Submarines could decide Taiwan’s fate. If recent war games are at all accurate, the US Navy’s fleet of 54 stealthy, heavily-armed nuclear-powered attack submarines could sink scores of troop transports and blunt any Chinese invasion across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.
And working in conjunction with US Air Force bombers firing long-range cruise missiles, the subs could even end the invasion – and decisively resolve three-quarters of a century of escalating tension between Taiwan and China.
The prospect of an undersea defeat of Beijing’s central strategic aim – the destruction of Taiwanese democracy – should only grow more likely in coming years as Taiwan adds its own new submarines, eight diesel-electric models, to the defensive fleet.
The open question is whether the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy can develop weapons and tactics for hunting down the subs before the subs hunt down the PLAN’s invasion fleet. It might be the most important question in the most important strategic rivalry in the world today.
The best answer to that question is an unsatisfying one. Maybe. But is Beijing willing to risk everything on a maybe?
Anti-submarine warfare is hard. It might even be one of the hardest missions in all of modern warfare. The oceans are vast, singing with natural noise and dense with layers of alternating cold and warm, salty and less-salty water. All of these qualities make it easy for a 380-foot-long Virginia-class submarine to hide with its 135 sailors and three dozen torpedoes and missiles.
Unless the PLAN can deploy patrol planes, helicopters, warships, submarines, satellites and undersea sensors to find and sink the US fleet’s Virginia-, Los Angeles-, Seawolf-class subs, the vessels should be able to strike at will. The Royal Navy plans to base one of its Astute-class attack boats in the Far East, too, and under the Aukus pact the US and UK nuclear-powered subs will be joined in time by Australian ones.
The US Defense Department is confident it can win the undersea fight.
“The PLAN is … improving its anti-submarine-warfare capabilities through the development of its surface combatants and special mission aircraft, but it continues to lack a robust deep-water ASW capability,” the Pentagon concluded in its 2022 report on China’s military capabilities.
As of 2008, Chinese sources generally concurred with the Pentagon’s assessment. While encouraged by the PLAN’s development of anti-submarine mines and surface ships dragging sonar arrays, one Chinese analyst bemoaned a key weakness in the Chinese navy’s ASW force. Patrol planes.
“Our country at the present stage does not have an ASW maritime patrol aircraft …. but the number of submarines in our peripheral seas is increasing, and their technological sophistication is also increasing,” Tai Feng wrote. “This contradiction is becoming more obvious every day, creating a grim situation.”
In the 15 years since Tai wrote this analysis, the PLAN has added a few ASW planes to its force-structure. This small fleet of probably fewer than 20 Y-8Q aircraft can’t patrol everywhere. For comparison, the US Navy devotes more than 120 P-8s to the same mission.
But the PLAN is honing patrol methods to mitigate its shortage of ASW planes. It’s been flying more and more Y-8Q sorties southeast of Taiwan, including over the Luzon Strait between Taiwan and The Philippines. The strait is a natural chokepoint for submarines sailing between the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea.
If the small Chinese anti-sub force can intercept American subs while they’re en route to the Taiwan Strait, it doesn’t have to fight them in the Taiwan Strait. It’s a gamble. But the Chinese navy might not have much choice but to pick a risky ASW strategy – and hope it gets lucky.
Beijing’s safest bet might be to wait. The American submarine force could get a lot smaller in the coming years as older Los Angeles-class subs, built at a rapid clip in the 1980s and ‘90s, wear out and decommission – and new Virginias commission too slowly to keep pace
The most recent edition of the US Navy’s shipbuilding plan projects that the US attack sub force will decline from 54 vessels today to just 46 in 2030 before beginning to grow again. The Pentagon is weighing options for making up this shortfall: keeping older boats longer or buying new boats faster. And new Taiwanese subs could help fill the gap.
Still, it’s an opportunity for the PLAN. If defeating submarines is the Chinese navy’s priority – and it should be, if taking Taiwan is its ultimate goal – it would want to battle the fewest possible number of subs. But waiting until 2030 is another gamble. A lot can change in seven years to alter the balance of power between Taiwan and China, and between the United States and China.
Those changes could favor China. Or they could favor Taiwan and the USA.
As long as American submarines are the dominant military force around Taiwan, Beijing’s military options for a conquest of Taiwan are mostly bad. Its unenviable task … is choosing between them. The only alternative is to not invade.
Submarines could decide Taiwan’s fate. If recent war games are at all accurate, the US Navy’s fleet of 54 stealthy, heavily-armed nuclear-powered attack submarines could sink scores of troop transports and blunt any Chinese invasion across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.
And working in conjunction with US Air Force bombers firing long-range cruise missiles, the subs could even end the invasion – and decisively resolve three-quarters of a century of escalating tension between Taiwan and China.
The prospect of an undersea defeat of Beijing’s central strategic aim – the destruction of Taiwanese democracy – should only grow more likely in coming years as Taiwan adds its own new submarines, eight diesel-electric models, to the defensive fleet.
The open question is whether the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy can develop weapons and tactics for hunting down the subs before the subs hunt down the PLAN’s invasion fleet. It might be the most important question in the most important strategic rivalry in the world today.
The best answer to that question is an unsatisfying one. Maybe. But is Beijing willing to risk everything on a maybe?
Anti-submarine warfare is hard. It might even be one of the hardest missions in all of modern warfare. The oceans are vast, singing with natural noise and dense with layers of alternating cold and warm, salty and less-salty water. All of these qualities make it easy for a 380-foot-long Virginia-class submarine to hide with its 135 sailors and three dozen torpedoes and missiles.
Unless the PLAN can deploy patrol planes, helicopters, warships, submarines, satellites and undersea sensors to find and sink the US fleet’s Virginia-, Los Angeles-, Seawolf-class subs, the vessels should be able to strike at will. The Royal Navy plans to base one of its Astute-class attack boats in the Far East, too, and under the Aukus pact the US and UK nuclear-powered subs will be joined in time by Australian ones.
The US Defense Department is confident it can win the undersea fight.
“The PLAN is … improving its anti-submarine-warfare capabilities through the development of its surface combatants and special mission aircraft, but it continues to lack a robust deep-water ASW capability,” the Pentagon concluded in its 2022 report on China’s military capabilities.
As of 2008, Chinese sources generally concurred with the Pentagon’s assessment. While encouraged by the PLAN’s development of anti-submarine mines and surface ships dragging sonar arrays, one Chinese analyst bemoaned a key weakness in the Chinese navy’s ASW force. Patrol planes.
“Our country at the present stage does not have an ASW maritime patrol aircraft …. but the number of submarines in our peripheral seas is increasing, and their technological sophistication is also increasing,” Tai Feng wrote. “This contradiction is becoming more obvious every day, creating a grim situation.”
In the 15 years since Tai wrote this analysis, the PLAN has added a few ASW planes to its force-structure. This small fleet of probably fewer than 20 Y-8Q aircraft can’t patrol everywhere. For comparison, the US Navy devotes more than 120 P-8s to the same mission.
But the PLAN is honing patrol methods to mitigate its shortage of ASW planes. It’s been flying more and more Y-8Q sorties southeast of Taiwan, including over the Luzon Strait between Taiwan and The Philippines. The strait is a natural chokepoint for submarines sailing between the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea.
If the small Chinese anti-sub force can intercept American subs while they’re en route to the Taiwan Strait, it doesn’t have to fight them in the Taiwan Strait. It’s a gamble. But the Chinese navy might not have much choice but to pick a risky ASW strategy – and hope it gets lucky.
Beijing’s safest bet might be to wait. The American submarine force could get a lot smaller in the coming years as older Los Angeles-class subs, built at a rapid clip in the 1980s and ‘90s, wear out and decommission – and new Virginias commission too slowly to keep pace
The most recent edition of the US Navy’s shipbuilding plan projects that the US attack sub force will decline from 54 vessels today to just 46 in 2030 before beginning to grow again. The Pentagon is weighing options for making up this shortfall: keeping older boats longer or buying new boats faster. And new Taiwanese subs could help fill the gap.
Still, it’s an opportunity for the PLAN. If defeating submarines is the Chinese navy’s priority – and it should be, if taking Taiwan is its ultimate goal – it would want to battle the fewest possible number of subs. But waiting until 2030 is another gamble. A lot can change in seven years to alter the balance of power between Taiwan and China, and between the United States and China.
Those changes could favor China. Or they could favor Taiwan and the USA.
As long as American submarines are the dominant military force around Taiwan, Beijing’s military options for a conquest of Taiwan are mostly bad. Its unenviable task … is choosing between them. The only alternative is to not invade.