No One Should Think the War Will Be Short By Commander Justin Cobb, U.S. Navy

Convincing China that a war for Taiwan will certainly become protracted would be a strong deterrent.

[danjohnston]

The dream of a " Short Victorious War "
seldom comes true

[robertpatrick]

I think the US needs to have reserve industrial capacity to build ‘good enough’ munitions and equipment at low cost and high value……. Ukraine teaches that having high tech capabilities are great if the supply chain can deliver in volume and sustain…. Currently it doesn’t look like it can!

[ajwo]

None of these guys ever talk about the most important thing in all this:

[Terracotta-warriors_Sea]

No one should think only robots will die on that long war!

[stevek]

There are a few points which seem to have been overlooked.

First, and foremost - industrial capacity.

In WW2 and every conflict since, the biggest US advantage was industrial capacity.

This advantage now belongs to China.

Drone swarms to create the hellscape scenarios all require a massive industrial base. Ditto hypersonics, missiles, shells, etc.

The simple fact is that China will be able to outbuild the U.S. on a massive scale.

This has serious implications in a long conflict where losses need replacement.

Specifically, any conflict is likely to begin with the U.S. at a numerical material disadvantage and the disadvantage will only grow as losses mount because China’s replacement rate is likely to be higher.

Secondly, there seems to be an assumption that the U.S. will be confronting China alone.

But what happens if China has allies? Or, what if the U.S. commitments to allies require the U.S. to spread their forces?

Specifically, what if the U.S. is spread out around the world, containing Russia in Europe and the Arabs in the Middle East and a third conflict in Africa?

Would the U.S. even be able to focus enough force to pose a credible threat to China?

Finally, economic and logistics warfare were mentioned.

Specifically, mining and embargoing the Chinese.

But, what happens if the Chinese also strikes at the U.S. logistics train, and deploys drone and manned submarines to attack and blockade U.S. ports and shipping?

Is the USN large enough to provide rear area security while fighting China let alone a scenario where there are multiple conflicts at the same time?

So, while all of the strategies mentioned can be used to confront China, I also suggest that the Chinese can also use the same strategies on the US.

The result will probably be two nations driven to economic ruin at the least; a nuclear holocaust at the worst.

I would suggest that the stakes in this game of nations is now too high to even consider any direct confrontation between great powers and that if great powers don’t learn to co-exist, the alternative is mutual destruction at the least; the end of the human race at the worst.

So, for the sake of all humanity, please learn to co-exist.

[laketaylora]

How long a war in the South China Sea becomes depends on how many ships the US navy loses at the outset.

This is going to be a "come-as-you-are" war, there's no waiting around for five years for Newport News Shipbuilding to replace the CVNs we lose, one at a time, and America's shipbuilding industry today is so anemic that it's pointless to count on a World War II-style massive fleet buildup over the course of the war.

In a high-intensity conflict, I doubt we'd be able to replace our losses, not to mention build up the fleet. And the fleet is already too small as it is.

At the outset of any conflict with China, "force preservation" is not going to be a mission consideration for the navy; it's going to be the mission itself, "Operation Sauve Qui Peut." At best we'll probably end up with a new defensive line that traces from Australia through Hawaii and up to Alaska. I doubt any base facilities will remain operational beyond that, including Guam.

Counting on our allies in the region is like counting on your four-year-old son to help you mow the lawn. They don't have meaningful forces to help us out, and they're going to take massive losses from the start that they can't replace. Australia, South Korea, and Japan are going to be hard-pressed to preserve themselves. Everybody else is a joke.

Once we complete the bug-out from the Western Pacific, we'll probably have to rely on a distant blockade to try to choke off China from strategic resources, particularly oil, while using long-range aircraft like B1s, B2s, B-52s, and B21s to wage attrition warfare against China's surface fleet and to attack its naval bases while our SSNs duke it out with China's submarines.

Only after that attrition effort achieves considerable success could we consider risking what remaining CVNs we have left, reinforced by drone ships - which is all we might be able to build in the time frame required - on any kind of offensive operations to retake lost territory.

The USA went overboard after the Cold War, cashing in on "The Peace Dividend." We don't have the industrial base to wage a war like we did in World War II, even though we're probably going to have to replay War Plan Orange from that conflict. Our only hope will be to inflict even heavier losses on the Chinese, to the point where they attrit even worse than we do.

[samiamgreeneggsandham]

This is all very sensible. Unfortunately, it really seems that the USN lacks the number of ships to even pursuit a denial strategy, much less a longer attritional conflict.

[Scottagram]

The final point regarding allies- hopefully the US can learn from the mistakes of MacArthur. Allies expect to be treated as equals, not subordinates. They have their own doctrines, political situations, strategic schedules, and of course their own pride and belief that they are the greatest nation in the world.
Let Japan go island-hopping with their cavalry, let the Korean artillery turn the battlefield into a parking lot, and any questions about what Australian infantry do in the jungle can probably wait until the post-war tribunals.

[Saberjet]

the US wants the Kantai Kessen just like Japan in WW II. Even when it does succeed like at Trafalgar it doesn't end the war; France didn't surrender the first time until 7 years after they're fleet was beaten.

[Sugarmountaincondo]

The U.S. Navy needs to increase its AA gun and short-range small missile interceptor platforms on every ship in order to defend against drones. This is esp. critical for the USNS ships that are practically defenseless and are as valuable as a CV.
The USN also needs to both increase the hulls for CV's, USNS and also a new class of ship that would be dedicated to Air-Defense in order to escort and protect all of our resupply ships, like a frigate size.
The amount of CIWIS systems on all USN ships needs to be doubled or even tripled.

[TheRailfan]

Awesome interview. Thank you Commander for you valuable insight! I do believe that United States is weak at reconstituting our military forces at this time. Right now, I feel we only get one chance to get this right. If knows.

[craftpaint]

What if the enemy doesn't care about the cost? What if they have three drones for every defender on Taiwan? Four for every? Five?

[nigellawson]

The problem the US would face in a war with China is that it would spread vertically and horizontally. It would not remain confined to the South China Sea and Taiwan Straits. It is easy to imagine the war spreading to the Korean Peninsula and elsewhere. Furthermore, the United States no longer has the industrial and logistical capability to support fleets and armies fighting on multiple fronts. America is no longer the industrial, scientific, and technological powerhouse it was at the height of the Apollo Project in the late 1960s. Due to nearly forty years of outsourcing, the US has been hollowed out industrially. It can be said that the US is rotting from the inside out. It is an empire in steep decline. If wars are won on the factory floor rather than on the battlefield the US would lose badly. For example, the Chinese shipbuilding capacity is nearly two hundred times that of the US. The Chinese also outproduce the US in steel, aluminum, and in other crucial economic categories. Furthermore, due to the failures of the American educational system, the Chinese are graduating nearly five million STEM graduates a year, which is nearly eight times the number of STEM graduates that the US is graduating in the same period. Although, the US Navy currently has a significant advantage in operational experience and technology over the Chinese, especially when it comes to the US Navy’s submarine and carrier force, over time this advantage will become a wasting asset as the Chinese gain expertise in those areas. It is also worth noting that the US relies on the Indians and Chinese for its supply of high-explosives and some of its major weapon components. If the US ever gets into a war with China, access to the resources will dry up overnight. To cap it off, in a war with China the Americans will have to conduct operations in China’s backyard, which would stretch American logistics to a breaking point. In short, in a battle of production, the Chinese will be able to easily outproduce the US in every important category of weapon. The combination of China’s industrial advantage and the fact that the Chinese will be operating close to their industrial and logistic centers will present the US with an insuperable problem. Due to the constraint of distance, the US might not be able to sustain high-intensity operations over the long haul. It is also hard to imagine the US being able to reconstitute its forces due to its lack of industrial capacity. We can readily observe this problem being played out in the present. In the current war in Ukraine, the US has drawn down its stock of high-tech weapons. It is struggling to keep Ukraine supplied from current production. High-tech weapons like the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, JSSM cruise missile, and HIMAR tactical multi-launch rockets have proven difficult to build in numbers. Even ramping up the production of Stinger, MANPADs and Javelin anti-tank missiles have proven difficult due to shortages in skilled workers and a lack of factory space. In addition, when it comes to artillery production the US will be hard-pressed to produce 50, 000 shells per month. The Russian Federation, in contrast, can produce up to 150, 000 per month. This fact highlights one of the major flaws in America’s current economic system. Unlike the Chinese and Russians, the US simply lacks the surplus capacity to expand its production like it was able to do in World War Two.
Furthermore, although the Chinese population is aging, the Chinese still outnumber the US by four to one. In a long attritional struggle, these numbers will ultimately play against the US. Taking all of these different factors into consideration, the US would lose a long war of attrition with China.

[WeAllLaughDownHere-neou]

It isnt just foolhardy to think of this war as being a short enterprise. Its DANGEROUS. A short war can easily be viewed as having more positives than negatives.

Focus on the reality of a Long, bloody, drawn out war and you do better calculus and decision making.

[eymeeraosaka]

A more appropriate title should be, No One Should Think the War Can be the US, Russia or China can afford to lose in a conventional it is delusional to think the loser will not resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort....and MAD....

[fractalart]

Excellent and informative! I'm happy to see that we have capable and intelligent people taking this existential threat seriously. Let's remember that military matters are only one aspect of the war that is currently being waged. We don't seem to take the other equally important aspects as seriously or even recognize and try to understand them. If we want to prevent the war, we should work on this critical aspect. Kinetic warfare is the very last part of a long war and should be avoided by fully understanding the enemy. Because they're doing that in their preparation already and it's our true weakness.

[vikingsoftpaw]

With our diminishing national resources, we will need to pick and choose which conflicts to involve ourselves in. We can no longer afford to be world policeman.

[davidgreenwood]

Insightful podcast thank you. Comments are interesting… several overtly political and a few from the CCP. I’m an American person without an axe to grind. My two cents: Blockade of China will be required. And we’d better start learning to build ships fast again because they sure can now.

[richardcompton-xkfj]

Love your content!I served on the USS SARATOGA CV -60!

[davidunderdown]

Undersea drones to protect undersea fiber cables.