Great Power contentions

[Montmorency]

Remember when I posted in this thread about Task Force 9 in Syria ordering drone strikes and other acts outside of military protocol and likely international law, killing buttloads of civilians and trying to cover it up? Another of their greatest hits:

The Tabqa Dam was a strategic linchpin and the Islamic State controlled it. The explosions on March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to the ground and everything went dark. Witnesses say one bomb punched down five floors. A fire spread, and crucial equipment failed. The mighty flow of the Euphrates River suddenly had no way through, the reservoir began to rise, and local authorities used loudspeakers to warn people downstream to flee.

The Islamic State, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.”

“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target,” he declared emphatically two days after the blasts.

In fact, members of a top secret U.S. Special Operations unit called Task Force 9 had struck the dam using some of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal, including at least one BLU-109 bunker-buster bomb designed to destroy thick concrete structures, according to two former senior officials. And they had done it despite a military report warning not to bomb the dam, because the damage could cause a flood that might kill tens of thousands of civilians.

These haven't been the only stories I've posted on the Org on the subject of SOF wilding...



Returning to the Taiwan hotspot, here is an essay recommending a "porcupine" strategy for Taiwan's defense, a "distributed, survivable, and affordable defense" comprising a "large number of small things" oriented on area denial. This is pretty much what I advocated earlier, but I was surprised to learn that Taiwan has by and large not adopted this doctrine - the Overall Defense Concept - preferring to deepen its reliance on expensive legacy symmetric weapons platforms (such as Abrams tanks, Paladin SPGs, F16s, long-range cruise missiles, and diesel submarines, contrasted with Harpoon and Stinger missiles, UAVs, and missile boats).

To move to a force posture that emphasizes such distributed defenses, Taiwan’s future budgets should include funding for the acquisition of systems so numerous, distributed, and mobile that they could not all be targeted by Chinese missile strikes, along with the associated training and support needed to enable effective combat operations. These defenses would be able to survive and engage Chinese military ships, aircraft, helicopters, and drones attempting to cross the strait and land on Taiwan. Examples of specific ground-based systems that should be considered include the Phalanx close-in weapon system, the Hellfire missile, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rocket, the Israeli Spike missile, and additional Javelin and Stinger missiles, all of which are low-cost, proven short-range weapons that could be adapted and deployed in large numbers to make Taiwan more difficult to approach by sea or air. Small fast-attack missile boats, additional naval mines and minelaying capabilities, and additional land-based coastal defense cruise missiles could further threaten approaching ships. Drones could provide reconnaissance and targeting information.
[...]
In order to prepare for the evolving capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army, Taiwan should pursue a longer-term development program in addition to near-term plans based on existing systems. Looking to the future, and recognizing Taiwan’s advanced technical capabilities, the large number of small things could include land-based coastal defenses employing advanced technologies against ships, aircraft, and swarms of drones; networks of small, fast, manned and unmanned surface craft and unmanned underwater systems to complicate Chinese naval operations; and drones to increase situational awareness.44 Such systems could be developed and produced in Taiwan with technical assistance from the United States and perhaps other states as well.

Taiwan should continue its legacy programs for conventional systems, but at a level that would free up resources for developing and acquiring distributed, survivable, and affordable defenses. Taiwan’s conventional systems, particularly its F-16s, are important for countering gray-zone provocations that fall below the threshold of armed conflict, have economic and industrial benefits, and enjoy military and political support. However, the opportunity cost of acquiring and operating conventional platforms is high. Taiwan’s leaders should make space in the defense budget to provide for the procurement of affordable short-range defenses and the personnel, training, communications, and situational awareness necessary to operate effectively and contribute to the deterrence of an invasion.
[...]
Nevertheless, the underlying concept of an asymmetric response remains sound: Rather than attempt to match China’s air and sea capabilities, Taiwan should leverage its strengths (especially its geography and technology) and exploit the People’s Liberation Army’s vulnerabilities (especially the need to move large amounts of men and equipment across 100 miles of contested water and airspace). The shorthand for this concept should be “a large number of small things.”

Here is another recent article criticizing Taiwan's military procurement and doctrine as too focused on prestige optics and political dealmaking.

Taiwan can and should do more — a lot more — especially when it comes to preparing to defend the island from attack. Responsibility for why it is not falls squarely on the shoulders of Taiwan’s military bureaucracy. Most notably, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has abandoned asymmetric defense reform in all but name and has not been reined in by President Tsai Ing-wen. Instead, the ministry is now planning to deter an invasion by threatening to retaliate with missile strikes against the Chinese homeland and by pitting Taiwanese units in direct combat against the vastly superior People’s Liberation Army. Moreover, the ministry has the audacity to tell American audiences that this dramatic shift is fully congruent with an asymmetric posture.
[...]
The explanation revolves around habit and institutional inertia. For generations, Taiwan’s military planned to counter an invasion force by meeting and defeating it head-on. The idea was that the island’s small fleet of technologically superior, American-made jets, ships, and tanks could offset the People’s Liberation Army’s numerical advantages. Unfortunately, this approach stopped making sense once China’s military modernization efforts gave it the edge quantitively and qualitatively.
[...]
Senior defense officials are fully aware that the United States still expects Taiwan to pursue asymmetric defense capabilities. But rather than acquiesce to these painful and costly demands, the ministry has instead coopted and repurposed asymmetry’s lexicon so as to rationalize their decidedly symmetric plans.

Take, for example, Taiwan’s decision to spend $5 billion upgrading its fleet of 141 F-16A/B jets. Although it inked a deal in 2011, the upgrades did not start until 2016. Five years later, the first combat wing of upgraded F-16s will stand up this month. The air force even spent another $140 million this year to try to speed the process up so it can hopefully finish the last upgrades in another two years — more than a decade after starting the process. Similarly, in a best-case scenario, Taiwan’s navy will not receive its first submarine until 2024 — but there are indications that the [$16 billion] program is about to be significantly delayed. The last of the M1A2 main battle tanks purchased in 2019 will not reach the island until 2027.

Nor will these shiny new weapons be ready to go into action the moment they arrive. Units will still need to learn how to use and fix them. The services will still have to develop the maintenance capacity to keep them operational. And the Ministry of National Defense will need to stockpile logistics to ensure that these capabilities will have enough ammunition, fuel, and parts to stay in the fight (at least those that survive a first strike). These critical but oft-ignored changes can take years to implement under the best of circumstances. Unfortunately, with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of purchases and platforms already coming down the pipeline, the risk that the Ministry of National Defense might choke on the glut of new toys is real.

In essence, these documents reveal that the Ministry of National Defense hopes to extend the battlefield deep inside of China in a way that justifies the pursuit of expensive long-range strike, air superiority, and sea control capabilities.
[...]
Yet instead of worrying about how to wage a prolonged defense of the island — especially in the all-too-likely event that invasion troops make it past the beaches — the 2021 review says that Taiwan’s military must find ways to achieve air superiority and sea control. Never mind the fact that even the U.S. Navy and Air Force are not sure they can attain these goals against a determined, capable, and proximate Chinese foe. The Ministry of National Defense is, with a straight face, committing itself to the pursuit of achieving air and sea control using fourth-generation aircraft, a few dozen major surface combatants, a handful of indigenously produced diesel submarines, and yes — main battle tanks and self-propelled howitzers.

If Taiwan doesn't go asymmetric shit's gonna look like Azerbaijan vs. Armenia, where Azerbaijan is China.