Used to do a lot of activities that involved complex wargames and simulations. Couple of decades. Became familiar with the term "mirror imaging". Not always a precise or consistent definition, but projecting our mindset / values / way of thinking on the opponent is close enough. We actually had blue red and red blue teams working the issue...with very mixed results. That was almost totally open source. Late career worked with allegedly "better" information. Results were viewed with low confidence and lack of new or useful information. Corruption in Asia? Who knew? (Everyone, actually...).
Fortunately, in the west we have no such issues! (Just kidding...)
What population number denotes a collapse? China will probably still have about 1 Billion people in 2080. Whoever is leading China is just as likely to move on Taiwan as not if they think their population loss is sufficiently serious. China's birth rate is ~1.3/woman, ours is ~1.6. A stable population requires a birth rate of ~2.1, depending upon other variables. A countries birth rate can change in a generation, though China's efforts to increase the birth rate do not seem to be successful.
Perhaps that is why Biden allows uncontrolled immigration. 🤣
If I was an analyst I would be worried about 12 months out given the replacements that have been announced by Xi lately. But if we do not see lower level shakeup as well then probably goes to your just consolidating power.
The ICBM inspections to me means that he wants to be secure from external threats and is not as concerned about internal threats so this does not look like a power consolidation to me.
Xi is probably waiting to see who is elected in US before making any decisions. Not just election for President but Congress as well.
From China perspective: Trump is madman not to be messed with, unpredictable. Biden is predictable so can be pushed in certain ways. Others unknown. If one party or other gets big majority that can be played as appropriate. Current stalemate in US congress causes inaction that can be exploited and increases chances of military strike from China. China wants a good idea of what US action will be.
Wildcard is what action will actually occur:
Will it be a strike on Taiwan - most likely but current situation can go on for a while so long as Taiwan does not change.
Maybe Siberia - because Russia can't defend effectively while in Ukraine and there is now a great opportunity. This might be why he is interested in Nuclear forces since Russia at this point can only defend with nuclear weapons and he needs real counter to keep it all conventional.
India - Military changes not really needed for a boarder skirmish which is what India would be.
South China Sea - advances there could get out of control quick
But this is just my thoughts and probably something else is really happening
First, I wonder if Vietnam should be on your list. I know the PLA got it's butt kicked in 1979 but I doubt Vietnam (which was just off a 3 decade war) is that martial today. This would give the PLA a chance to practice amphibious operations in a more benign environment. From an outcomes point of view, Vietnam gives China a long reach in the South China Sea both with air bases and ports, eliminates Vietnam as an issue in South China Sea oil and eliminates Vietnam as a reshoring rival for manufacturing. Note that unlike Ukraine, the West would be unable to help Vietnam with military aid. even if it was willing. And both Taiwan and Thailand would become more 'pliable'.
Second, I wonder if the Chinese would use nuclear weapons against Russia if the Russians only used them on the PLA well inside their own territory. Thoughts?
Interesting observation on Vietnam. I am not sure what China thinks on Vietnam but I don't think that the juice from controlling Vietnam would be worth the squeeze. Nothing to be gained unlike the natural resources in Siberia. Taking offshore islands that are in dispute from Vietnam might be a good possibility in my mind.
On nuclear weapons. I think keeping them off the battlefield and avoiding any strategic threats is probably the goal which is why I think the deterrence effect has to be credible and a possible the motive in shaking up the rocket forces. I think any use would resort in a tit for tat arrangement. So yes to your second question, they would in my opinion if for just show and increase the deterrence effect. The targeting questions for each side with todays available formation is an interesting question.
They would not shift the center of gravity (so to speak) to Vietnam from Taiwan. Siberia is another matter altogether and they are more likely to seize it than smash their offensive capabilities against that hollowed out fortress called Taiwan. If the PRC be willing to seize those Siberian oil fields then they have committed to employing TNW in theory. It is PLA doctrine. Consider that even a successful invasion of Taiwan will likely result in such casualties that the families will not be assuaged with no tangible results, only face saved for Xi at the expense of their sons. If you are going to pick a fight , you better win.
Yes. A violation of those rules could result in a decade(+) debacle, financial ruination, loss of confidence in the regime and maybe even a Sino-Spring movement with nouveau Righteous and Harmonious Fists activists rivaling even Libyan rebels. Beware the unkind thrust of the bayonet, Mister Xi.
I think the election in Taiwan will factor more in Xi's calculus than the US election. Whether it's Biden or Trump, Xi has already weighed them and found them wanting.
I am old enough to remember the game we played pretending we knew what the USSR was thinking, what every personnel or equipment move meant. We have far less intelligence with or understanding of the Chinese than we did with the Russians. The only country we have less Humint in or understanding of than the Chinese are the Norks. The Sun Tzu gambit is overrated, his writings are not a Rosetta stone. Sal's recommendation of caution is spot on.
Also agree, which is why we discuss and play the games. Not because of the certainty that they produce but as a forum to discuss assumptions and challenge them.
I think that some of our intel assessments of Soviet military might may have been geared toward convincing Congress that we had to spend more to match the Soviet's superior ships, superior aircraft, superior missiles & rockets, superior submarines, superior tanks and superior satellites. Wrote a position paper on it as E-8 back in 1981, with the premise that the arms race was more the Soviets responding to us than we to them. Got read by fewer than a dozen people in the EW Advanced Applications School, got a few polite nods and no wider dissemination. Except for when a copy turned up in some yahoo's locker about 7 years later on some East Coast ship with the classification struck through and no way to trace the legitimate transfer of it. Kind of a PITA and sucked to have my name on it...still a mystery, but I heard the guy got hammered for it. In the end, the USSR lost the race and their government because they went broke.
I agree that some of the evaluations by the military and the IC were politically based with an eye to get more $$. But, we were so far off base on their economy, the quality of their equipment and their conventional capabilities that it was embarrassing. Remember when Viktor Belenko defected with a MIG-25 to Japan? Ha, the Rooskies were not happy. We discovered that the feared MIG-25 was not the super fighter we had assumed it was.
I did not think the Cold War would end in my lifetime. The fall of the wall and the rapid disintegration of the USSR was a shock- our IC was clueless on those events happening. Even now the only thing that makes Russia a Superpower is the nukes.
Agree, Ron, but now I need to \vent\. Russian feet of clay and us with rocks in our heads. As a child who did duck and cover drills in elementary school in the 1950's and faced the real possibility of my thermonuclear death during the few weeks of Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 I always thought that the Cold War would end with a bang, not a whimper. I remember that time well. My mom, sister and I were just ending our Catechism lessons to convert to Catholicism as that crisis ended. I was shucking being a Baptist because I was unsure of a good billet in the Hereafter with my limited understanding then of Predestination. For me it was a great solace and also a feeling of consternation that I might never get to act on the raging hormones of my 14 year old self. I retired just after we "won" the Cold War and never imagined we'd let our own Bolsheviks take control. The Cold War, it seems, was only a long battle. Now, it looks like we lost that war. Marx and Gramsci are looking up from Hell with smirks as they do a victory twerk. And Russia now? Looks like they have an Army that can sustain land warfare against a peer foe. Can we? The last war that we really won was Grenada. "Depends on what the meaning of 'won' is. It's just half of a descriptor of an item on a Chinese menu", as Bill Clinton might say. \vent\
I also did the Duck & Cover drills. I became a Buddhist back in '72 during my time in Japan, have not looked back since. Here in NC I am surrounded by Baptists.😁
We won the Cold War, but lost the political war against Marxism. The political left in America are Marxists. Pick the flavor, but they are Marxists. Clinton started the move with his example of conditional and fluid mores, then Obama (and Obama v2 w/Biden) opened the floodgates.
Regarding the economy, lots of CIA analysts came straight from academia with their biases and blind spots. They believed communism worked about as well as capitalism, which is ludicrous but widely believed.
Hey boss, you need to slap your editor. Take a look at the cut and paste starting "The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is..." You've got a doubled cut and paste in that starting about half way down.
That said, China is known for providing disinformatzia so yeah... I'm going to take some of this with a grain of salt. The defector helps lead some credence, but... I'm of the "never take intel that looks like you don't have to worry, you have time, as a lie until proven otherwise" school.
It certainly excuses Washington's inertia on readiness for a war west of wake. This comes at a convenient time when the new NDAA cannibalizes IndoPacific readiness to help the fights in Ukraine and the Middle East.
We've seen similar "intel" concerning Russian/Soviet graft and corruption. Most recently, the initial failures of the Russian vehicles in Ukraine were blamed on cheap Chinese copies of Russian tires; that was what, it claimed, was causing the Russian advances to stall and fail.
I'm perfectly willing to believe this about Chinese equipment and maintenance - but our own people and things are affected by the same graft and corruption. Who is "Fat Leonard"'s equivalent in China?
The word "PLARF" is new to me. Had I first heard it elsewhere it'd have seemed to me like some emunctory function sound as if it had an oral or rectal origination owing to a bad oyster. *shiver*
I understand the US is having to build finally replacements for its Missiles in Silo's, they are so old they are dangerous, The idea was to once again upgrade them but it was discovered the old plans and blue prints no longer exist and everyone who originally built them are dead now.
So no2w the can cannot be kicked down the road any longer, it got rusty and worn out.
It appears we are in another missile gap with the old Chinese missiles and in another race..
Finally, modern China's long held motto of the nation of facade, shortcuts and deception comes back home to roost. This is certainly the best case scenario for the motivation behind the purges. However, the intelligence community forecasting the best case scenario and the one the best fits the inertia of Washington makes me nervous about its accuracy.
A fun China themed parody news site: https://theleek.substack.com/
Used to do a lot of activities that involved complex wargames and simulations. Couple of decades. Became familiar with the term "mirror imaging". Not always a precise or consistent definition, but projecting our mindset / values / way of thinking on the opponent is close enough. We actually had blue red and red blue teams working the issue...with very mixed results. That was almost totally open source. Late career worked with allegedly "better" information. Results were viewed with low confidence and lack of new or useful information. Corruption in Asia? Who knew? (Everyone, actually...).
Fortunately, in the west we have no such issues! (Just kidding...)
Did the head of the PLA take a few days off without telling President Xi or anyone elsewhere he was or what he was doing?
Dang! First the Chinese copy our weapons systems designs.
Now, they are copying our top DOD brass's behavior.
Good to remember they have feet of clay. I’m a little less pessimistic about this, but will they learn in the longer term?
Will they learn quickly enough to enable them to act before their population collapses?
I hope not.
What population number denotes a collapse? China will probably still have about 1 Billion people in 2080. Whoever is leading China is just as likely to move on Taiwan as not if they think their population loss is sufficiently serious. China's birth rate is ~1.3/woman, ours is ~1.6. A stable population requires a birth rate of ~2.1, depending upon other variables. A countries birth rate can change in a generation, though China's efforts to increase the birth rate do not seem to be successful.
Perhaps that is why Biden allows uncontrolled immigration. 🤣
If I was an analyst I would be worried about 12 months out given the replacements that have been announced by Xi lately. But if we do not see lower level shakeup as well then probably goes to your just consolidating power.
The ICBM inspections to me means that he wants to be secure from external threats and is not as concerned about internal threats so this does not look like a power consolidation to me.
Xi is probably waiting to see who is elected in US before making any decisions. Not just election for President but Congress as well.
From China perspective: Trump is madman not to be messed with, unpredictable. Biden is predictable so can be pushed in certain ways. Others unknown. If one party or other gets big majority that can be played as appropriate. Current stalemate in US congress causes inaction that can be exploited and increases chances of military strike from China. China wants a good idea of what US action will be.
Wildcard is what action will actually occur:
Will it be a strike on Taiwan - most likely but current situation can go on for a while so long as Taiwan does not change.
Maybe Siberia - because Russia can't defend effectively while in Ukraine and there is now a great opportunity. This might be why he is interested in Nuclear forces since Russia at this point can only defend with nuclear weapons and he needs real counter to keep it all conventional.
India - Military changes not really needed for a boarder skirmish which is what India would be.
South China Sea - advances there could get out of control quick
But this is just my thoughts and probably something else is really happening
Two thoughts.
First, I wonder if Vietnam should be on your list. I know the PLA got it's butt kicked in 1979 but I doubt Vietnam (which was just off a 3 decade war) is that martial today. This would give the PLA a chance to practice amphibious operations in a more benign environment. From an outcomes point of view, Vietnam gives China a long reach in the South China Sea both with air bases and ports, eliminates Vietnam as an issue in South China Sea oil and eliminates Vietnam as a reshoring rival for manufacturing. Note that unlike Ukraine, the West would be unable to help Vietnam with military aid. even if it was willing. And both Taiwan and Thailand would become more 'pliable'.
Second, I wonder if the Chinese would use nuclear weapons against Russia if the Russians only used them on the PLA well inside their own territory. Thoughts?
Interesting observation on Vietnam. I am not sure what China thinks on Vietnam but I don't think that the juice from controlling Vietnam would be worth the squeeze. Nothing to be gained unlike the natural resources in Siberia. Taking offshore islands that are in dispute from Vietnam might be a good possibility in my mind.
On nuclear weapons. I think keeping them off the battlefield and avoiding any strategic threats is probably the goal which is why I think the deterrence effect has to be credible and a possible the motive in shaking up the rocket forces. I think any use would resort in a tit for tat arrangement. So yes to your second question, they would in my opinion if for just show and increase the deterrence effect. The targeting questions for each side with todays available formation is an interesting question.
again, just my thoughts knowing very little.
They would not shift the center of gravity (so to speak) to Vietnam from Taiwan. Siberia is another matter altogether and they are more likely to seize it than smash their offensive capabilities against that hollowed out fortress called Taiwan. If the PRC be willing to seize those Siberian oil fields then they have committed to employing TNW in theory. It is PLA doctrine. Consider that even a successful invasion of Taiwan will likely result in such casualties that the families will not be assuaged with no tangible results, only face saved for Xi at the expense of their sons. If you are going to pick a fight , you better win.
There are four rules of warfare:
1. Do not invade Afghanistan
2. Do ont invade Mesopotamia
3. Do not invade Vietnam
4. Do not invade Russia
Easy to enter. Not so easy to leave. Fortunately our leadership is well versed in history and would not never these mistakes.
Yes. A violation of those rules could result in a decade(+) debacle, financial ruination, loss of confidence in the regime and maybe even a Sino-Spring movement with nouveau Righteous and Harmonious Fists activists rivaling even Libyan rebels. Beware the unkind thrust of the bayonet, Mister Xi.
I think the election in Taiwan will factor more in Xi's calculus than the US election. Whether it's Biden or Trump, Xi has already weighed them and found them wanting.
Classic SunTzu strategy to disarm opponent
Agreed. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2017/february/deception-chinese-way-war
I am old enough to remember the game we played pretending we knew what the USSR was thinking, what every personnel or equipment move meant. We have far less intelligence with or understanding of the Chinese than we did with the Russians. The only country we have less Humint in or understanding of than the Chinese are the Norks. The Sun Tzu gambit is overrated, his writings are not a Rosetta stone. Sal's recommendation of caution is spot on.
Also agree, which is why we discuss and play the games. Not because of the certainty that they produce but as a forum to discuss assumptions and challenge them.
https://www.blogtalkradio.com/midrats/2023/06/04/episode-657-strategy-uncertainty-and-the-china-challenge
https://www.blogtalkradio.com/midrats/2023/06/11/episode-658-strategy-for-facing-the-chinese-russian-threat-with-brent-sadler
Yep. I've learned a lot listening to Sal, EagleOne and their various guests over the years.
This was a good article on Birth Rates. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-low-can-americas-birth-rate-go-before-its-a-problem/
I think that some of our intel assessments of Soviet military might may have been geared toward convincing Congress that we had to spend more to match the Soviet's superior ships, superior aircraft, superior missiles & rockets, superior submarines, superior tanks and superior satellites. Wrote a position paper on it as E-8 back in 1981, with the premise that the arms race was more the Soviets responding to us than we to them. Got read by fewer than a dozen people in the EW Advanced Applications School, got a few polite nods and no wider dissemination. Except for when a copy turned up in some yahoo's locker about 7 years later on some East Coast ship with the classification struck through and no way to trace the legitimate transfer of it. Kind of a PITA and sucked to have my name on it...still a mystery, but I heard the guy got hammered for it. In the end, the USSR lost the race and their government because they went broke.
I agree that some of the evaluations by the military and the IC were politically based with an eye to get more $$. But, we were so far off base on their economy, the quality of their equipment and their conventional capabilities that it was embarrassing. Remember when Viktor Belenko defected with a MIG-25 to Japan? Ha, the Rooskies were not happy. We discovered that the feared MIG-25 was not the super fighter we had assumed it was.
I did not think the Cold War would end in my lifetime. The fall of the wall and the rapid disintegration of the USSR was a shock- our IC was clueless on those events happening. Even now the only thing that makes Russia a Superpower is the nukes.
Agree, Ron, but now I need to \vent\. Russian feet of clay and us with rocks in our heads. As a child who did duck and cover drills in elementary school in the 1950's and faced the real possibility of my thermonuclear death during the few weeks of Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 I always thought that the Cold War would end with a bang, not a whimper. I remember that time well. My mom, sister and I were just ending our Catechism lessons to convert to Catholicism as that crisis ended. I was shucking being a Baptist because I was unsure of a good billet in the Hereafter with my limited understanding then of Predestination. For me it was a great solace and also a feeling of consternation that I might never get to act on the raging hormones of my 14 year old self. I retired just after we "won" the Cold War and never imagined we'd let our own Bolsheviks take control. The Cold War, it seems, was only a long battle. Now, it looks like we lost that war. Marx and Gramsci are looking up from Hell with smirks as they do a victory twerk. And Russia now? Looks like they have an Army that can sustain land warfare against a peer foe. Can we? The last war that we really won was Grenada. "Depends on what the meaning of 'won' is. It's just half of a descriptor of an item on a Chinese menu", as Bill Clinton might say. \vent\
I also did the Duck & Cover drills. I became a Buddhist back in '72 during my time in Japan, have not looked back since. Here in NC I am surrounded by Baptists.😁
We won the Cold War, but lost the political war against Marxism. The political left in America are Marxists. Pick the flavor, but they are Marxists. Clinton started the move with his example of conditional and fluid mores, then Obama (and Obama v2 w/Biden) opened the floodgates.
Regarding the economy, lots of CIA analysts came straight from academia with their biases and blind spots. They believed communism worked about as well as capitalism, which is ludicrous but widely believed.
Hey boss, you need to slap your editor. Take a look at the cut and paste starting "The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is..." You've got a doubled cut and paste in that starting about half way down.
That said, China is known for providing disinformatzia so yeah... I'm going to take some of this with a grain of salt. The defector helps lead some credence, but... I'm of the "never take intel that looks like you don't have to worry, you have time, as a lie until proven otherwise" school.
heh. I just thought it was deliberate; worth reading a second time.
water in the rocket fuel tanks? that's worth a giggle, or two, or three...
Treat all negative military related news from China with extreme prejudice, lest the Chinese make mincemeat out of our resulting plans.
(I just cannot help but think NSA Sullivan is reaching wrong conclusions on this information. Captain (Acting Major) William Martin smiles.)
Neither person every existed.
Are you making mincmeat of my sense of humor? You take all the fun out of this.
Gallows humor.
I look at Jake Sullivan and all I see is an empty suit. And that might be an insult to empty suits.
Hard for me to believe that the Deep State would sandbag General Flynn in order to see someone so utterly out of his depth like Sullivan as NSA.
It's super easy to believe. You want the truth or a yes man?
It certainly excuses Washington's inertia on readiness for a war west of wake. This comes at a convenient time when the new NDAA cannibalizes IndoPacific readiness to help the fights in Ukraine and the Middle East.
"Tofu dreg" construction is a real problem for China.
Thanks for that addition to my vocabulary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu-dreg_project
SECDEF goes UA and coincidentally we get this projection laden copium article,🤔.
This curiously obtained "intelligence" only serves the PRC, not the consumer.
We've seen similar "intel" concerning Russian/Soviet graft and corruption. Most recently, the initial failures of the Russian vehicles in Ukraine were blamed on cheap Chinese copies of Russian tires; that was what, it claimed, was causing the Russian advances to stall and fail.
I'm perfectly willing to believe this about Chinese equipment and maintenance - but our own people and things are affected by the same graft and corruption. Who is "Fat Leonard"'s equivalent in China?
The word "PLARF" is new to me. Had I first heard it elsewhere it'd have seemed to me like some emunctory function sound as if it had an oral or rectal origination owing to a bad oyster. *shiver*
PLARF was thought to be the most formidable branch of the PLA. So, if there is any truth to this story, it will come as a welcome surprise to the US.
I understand the US is having to build finally replacements for its Missiles in Silo's, they are so old they are dangerous, The idea was to once again upgrade them but it was discovered the old plans and blue prints no longer exist and everyone who originally built them are dead now.
So no2w the can cannot be kicked down the road any longer, it got rusty and worn out.
It appears we are in another missile gap with the old Chinese missiles and in another race..
Finally, modern China's long held motto of the nation of facade, shortcuts and deception comes back home to roost. This is certainly the best case scenario for the motivation behind the purges. However, the intelligence community forecasting the best case scenario and the one the best fits the inertia of Washington makes me nervous about its accuracy.