Russia's Limited Capacity To Retaliate Via Proxy Serves As Cautionary Tale For China In A Cross-Strait Conflict
🇨🇳 🇺🇸 Analytical Extensions
Analytical extensions-themed posts expand on material that has appeared in another newsletter/section and other parts of this website more generally.
In a recent post, I briefly discussed Russia’s limited ability to engage in a proxy conflict against the United States and European countries in response to and in retaliation for their military support for Ukraine. As I explained in said post, Russia is not, however, without options, given reports of Russian technical support and material assistance to North Korea in the interrelated areas of (nuclear-armed) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology and nuclear-powered submarine technology. While such reported Russian technical support and material assistance to North Korea may not result in the injury or death of any American citizens, including American military personnel, it does inflict very grave long-term negative military effects on the United States.
China will have to deter foreign military intervention in a major conflict over the political fate of Taiwan. While observers of Chinese military affairs are familiar with the notion of Chinese “counter-intervention capabilities,” raising the projected cost of military intervention by the United States and, to a lesser degree, Japan, on the side of Taiwan is a quite narrow conception of what deterring military intervention in a major conflict over the political fate of Taiwan is likely to entail. Simply stated, China will likely require a deep and diverse policy toolbox—not simply military capabilities of one sort or another—to deter foreign intervention on the part of other countries, such as Australia, India, and even South Korea, and, more generally, keep likely neutrals, such as Southeast Asian countries and European countries, in check. Deterring foreign intervention is not only something that China will have to do on the first day of a war, but over the weeks, months, and, quite possibly, years that a major conflict over the political fate of Taiwan may well play out.
How will China go about this? How will it induce as a benign form of neutrality as possible from Southeast Asian countries (excluding the Philippines, which has, in effect, cast its lot with the United States)? How will China deter the likes of Singapore from providing access to American warships and aircraft, including damaged warships that require repair, in wartime? How will China induce a country like Indonesia to sustain trade with China—supply China with critically important natural resources—despite likely American and Australian pressure, and how will China pressure Indonesia such that it actively works to prevent American and Australian aircraft, warships, and munitions from transiting through Indonesian airspace and waters (both territorial and archipelagic)? How will China deter India from intervening in a war on the side of the United States, a dynamic which may or may not entail ground combat operations in the Himalayas? How will China deter India from providing military access, including overflight access, to the United States such that, for example, American military aircraft can readily attack China from a southwestern direction via Myanmar, a likely neutral country that will, in time of war, be in no position to “close” its airspace for the foreseeable future?
While I have some thoughts about the above questions—I have, for example, covered China’s long-range strike capabilities against distant targets in Australia and the South Pacific in several recent posts with such thoughts in mind, I do not have answers to all these complex, if interrelated, questions. I think it is fair to say that Russia’s limited capacity to retaliate via proxy against the United States and European countries serves as a cautionary tale for China in a cross-strait conflict, particularly a protracted cross-strait conflict. While China’s resources, diplomatic weight, economic gravity, and military capabilities are far greater than those of Russia, Beijing will likely be hard-pressed on multiple fronts, military and otherwise, in a cross-strait conflict and certainly does not have enough long-range strike munitions to keep all potential adversaries and erstwhile neutrals at bay with (credible) military threats alone. As a major conflict over the political fate of Taiwan extends into weeks, months, and possibly years, China’s ability to deter foreign intervention and regulate the conduct of neutrals is likely to wane, particularly if China faces major military reversals and if a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan is successful.
Given the above, observers would do well to develop a truly holistic conception of Chinese military capabilities and broaden the analytical aperture far beyond narrow conceptions of the cross-strait military balance and the state of Chinese military capabilities vis-a-vis the United States.