Cross-Post: Newsletters/sections are primarily categorized by region, and posts can only appear in one section/newsletter at a time. Posts may, however, be relevant to more than one region/section/newsletter.
In a recent post focusing on Iran—which is part of the Defending Iran Project, which features posts that are relevant to readers interested in the themes of how China may attack Taiwan and how Taiwan may defend against Chinese attacks—I borrow the concept of (submarine) indiscretion rates to examine how Iran can enhance the survivability of its ballistic missile arsenal going forward. Israel and, more recently, the United States, have demonstrated their considerable capacity to locate, track, and target Iran’s mobile ballistic missile launchers once these leave the safety of Iran’s underground missile bases.
While Taiwan’s circumstances are quite different than those of Iran in multiple respects, there are important lessons here for Taiwan, not least on account of how the Taiwan Strait is, at its narrowest points, just 130-180 kilometers wide, and on account of how Taiwan’s western coastal plane tends to have a depth of just 25-35 kilometers. As I have explained in a series of previous posts, China can, among many other approaches, employ fixed-wing uncrewed aircraft as motherships for uncrewed "FPV” multirotor drones to attack targets in Taiwan’s western coastal plain, including the likes of highly conspicuous M142 HIMARS launchers and the trailer-type anti-ship cruise missile and land-attack cruise missile launchers that Taiwan is ever-increasingly reliant on to deter Chinese attacks and, failing that, to retaliate in time of war.
As indicated earlier, Taiwan’s situation is quite different than that of Iran. In important ways, however, Taiwan’s challenges in this area are actually far greater than those of Iran, because China is far closer to Taiwan than Israel and the United States are to Iran, even with access to Gulf Arab airspace and even Gulf Arab airbases. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is, in important respects, increasingly capable in this area, including in terms of how it may turn to ballistic missiles and similar. This notably includes the 300 mm/370 mm guided artillery rockets used with the PLA Ground Force’s (PLAGF) PHL-16 launchers, or the 750 mm ballistic missiles used with said launchers, to target Taiwanese M142 HIMARS launchers, cruise missile launchers, and similar once detected by the PLA’s expansive multi-phenomenology intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) architecture, which may well be complemented by the extensive employment of low-cost fixed-wing uncrewed ISR aircraft over Tiawan’s western coastal plain in times of war. Given the above, the construct of indiscretion rates for mobile missile launchers is as relevant to Taiwan as it evidently is for Iran, and Taiwan would do well to examine the Iranian experience, as well as how Iran may improve upon its observed performance in this area.