Stardate 20031203.1322

(On Screen): TMLutas writes about the fact that the US may be limited by its military power, and may be trying to defer some problems until the force is available, or can be raised, to deal with them. Probably that's true, but he chooses a poor example of that when he points to Taiwan.

My opinion is that Taiwan is capable of defending itself against an invasion by China without our help, and with our help such an invasion would be hopeless. But we would not help with ground troops; our contribution would be naval and air. A hypothetical invasion of Taiwan would be won or lost in and over the straight of Taiwan.

In many ways the closest equivalent in the history of warfare is the English Channel in WWII. After France fell in 1940, Germany planned operation Seelöwe (Sea lion), an amphibious assault on the UK. Barges and other ships were accumulated in ports in France and Belgium and the Netherlands, but there were two problem: the Royal Navy Home Fleet, and RAF Bomber Command.

The Home Fleet waited in Scapa Flow to defend against such an invasion, and Germany did not have a fleet which could oppose it. Certainly it had E-boats (small fast torpedo boats) but at best that would only hurt the Home Fleet; E-boats could never prevent it from reaching the site of an invasion, and devastating the shipping, and the forces which had already landed, through heavy gunfire. If 25% of the Home Fleet reached the invasion, it would have been catastrophe for Germany. And there was never any doubt that the RN would have accepted such losses.

RAF Bomber Command was just as much of a problem. An invasion fleet could be attacked by air, from high level or low, and there could be no question that Bomber Command would likewise accept catastrophic losses in order to destroy an invasion.

There was a solution to both of those problems: the Luftwaffe. Dive bombers and torpedo planes could have stopped the Home Fleet and prevented it from reaching any invasion. Luftwaffe fighters could have stopped Bomber Command.

But that faced another problem: RAF Fighter Command. Purpose-built dive bombers and torpedo planes are not able to defend themselves against hostile fighters; they're not sufficiently maneuverable. Converted fighters could, but only by jettisoning their bomb. And Luftwaffe fighters might well inflict great losses on RAF bombers but if RAF fighters provided cover then Luftwaffe fighters couldn't prevent RAF bombers from decimating the invasion force.

So as long as RAF Fighter Command was able to contest the skies over the channel, the Luftwaffe could not guarantee to protect an invasion against RAF bombers or an attack by the Home Fleet. That's why the Battle of Britain was fought in the air; its purpose was to cripple Fighter Command. Fighter Command was the lynchpin of British defenses.

It's never been clear to me whether Seelöwe was a serious plan or a demonstration. There was a lot of skepticism among top military officers in Germany about the feasibility of an invasion, but the books I've read differ on whether Hitler himself thought it was possible, and intended to follow through on it.

Ultimately it doesn't matter: Fighter Command held on, and Seelöwe was cancelled.

The Channel played a factor again, in 1944, and again air supremacy was required, but this time those planning the invasion did gain air supremacy, and the invasion worked. By that point the ongoing battle in the air over Germany had reduced the Luftwaffe enough so that British and American fighters were able to swarm over the invasion force from dawn to dusk, while only two Lufwaffe planes made any attacks at all. (Two fighters made a single strafing run down one of the American beaches.)

The lesson of the Channel is that for an invasion to succeed on land, you have to have absolute control over the water; and to do that you have to have absolute control of the air over the water.

The Battle of Britain wasn't fought on the ground, and a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan wouldn't be, either. If we got involved, we would fight with naval forces and air forces, not with ground troops. We would use carrier battle groups (probably two) operating in open ocean east of Taiwan, land-based bombers flying out of Guam, fighters and bombers flying out of Okinawa, and attack subs.

To begin with, it should be clear that if China wanted to destroy Taiwan it could do so with nuclear-tipped missiles. Doing so would risk an American nuclear response, and for that and many other reasons I do not think that such an attack is being seriously contemplated by the leaders in Beijing. What they want, or claim to want (more on that later), is for Taiwan to be incorporated into China more or less intact. Ideally it would happen voluntarily, but that seems less likely every year, and any serious attempt at reunification now would have to be based on conventional military force.

But Taiwan is a tough nut to crack. For fifty years it's been clear that the primary threat to Taiwan was a Chinese invasion, and for the last 30 years Taiwan has been rich enough to buy and field a large and powerful military for defensive purposes.

Taiwan would have to be assaulted with enough ground troops to defeat Taiwan's army of about 200,000 men in regular se