The latest large-scale PLA exercise around #Tawian appears to be wrapping up. What might be some of the initial observations that can be made? (Thanks @ianellisjones for the terrific infographic below) 1/21 π§΅
2/ The latest joint exercises commenced in the wake of the inauguration of the new President of Taiwan last week. You can read his speech here: english.president.gov.tw
3/ Frequent speeches by Chinese President Xi, and a recent Taiwan White Paper, make their intentions clear. As the White Paper pronounces in bold, βTaiwan Is Part of China - This Is an Indisputable Fact.β
4/ The Chinese last week also described the new Taiwanese president as a βdangerous separatistβ and that βwe must counterattack and punish the DPP authorities in colluding with external forces to pursue independence provocations.β That is not very nice!
5/ So what can be learned - or at least observed - from the Chinese 'punishment drills' around Taiwan over the past few days? (Thanks @detresfa_ for the infographic).
6/ First, the PLA is slowly improving its capacity for the conduct of joint operations. This is really hard, and has taken military institutions in the west decades to get better at. We are yet to truly master them.
7/ As such, this would have been a good test of the Eastern Theatre Command's planning and execution capabilities, particuarly in the air and sea domains. However there would also have been input by cyber, land, space and info war capabilities.
8/ Second, the US and Japan in particular will also have been observing how the Eastern Theatre Command, only a decade old, commands and controls operations. How centralised are command methods, and how quickly can it adapt from an extant plan? How integrated are other supporting commands? These kinds of C2 and leadership capabilities are crucial to effective warfighting.
9/ Third, there will be many observations about the surveillance and reconnaissance network (including HUMINT, space and cyber) that the PLA will have employed to plan and conduct the exercise. While they will have done so guardedly, they will have exposed many different systems for detection and exploitation.
10/ Fourth, by the same token, the PLA will have exposed some of its logistic support systems during the exercise at the tactical, theatre and strategic levels. These are important for us to map for their strenghts and weaknesses. As we have learned (again) in Ukraine, logistics is a critical and targetable vulnerability in enemy military systems.
11/ Fifth, while more difficult to observe, the integration of theatre level activity with political direction from Beijing will have been interesting to assess. This includes strategic influence operations and diplomacy. Are there gaps that might be exploited in aligning political objectives with military capacity? How much autonomy do military leaders have in the planning and conduct of operations?
12/ Sixth, the new commands created in the wake of the split up of the Strategic Support Force will have played some role in supporting Ex Joint Sword 2024A. While very early days in the life of these organisations, we should be observing how effective these info, cyber and space commands are, and how integrated they are with theatre level planning.
13/ Seventh, we might be able to assess just how quickly the PLA can implement a blockade around Taiwan if it chose to do so. The posture and position of many PLA force elements during the exercise was almost exactly that of a blockading force off Taipei and major ports.
14/ This assessment from @ChinaPowerCSIS provides a deeper analysis of this particular issue and is well worth reading. chinapower.csis.org
15/ Eighth (yes, there is a lot to learn from military exercises), there will have been insights into the performance of different aerial and naval systems deployed, including the PLA aircraft carriers and their supporting task forces as well as the missiles fired during the exercise. This will give insights into strenghts and targetable vulnerabilities.
16/ Ninth, Exercise Joint Sword 2024A provides insights into the overal shape of the PLA and how close it is to achieving Xi's direction to be ready for military action against Taiwan by 2027. Could Xi decide to do something even earlier than this date if he felt the opportunity was right and the chances of success worth the risk?
17/ Tenth, and finally, Xi and the CCP are not stepping back one millimetre from their demands to have Taiwan become (for the first time) part of the PRC. They have made clear that there is no negotiation to be had over this issue, and the military option is very much on the table. As such, allied deterrence in the western Pacific is crucial.
18/ Two final thoughts I have, which are not directly related to Exercise Joint Swords 2024A.
19/ 1. We need a very robust translation of Ukraine war lessons for the western Pacific. Not all translate directly and we need to think through how different context (geography, politics, weather, history, etc) might affect the implementation of Ukraine lessons for military institutions in the western Pacific. I will be writing more on this soon.
20/ 2. The OSINT capability applied in the Ukraine war has hugely increased our understanding of the conflict. That is not to say that it is all good, but it is an importantly capability. How are we developing this for any future conflict over Taiwan or elsewhere in the Pacific?
21/ As the exercise begins wrapping up, there is much to do to analyse the potential lessons from it. These lessons will be added to those from previous large joint PLA exercises (such as after the Pelosi visit to Taiwan) to build a robust, aggregate picture of PLA capabilities - and Chinese will. End
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