In a war, the small island of Taiwan would erupt into a battleground with an intensity unknown since the world wars. It is all about the US striving to maintain its hegemonic reach during a period of decline in global influence.

So, apparently the author of this article works for the Pentagon, and was attempting to blow the whistle on US efforts to push towards a war with China. There's a recent Washington Post article about it here.

He also wrote this article shortly before, which is worth a read.

  • triangle [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Your reminder that US carriers are sitting targets for drones and cruise missiles and, to put it bluntly, floating coffins. This has been an acknowledged problem for decades (Radio War Nerd wrote a lot about carrier shortcomings for a while now) and the US has done nothing about it. China has been developing cruise missiles and drones meanwhile the PLAN will probably reach parity with the US pacific fleet by the end of the decade - parity in tonnage and personnel, mind.

    The US navy will be unable to do much of anything in the pacific - not to say that incredible damage can't be inflected on China and surrounding nations in some half-cocked action of a dying empire - they just wouldn't be able to accomplish the mission of blockading Taiwain from the mainland or defeating the PLAN and the US will be in a military situation without air superiority because of it (something they've become unused to). If the US decided to go to war with China, it'd be like Russia losing to Japan in 1905 and could probably shock a bunch of libs out of being spellbound by supposed US invincibility. Maybe even radicalize them, who knows, no 1917 without 1905 really.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

      That said, if the U.S. goes to war with another nuclear superpower all of this could get academic real fast.

      • pooh [she/her, love/loves]
        ·
        3 years ago

        This is pretty damn interesting:

        Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications.

        Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships: one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of Blue's six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

        So, Red wins, and they use this result to adjust their tactics... Right?

        At this point, the exercise was suspended, Blue's ships were "re-floated", and the rules of engagement were changed; this was later justified by General Peter Pace as follows: "You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days' worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?"[1] After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.

        After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. Among other rules imposed by this script, Red Force was ordered to turn on their anti-aircraft radar in order for them to be destroyed, and was not allowed to shoot down any of the aircraft bringing Blue Force troops ashore.[3] Van Riper also claimed that exercise officials denied him the opportunity to use his own tactics and ideas against Blue Force, and that they also ordered Red Force not to use certain weapons systems against Blue Force and even ordered the location of Red Force units to be revealed.[4]

        :warf-wtf:

        • BeamBrain [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          “You kill me in the first day and I sit there for the next 13 days doing nothing, or you put me back to life and you get 13 more days’ worth of experiment out of me. Which is a better way to do it?”

          Dude totally missed a chance to fuck around at work for 2 weeks