Weekly Monograph

◎Richard D. Fisher, Jr.

From last year to this year, U.S. military and political officials appeared to be torn between warning of a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan within the next decade or so, and conservatism in saying that the Chinese Communist Party and its army, the People's Liberation Army, had not yet fully done Ready for war.

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Such dissonance is predictable in a large democracy, especially as a crisis looms, and the divisions over which warnings or reassurances must be given can also grow, obscuring what really matters : The U.S. could decisively deter China from waging war by urgently revitalizing its tactical nuclear capabilities.

U.S. Could Revive Tactical Nuclear Capabilities to Deter China from Waging War

On March 2, 2023, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Affairs Ely Ratner made a pledge at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington, saying that "(the U.S. ) deterrence is real and powerful,” adding that it is impossible for China to invade Taiwan in the next ten years.

On February 26, William Burns, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), warned and assured at the same time on the CBS political talk program "Face the Nation" Do know, as has been made public, that President Xi has ordered the PLA, the Chinese military leadership, to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027 ... I think our base case is that President Xi with his military cadres Today there are doubts about China's ability to achieve the task of invading Taiwan."

Earlier on January 27, General Michael Minihan, commander of the US Air Mobility Command (Air Mobility Command), leaked to the media an internal memo to his subordinates on February 1, which caused an uproar. "I hope I'm wrong, but my intuition tells me we're going to war in 2025. (Chinese President Xi Jinping) has won the third (General Secretary of the Communist Party of China) in October 2022," he wrote. term and establish a new Central Military Commission (war council). Taiwan's 2024 presidential election will be Xi Jinping's pretext for military aggression. The United States will also be distracted by the 2024 presidential election Attention. Xi’s team, reasons and opportunities all point to 2025.”

On October 5, 2022, US Navy Chief Admiral Michael Gilday made a more urgent warning during a discussion at the Washington think tank "Atlantic Council", saying: " We've seen them deliver on every promise they've made over the last two decades, well before they said they'd deliver...so when we're talking about the 2027 window, there's definitely a The 2022 window, or maybe the 2023 window. I can't rule that out."

Gilday's view is that China may decide to launch military action at any time, which is the most appropriate assessment.

It took two years for the new US ballistic missiles to be deployed in large numbers in Asia

Over the next two to four years, the relative balance of power in Asia will favor China, which means Xi will be under enormous time pressure to consider an early war to conquer Taiwan.

Although the United States has finally started producing new short-, medium-, and medium-to-long-range ballistic missiles, it will have to wait until the period between 2025 and 2027 before deploying them in large numbers in Asia.

At the same time, the PLA may possess between 2,000 and 4,000 ballistic and cruise missiles, and use more than 125 H-6K/J/N bombers, each capable of carrying six cruise missiles, to attack Taiwan Indiscriminate bombing.

Most worryingly, the PLA has for decades been building a "Maritime Militia" of giant ferries, thousands of large river barges, and thousands of fishing boats that can Carrying 100,000 troops, as well as their armored and support units, invaded Taiwan.

The communist army is afraid to launch a surprise attack on Taiwan by carrying large troops by sea and air

moreover, if the PLA were able to capture Taiwan's major airports and air bases, it would deploy a significant portion of its Airbus and Boeing civilian aviation fleet of as many as 3,000 to expedite the delivery of invasion and occupation forces .

China has helped North Korea develop into a nuclear missile state that can divert U.S. military attention through nuclear terrorism or large-scale conventional and nuclear offensives against South Korea and Japan.

China may now provide military aid to fuel Russia's horrific invasion of Ukraine, putting more pressure on the already fatigued Ukrainian defenders and forcing Western countries to divert more military resources, starting in 2022 Since February, Western military aid to Ukraine has exceeded 62 billion US dollars, of which more than 44 billion US dollars came from the United States. As a result, the United States cannot use these military resources to strengthen Taiwan's defense.

By assisting Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, China will further ensure that Moscow does not suffer a bitter defeat, and Russia's navy, air force, and even army may join China's invasion of Taiwan.

Moreover, if China learns an important lesson from Russia's failure to attack Ukraine without sufficient mobilization, it would deploy a massive invasion force of thousands of ferries, barges, and Boeing-Airbus fleets to A large-scale force launched a surprise attack on Taiwan.

the critical question for Washington is whether China's decision to attack Taiwan on an overwhelming scale can be viewed as an opportunity to decisively destroy and thus contain China's existential threat to Taiwan through the emergency production and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons .

The Biden administration’s decision in 2022 to abandon the Trump administration’s development of the Tomahawk cruise missile, which can be loaded with tactical nuclear warheads, was a strategic mistake; such a move would only induce China to launch an early war against Taiwan.

Therefore, the United States should start a contingency plan to rebuild its theater nuclear force, including tactical nuclear artillery shells, tactical nuclear bombs, tactical nuclear warheads mounted on cruise missiles, and new short- to medium- and long-range ballistic missiles.

Foremost among these were low-yield tactical nuclear artillery shells, which the United States deployed in Europe and Asia until the George HW Bush and Clinton administrations decided to decommission them and destroy them.

In 1992, the W48 155mm tactical nuclear shell was decommissioned from the U.S. Army. It is said to have an explosive yield of 0.072 kilotons (kiloton), or 72 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosives, roughly equivalent to the weapons payload of three American Boeing B-52 bombers.

A new type of rocket-propelled tactical nuclear artillery shell can only be used as a defensive weapon, because its range may only be 70 to 100 kilometers, and it cannot attack mainland China.

Low-yield tactical nuclear shells can sink most incoming communist troops

however, the ability to fire about 100 of these low-yield tactical nuclear shells would damage or potentially sink most of the PLA's invasion force arriving on board thousands of ferries and barges, airborne assault operations with only light vehicles , will have no effect.

While the ideal scenario would be for these tactical nuclear shells to be secretly deployed to Taiwan, the United States could also airlift them from Guam or store them secretly in an underwater ammunition depot very close to Taiwan.

Xi Jinping would be less likely to order an invasion of Taiwan if he knew that most of his invading force would be buried at the bottom of the Taiwan Strait.

The expectation that an invading force could face a similar setback could also be decisive in deterring North Korea and Russia.

Today, the United States possesses a small number of perhaps fewer than fifty W76-2 tactical nuclear warheads, a five-kiloton (5,000 tons of TNT) yield tactical nuclear weapon that must be submarine-launched by the Trident Ballistic missile projection, unfortunately, the use of W76-2 may be seen by China as a strategic nuclear attack, giving the PLA an excuse to launch a larger nuclear retaliation against the United States.

Based on its commitment to global security, the United States may have about 500 different types of B-61 tactical nuclear bombs, the power of which can be "reduced" to 0.3 thousand tons or 300 tons of TNT explosives.

However, these tactical nuclear bombs must be delivered by the U.S. Air Force's F-15E or F-16 fourth-generation fighter jets that do not have stealth capabilities, and face the S-400 or Hongqi-9B (HQ-9B) long-range air defense missiles that cover the PLA's invading forces. These fighters may be difficult to escape unscathed.

Therefore, the existing theater nuclear forces of the United States are simply not enough to achieve the effect of deterrence.

The United States must balance a strong theater nuclear force with a larger strategic nuclear deterrence force, because Russia has "suspended" its compliance with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) signed with the United States in 2010. ), China is also developing a nuclear army with 3,000 to 4,000 nuclear warheads.

There is no need to keep warning about China's threat of invasion to make the United States and Taiwan more anxious

The point is that U.S. political and military leaders do not need to constantly warn of a possible terrorist invasion by China, making the U.S. and Taiwan even more anxious.

They could quickly restore America's theater nuclear capabilities while building up its strategic nuclear forces, thereby providing clear and decisive assurances that would more effectively deter Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir Putin from delusional new wars of conquest.

(The author Fei Xueli is a senior researcher at the American think tank "International Evaluation and Strategy Center". Translated by Chen Hongda of the International News Center)