China may be preparing a surprise attack against Japan. This operation would include a massive missile barrage against all major U.S. and Japanese military installations on the archipelago.
The logic of such a campaign is straightforward. To maximize the effectiveness of a complex amphibious operation to conquer Taiwan, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would need to establish air and naval supremacy around the island. Japan hosts the majority of allied naval and sea power. But will Chinese leader Xi Jinping risk a third world war to improve the odds that his operational plans succeed?
There is little doubt that the PLA is capable of a devastating first strike against Japan. It has developed overwhelming precision striking power knitted together with pervasive intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting capability. It boasts the world’s largest arsenal of missiles. According to analysts Thomas Shugart and Toshi Yoshihara, if Beijing achieved surprise in its pre-emptive strike operations, it could knock out most U.S. military assets on the Japanese archipelago while cratering U.S. runaways and disabling vital U.S. and Japanese ports.
PLA doctrine emphasizes a preemptive disabling attack to clear the way for a massive invasion of Taiwan. In such a scenario, the PLA would ferry hundreds of thousands of invasion troops across the Strait with naval vessels and dual-use civilian ships. A pre-emptive strike by China against U.S. and allied air and naval power would provide the Chinese with the air and maritime superiority that such a huge and complex amphibious operation requires. Indeed, historically no modern amphibious operation has been successful absent the invader’s neutralization of its adversary’s navy and air force.
Here is the rub, though: The strategic and geopolitical risks for Xi Jinping of attacking the world’s largest and fourth-largest economies would be enormous. Neither the U.S. nor its allies have been attacked in this manner since World War II. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has limited his highly aggressive operations against Ukraine to avoid attacking the U.S. or its allies. He has accepted more operational risk and military losses to avoid a strategic disaster.
To be sure, U.S. and allied forces are highly vulnerable to such an attack from the PLA. Washington is only now responding to China’s decades-long build-up of lethal military power. Its forward-based assets are soft targets, and, given the dangerous erosion of U.S. military power, its ability to mount a rapid counter-strike campaign from the relative safety of its Pacific territories and Australia is questionable.
Thus, from a military perspective, this approach is tempting. However, it comes with high strategic risk. Once the U.S. begins to recover from such an attack, an eventual massive counter-attack by an allied coalition would be guaranteed. Such a bloody and unprovoked assault would remove all political obstacles to all-out war with China in the U.S. or Japan. Both states would become fully committed to countering China rather than waste time with domestic political squabbling over whether to assist Taiwan.
Countries from South Korea to Singapore that would likely remain neutral if China limits its strike to Taiwan would almost certainly enter the fight if China were to attack Japan. Global public opinion would turn sharply against China as videos emerge of PLA missiles wreaking unprovoked devastation on Japanese territory and U.S. assets.
Eventually, the counter-attack against military targets on the mainland would be massive and the Chinese economy would be severely damaged as the U.S. pressures China’s commodity exporters and global financial markets to shut out the Chinese economy.
Moreover, the U.S. would likely take the fight directly to the regime, using cyber and other means to catalyze widespread unrest within China. The U.S. may even consider other forms of escalation after such a massive surprise attack.
Hopefully the U.S. is explaining all of this to Xi’s regime during their many recent engagements. If so, Xi knows that he faces a real strategic dilemma. He could improve his chances for military victory over Taiwan by striking U.S. assets and allies, but it might involve an unacceptably high risk. His alternative is to accept a high degree of operational risk to his amphibious forces by limiting his attack to just Taiwan.
Forgoing a preemptive strike against Japan leaves in place U.S. and Japanese air and sea power that can devastate an invasion force. This is why, while full-scale war cannot be ruled out, China is more likely to continue its escalation of a coercive campaign up to and including limited strikes against the island and a naval quarantine. The strategy is to break Taiwan’s political will while keeping the U.S. out of the fight.
Of course, the U.S. and Japan should remove China’s temptation to attack them pre-emptively. They should harden bases and port defenses, disperse U.S. and allied forces across the Japanese islands and the Philippines, and augment joint air and missile defenses. But Tokyo and Washington should likewise prepare to defeat intensifying hybrid warfare campaigns that are designed to break allied will while avoiding a catastrophic war.
Dan Blumenthal is a senior fellow at American Enterprise Institute.
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