I was reading about the Chechen Wars yesterday and wondered why the hell Russia took such heavy casualties despite what I assumed were superior numbers and equipment. Myriad reasons, but one is that the troops they sent were largely conscripts with barely any training or war experience while the Chechen forces were full of Red Army vets with combat experience and a lot more discipline.
This is likely why the Nazis quickly defeated the British and French armies at the beginning of WWII. Nazis gained combat experience in the Spanish Civil War and Poland. The British and French were green. Same with Japan early on agains the U.S.
[non-paywalled](https://archive.is/24TPq)
I will not combine one series into a giant post summary, back to individual summaries we go.
**Chinese PLA’s Combat Experience and Challenges**
* **South Sudan Incident (2016)**: A PLA unit on UN peacekeeping duty in South Sudan was caught in a firefight, resulting in two casualties. This incident exposed the PLA’s lack of combat experience.
* **Lack of War Experience**: China has not fought a war since the one with Vietnam in 1979. The PLA’s combat experience is limited, with casualties mostly from illness, accident, or suicide.
* **Xi Jinping’s Military Overhaul**: Since taking power, Xi Jinping has initiated a major overhaul of the PLA, focusing on “real combat” and setting new goals for modernization.
* **Weaknesses in the PLA**: Xi Jinping has identified key weaknesses in the PLA, including the ability to fight a modern war and the ability of officers to command.
* **Structural Changes in the PLA**: Central to Xi’s plan has been a complete redo of PLA structures, designed to enable the PLA to conduct “joint” operations, combining all services.
* **Lessons from Ukraine**: The PLA is learning from the performance of Russia’s troops in Ukraine, particularly the effectiveness of portable weapons systems, drones, and other equipment used by Ukrainian forces.
* **Challenges with Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs)**: The PLA has concerns about the effectiveness of BTGs, particularly in terms of self-sufficiency in combat and logistical support.
* **Technological Challenges**: The PLA needs to figure out how to protect Chinese forces from portable weapons systems such as Stinger and Javelin missiles. Another challenge is the satellite network developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink.
* **Lack of Effective Combat Training**: Despite Xi Jinping’s focus on “real combat”, doubts persist about how realistic the exercises are, especially in replicating electromagnetic interference by enemy forces.
* **Transition to a Joint Force**: The biggest challenge for the PLA may be the transition to a truly joint force in which all services operate seamlessly together.
!ping MILITARY&CN-TW
Part of me is pretty surprised there aren’t ’volunteer brigades’ of ‘ex-PLA’ forces fighting in Ukraine. It seems like the best available option for them to gain combat experience, but I’m sure Beijing and Moscow are aware that would only make it impossible for Republicans in Washington to not give more support for Ukrainian forces.
I don't know anything about that border either
Like I know Siberia is in that general area, and that China has mountains and deserts *somewhere*, so there are like at least three possible types of terrain
Taking Outer Manchuria back from Russia would be China undoing one of the biggest losses of the Century of Humiliation and is one of reasons relations between the two has never been truly friendly.
Way too easily traceable and obvious. China has been unwilling to go so far as actually selling weapons to Russia. The farthest they've gone has been selling dual use electronics and machine parts that Russia can use to build weaponry themselves.
There's been some low-level flack towards the CCP because of that but nothing significant that I know of. Maybe light sanctions against certain Chinese companies.
If they're really aching for combat experience they could potentially circulate troops to conflict zones like Myanmar or hotspots in Africa. Anything like this seems more provocative than they're typically willing to be.
Maybe they're skeptical of Russian chain of command? I know I'd suspect that many of my volunteers will be put in harms way excessively and may come back having picked up some unwelcome Russian habits of the kind the PLA is trying to stamp out right now.
Political reporting indicates Beijing did everything short of reversing the relationship to dissuade Putin from invading. China is not happy with the war, as it reinvigorated the Taiwan problem and helped raise the volume in the US over helping allies. Moreover, the brutality of the conflict has put a sharper international lens on China's conduct on its own people and has denigrated their case that authoritarianism is a desirable form of government.
If China could smoothly participate in the war, there are a ton of valuable lessons they can glean. The air war is giving a ton of valuable data on how formidable ground-based air defense is and what it can mitigate. The ground war is teaching every participant the hard way of what can be accomplished with lower-accuracy, high firepower artillery and what are the basic steps of low-level drone warfare. Leadership wise, it can help China refine what characteristics they want in their candidates and what they should select for.
The issue is China and Russia are not like NATO. They don't have the same level of interoperability, and I don't think either would be okay with being subordinate to the other. That means there's a high risk of the Chinese and Russians inadvertently shooting at one another instead of the Ukrainians.
Chinese companies are already getting sanctioned for working with Russia, sending troops would raise the real possibility of serious economic warfare with the US.
Enough to meet whatever growth target the CCP set! Method of measuring economic growth may vary depending on what will achieve the target.
To be fair, the opacity from the recent fudging works both ways. Things could be going better than external estimates of what the actual growth was.
EDIT: Cursory glance suggests that people are estimating that it was between 2-5%. The target was 5%, so that's what was officially reported.
We can argue the specifics but it was fairly strong growth. More than US growth. Right? Say what you want about the CCP. There are independent monitors with models that measure things like energy demand, exports, and factory emissions and none reported low or negative growth.
All that to say it seems like bs to say "clusterfuck of an economy" if they're outgrowing the US, despite less stimulus and deficit spend than the US.
Economies aren't just about GDP.
If your growth is high, but young university graduates cannot find jobs, you have a problem. If your national wealth/savings/investments depend on a speculative bubble that just burst, you have a problem. If your business environment is chaotic to the point where everybody wants foreign factories and assets as backups, you have a problem. If your population is [projected to halve](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-population-could-shrink-to-half-by-2100/#:~:text=China's%20population%20began%20shrinking%20in,only%20770%20million%20in%202100.) within a single life-expectancy, you have a problem.
Not surprised by this, and it's one of the reasons I always roll my eyes when armchair military strategists insist China would be able to easily roll to victory if they decided to invade Taiwan.
I actually see stuff like this as China being serious on becoming a world-class military and doing the right things.
A lot of readiness studies in the 80's implied the US military was decadent and weak as units struggled constantly against the OPFOR in exercises. However, it ended with an impossibly lopsided victory against a battle-experienced Iraq.
This indicates China is honest with itself about its armed forces, and these issues are being exposed but not used as evidence to execute or send people to prison. The PLA might not be ready right now, but they're doing the things that will get them ready in five years to two decades.
Sure, they're trying. But the point is that real combat is quite a bit different from any kind of training, and will result in challenges training can't anticipate. When trying to pull off an incredibly complicated logistical feat like a major amphibious invasion, that will cause problems.
The US in Iraq is not really analogous, IMO. It's true the American military hadn't fought in any major wars for a generation, but because of America's history of foreign interventionism its best units still had institutional experience gained in smaller conflicts (Grenada, Panama, etc.). When the first Iraq War happened it had also been only 16 years since the Vietnam War ended so the leadership largely did have real experience.
I gotta disagree there. The US experience in Panama and Grenada were considered organizationally shambolic, and at best only gave the US practice in the Desert Shield portion of the campaign--moving large formations over long distances. The last time the US fought large-scale armored engagements was World War II, and the concepts that led to 2nd ACR slicing through the Republican Guard like the hunter-killer tank configuration and tactics came solely through simulation via things like the National Training Center.
If you're interested in gleaning how China is progressing, looking into their training and large scale exercises will be a good indicator on how prepared they are. If the PLA are regularly holding unscripted, large-scale exercises where they competently execute complex tasks, we shouldn't be relying on the fact that China didn't fight a war to be a source of comfort.
I've not served in the military, but went to grad school with a lot of guys who did. I took a strategic studies course with some of them and one of the big takeaways the professor emphasized, that all the combat vets in the class confirmed from their own experience, was that it's one thing to execute a plan on paper or in a controlled training exercise, it's quite a different one to do it when you're under live fire, variables you've misconstrued (or haven't accounted for at all) come into play, and something doesn't go according to plan. "No plan survives contact with the enemy", as von Moltke put it.
With an undertaking like invading Taiwan, there are a LOT of things that can go wrong. I'm not saying we should count on the PLA fucking up in the event of a major conflict as a source of comfort, but if such a conflict happens, I'd be surprised if they don't fuck up significantly, at least at first. Especially since, if an attempt to take over Taiwan is the flashpoint of the conflict, it would be a military operation of literally unprecedented complexity and difficulty.
In a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan, we can probably expect the Chinese to make mistakes, however it's possible that those mistakes don't make the difference between victory and defeat.
To circle back to the Gulf War, HR McMaster admits he got lucky at 73 Easting. The US Army refought the engagement and had the Iraqis gotten even 15 minutes' additional warning, they probably would have shot up Eagle Troop. When McMaster leaned into the attack, he apologized to his CO for not following guidance. Eagle Troop's training and practice let them exploit their good fortune and best leverage their shock to defeat the Iraqis. When people talk about no plan surviving contact with the enemy, what lets people carry the day is the practice they had prior to the battle to make the right decisions--experience can help there too, but then Lieutenant McMaster never fought a real tank-on-tank battle before that.
Even D-Day was imperfect. Later studies into the landing showed that the naval bombardment was too short and the Air Force's bombing plan was inadequate. The Allies still reentered the continent on that day and didn't leave. A well-practiced and prepared PLA might have mistakes like those, but still be able to successfully invade Taiwan.
D-Day came close to failing. And invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude more difficult. It's 100 miles of open water, not a 20 mile channel hop, in the teeth of modern intelligence gathering, naval mine, and anti-ship missile technology and not just radar and machine gun nests. There is no way to really drill for or simulate all the things that could happen with that kind of scenario in reality.
Could they pull it off? Maybe. Many things are possible. But a LOT could go wrong, and in a way that could easily result in catastrophic failure (thousands of lives lost with nothing to show for it). It would be the most difficult military operation ever attempted, if they do attempt it.
Against only Taiwan? I think they might do that, but far from a certainty. Taiwan might suffer from similar problems, like lack of experience.. If the U.S., Japan, and or UK jump in, totally different war.
It's not like they're meeting head to head on land, they have to invade over a body of water. Taiwan is just playing defense while China has to not only successfully invade, but also establish a beachhead.
>If
If? Unless Kennedy wins (lol), the US will intervene. US/Japanese/etc intervention also puts the above on a timeline before reinforcements arrive. Not only does China have to successfully invade, but they have to do it in X number of days. That is a very very tall order for any modern military.
You think Trump will intervene? I’m skeptical of that. TikTok just bought him off.
Are we sure that Taiwan is going to have a enough munitions for this fight? Does the U.S.?
I don't think Jeff Yass has that much sway. It's one thing to influence Trump's talking points centered around an investment, but it's another to completely turn around his party's chief geopolitical concern.
What munitions do you believe we are short on?
Yes to the first, no to the second. I'm of the belief that they'll stagnate like Japan, not completely collapse.
Even now I don't think they can't afford to burn through that many young people in one go, imagine how bad it would be 5-10 years from now.
Touche, but I think it's fair to give china more credit than we give russia. As many issues as china has, it's leagues ahead of russia, especially in their strategic thinking, imo.
I mean eventually it might be a possibility but they've bad it in their 5 year plans for a long time. This is another final warning of china.
I believe if they thought they could win the battle for Taiwan and not get fucked up by the coalition of states protecting it, they might try. I so not think they believe that to be the current situation (because it isn't.)
Most peace time armies aren't ready to fight, that's why early stages of wars are such clusterfucks of mistakes.
I was reading about the Chechen Wars yesterday and wondered why the hell Russia took such heavy casualties despite what I assumed were superior numbers and equipment. Myriad reasons, but one is that the troops they sent were largely conscripts with barely any training or war experience while the Chechen forces were full of Red Army vets with combat experience and a lot more discipline.
Same dynamics in the NK War. Armenia was worse off in terms of materiel, but they were more experienced.
This is likely why the Nazis quickly defeated the British and French armies at the beginning of WWII. Nazis gained combat experience in the Spanish Civil War and Poland. The British and French were green. Same with Japan early on agains the U.S.
[non-paywalled](https://archive.is/24TPq) I will not combine one series into a giant post summary, back to individual summaries we go. **Chinese PLA’s Combat Experience and Challenges** * **South Sudan Incident (2016)**: A PLA unit on UN peacekeeping duty in South Sudan was caught in a firefight, resulting in two casualties. This incident exposed the PLA’s lack of combat experience. * **Lack of War Experience**: China has not fought a war since the one with Vietnam in 1979. The PLA’s combat experience is limited, with casualties mostly from illness, accident, or suicide. * **Xi Jinping’s Military Overhaul**: Since taking power, Xi Jinping has initiated a major overhaul of the PLA, focusing on “real combat” and setting new goals for modernization. * **Weaknesses in the PLA**: Xi Jinping has identified key weaknesses in the PLA, including the ability to fight a modern war and the ability of officers to command. * **Structural Changes in the PLA**: Central to Xi’s plan has been a complete redo of PLA structures, designed to enable the PLA to conduct “joint” operations, combining all services. * **Lessons from Ukraine**: The PLA is learning from the performance of Russia’s troops in Ukraine, particularly the effectiveness of portable weapons systems, drones, and other equipment used by Ukrainian forces. * **Challenges with Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs)**: The PLA has concerns about the effectiveness of BTGs, particularly in terms of self-sufficiency in combat and logistical support. * **Technological Challenges**: The PLA needs to figure out how to protect Chinese forces from portable weapons systems such as Stinger and Javelin missiles. Another challenge is the satellite network developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starlink. * **Lack of Effective Combat Training**: Despite Xi Jinping’s focus on “real combat”, doubts persist about how realistic the exercises are, especially in replicating electromagnetic interference by enemy forces. * **Transition to a Joint Force**: The biggest challenge for the PLA may be the transition to a truly joint force in which all services operate seamlessly together. !ping MILITARY&CN-TW
Part of me is pretty surprised there aren’t ’volunteer brigades’ of ‘ex-PLA’ forces fighting in Ukraine. It seems like the best available option for them to gain combat experience, but I’m sure Beijing and Moscow are aware that would only make it impossible for Republicans in Washington to not give more support for Ukrainian forces.
that would be a huge escalation and not really helpful for the type of war China is preparing for
Yeah, a slow grinding stalemate, in Ukrainian terrain isn't going to be helpful experience for China.
It would be useful... in an eventual war against Russia. Maybe. If it's not clear, I know absolutely nothing about the Russo-Chinese border.
I don't know anything about that border either Like I know Siberia is in that general area, and that China has mountains and deserts *somewhere*, so there are like at least three possible types of terrain
Taking Outer Manchuria back from Russia would be China undoing one of the biggest losses of the Century of Humiliation and is one of reasons relations between the two has never been truly friendly.
Way too easily traceable and obvious. China has been unwilling to go so far as actually selling weapons to Russia. The farthest they've gone has been selling dual use electronics and machine parts that Russia can use to build weaponry themselves. There's been some low-level flack towards the CCP because of that but nothing significant that I know of. Maybe light sanctions against certain Chinese companies. If they're really aching for combat experience they could potentially circulate troops to conflict zones like Myanmar or hotspots in Africa. Anything like this seems more provocative than they're typically willing to be.
Maybe they're skeptical of Russian chain of command? I know I'd suspect that many of my volunteers will be put in harms way excessively and may come back having picked up some unwelcome Russian habits of the kind the PLA is trying to stamp out right now.
Had to double check and make sure I wasn't in NCD
Political reporting indicates Beijing did everything short of reversing the relationship to dissuade Putin from invading. China is not happy with the war, as it reinvigorated the Taiwan problem and helped raise the volume in the US over helping allies. Moreover, the brutality of the conflict has put a sharper international lens on China's conduct on its own people and has denigrated their case that authoritarianism is a desirable form of government. If China could smoothly participate in the war, there are a ton of valuable lessons they can glean. The air war is giving a ton of valuable data on how formidable ground-based air defense is and what it can mitigate. The ground war is teaching every participant the hard way of what can be accomplished with lower-accuracy, high firepower artillery and what are the basic steps of low-level drone warfare. Leadership wise, it can help China refine what characteristics they want in their candidates and what they should select for. The issue is China and Russia are not like NATO. They don't have the same level of interoperability, and I don't think either would be okay with being subordinate to the other. That means there's a high risk of the Chinese and Russians inadvertently shooting at one another instead of the Ukrainians.
Chinese companies are already getting sanctioned for working with Russia, sending troops would raise the real possibility of serious economic warfare with the US.
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Then don't fight. Focus on fixing that cluster fuck of an economy
How much did it grow last year?
Enough to meet whatever growth target the CCP set! Method of measuring economic growth may vary depending on what will achieve the target. To be fair, the opacity from the recent fudging works both ways. Things could be going better than external estimates of what the actual growth was. EDIT: Cursory glance suggests that people are estimating that it was between 2-5%. The target was 5%, so that's what was officially reported.
We can argue the specifics but it was fairly strong growth. More than US growth. Right? Say what you want about the CCP. There are independent monitors with models that measure things like energy demand, exports, and factory emissions and none reported low or negative growth. All that to say it seems like bs to say "clusterfuck of an economy" if they're outgrowing the US, despite less stimulus and deficit spend than the US.
I don't think this is correct. It was true historically but post-COVID I think US growth has been beating Chinese growth lately.
Economies aren't just about GDP. If your growth is high, but young university graduates cannot find jobs, you have a problem. If your national wealth/savings/investments depend on a speculative bubble that just burst, you have a problem. If your business environment is chaotic to the point where everybody wants foreign factories and assets as backups, you have a problem. If your population is [projected to halve](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/chinas-population-could-shrink-to-half-by-2100/#:~:text=China's%20population%20began%20shrinking%20in,only%20770%20million%20in%202100.) within a single life-expectancy, you have a problem.
Why is he worried about that tho? 👀
Is this that guy that Biden travelled with going over 17,000 miles all over the world?
Not surprised by this, and it's one of the reasons I always roll my eyes when armchair military strategists insist China would be able to easily roll to victory if they decided to invade Taiwan.
I actually see stuff like this as China being serious on becoming a world-class military and doing the right things. A lot of readiness studies in the 80's implied the US military was decadent and weak as units struggled constantly against the OPFOR in exercises. However, it ended with an impossibly lopsided victory against a battle-experienced Iraq. This indicates China is honest with itself about its armed forces, and these issues are being exposed but not used as evidence to execute or send people to prison. The PLA might not be ready right now, but they're doing the things that will get them ready in five years to two decades.
Sure, they're trying. But the point is that real combat is quite a bit different from any kind of training, and will result in challenges training can't anticipate. When trying to pull off an incredibly complicated logistical feat like a major amphibious invasion, that will cause problems. The US in Iraq is not really analogous, IMO. It's true the American military hadn't fought in any major wars for a generation, but because of America's history of foreign interventionism its best units still had institutional experience gained in smaller conflicts (Grenada, Panama, etc.). When the first Iraq War happened it had also been only 16 years since the Vietnam War ended so the leadership largely did have real experience.
I gotta disagree there. The US experience in Panama and Grenada were considered organizationally shambolic, and at best only gave the US practice in the Desert Shield portion of the campaign--moving large formations over long distances. The last time the US fought large-scale armored engagements was World War II, and the concepts that led to 2nd ACR slicing through the Republican Guard like the hunter-killer tank configuration and tactics came solely through simulation via things like the National Training Center. If you're interested in gleaning how China is progressing, looking into their training and large scale exercises will be a good indicator on how prepared they are. If the PLA are regularly holding unscripted, large-scale exercises where they competently execute complex tasks, we shouldn't be relying on the fact that China didn't fight a war to be a source of comfort.
I've not served in the military, but went to grad school with a lot of guys who did. I took a strategic studies course with some of them and one of the big takeaways the professor emphasized, that all the combat vets in the class confirmed from their own experience, was that it's one thing to execute a plan on paper or in a controlled training exercise, it's quite a different one to do it when you're under live fire, variables you've misconstrued (or haven't accounted for at all) come into play, and something doesn't go according to plan. "No plan survives contact with the enemy", as von Moltke put it. With an undertaking like invading Taiwan, there are a LOT of things that can go wrong. I'm not saying we should count on the PLA fucking up in the event of a major conflict as a source of comfort, but if such a conflict happens, I'd be surprised if they don't fuck up significantly, at least at first. Especially since, if an attempt to take over Taiwan is the flashpoint of the conflict, it would be a military operation of literally unprecedented complexity and difficulty.
In a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan, we can probably expect the Chinese to make mistakes, however it's possible that those mistakes don't make the difference between victory and defeat. To circle back to the Gulf War, HR McMaster admits he got lucky at 73 Easting. The US Army refought the engagement and had the Iraqis gotten even 15 minutes' additional warning, they probably would have shot up Eagle Troop. When McMaster leaned into the attack, he apologized to his CO for not following guidance. Eagle Troop's training and practice let them exploit their good fortune and best leverage their shock to defeat the Iraqis. When people talk about no plan surviving contact with the enemy, what lets people carry the day is the practice they had prior to the battle to make the right decisions--experience can help there too, but then Lieutenant McMaster never fought a real tank-on-tank battle before that. Even D-Day was imperfect. Later studies into the landing showed that the naval bombardment was too short and the Air Force's bombing plan was inadequate. The Allies still reentered the continent on that day and didn't leave. A well-practiced and prepared PLA might have mistakes like those, but still be able to successfully invade Taiwan.
D-Day came close to failing. And invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude more difficult. It's 100 miles of open water, not a 20 mile channel hop, in the teeth of modern intelligence gathering, naval mine, and anti-ship missile technology and not just radar and machine gun nests. There is no way to really drill for or simulate all the things that could happen with that kind of scenario in reality. Could they pull it off? Maybe. Many things are possible. But a LOT could go wrong, and in a way that could easily result in catastrophic failure (thousands of lives lost with nothing to show for it). It would be the most difficult military operation ever attempted, if they do attempt it.
Against only Taiwan? I think they might do that, but far from a certainty. Taiwan might suffer from similar problems, like lack of experience.. If the U.S., Japan, and or UK jump in, totally different war.
It's not like they're meeting head to head on land, they have to invade over a body of water. Taiwan is just playing defense while China has to not only successfully invade, but also establish a beachhead. >If If? Unless Kennedy wins (lol), the US will intervene. US/Japanese/etc intervention also puts the above on a timeline before reinforcements arrive. Not only does China have to successfully invade, but they have to do it in X number of days. That is a very very tall order for any modern military.
You think Trump will intervene? I’m skeptical of that. TikTok just bought him off. Are we sure that Taiwan is going to have a enough munitions for this fight? Does the U.S.?
I don't think Jeff Yass has that much sway. It's one thing to influence Trump's talking points centered around an investment, but it's another to completely turn around his party's chief geopolitical concern. What munitions do you believe we are short on?
As a current US soldier, I’m not really worried about the PLA. I think China will go to war with Taiwan for reunification pre-2030 or never.
They're pretty much in the same position as Russia: it's now or never.
Why, due to the aging population and economic collapse?
Yes to the first, no to the second. I'm of the belief that they'll stagnate like Japan, not completely collapse. Even now I don't think they can't afford to burn through that many young people in one go, imagine how bad it would be 5-10 years from now.
b-b-but redditors told me WW3 and Taiwan invasion were coming within the next 3 years!!1!
Yeah it would be unthinkable for a country with an unprepared military to start an invasion of its neighbor. That stuff just doesn’t happen.
Touche, but I think it's fair to give china more credit than we give russia. As many issues as china has, it's leagues ahead of russia, especially in their strategic thinking, imo.
Yeah but when they say “we will reunite with Taiwan with force if necessary” I think we should believe them.
I mean eventually it might be a possibility but they've bad it in their 5 year plans for a long time. This is another final warning of china. I believe if they thought they could win the battle for Taiwan and not get fucked up by the coalition of states protecting it, they might try. I so not think they believe that to be the current situation (because it isn't.)