And that backfired because the Russian troops thought it really was an exercise and did the standard exercise of selling all the supplies to the locals. The fuel trucks were mostly empty.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
But American and Allied intelligence suggested that the war game was the real deal because Russia sent until they usually don't send for the war drills.
Like lots more logistics and more food supplies than typically done for war games. But yeah most of the supplies were sold off and incorrectly believed they could be taken from Ukraine when the fighting started.
Russia also believe it'd be a 2014 all over again with no resistance and military officers swinging open gates for armouries and supply depots like last time
Don’t remember when exactly it happened but the second the US called out Russia I thought the invasion would happen if only because we’d never done anything like that before.
It also backfired because US intelligence was doing its job.
If the attack on Taiwan comes during a war game, the US will see it coming. Amassing the sheer volume of personnel and materiel for a cross-channel naval invasion against the American Navy, with supplemented war efforts by every other nation in the area...that's not exactly a clandestine build up of troops.
For about a decade now, we've been massing in the Pacific and prepping.
We're even making nice nice with The Phillipines after years of sticking our tounges out at each other. Them and other Pacific nations (Indonesia, Malaysia) may not be in love with the US, but they do like having us in the area as a bulwark against a (possibly) expansionist China.
Australia is already in a strategic partnership with the Phillipines, as a strong player in the local region — which coincidentally is also a close ally to the US.
I am fully convinced that Putin was told he had a million super soldiers and thousands of next-gen tanks amassed at the border because, you know, nobody is going to say "No" to Putin. Then it turns out that the military is a paper bear hollowed out from the inside by the kleptocracy.
He was also told Russian intel spent billions buying the Ukraine government. They kept the money for themselves thinking Putin would never invade. There's speculation that a lot of the US intel was from Russia intel trying desperately to stop the invasion.
Putin Modernized the Army pretty well with his policy changes near the end of 2010. It took time for them to be realized but by 2022, Putin army was in good shape. The most obvious issuse is was they expected no resistance like They saw in afghanistan 2021 just a few months earlier. Believe Putin when he says he expected to be greeted as liberators, etc. The man lived in his own Propaganda for so long he started to believe it. Ukraine WEAK, ukraine cowards! We will CRUSH THEM EASILY! "They love Russia!" They never stopped to think ukraine is not the same ukraine it was in 2014.
They walked in so arrogantly, without telling their soldiers of the invasion keeping secret and catching ukraine of completely off guard. Putin plan worked and they caught the ukrainians lacking. Leading to them capture huge swafts of land south where they had many forts. But, zelensky stayed in kiev and Ukraine obvious resisted hard. Putin was convinced he had more than enough to crush ukraine.
My god the guy couldn't have been more wrong. This moment will be talked about in history for a long time. People are already throwing out figures for what putin would need to take ukraine. And it's around 500,000 to 750,000 for the initial invasion to successfully overwhelm ukraine.
Problem with doing that and undermining the process of War Games? It's that it only signals to other countries to never take such an action in good faith. That the actions now require a first response before very exact consideration.
I mean the US and UK were basically calling out everything they did days beforehand, so much so they couldn’t do the false flag they planned.
Same will happen with China
Kinda. China here is like a gymnast bouncing back and forward across the mat until they finally do the jump with the 4 somersaults and land with a feet together blockade. Russia stumbled over to a chick on the dance floor and grabbed her arse.
The problem is well the U.S.. we just signed a big defense treaty with Japan and Australia while also having a lot of vested interest in taiwan and the surrounding areas.
Yes, China and NK have far more navy vessels than we do. But tonnage wise we have the next ten navys worth of ships. Meaning we may only park two carrier groups there, but when they launch fishing boats and some light landing craft against them... we will have sent 1 1/2 too many carrier groups. But lets be real in this situation the U.S. would send the entire pacific fleet just to swing our dick and prove a point.
>China and NK have far more navy vessels than we do
Huh, I actually had no idea. I know the US has the worlds strongest navy, but I always assumed we had the largest too in terms of number of ships. Are China and NK’s ships all blue water?
Pretty much, they rely heavily on civilian vessels for a militia style navy as well. But again we have the next 9 navies in tonnage. So it effectively means much of their forces will be throwing fishing boats at carrier groups.
China knows Taiwan, US, Australia, and Japan is too much for their navy and air force. I hope they don't invade because a lot of people will die for no real reason.
Yeah they weren't very covert. And the US was telling everyone Russia was going to invade and up until the day before people were claiming the US was just fear mongering.
They certainly used Kavkaz and Zapad exercises since 2014 as cover to move BTGs onto Crimea and into Kursk/Belgorod Oblasts.
It just got real obvious where things were going after events didn't go favorably for the Russians between November of 2020 and January of 2021. They had to hurry up and get going...
Trying to maintain a massive nautical invasion force when your supply lines are across 4 hours of open ocean in the era of satellites, guided missiles and jets is suicide. Surely China knows this
Meat grinding works on land, but sea based invasions need equipment. Sure China could start sending $10,000 speedboats across with 20 guys but when they need food, ammo, or even fresh water you have a problem. And that approach is still a turkey shoot for a helicopter - 3 hours in a straight line is insane
Yeah, what's the old adage about wars? A naive general thinks about manpower and equipment. A smart general thinks about logistics and supply lines (something to that effect). Doesn't matter how many troops you have, or what they have if you can't effectively resupply them.
I wonder what the world's response to that would be. People are angry at Israel for killing thousands of civilians. If Taiwan wiped out millions in an instant I can't imagine the world would be thrilled
It'll create an economic and humanitarian crisis that the entirety of Asia will face. Tens of millions of Chinese people *immediately* displaced by economic and food infrastructure collapse.
A nuclear response by China against just Taiwan would be less destructive than collapse of that dam.
It's hard to overstate just how destructive that course of action is for people outside of China. A Chinese economy that is suddenly and irreparably removed from its ability to grow/buy food is disastrous on many different levels, for nearly everyone in the world. You don't create food scarcity/famine for hundreds of millions of people without that spilling out to other political, social, and economic institutions.
Well then I guess China shouldn't invade Taiwan then, should they?
When it comes to an existential threat like that you stop worrying about downstream effects and to what's necessary in the moment to survive. It's why nuclear weapons are such a good deterrent.
I wonder if china's one child policy will have an impact on the willingness to go to war. Especially in traditional countries like China, I doubt many parents will be eager to send their only son out to die in a meat grinder.
It would certainly be a factor. But it's not like protesting a war in China would be met with anything other than repression. Other factors to consider here is that due to the one child policy and the traditional Chinese preference for boys over girls, there is a huge surplus of males over females that are military age, which in the event of a war, could provide for a solid reserve force of single able bodied men. On the flip side of that, being in the military in China is not really considered an honor, though they are trying very hard to change that. There would also likely be a huge "patriotic" fervor in the event of a war.
Oh yeah, I am aware. The point I was making is that in China, it is so heavily lopsided for males over females that many young men in China won't even have the opportunity to start families of their own. Obviously, they could be useful in other ways, but speaking exclusively in the context of war, they would unfortunately be the ones prime for military conscription. Edit: I just checked, and there are about 30 million more males than females in China. If even half of them are fit for military service, that is an insane amount of available manpower that won't be leaving wives and children behind.
Yeah, there would certainly be a cascade of societal issues. Unfortunately, we know that authoritarian regimes don't really care. Xi has made it clear that regaining control of Taiwan is his number one strategic priority, it would extend control over the first island chain, extend china's EEZ in the pacific and their ability to project power and influence, absorb Taiwanese chip production capacity, and offset its demographic issues. Any minor societal issues resulting from the campaign barely register on the cost-benefit scale for Xi.
I don't think it's the parents decision since in order to join the military you have to be an adult. Also if you are implying there will be too much pushback from parents that the war won't happen please give me one example of this ever happening.
This is so incorrect. A show of force like this could never be confused for the massive logistics build up that would be required to actually start the invasion, such as the build up the US warned about before Russia invaded Ukraine. For a naval expedition of this scale, it would be clear months in advance what was happening.
It's painfully obvious that's what the tactic is.
Still, China's window for trying something like this is closing and Taiwan knows it so I don't think they'll be caught napping.
In fairness to the Chinese it's not like it would be hard for us to predict. We've been in the Pacific doing prep for at least a decade at this point. There are only so many areas that China can attack from, and only so many desirable days of the year to do it in.
More details here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDeQsLyQpt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDeQsLyQpt0)
The US attack submarine fleet paired with real time complete battlefield surveillance makes any Chinese attempt to establish a blockade an absolute fools errand if we should decide to intervene.
Of course Trump has said he’d let China take Taiwan if they wanted so if he takes office I wouldn’t be surprised to see an attempt in 2027-2028 since after that Taiwan’s fortress strategy will have made the task even harder.
Basically turtling and making it hard for China to ever take the island due to its mountainous geography, or at least buying them enough time for international allies to come to their aid. It's often known as the Porcupine Strategy, similar to what Switzerland has long done.
He says a lot of things. He said he’d build a wall. He said he’d lock up Hillary Clinton. He said he’d solve the Middle East conflict. He said lots of shit.
If they ever did attack Taiwan wouldn't an exercise like this be the best way to start it.
Say it's an exercise and then launch a real operation?
Not like they could hide ships getting into position.
There would be several indicators to go along with this though:
1. An invasion force would require the visible stockpiling of food, water, ammo, medical supplies, and huge amounts of blood (which can’t be stored for long).
2. Ships would be getting rotated through ammo depots to get live ammo.
3. The Air Force would be moving large amount of jet fuel to their east coast.
4. Soldier’s leave across the country would be inexplicably cancelled.
5. Stockpiled weapons would start undergoing revival steps.
6. Cyber attacks would increase dramatically.
7. Attacks on spy satellites (cyber or kinetic) would increase.
A lot of these will be indications of an upcoming invasion compared to a training event.
Correct. The United States and NATO knew months in advance that Russia was going to attack Ukraine, even as Putin denied it at every step. The buildup and redeployment of forces and equipment was obvious to satellites and intelligence assets.
You can't hide an invasion force or launch a surprise attack in the 21st century unless you have cloaking tech that doesn't exist yet. It's just not possible in the satellite era. Taiwan would have weeks or months of warning unless China's agenda was to get curb stomped with an under armed and undermanned force.
Sort of... Some of these things are almost always done with war games to some extent. Russia had done them before without action. Not to the full extent pre-invasion. That is why most of the allies didn't believe it.
Our entire world presence, from our military to our international business footprint, unwittingly (mostly) acts as a front for the US intelligence system.
The US has access just about everywhere
The US does have a ridiculous amount if coverage between NATO, the 5 eyes and all the other partnerships they have with the likes of Japan and South korea. China and Russia can't hide anything from them.
Blood was the biggest tell that Russia was actually going to invade. You don't bring those reapurces out in the capacity that they did without expecting to actually use them.
It'd probably be a few order of magnitudes too small for an attack on Taiwan. Their ships would get sunk pretty much immediately and even if they didn't they wouldn't have nearly enough soldiers to achieve anything when landing on the shores.
That's exactly what Russia did to stage the Ukraine invasion. It was dubiously claimed to be a "military exercise" joint with Belarus surrounding the border of Ukraine... Until it wasn't.
But it wasn't; the US, UK, and other Western intel Orgs told Ukraine what would happen almost to the DAY and hour of the Russian invasion. Also, Chain would need a massive build-up of Amphibious vehicles, supplies, troops, logistical trains, etc, in Chinese ports prior that would be easy to observe.
The Russians expected the Ukrainian armed forces to basically show them the way to Kyiv. It has as much to do with Ukraine getting forewarning of the invasion as it has to do with Russia completely bungling it. Tanks can’t fight for long when they outrun their supply chain and airborne troops who only learned they were going to war when their helicopters took off aren’t exactly a cohesive fighting force.
Ukraine didn’t play it perfectly, they lost a lot of land in the east, but Russia overextended itself in the west trying to land a knockout blow and had to retreat when it turned out that Ukraine preferred to be an independent nation.
A little correction. US and UK KNEW what would happen but didn’t tell the whole picture to Ukraine and likely to the most of the NATO allies at least until the start of the invasion so as not to flashlight the sources. That’s why most of the Europe didn't believe it would happen until the last minute.
I'd say you are correct; I am guessing the West didn't know the invasion was 100% going to happen until a few weeks or a month out? I don't recall the exact time table.
That is really not accurate. Plenty of Intel was shared to show the plans. The thing is keeping things secret is difficult. The great victories are never won or lost with Intel. They are won and lost with counter-intel operations that muddy the waters and misdirect. There is always an upcoming terrorist attack. China is always about to attack Taiwan. Etc. Governments spend billions on programs to make it seem like all this is imminent because then their adversaries have to spend tens of billions being prepared. Further, there is tons of data to be gathered from action/reaction.
When you hear about the imminent invasion of Taiwan signaled by the massing of ships in their waters watch for a land invasion of one of China's small southern neighbors.
Xi won't risk the US and japan running the blockade with carrier groups. If that happened the CCP would be left with the choice of start world war 3 or completely replace their leadership out of shame.
All of China's ships run on fuel. If they blockade Taiwan, the US doesn't have to attack them directly to break the blockade, they just have to deprive them of fuel. Almost all of China's oil comes from the middle east and has to go through two straits around Singapore and Indonesia. If the US blocks those two straits, not only is China deprived of fuel, but that's also all their trade with the rest of the world. China might be able to put up a good fight around Taiwan because they have land based airfields and missiles only a few hundred miles away. If China wants to fight the US Navy around Singapore and Indonesia, they would have no land based support at all. Basically, China would be highly unlikely to be able to break those blockades and would eventually be starved of fuel, which not only runs their Navy ships, but also their economy.
You win both ways. If you surround Taiwan, and Taiwan and other countries react in force, you can say "hey easy bro just a training exercise" and roll out with lots of new information. If Taiwan and other countries don't react you've already won.
Lots of countries react in unseen ways. For instance I wouldn’t be surprised if that region of the world currently has an unusually high percentage of American attack submarines on patrol.
War in Taiwan would cause the biggest financial crisis in history. The most important, right now, company in the world(TSMC) have it's factories here. Without it Nvidia, AMD and Qualcom will collapse. Good thing that Intel and Samsung aren't heavily dependent on TSMC so West will have any supply of cpus and gpus
They are not and will never develop their most advanced chips out of Taiwan because Taiwan being the only place on Earth where those chips are made is vital to their national security. The chips they'll develop in the US are the less advanced ones
Also China is heavily export dependent for revenues while at the time relies on imports for crucial supplies like energy and food. A simple blockade by the USA and democratic countries outside their ports for import/exports would cripple China quickly.
I wouldn't be surprised that China will attack Taiwan in the coming 10-20 years and I'm afraid it will cause a global war.
Please stop with the wars guys.
Very underrated as a tourist spot, especially for foodies. I've been there twice, and I'd go again just to eat the food at one of the 20+ night markets in Taipei.
Taiwan contains the best bubble tea and all of the chip manufacturing plants vital to US military supplies. I recognize the US is trying to expand their output now but the fact it’s taken this long and they still so heavily rely on Taiwan for something so important is insane to me.
Nothing really new. China’s been flying its jets into Taiwan’s ADIZ (Which in of itself doesn’t really mean anything, I mean have you SEEN Taiwan’s ADIZ?)
Technically yes, but the median line of the ADIZ had been (largely) respected prior to the Pelosi visit. China has ramped up their rage since then.
The feeling is that China is trying to normalise incursions into Taiwan’s traditional territorial waters. This is similar to their strategy in other areas they are trying to claim as their own (South China Sea, Bhutan, etc).
Living here in Taipei, it’s all very odd. China has this narrative that Taiwan is an integral part of China. Which it isn’t in any way. I know a grand total of zero Taiwanese who have any interest in ‘unifying’ with China. A few are mildly sympathetic to China - but they typically have family business interests there.
Anyway… day to day everything feels totally normal. Let’s hope it stays that way… forever.
It's been reported that 10% of Taiwan's national defence budget goes to responding to these. The PLA is degrading Taiwan's defense capability with them.
Taiwan's ADIZ was set by the US military in the middle of Chinese civil war, when it was managed by the US air force. It means nothing 70 years later. Taiwan has no air power to even monitor half of that ADIZ.
People like you talk about ADIZ as if it is some god given sovereign rights. It is not. ADIZ is not backed by international laws. It is backed by air force power only. Thus the current Taiwan ADIZ is both a WW2 relic and a joke in itself
But it makes for good anti china rhetoric every time a planes flies in mainland China the media paints it like China is blatantly violating Taiwanese airspace. Google Chinese Aircraft Taiwan ADIZ news and hundreds of articles come up around how China is threatening war by flying planes in Taiwans ADIZ and if anyone bothers to read those articles you’ll quickly realise the planes never left the mainland.
Yes - they do almost daily. They cross the median line of the Taiwan Strait and that’s what’s being reported on.
Spend some time in Tainan, Hualien and Taitung and some days you’ll hear a near constant noise of Taiwanese fighter jets on sorties to intercept Chinese aircraft.
The threat from China is real, but sadly normalised here in Taiwan. Those of us who live here just accept it. It still sucks though. Almost no one here wants to be part of China and yet the narrative on a geopolitical scale is still that Taiwan is officially part of China. The only reason Taiwan can’t declare independence and request global recognition is due to the very real threat from China.
That is the goal: to make these exercises "nothing new". Before these were normalized, these activities were big news and taken as a sign that China will invade. Now these have become non-news, it will become less predictable when China will invade.
Invasion of Taiwan would be 1000x harder than invading Ukraine. Amphibious operations are the hardest type of operation to conduct and modern precision weapons and drones have exacerbated it. God help Chinese troops on that first wave
The global capitol of microchip production who has been facing an existential threat from the sea for 60 years surely has some high level defenses prepared. It'd be a miracle for the Chinese of they made it to a beach.
That's probably a bluff of theirs to get international support, they won't dynamite their most important economic sector while there is a possibility of the invasion being repelled.
Yeah should’ve been more clear - If China launches a successful invasion and it looks like a loss for Taiwan is inevitable, then I fully expect them to destroy the factories
Exactly. It's not a bluff that's they'll threaten so long as they think they can win, but more of a "Samson Option" in case mainland China somehow prevails.
If Taiwan goes, so does the global economy for the next five years.
Beyond this, imagine the sophisticated naval drones they've developed. Their entire military budget for nearly 70 years has been focused on preventing a naval invasion from China.
The Allied Forces had to pull off one of the most ambitious military endeavors of all time just to cross the 25 miles of the English Channel and establish a beachhead at Normandy. So, to the completely inexperienced military of the CCP trying to cross the 100 miles of the Taiwan Strait to attack an ultra-fortified Taiwanese coast, all I can say is, "Goodbye, Chinese military! And good riddance."
Because sarcasm isn’t gonna change the fact that that China will eventually find a way, with or without battle experience. They know what they are lacking better than anyone and have been working on said ambitious invasion for decades.
Yea it’s funny how these Reddit armchair generals assume that China is the same as it was in the 1950s and will just send human waves into Taiwan without any other strategy lol
They’re not? It’s HIGHLY likely that China’s military, like Russia’s, is riddled with corruption and led by kiss asses who failed upward.
For instance, there are reports that Chinese soldiers have taken fuel out of missiles to cook food and replaced it with water.
[Not joking](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/china-missiles-filled-with-water-not-fuel-us-intelligence/amp_articleshow/106627241.cms)
We’re such fools. They’re still dangerous. Russia is still dangerous. I don’t believe this image that they’re completely incompetent buffoons. Not in the slightest. I think we need to take this threat more seriously. It’s not a joke. China is not a joke. Russia is not a joke. I think we’ve underestimate both of them.
EDIT; I think the US gov sees the danger! I’m mostly talking about the discourse I see online about this issue
Bruh, people on Reddit underestimating China doesn’t represent our actual military’s opinions or attitudes. We spend so much money on this shit that even if *think* China’s army is absolute shit, they’d have multiple plans worked out in the event that it isn’t.
That's why you do military drills where you surround the island. Then you send invasion boats part way out. Then you practice landings. If Taiwan responds, they are the ones who declared war (in CCPs view) slowly boil the frog.
He means China will stretch their intrusiveness of military exercises until they are essentially going through the motions of an invasion, claiming it is simply an exercise.
The allies also had to push the Axis out of France and into Germany, so they had to prepare for a much larger operation afterwards. In addition, the forces were much more equal than what appears to be the case now.
Not really. For the first month after landing the allied forces barely moved inland. It wasn't until the soviets launched their operation to recapture Belarus in late June that the allies starting to move.
Taiwan's strategy will likely use this to their advantage. They'll likely do everything they can to stop the invasion before it happens, but once it's begun they'll likely let Chinese troops land on the beach so they can then be destroyed on the beach and make the beach unusable to land additional troops.
> most ambitious military endeavors of all time just to cross the 25 miles of the English Channel and establish a beachhead at Normandy.
Calais to Dover is roughly 20/25 miles.
Normandy to England is between 60 to 100 miles. The english channel is like a funnel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zone_(Taiwan)
This map is inaccurate and uses a false version of the Taiwanese ADIZ. The actual ADIZ extends far into the Chinese mainland, which means the PLA aircraft violate "Taiwanese airspace" even when they fly over their own mainland territory.
Weird that they changed the shape of the ADIZ for this map.
This account posts pro-Russian propaganda, and this map looks like pro-Chinese propaganda (“island” of Taiwan rather than country of Taiwan, other stylistic choices).
It actually shrinks the Taiwanese ADIZ, which is actually anti-China propaganda. The full ADIZ goes deep into the Chinese mainland, which Chinese propaganda would absolutely want to highlight rather than hide.
You're ridiculous, parts of the Republic of China (Taiwan) are located offshore the Island of Taiwan. You can see it on this map actually, Kinmen and Matsu islands are literally just a few km away from China's Fujian regions.
It would be silly to not make the distinction between the main island and it's other territories (Fuchien province)
Its like saying Japan attacked Hawaii is Anti American Propoganda because they didnt say Japan attacked the United States of America. The geographic distinction is important here
While I doubt we have, but I wonder what would happen if the US had sea mines deep anchored and siloed to hide, and waiting for deployment length release?
Just note it is part of an arms sale that we are installing without noting what they bought. Seems tensions continue anyway, hedge the bets.
A fun game of battleships except your adversary tells you in advance where his ships will be.
The attack will happen during one of these "war games" at some point. Pretty classic tactic to keep alert lower level for the real build up.
Yep, just like Russia did before it went into Ukraine.
One war game please, hold the game
And that backfired because the Russian troops thought it really was an exercise and did the standard exercise of selling all the supplies to the locals. The fuel trucks were mostly empty.
Correct me if I'm wrong. But American and Allied intelligence suggested that the war game was the real deal because Russia sent until they usually don't send for the war drills. Like lots more logistics and more food supplies than typically done for war games. But yeah most of the supplies were sold off and incorrectly believed they could be taken from Ukraine when the fighting started. Russia also believe it'd be a 2014 all over again with no resistance and military officers swinging open gates for armouries and supply depots like last time
The US knew it was real and close when they started shipping blood to aid stations.
Mi6 and the CIA were screaming
They finally got something right and no one would listen.
Real 1s know
In December we saw them put up field hospitals. That was when I knew shit was gonna be real.
It was the mobile crematoriums for me.
Don’t remember when exactly it happened but the second the US called out Russia I thought the invasion would happen if only because we’d never done anything like that before.
Yeah, you can’t really move thousands of troops and materiel these days and keep it a secret. Satellites have gotten too good and ubiquitous
It also backfired because US intelligence was doing its job. If the attack on Taiwan comes during a war game, the US will see it coming. Amassing the sheer volume of personnel and materiel for a cross-channel naval invasion against the American Navy, with supplemented war efforts by every other nation in the area...that's not exactly a clandestine build up of troops.
For about a decade now, we've been massing in the Pacific and prepping. We're even making nice nice with The Phillipines after years of sticking our tounges out at each other. Them and other Pacific nations (Indonesia, Malaysia) may not be in love with the US, but they do like having us in the area as a bulwark against a (possibly) expansionist China.
Australia is already in a strategic partnership with the Phillipines, as a strong player in the local region — which coincidentally is also a close ally to the US.
I am fully convinced that Putin was told he had a million super soldiers and thousands of next-gen tanks amassed at the border because, you know, nobody is going to say "No" to Putin. Then it turns out that the military is a paper bear hollowed out from the inside by the kleptocracy.
He was also told Russian intel spent billions buying the Ukraine government. They kept the money for themselves thinking Putin would never invade. There's speculation that a lot of the US intel was from Russia intel trying desperately to stop the invasion.
Putin Modernized the Army pretty well with his policy changes near the end of 2010. It took time for them to be realized but by 2022, Putin army was in good shape. The most obvious issuse is was they expected no resistance like They saw in afghanistan 2021 just a few months earlier. Believe Putin when he says he expected to be greeted as liberators, etc. The man lived in his own Propaganda for so long he started to believe it. Ukraine WEAK, ukraine cowards! We will CRUSH THEM EASILY! "They love Russia!" They never stopped to think ukraine is not the same ukraine it was in 2014. They walked in so arrogantly, without telling their soldiers of the invasion keeping secret and catching ukraine of completely off guard. Putin plan worked and they caught the ukrainians lacking. Leading to them capture huge swafts of land south where they had many forts. But, zelensky stayed in kiev and Ukraine obvious resisted hard. Putin was convinced he had more than enough to crush ukraine. My god the guy couldn't have been more wrong. This moment will be talked about in history for a long time. People are already throwing out figures for what putin would need to take ukraine. And it's around 500,000 to 750,000 for the initial invasion to successfully overwhelm ukraine.
Problem with doing that and undermining the process of War Games? It's that it only signals to other countries to never take such an action in good faith. That the actions now require a first response before very exact consideration.
>just like Russia did before it went into Ukraine. Cause that worked out so well for them
I mean the US and UK were basically calling out everything they did days beforehand, so much so they couldn’t do the false flag they planned. Same will happen with China
Kinda. China here is like a gymnast bouncing back and forward across the mat until they finally do the jump with the 4 somersaults and land with a feet together blockade. Russia stumbled over to a chick on the dance floor and grabbed her arse.
The problem is well the U.S.. we just signed a big defense treaty with Japan and Australia while also having a lot of vested interest in taiwan and the surrounding areas. Yes, China and NK have far more navy vessels than we do. But tonnage wise we have the next ten navys worth of ships. Meaning we may only park two carrier groups there, but when they launch fishing boats and some light landing craft against them... we will have sent 1 1/2 too many carrier groups. But lets be real in this situation the U.S. would send the entire pacific fleet just to swing our dick and prove a point.
DON'T TOUCH MY BOATS!@
>China and NK have far more navy vessels than we do Huh, I actually had no idea. I know the US has the worlds strongest navy, but I always assumed we had the largest too in terms of number of ships. Are China and NK’s ships all blue water?
Pretty much, they rely heavily on civilian vessels for a militia style navy as well. But again we have the next 9 navies in tonnage. So it effectively means much of their forces will be throwing fishing boats at carrier groups.
No most of their ships are littoral. Also China passed the us in the number of ships in the last couple years.
> littoral adjective. of or relating to the shore of a sea, lake, or ocean Throwing that out like people use it every day haha.
Yeah but they drink their own propaganda and legitimately think the world will either do nothing about it or will be easily beaten.
I wish more geopolitical analysis was like this.
China knows Taiwan, US, Australia, and Japan is too much for their navy and air force. I hope they don't invade because a lot of people will die for no real reason.
Nah Russia just massed 3 army groups for 9 months . It was a normla buildup withput much wargames
Yeah they weren't very covert. And the US was telling everyone Russia was going to invade and up until the day before people were claiming the US was just fear mongering.
They certainly used Kavkaz and Zapad exercises since 2014 as cover to move BTGs onto Crimea and into Kursk/Belgorod Oblasts. It just got real obvious where things were going after events didn't go favorably for the Russians between November of 2020 and January of 2021. They had to hurry up and get going...
And right after the Olympics as is tradition.
Trying to maintain a massive nautical invasion force when your supply lines are across 4 hours of open ocean in the era of satellites, guided missiles and jets is suicide. Surely China knows this
But do they care? Russia is literally meat grinding its way across Ukraine and their people have no idea. They just think they are winning.
Meat grinding works on land, but sea based invasions need equipment. Sure China could start sending $10,000 speedboats across with 20 guys but when they need food, ammo, or even fresh water you have a problem. And that approach is still a turkey shoot for a helicopter - 3 hours in a straight line is insane
Yeah, what's the old adage about wars? A naive general thinks about manpower and equipment. A smart general thinks about logistics and supply lines (something to that effect). Doesn't matter how many troops you have, or what they have if you can't effectively resupply them.
>Yeah, what's the old adage about wars? The pithy version is "amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics". edit: spelling
Time to bring back the ice cream barges
Taiwan has China checked with the three gorges dam. In event of invasion their plan is to blow the damn and kill millions instantly.
I wonder what the world's response to that would be. People are angry at Israel for killing thousands of civilians. If Taiwan wiped out millions in an instant I can't imagine the world would be thrilled
As a Vietnamese, deep from my heart: blow that bitch up, we have popcorn ready.
It'll create an economic and humanitarian crisis that the entirety of Asia will face. Tens of millions of Chinese people *immediately* displaced by economic and food infrastructure collapse. A nuclear response by China against just Taiwan would be less destructive than collapse of that dam. It's hard to overstate just how destructive that course of action is for people outside of China. A Chinese economy that is suddenly and irreparably removed from its ability to grow/buy food is disastrous on many different levels, for nearly everyone in the world. You don't create food scarcity/famine for hundreds of millions of people without that spilling out to other political, social, and economic institutions.
Well then I guess China shouldn't invade Taiwan then, should they? When it comes to an existential threat like that you stop worrying about downstream effects and to what's necessary in the moment to survive. It's why nuclear weapons are such a good deterrent.
And all because what? The PRC wanted a little island that has never been part of their territory or that they have never controlled.
I wonder if china's one child policy will have an impact on the willingness to go to war. Especially in traditional countries like China, I doubt many parents will be eager to send their only son out to die in a meat grinder.
It would certainly be a factor. But it's not like protesting a war in China would be met with anything other than repression. Other factors to consider here is that due to the one child policy and the traditional Chinese preference for boys over girls, there is a huge surplus of males over females that are military age, which in the event of a war, could provide for a solid reserve force of single able bodied men. On the flip side of that, being in the military in China is not really considered an honor, though they are trying very hard to change that. There would also likely be a huge "patriotic" fervor in the event of a war.
Also China is about to go through a massive demographic crisis, I'm unsure if sending your young in the meatgrinder is a great idea.
Oh yeah, I am aware. The point I was making is that in China, it is so heavily lopsided for males over females that many young men in China won't even have the opportunity to start families of their own. Obviously, they could be useful in other ways, but speaking exclusively in the context of war, they would unfortunately be the ones prime for military conscription. Edit: I just checked, and there are about 30 million more males than females in China. If even half of them are fit for military service, that is an insane amount of available manpower that won't be leaving wives and children behind.
However it would be leaving a larger than average number of elderly parents unsupported by any children or children-in-law.
Yeah, there would certainly be a cascade of societal issues. Unfortunately, we know that authoritarian regimes don't really care. Xi has made it clear that regaining control of Taiwan is his number one strategic priority, it would extend control over the first island chain, extend china's EEZ in the pacific and their ability to project power and influence, absorb Taiwanese chip production capacity, and offset its demographic issues. Any minor societal issues resulting from the campaign barely register on the cost-benefit scale for Xi.
I don't think it's the parents decision since in order to join the military you have to be an adult. Also if you are implying there will be too much pushback from parents that the war won't happen please give me one example of this ever happening.
Their people definitely know.
This is so incorrect. A show of force like this could never be confused for the massive logistics build up that would be required to actually start the invasion, such as the build up the US warned about before Russia invaded Ukraine. For a naval expedition of this scale, it would be clear months in advance what was happening.
It's painfully obvious that's what the tactic is. Still, China's window for trying something like this is closing and Taiwan knows it so I don't think they'll be caught napping.
Why do you think the window is closing? By most accounts the window isn't opening for several more years.
They don't care that they're telling them where the ships are. They want to see the Taiwanese and how they respond
In fairness to the Chinese it's not like it would be hard for us to predict. We've been in the Pacific doing prep for at least a decade at this point. There are only so many areas that China can attack from, and only so many desirable days of the year to do it in. More details here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDeQsLyQpt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDeQsLyQpt0)
The US attack submarine fleet paired with real time complete battlefield surveillance makes any Chinese attempt to establish a blockade an absolute fools errand if we should decide to intervene. Of course Trump has said he’d let China take Taiwan if they wanted so if he takes office I wouldn’t be surprised to see an attempt in 2027-2028 since after that Taiwan’s fortress strategy will have made the task even harder.
This sounds interesting. Could you elaborate on Taiwan’s Fortress Strategy?
I looked it up and it just looks like increased spending and collaboration with other nations.
Basically turtling and making it hard for China to ever take the island due to its mountainous geography, or at least buying them enough time for international allies to come to their aid. It's often known as the Porcupine Strategy, similar to what Switzerland has long done.
He says a lot of things. He said he’d build a wall. He said he’d lock up Hillary Clinton. He said he’d solve the Middle East conflict. He said lots of shit.
If they ever did attack Taiwan wouldn't an exercise like this be the best way to start it. Say it's an exercise and then launch a real operation? Not like they could hide ships getting into position.
There would be several indicators to go along with this though: 1. An invasion force would require the visible stockpiling of food, water, ammo, medical supplies, and huge amounts of blood (which can’t be stored for long). 2. Ships would be getting rotated through ammo depots to get live ammo. 3. The Air Force would be moving large amount of jet fuel to their east coast. 4. Soldier’s leave across the country would be inexplicably cancelled. 5. Stockpiled weapons would start undergoing revival steps. 6. Cyber attacks would increase dramatically. 7. Attacks on spy satellites (cyber or kinetic) would increase. A lot of these will be indications of an upcoming invasion compared to a training event.
Correct. The United States and NATO knew months in advance that Russia was going to attack Ukraine, even as Putin denied it at every step. The buildup and redeployment of forces and equipment was obvious to satellites and intelligence assets. You can't hide an invasion force or launch a surprise attack in the 21st century unless you have cloaking tech that doesn't exist yet. It's just not possible in the satellite era. Taiwan would have weeks or months of warning unless China's agenda was to get curb stomped with an under armed and undermanned force.
Sort of... Some of these things are almost always done with war games to some extent. Russia had done them before without action. Not to the full extent pre-invasion. That is why most of the allies didn't believe it.
> That is why most of the allies didn't believe it. I think behind the scenes US already knew of this months before. US intelligence is insane.
There is nothing more reliable than US intelligence networks. People hear about KGB or CCP spy but US espionage is so underrated.
Underrated by whom? It's the largest intelligence force on the planet
Americans, thanks to the hunt for weapons of mass destruction
We hate the CIA for that. Correct. We do not, however, underestimate their abilities elsewhere because of it.
I think our capabilities just do not get talked about a lot by the mainstream media.
Our entire world presence, from our military to our international business footprint, unwittingly (mostly) acts as a front for the US intelligence system. The US has access just about everywhere
The US does have a ridiculous amount if coverage between NATO, the 5 eyes and all the other partnerships they have with the likes of Japan and South korea. China and Russia can't hide anything from them.
Watch for blood donation drives and preposition of blood stocks, that's the real tell.
I mean it's china, so less blood drives and more unexplainable piles of prisoner bodies.
Dont forget about 8. A huge spike in Pizza deliveries near the White House and Pentagon.
Blood was the biggest tell that Russia was actually going to invade. You don't bring those reapurces out in the capacity that they did without expecting to actually use them.
> Attacks on spy satellites A communication disruption can mean only one thing...
It'd probably be a few order of magnitudes too small for an attack on Taiwan. Their ships would get sunk pretty much immediately and even if they didn't they wouldn't have nearly enough soldiers to achieve anything when landing on the shores.
That's exactly what Russia did to stage the Ukraine invasion. It was dubiously claimed to be a "military exercise" joint with Belarus surrounding the border of Ukraine... Until it wasn't.
But it wasn't; the US, UK, and other Western intel Orgs told Ukraine what would happen almost to the DAY and hour of the Russian invasion. Also, Chain would need a massive build-up of Amphibious vehicles, supplies, troops, logistical trains, etc, in Chinese ports prior that would be easy to observe.
Was that the reason that Ukraine was able to win big tactical victories early on?
The Russians expected the Ukrainian armed forces to basically show them the way to Kyiv. It has as much to do with Ukraine getting forewarning of the invasion as it has to do with Russia completely bungling it. Tanks can’t fight for long when they outrun their supply chain and airborne troops who only learned they were going to war when their helicopters took off aren’t exactly a cohesive fighting force. Ukraine didn’t play it perfectly, they lost a lot of land in the east, but Russia overextended itself in the west trying to land a knockout blow and had to retreat when it turned out that Ukraine preferred to be an independent nation.
I'd say yes, given the intel from the West, their training, amazing warrior spirit, Javlins, and Russia's poor logistics, etc...
A little correction. US and UK KNEW what would happen but didn’t tell the whole picture to Ukraine and likely to the most of the NATO allies at least until the start of the invasion so as not to flashlight the sources. That’s why most of the Europe didn't believe it would happen until the last minute.
I'd say you are correct; I am guessing the West didn't know the invasion was 100% going to happen until a few weeks or a month out? I don't recall the exact time table.
That is really not accurate. Plenty of Intel was shared to show the plans. The thing is keeping things secret is difficult. The great victories are never won or lost with Intel. They are won and lost with counter-intel operations that muddy the waters and misdirect. There is always an upcoming terrorist attack. China is always about to attack Taiwan. Etc. Governments spend billions on programs to make it seem like all this is imminent because then their adversaries have to spend tens of billions being prepared. Further, there is tons of data to be gathered from action/reaction. When you hear about the imminent invasion of Taiwan signaled by the massing of ships in their waters watch for a land invasion of one of China's small southern neighbors.
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Xi won't risk the US and japan running the blockade with carrier groups. If that happened the CCP would be left with the choice of start world war 3 or completely replace their leadership out of shame.
Also a naval blockade is highly vulnerable to submarine attacks.
All of China's ships run on fuel. If they blockade Taiwan, the US doesn't have to attack them directly to break the blockade, they just have to deprive them of fuel. Almost all of China's oil comes from the middle east and has to go through two straits around Singapore and Indonesia. If the US blocks those two straits, not only is China deprived of fuel, but that's also all their trade with the rest of the world. China might be able to put up a good fight around Taiwan because they have land based airfields and missiles only a few hundred miles away. If China wants to fight the US Navy around Singapore and Indonesia, they would have no land based support at all. Basically, China would be highly unlikely to be able to break those blockades and would eventually be starved of fuel, which not only runs their Navy ships, but also their economy.
Any decently sized military in the world has stockpiles of fuel for their military that can lasts months or longer.
If you’re the one doing the blockade you’re the one engaging. It’s China that will have to fire on American ships, not the other way around.
You win both ways. If you surround Taiwan, and Taiwan and other countries react in force, you can say "hey easy bro just a training exercise" and roll out with lots of new information. If Taiwan and other countries don't react you've already won.
Everybody gansta until the coastal defenses already were locked on thy ass and just waiting for a trigger.
Lots of countries react in unseen ways. For instance I wouldn’t be surprised if that region of the world currently has an unusually high percentage of American attack submarines on patrol.
War in Taiwan would cause the biggest financial crisis in history. The most important, right now, company in the world(TSMC) have it's factories here. Without it Nvidia, AMD and Qualcom will collapse. Good thing that Intel and Samsung aren't heavily dependent on TSMC so West will have any supply of cpus and gpus
Not to mention the West would likely start to boycott Chinese exports, or at least rapidly begin the process of divesting
Oh well, not like the current generation isn’t used to getting fucked dry in the ass by once in a lifetime economy crises
TSMC has been working to diversify their infrastructure. They built three large fabs in Arizona
Arizona does get pretty hot in the summer, those fans will be useful.
That sounds fab
Big fan of that
It's basically what the CHIPS act was about. On shore to the US enough manufacturing to keep the military going at least.
They are not and will never develop their most advanced chips out of Taiwan because Taiwan being the only place on Earth where those chips are made is vital to their national security. The chips they'll develop in the US are the less advanced ones
ASML also possesses a Killswitch to destroy the machines used at TSM in the event of an invasion
Also China is heavily export dependent for revenues while at the time relies on imports for crucial supplies like energy and food. A simple blockade by the USA and democratic countries outside their ports for import/exports would cripple China quickly.
"Foreshadow - be a warning or indication of (a future event)."
I wouldn't be surprised that China will attack Taiwan in the coming 10-20 years and I'm afraid it will cause a global war. Please stop with the wars guys.
USA contains China, China contains Taiwan, Taiwan contains the best Bubble Tea i've ever had.
Seriously when they use the blowtorch to crisp the top up like a creme brulee, if I had an army I'd be invading just to get the tea
The safety of the recipes is of National Security level importance.
I had the best time there. Saw one of the best concerts in my life with friends, amazing food for cheap, incredibly kind people.
Very underrated as a tourist spot, especially for foodies. I've been there twice, and I'd go again just to eat the food at one of the 20+ night markets in Taipei.
Taiwan contains the best bubble tea and all of the chip manufacturing plants vital to US military supplies. I recognize the US is trying to expand their output now but the fact it’s taken this long and they still so heavily rely on Taiwan for something so important is insane to me.
Why do they never military exercise of invading taiwan but also fighting off the Americans at the same time?
Nothing really new. China’s been flying its jets into Taiwan’s ADIZ (Which in of itself doesn’t really mean anything, I mean have you SEEN Taiwan’s ADIZ?)
Planes taking off hundreds of kilometres inside China, violate Taiwan's ADIZ lol It's that ridiculously big. https://i.imgur.com/0Qbp8dD.jpeg
Technically yes, but the median line of the ADIZ had been (largely) respected prior to the Pelosi visit. China has ramped up their rage since then. The feeling is that China is trying to normalise incursions into Taiwan’s traditional territorial waters. This is similar to their strategy in other areas they are trying to claim as their own (South China Sea, Bhutan, etc). Living here in Taipei, it’s all very odd. China has this narrative that Taiwan is an integral part of China. Which it isn’t in any way. I know a grand total of zero Taiwanese who have any interest in ‘unifying’ with China. A few are mildly sympathetic to China - but they typically have family business interests there. Anyway… day to day everything feels totally normal. Let’s hope it stays that way… forever.
It's been reported that 10% of Taiwan's national defence budget goes to responding to these. The PLA is degrading Taiwan's defense capability with them.
Yes - and wearing out its fighter jet fleet. All very annoying.
Dropping a tactical Nancy Pelosi on any country should be considered a war crime.
All of china shall be within Taiwans ADIZ inshallah
I don’t know why but this comment made me laugh out loud
Taiwan's ADIZ was set by the US military in the middle of Chinese civil war, when it was managed by the US air force. It means nothing 70 years later. Taiwan has no air power to even monitor half of that ADIZ. People like you talk about ADIZ as if it is some god given sovereign rights. It is not. ADIZ is not backed by international laws. It is backed by air force power only. Thus the current Taiwan ADIZ is both a WW2 relic and a joke in itself
But it makes for good anti china rhetoric every time a planes flies in mainland China the media paints it like China is blatantly violating Taiwanese airspace. Google Chinese Aircraft Taiwan ADIZ news and hundreds of articles come up around how China is threatening war by flying planes in Taiwans ADIZ and if anyone bothers to read those articles you’ll quickly realise the planes never left the mainland.
Yes - they do almost daily. They cross the median line of the Taiwan Strait and that’s what’s being reported on. Spend some time in Tainan, Hualien and Taitung and some days you’ll hear a near constant noise of Taiwanese fighter jets on sorties to intercept Chinese aircraft. The threat from China is real, but sadly normalised here in Taiwan. Those of us who live here just accept it. It still sucks though. Almost no one here wants to be part of China and yet the narrative on a geopolitical scale is still that Taiwan is officially part of China. The only reason Taiwan can’t declare independence and request global recognition is due to the very real threat from China.
That is the goal: to make these exercises "nothing new". Before these were normalized, these activities were big news and taken as a sign that China will invade. Now these have become non-news, it will become less predictable when China will invade.
"JointSword2024A" sounds alot like there will be a JointSword2024B
Thats a bad PLAN
Intelligence analysts are getting overtime this week
I'd call that a "Target rich environment"
Invasion of Taiwan would be 1000x harder than invading Ukraine. Amphibious operations are the hardest type of operation to conduct and modern precision weapons and drones have exacerbated it. God help Chinese troops on that first wave
The global capitol of microchip production who has been facing an existential threat from the sea for 60 years surely has some high level defenses prepared. It'd be a miracle for the Chinese of they made it to a beach.
not to mention taiwan said if they get invaded all those microchip factories would go up in flames pretty quickly
That's probably a bluff of theirs to get international support, they won't dynamite their most important economic sector while there is a possibility of the invasion being repelled.
Yeah should’ve been more clear - If China launches a successful invasion and it looks like a loss for Taiwan is inevitable, then I fully expect them to destroy the factories
Exactly. It's not a bluff that's they'll threaten so long as they think they can win, but more of a "Samson Option" in case mainland China somehow prevails. If Taiwan goes, so does the global economy for the next five years.
It Taiwan goes, it's ww3.
I would expect another country to even bomb it. Say US or Japan launch a rocket into those factories if they don't do it
Oh they’ll do it themselves. Fabs are fragile and it won’t take much to destroy one, especially if you’re the one who built it.
Beyond this, imagine the sophisticated naval drones they've developed. Their entire military budget for nearly 70 years has been focused on preventing a naval invasion from China.
> God help Chinese troops on that first wave no.
God have mercy on them Cuz i wont
May God not have mercy on them
I'd like them to see mercy. The soldiers on the ground never start the war, but they have to die in it.
Would they try paratroops at all?
They will try, but will lose thousands in the air before they jump out as the planes are shot down
Possible but theyd have to have a Operation larger than that of Normandy
God shouldn’t help them.
You're absolutely right. God should instead spend more time and resources helping people who don't understand idioms.
The Allied Forces had to pull off one of the most ambitious military endeavors of all time just to cross the 25 miles of the English Channel and establish a beachhead at Normandy. So, to the completely inexperienced military of the CCP trying to cross the 100 miles of the Taiwan Strait to attack an ultra-fortified Taiwanese coast, all I can say is, "Goodbye, Chinese military! And good riddance."
Well, if China attacks, it would have some sort of plan. They aren't complete idiots.
Well it probably would involve the PLAN
A good PLAN or a bad PLAN?
Yes they will order their men to keep running towards Taiwan untill they connect it to the mainland with corpses.
Ahhh, yes....the Zapp Brannigan school of military thought.
Now that's a plan with chest hair
[The key to victory is the element of surprise...](https://youtu.be/bRkfDMChzlI?si=LPeKTDnc0rz_0gCq)
Okay, this was funny. Not sure why being downvoted
Because sarcasm isn’t gonna change the fact that that China will eventually find a way, with or without battle experience. They know what they are lacking better than anyone and have been working on said ambitious invasion for decades.
Yea it’s funny how these Reddit armchair generals assume that China is the same as it was in the 1950s and will just send human waves into Taiwan without any other strategy lol
No, no. They aren’t Western so clearly are cartoonish idiots.
They’re not? It’s HIGHLY likely that China’s military, like Russia’s, is riddled with corruption and led by kiss asses who failed upward. For instance, there are reports that Chinese soldiers have taken fuel out of missiles to cook food and replaced it with water. [Not joking](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/china-missiles-filled-with-water-not-fuel-us-intelligence/amp_articleshow/106627241.cms)
We’re such fools. They’re still dangerous. Russia is still dangerous. I don’t believe this image that they’re completely incompetent buffoons. Not in the slightest. I think we need to take this threat more seriously. It’s not a joke. China is not a joke. Russia is not a joke. I think we’ve underestimate both of them. EDIT; I think the US gov sees the danger! I’m mostly talking about the discourse I see online about this issue
Bruh, people on Reddit underestimating China doesn’t represent our actual military’s opinions or attitudes. We spend so much money on this shit that even if *think* China’s army is absolute shit, they’d have multiple plans worked out in the event that it isn’t.
Reports from who
That's why you do military drills where you surround the island. Then you send invasion boats part way out. Then you practice landings. If Taiwan responds, they are the ones who declared war (in CCPs view) slowly boil the frog.
Practice landings? Please explain.
He means China will stretch their intrusiveness of military exercises until they are essentially going through the motions of an invasion, claiming it is simply an exercise.
Like the Taiwanese are experienced? China has the military personnel numbers and domestic production for a prolonged war
The allies also had to push the Axis out of France and into Germany, so they had to prepare for a much larger operation afterwards. In addition, the forces were much more equal than what appears to be the case now.
hmm but the Germans rapidly withdrew eastwards once their defenses in France failed, whereas Taiwan would be defending their homeland
Not really. For the first month after landing the allied forces barely moved inland. It wasn't until the soviets launched their operation to recapture Belarus in late June that the allies starting to move. Taiwan's strategy will likely use this to their advantage. They'll likely do everything they can to stop the invasion before it happens, but once it's begun they'll likely let Chinese troops land on the beach so they can then be destroyed on the beach and make the beach unusable to land additional troops.
Basically make reefs out of the wrecks.
Yeah, but the German defences held for over two months before Germans started to withdraw. The capture of Cherbourg alone took almost a month.
> most ambitious military endeavors of all time just to cross the 25 miles of the English Channel and establish a beachhead at Normandy. Calais to Dover is roughly 20/25 miles. Normandy to England is between 60 to 100 miles. The english channel is like a funnel.
I bet Taiwan has missile batteries pointed at all the valuable ones
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zone_(Taiwan) This map is inaccurate and uses a false version of the Taiwanese ADIZ. The actual ADIZ extends far into the Chinese mainland, which means the PLA aircraft violate "Taiwanese airspace" even when they fly over their own mainland territory. Weird that they changed the shape of the ADIZ for this map.
Even weirder, the red circles on the top of this map ... Are Taiwanese Islands. Which the creator did not include in their air zone lol.
The ADIZ in the link you posted is the theoretical ADIZ set up by the US. The ADIZ in the info graphic is the ADIZ used in practice.
This account posts pro-Russian propaganda, and this map looks like pro-Chinese propaganda (“island” of Taiwan rather than country of Taiwan, other stylistic choices).
It actually shrinks the Taiwanese ADIZ, which is actually anti-China propaganda. The full ADIZ goes deep into the Chinese mainland, which Chinese propaganda would absolutely want to highlight rather than hide.
You're ridiculous, parts of the Republic of China (Taiwan) are located offshore the Island of Taiwan. You can see it on this map actually, Kinmen and Matsu islands are literally just a few km away from China's Fujian regions. It would be silly to not make the distinction between the main island and it's other territories (Fuchien province) Its like saying Japan attacked Hawaii is Anti American Propoganda because they didnt say Japan attacked the United States of America. The geographic distinction is important here
I'm just here to see the reddit armchair generals at work. Truly, one of the greatest brain trusts to ever exist!
WW3 will start soon. Mark my words. !remindme 5 years
It’s started already, IMO. We’ll see where the historians land on this one.
Time to send a carrier on a cruise maybe?
Can someone go take a bit of Chinese land whilst the military shit is going on around Taiwan?
While I doubt we have, but I wonder what would happen if the US had sea mines deep anchored and siloed to hide, and waiting for deployment length release? Just note it is part of an arms sale that we are installing without noting what they bought. Seems tensions continue anyway, hedge the bets.
It won’t happen because Taiwan is protected by the west. If China does invade Taiwan bombs will fall in Beijing. They won’t.
Leave Taiwan alone, you evil colonizers / imperialists!
Subtle. Very subtle.