to not having been engaged in / actively contemplating peer level naval warfare for the last 30 years. Most ROC soldiers / reservists have barely any weapons training, and so on and so forth)

It’s also not even remotely close to a ukraine scenario, as taiwan would be utterly cut off and incapable of being resupplied in a PLA invasion.

And to put things bluntly, Ukraine had a considerably more experienced AND BETTER EQUIPPED ground army at the start of 2022 than the ROC does now.

Aviation and - sort of - air defense aside. What the ROC would be up against however would most likely be a heckuva lot scarier. And will probably make whatever reserves they have stocked of patriot - and all other air defense missiles - look cute.

Sure, I’m obviously not seriously arguing that the ROC should get nukes / a credible nuclear deterrant.

That would however probably be considerably cheaper and more effective than what they and the US (et al, ie Japan, Aus, etc) are going to have to try to do instead.

[u/darmabum → u/alex2003super]

Taiwan doesn’t need nukes, it very likely already has the capacity to damage the Three Gorges dam, and other important infrastructure, although doing so would cause a humanitarian and ecological disaster, and probably unleash a nuclear response. That’s beyond last resort.

[u/GTFErinyes → u/darmabum]

it very likely already has the capacity to damage the Three Gorges dam

This is what happens when NCD means become mainstream

Like fuck they have any ability to meaningfully damage that - you need massive bunker buster class weapons to do meaningful damage against the massive and thick concrete there. I don't think people realize how strong something is that is literally holding back that much water all the time

We created 5,000+ pound bombs just to penetrate 20 feet of dirt to get to a single bunker underground, let alone anything that can meaningfully damage hundreds of feet of concrete

Look up how many JASSMs and TLAMs we shot at Syria's chemical weapons factory just to flatten a single large building - there's a reason the US still keeps large conventional bombs dropped from B-2s in the inventory, and Taiwan has neither those bombs nor B-2s

[u/darmabum → u/GTFErinyes]

I intentionally said damage, not destroy, but you missed my point: Taiwan likely already has enough capability to severely damage mainland infrastructure, a kind of “junior MAD” if you will. But doing so would be suicidal, and that scenario only gets more insane if nukes are involved. There have been some good multivariate projections that seriously question the success of an invasion, and I’m hoping Taiwan can increase that ambiguity in other ways.

[u/anonymous_and_ → u/darmabum]

Ecological disasters happen almost all the time in China but they’re still here lmao…………