Taiwan Trends and Scenarios: Challenge for the Next U.S. Administration

12/04/2020

By Richard Weitz

One of the major issues confronting the next U.S. administration is to fortify Taiwan’s defense and deterrent capabilities against the growing threat from the People’s Republic of China.

The last few years have seen increasing PRC pressure on Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China.

There have been growing naval and air activity in the island’s vicinity, including repeated deep incursions across the Taiwan Strait Median Line and PLA Air Force circumnavigation flights around the island. The intent has been to both intimidate the Taiwanese and wear down the defender’s air fleet. The rhetoric emanating from Beijing regarding Taiwan has also become increasing bellicose.

A no-warning PLA assault on Taiwan is presently unlikely but possible. We have recently seen how the Chinese-Indian confrontation abruptly escalated earlier this year.

If an invasion were imminent, warning indicators could include Beijing-inspired riots, sabotage, and assassinations in Taiwan. The PLA would also probably mobilize its reservists and concentrate a flotilla of vessels on the PRC coast opposite the island.

Following the Russian example, the PLA might also try to lure Taiwanese defenders off guard by launching an invasion during one of its increasingly frequent military exercises around the island.

Although PRC policy making is opaque, certain “red lines’ as well as opportune circumstances may induce Beijing to attack.

Commonly cited red lines include major moves toward Taiwan independence, the island’s impending acquisition of nuclear weapons, or the stationing of large U.S. military forces permanently on the island.

Of course, PRC decision makers might change their red lines over time and might not fully know what would prompt military intervention. Chinese scholars sometimes site the Korean War as an example of how Beijing (and Washington) became entangled into a major regional conflict without much premeditation.

Regarding targets of opportunity, the PRC might see widespread internal unrest on the island as an invitation to attack.

A regional crisis, such as one involving North Korea, could provide the necessary distraction to encourage a PLA move against Taiwan.

A related tactic might be to exploit one of the joint Russian-Chinese military exercise to imply Moscow’s support for Beijing’s assault.

Conversely, Beijing might be restrained if its confrontations with its other neighbors—especially India and Japan—remain elevated to avoid the strains of managing concurrent multi-front campaigns.

But major PRC domestic problems could induce either caution or risk-taking, as seen in the classic example of the Argentinian junta launching the Falklands/Malvinas War to preempt (actually just delay) its impending overthrow.

In the interim, which may last as long as October 1, 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, PRC policy makers are preparing the legal, political, diplomatic, intelligence and military battlefield for long term reunification.

Major steps include the PRC’s Anti-Secession Law, its renewed campaign to exclude Taiwan from international institutions like the World Health Organization, and its comprehensive intelligence gathering operations aimed at influential Taiwanese as well as their organizations, defenses, and networks.

In the military domain, the PLA is augmenting its network of ground sensor and reconnaissance satellites covering Taiwan and the surrounding sea and airspace.

Though the PRC has not (yet) aggressively building a large amphibious fleet, it has been militarizing its commercial fishing and maritime transport fleet to supplement its Navy and Coast Guard.

In a Taiwan scenario, the PRC’s maritime militia could function like Russia’s little green men, occupying Taiwan’s outlying islands with little notice. The PRC would likely describe the seizure as a police action or other non-military operation short of a state of war, which would make it harder for the Taiwanese and their American allies to respond militarily.

If Beijing encounters a weak response, as has been the case in the South China Sea, then the PLA could take a more direct role in seizing additional territories. Such a staged island-hoping operation would be easier to undertake than abrupt full-scale amphibious assault, which no country has undertaken since General MacArthur’s seizure of Inchon port in September 1950.

It is even possible that Beijing may change its future course and renounce military options. The current PRC leadership is substantially more confrontational and risk-acceptant than its predecessors. The next team might return to a more cautious, bide-your-time strategy.

A comprehensive regime change that engendered a liberal democratic China, an improbable if hoped-for development, might even make unification a popular option for the Taiwanese as well as reconcile Hong Kong and other occupied territories to a mutually beneficial partnership.

Barring a radical change at home, the PRC timeline for reunification might depend on decision makers’ expectation of future trends. They would consider the evolving military balance, economic trajectories, changes in Taiwanese popular opinion, and other variables to determine if time is on Beijing’s side.

Despite refining its disinformation assaults on Taiwanese politicians and other targets, PRC information managers have utterly failed to win over Taiwanese public opinion to unification. Polls show that support for unification is hovering in single digits, with young people especially seeking a future independent of Beijing.

Indeed, Beijing’s policies have done little to make one-China mergers attractive to the island’s voters. The PRC’s repressive policies toward Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang leave little to the imagination.

The PRC also has failed to exploit cross-strait economic ties to either attract substantial support in Taiwan or to pursue an Anaconda strategy to strangle the widespread opposition. Military threats and economic coercion have failed to enervate the resistance.

The Chinese Communist Party’s Unified Front strategy can no longer attract strong local allies into its PRC-controlled networks.

So if current trends continue, the PRC leadership, given the lack of viable alternatives will have to choose either to accept Taiwan’s de facto autonomy or use military force to end it.

If the PLA were to successfully seize Taiwan, the PLA could use the new territory to more effectively threaten Japan.

Furthermore, freed from preparing for a Taiwan contingency, the PLA could redeploy military forces to other theaters, such as against India to the west and against ASEAN states and Australia to the south.

Taiwan’s conquest would also embarrass and weaken the United States, which has offered Taiwan security guarantees and is seen internationally as the island’s most important military partner. The result would be to encourage U.S. allies and partners to appease the PRC or pursue alternative military paths, such as acquiring nuclear weapons.

So what to do?

Taiwan should continue its striving to be a net global security provider in areas such as global health. It should also spend more on defense to reverse years of decline.

The additional funds could help increase ground-force training to protect Taiwan’s approximately fifteen beaches suitable for invasion and exploit the island’s mountainous terrain to preclude easy PLA airborne assaults.

Reforming the system for mobilizing reserves should be another priority to compensate for Taiwan’s diminishing active duty personnel.

In terms of future weapons procurement, Taiwan needs to replace its aging fighters with F-35s as well as F-16s.

Investing more in both autonomous aerial and maritime drones would help compensate for the PLA’s more numerous warships and warplanes.

Additional naval enhancements could include acquiring more (anti-ship missiles, mines, and missile boats.

In essence, Taiwan should pursue a porcupine strategy to make Beijing understand that the costs of any aggression would exceed the benefits.

The United States can aide the Taiwanese by continuing to pursue a robust defense partnership with its military.

Although the focus of popular attention has naturally been on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the military partnership appropriately extends well beyond that to include military training, joint threat assessments, tabletop exercises, and helping Taiwan improve its indigenous defense industrial and technological capabilities.

In the information domain, U.S. messaging should make clear to the PRC that unprovoked aggression against Taiwan would reinforce the narrative that China’s ascent is presenting the same problems to the international system as the rise of Japan and China before World War II.

Conversely, to dampen Chinese overconfidence in military options, U.S. communications should emphasize that the PLA lacks any recent combat experience and could easily suffer defeat if it attempted an extremely difficult amphibious assault on Taiwan.

Featured Photo: A Chinese military training complex in Inner Mongolia, shown in this satellite image taken on Sept. 29, includes full-scale replicas of targets such as Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building.

Source: Satellite image 2020 Maxar Technologies

See, also the following:

Airpower When Directly Faced with the Authoritarian Powers: The International Fighter Conference 2019

Taiwan in Pacific Defense: Turning a New Page

The Next Phase of Australian National Security Strategy: Noise Before Defeat 2

FARP Refueling

U.S. Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jacob Almaguer, Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) officer in charge, and Sgt. Andrew Lohse, a noncommissioned officer in charge, both with Bulk Fuel Company, 9th Engineer Support Battalion (ESB), 3rd Marine Logistics Group (MLG) speak about FARP operations on Ie Shima, Okinawa, Japan, during Exercise Valiant Workhorse from Sept. 23-24, 2020.

During the exercise Bulk Fuel Company, 9th ESB, 3rd MLG, set fuel lines and manned the stations for a FARP in support of UH-1Y Venom, AH-1Z Viper, and MV-22B Osprey aircraft with 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, and U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawks.

Almaguer, a native of Dorr, Michigan, graduated from Hopkins High School in 2008 and enlisted out of Recruiting Station Grand Rapids in 2007.

Lohse, a native of Clinton, Iowa, graduated from Clinton High School in 2013 and enlisted out of Recruiting Station Quad Cities in 2013. 3rd MLG, based out of Okinawa, Japan, is a forward deployed combat unit that serves as III Marine Expeditionary Force’s comprehensive logistics and combat service support backbone for operations throughout the Indo-Pacific area of responsibility.

IE SHIMA, OKINAWA, JAPAN

09.21.2020

Video by Lance Cpl. Alpha Hernandez

3rd Marine Logistics Group

Flying the CH-53K: Visiting Marine Corps Air Station New River

12/03/2020

By Robbin Laird

Marine Corps Air Station, New River.

Yesterday, during my visit to New River, I experienced flying in the cockpit of the Marine Corps’s latest key air capability, the CH-53K.  I was in the cockpit with LtCol Luke “Amber” Frank, the VMX-1 Detachment OIC. He is a very experienced  Marine Corps pilot having flown virtually every type of rotorcraft the Marine Corps has, including being a presidential pilot as well.

He is experienced; obviously I am not.

So where did this flight happen?

In the new flight simulator which has been built and is operating at VMX-1.

The man-machine working relationship is a central part of the flight experience, with new capabilities crucial to mission success built around key man-machine capabilities.

A central one is the ability of the aircraft to hover with the automatic system, which allows pilots to operate in very degraded operating conditions to put down their aircraft at desired locations to deliver their payloads.

During our flight, in spite of the bright clear but cold day outside, we experienced several difficult landings in degraded conditions, dust storms, turbulence, and various challenging situations to land the aircraft.

Why does this matter in terms of concepts of operations?

This means that the crew can deliver the payload, Marines or cargo, to the area which is desired in terms of commander’s intent with regard to the landing zone selected for maximum combat effectiveness.

If one is inserting a force to support an effort to destroy key enemy capabilities, being able to take the right kind of situational awareness and land EXACTLY where the commander has determined the force could have the highest combat effect is a core combat capability with tactical and even potentially strategic effect.

This is how a capability within a new aircraft translates into enhanced probability for combat success.

And if you are an allied military which needs capability to insert force rapidly in special operations environment, the CH-53K could be a game changing capability for force insertion.

After my CH-53K ‘flight,’ I toured the first of the VMX-1 CH-53ks on the flight line. What quickly leaps out at you inside the aircraft, is the configuration to manage standard USAF pallets for rapid load and off-load operations.

In the near future, I will publish my interview with LtCol Frank.

And in an interview with Sean Cattanach, Sikorsky’s senior program manager of the U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K Training System, USNI News reported: “One of the benefits of developing a training system concurrently with the aircraft is that we’re able to utilize the digital designs from the aircraft to make sure the training is accurate.”

Bill Falk, Sikorsky CH-53K program director, added in a statement: “The training devices will ensure a flawless entry into service for the CH-53K heavy-lift helicopter.”

CH53-K Training Suite Video from RMS Creative Solutions on Vimeo.

Moving About During COVID-19: Observations of a Traveler

12/01/2020

By Robbin Laird

During 2020, with the pandemic descending upon the world, my usual year of global travel obviously was not to be.

But except for April and May 2020, I travelled at least once a month within the United States from June to December and globally from January to March as the pandemic descended on the world.

My year of pandemic travel began with my return flight from Sydney to Houston and then Houston to Washington.

The Australian government waffled for several days before throwing us foreign threat folks out.

So when I went to fly towards the last days I could do it, flights were cancelled all across the board.

Then in the flight back to the United States, no one had a clue what the regulations would be when we landed.

Notably, did we global entry folks have to fill out forms or would we do the death-defying act of using touch screens?

No one knew so we filled out forms, only to discover that we could use the touch screens.

Fortunately, these screens were cleaned after each use by some woman with a spray and a cloth towel which never changed during the ritualistic cleaning.

As a high-risk person, I travelled with care, but frankly without excessive fear.

And what I have seen during this year has been truly amazing, on many levels.

Observing human behavior is a constant pastime, but this year has provided some new manifestations of behavior, the kind of stuff one would have read in history books but not have seen first-hand in recent times.

I would note that I have travelled through many U.S. states over the past month, and it is clear that most people are cautious and risk managing.

That is why holding up masks in presidential debates is so amazing, as masks have been everywhere, I have gone, whether in transit or visiting the many cities I have visited.

If you think Americans are not using masks, frankly you have been spending too much time in your basement hiding out.

I have seen a number of types of behavior during the year.

First, there are the prudent and careful but those travelling without losing their sense of humanity.

This has been the largest group of folks, people you can chat with on the plane, or get a sandwich from in a store in the airport, or working in hotels, or walking down the street.

But there are exceptions which surprise you.

For example, after flying three hours sitting next to a chap, when he got up and crowded in the aisle, yelled at me that I was too close to him as I stood up at my seat, but not yet entering the aisle.

Apparently, where social distancing occured was a determination in this guy’s mind.

Second, there are the totally panicked folks, who frankly are people who generate uneasiness wherever they are in the travel chain.

For example, look at these folks in Dulles airport and ask yourself, why are they travelling at all.

Third, there are those who have read a Brothers Grimm fairy tale and believe in the magic mask.

These folks wear their mask everywhere.

Folks in cars are the most amusing.

I have seen in LA a chap driving down the freeway with his top down on his Mercedes and wearing a mask.

I saw a Harley-Davidson driver with a mask on in Jacksonville Florida, who yelled at me for not having my mask on in my rental car and I was at least 20 feet from this mask vigilante

Fourth, there are the totally paranoid.

You see these folks on planes, cautiously approaching the bathrooms and fearful of entering such a dangerous place.

You would think they are about to be threatened by an IED if they opened the door.

I even saw a chap crawling on the flight back from Sydney in March and open the door of the bathroom with his head as he somehow thought that was safer than opening the door with his hands.

Fifth, I have seen animals on flights which look saner the people they are with.

Take a look at this Great Dane looking at the masked folks and clearly puzzling over his place in the world.

Sixth, there are the Stasi mask folks wondering around who love to come up to you and threaten you if you might have done something which they think is threatening the world.

These are the folks building apps to trace your every movement to determine if you are a risky mobile contact. I am sure the Chinese government is finding these folks to be good future customers or perhaps members of future Cabinets in Washington DC.

I would observe that if you saw the masked folks coming onto the planes as they do now, you would fear another 9/11 but now these are friendlier folks.

Hopefully, we can end this nonsense sooner rather than later.

But the behaviors evident in travelling this year certainly will persist.

Clearly, we will all need the Stasi personalities to get more power because we are so unable to manage our lives without them.

Well back to my basement.

Sorry really don’t have one in the Outer Banks so I guess I will have to travel again.

Thales Maritime Mine Counter System: UK-French Defense Cooperation

By Pierre Tran

Paris. The European arms procurement agency signed Nov. 16 a contract worth some €300 million ($358 million) with Thales to build an unmanned surface and underwater minehunter system for the British and French navies, a source close to the deal said Nov. 27.

A production deal for an operational system, dubbed Maritime Mine Counter Measure, was seen as giving the British and French partners an edge in a highly competitive world market, with US industry the closest competitor.

The British part of the program was worth £184 million, the UK ministry of defense said in a Nov. 26 statement. That will cover four systems and service.

The overall value of the order was some €300 million, with the French part making up the rest, the source said.

The French armed forces minister, Florence Parly, said Nov. 26 the MMCM deal marked close ties between Britain and France fostered by the Lancaster House defense treaty signed 10 years ago.

“So, we are proud, with secretary (Ben) Wallace, to announce today, before the community of the Franco-British Council, the signing, which took place November 16, of a production contract for the Franco-British minehunter program,” she said at the opening of the virtual meeting of the high-level defense council.

The MMCM deal directly supported the French deterrence and helped “guarantee our sovereignty,” she said. “The proof, if any were needed, that combining our forces does not threaten our independence.”

Minehunters played a vital role in clearing the waters for the nuclear ballistic missile submarine and aircraft carrier, as well protecting ports, deployment of the naval task force, and sweeping contested waters, the French defense ministry said in a statement.

The MMCM unmanned system will eventually replace the present fleet of minehunters sailed by the Royal Navy and the French sister service.

France made an initial order for three systems, with the fourth to be placed next year. The latter order will be for the prototype with upgrades, including doubling the depth of an undersea drone to 200 meters.

The MMCM phase 2 order comprised eight systems, equally split between France and the UK, and followed a phase 1 2015 development contract worth €165 million. BAE Systems had been a partner on the initial deal but left in 2016.

Thales was prime contractor, with ECA, Kongsberg, L3 Harris, and Saab among  subcontractors on the development contract. Thales signed the phase 2 contract with the European procurement agency Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d’Armement (OCCAr).

Thales designed the system and will supply its SAMDIS sonar, the company said in a statement.

An MMCM system can cover an area as large as 30,000 football grounds and detect threats as small as a credit card, Alexis Morel, Thales vice president for underwater systems, said Nov. 27 in a telephone press conference. The British and French play soccer, so there was no confusion over feet or meters, he said.

For France, a new system will consist of one 12-meter long unmanned boat from L3 Harris and Thales, dubbed Unmanned Surface Vehicle, linked to a towed Thales sonar to detect and locate mines, and a Saab Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) to place charges and destroy threats.

There will be a mobile operations center, which can be airlifted by A400M or C-17. France has ordered a training simulator.

ECA supplied six Espadon A27 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle drones for the  prototype systems for Britain and France. Each navy had a demonstrator system, with three ECA AUV drones on the system.

The Royal Navy accepted the three ECA drones on its demonstrator but is expected to open next year a tender for new drones for the production contract.

First delivery of the MMCM was due by end-2022, with last shipment in 2025.

There was close interest in the MMCM from navies around the world, including the US, Australia, India, and the United Arab Emirates, Morel said. There were potential sales of tens of systems by the end of the decade.

There was marketing advantage in supplying the system to the British and French navies, seen as first class services, he said. The system avoided use of US components to bypass Washington oversight over exports through the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

“With this contract, French and British navies equip themselves with the world’s first fully integrated unmanned mine countermeasures system of systems,” Thales said in a statement.

In the UK, the MMCM deal will support 215 jobs at Thales operations  in Somerset and Plymouth, while L3 Harris works in Portsmouth, the defense ministry said.

In France, Thales will work on the program in Brest, western France.

HIMARS Transport

11/30/2020

A C-17 Globemaster III assigned to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson lands in Fort Greely Alaska, October 15, 2020.

A C-17 transported HIMARS units and their crews to conduct HI-RAIN training during RED FLAG-Alaska 21-1

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, AK, UNITED STATES

10.15.2020

Video by Senior Airman Kahdija Slaughter

354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs

The Next Phase of Australian National Security Strategy: Noise Before Defeat 2

11/29/2020

By Robbin Laird

I am in the throes of finishing up my book on the evolution of Australian defence strategy over the past several years, from 2014 until now.

With the announcement of the new government defence strategy by Prime Minister Morrison on July 1, 2020, it seemed a good time to draw together the work I have done over the past several years in Australia.

The book provides a detailed narrative of the evolution over the past few years of how Australia got to the point where it currently is with regard to national defense.

Hopefully, the book will provide a helpful summary of that evolution. It is based on the Williams Foundation Seminars over this period, and highlights the insights provided by the practitioners of military art and strategy who have presented and participated in those seminars.

In that sense, this book provides a detailed look at the strategic trajectory from 2014 through 2020.

During my visits to Australia during this time, one of my interlocutors in discussing Australian and global developments has been Jim Molan, retired senior Australian Army officer and now a Senator.

I have included in the book, the interviews I did with Senator Molan in the appendix to the book as a good look into the dynamics of change being undergone over the past few years.

Recently, Senator Molan has launched a podcast series looking at the way ahead and how Australia might address the challenges which its faces.

This is the second podcast in his series.

Major Wars are a Thing of the Past?

We should never forget that in World War I, 15 million people died. And in World War II 60 to 80 million people died. In the Korean War, 5 million people died. In Vietnam, at least 2 million people died. In the Iran-Iraq War of the 70s and 80s, 1 million people died. In Syria, recently, about 500,000 people have died.

And in Iraq, 150,000 people died in the invasion and the stability operations that I was involved in before, of course, ISIS came into the equation.

Who knows how many people have died in Yemen, in African wars and in parts of the old USSR? And most of that was in the 20th century.

The 21st century has started similarly war hasn’t touched Australia recently for 75 years, except personally, for those that went away to fight distant wars.

We’re a long way from Australia and we’re considered by the Australian military that it was their wars, not societies’ wars, the military’s wars. Australian society didn’t play much of a role in it.

It was hardly noticeable to most Australians, a bit of terrorism here and there, a bit of nation building such as in each team war.

A bit of police actions such as in the Solomon Islands. Really the only exception where society became involved was firstly paying for it.

But secondly, protesting wars or national service and most people within involved.

Every war that we fought as Australian, certainly in my lifetime, but also since 1945, has been, as I said before, this idea of a War of Choice where you choose everything, when you go and, particularly, when you come home.

In those kinds of wars, we haven’t been committed to victory just to participate. That’s why we went to Iraq and Afghanistan, not to win the war, but to participate. This is 75 years of military experience.

And as I said in the last episode, the opposite of wars of commitment, where there are big issues at stake, we have to win, and we not have not fought one of those since 1945.

Where does Australia find itself today?

We just haven’t seen a major war for 75 years. And this is really an extraordinary achievement of the last 75 years in national security is that across the world, I should say, we have avoided major hot wars, world wars, wars between major coalitions or major nations. The Cold War was an example of avoiding the hot wars.

The reason that we’ve done this really comes down to U.S. dominance and mainly by the fact that strength deters. If you can be big and ugly enough and strong enough, you can stop people acting in a way which is aggressive. It’s not just actual regional wars or major wars that will impact terribly on Australia. It’s also that high-level of tension that normally occurs short of a major war. and this could drastically impact Australia.

I remember one example of this is that in the early 2000s, in Israel, Hezbollah fired two Iranian anti-ship missiles at an Israeli patrol craft off the coast of Lebanon. One of them hit the patrol craft.

The other one was diverted by the electronic warfare on the patrol craft. It went over the horizon and hit a cargo ship, which had just left the port of Haifa. Now, as a result of that, not one single ship moved in and out of Israel for over a month.

Why?

Not because of the missiles, but because those ships could no longer get insurance.

Should there be a problem in our part of the world, then immediately everything that’s coming from other parts of the world, our pharmaceuticals, our fertilizer, our crude, or our refined petroleum products would stop.

Funding the ADF is Not Enough

The ADF, as I cannot stress enough, is not responsible for national security. The whole nation is responsible for national security.

It’s an important point to make, and I need to make it as often as I can because we in Australia tend to think that if you fund the ADF, then the ADF will take care of national security.

We might still have to participate in the small wars that we have been participating for years, but the probability of a major war is increasing significantly, and we must prepare.

The Challenge of Modern Warfare

The digital aspect of this is very, very important. Everything that we use cyberspace for enables us to live the modern life, to transfer money between banks and to organize our nation in an incredible way.

It also allows us to fight better, to have greater information and pass data from one organization to another. But cyberwar is never an alternative to what we call Kinetic War. Kinetic War is fundamentally blowing things up. It’s not an alternative.

I just need to make that point first up because a lot of people say, “Well, wars nowadays will be cyberwars. There’ll be digital wars, and we’re not going to go around killing people.”

Well, as I say often, nothing could be further from the truth.

But the digital side of conflict is simply an aspect of the current situation.

No war between the United States and China, which is what I focus on, will be clean. It will also not be limited to only those two countries. It might be limited to battlefields politely away from civilian centers.

It will be massively violent and destructive and may even go nuclear. It will involve massive cyber-attacks that will close down modern nations. We’ve seen examples of that, particularly in the Baltics out of Russia. It will involve attacks in space.. And perhaps it will involve attacks on targets on the Earth from space.

I think that the war may be short and sharp, and someone may win and someone may lose. There may be a high technology fight, which is won or lost, or combatants, after maybe a month of very high technology warfare, may back off in a stalemate, both participants in the war would suffer a great loss and great height for each other for the next indefinite period of time, for 50 years or more, it would be appalling.

Such a war may involve one cataclysmic battle or might be a series of lesser battles and attacks.

And the fighting may be extended, but with breaks to recover and re-equip and move forces.

All of these options, this is why I say that what we face is a terribly uncertain future.

And if you have an uncertain future, you must prepare as much as you can for what you do know. Such a war might just be between China and the U.S. It may be between China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea on one side.

And on the other side, it might be the U.S. and its allies, perhaps what we call the IBCA nations, America, Britain, Canada, and Australia, and New Zealand. Plus, perhaps, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and who really knows who else?

And as I said before, it may even be a massive nuclear war. Such as might have occurred between the United States and Russia for 50 years after 1945. It might involve the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the local level, even without a massive, mutual nuclear attack. It’s appalling circumstances.

He added comments regarding the warning period so to speak.

We might be in the middle of a buildup for war now. And it’s not just open war, as I said before, that will impact on Australia. This kind of period of tension leading up to wars will really make COVID look like a picnic and, how depressing, again, is that to even think of that?

What I reckon is likely to happen in a period of tension short of open warfare is nations that might normally export critical items to Australia, might cease to send them to us because of their perception of their own uncertain domestic need, exactly what happened during COVID. In this period of tension, there might be limited local aggression, even conflicts, such as border incidents or the settling of old scores.

We’ve seen changes in the nature in Hong Kong and Taiwan, pressure on Taiwan, incredible pressure on Japan. The Indian border dispute and minor disputes against between China and Bhutan.

There is a characteristic in this period of tension of nations ignoring the rule of law. Examples of that, we’ve seen intimidation and violence against neighbors in sea border disputes over what the Chinese call their Nine-Dash Line justification. We also see in this period of tension attempts to influence internal politics, we saw a New South Wales Upper House member, Mr. Moselmane, in New South Wales being investigated by ASIO and IFP raids and it’s alleged that he may have been the subject of influence, and we’ll let that run its course. We’ve seen the Belt and Road Initiative in Victoria used by a state government.

And all of this diminishes trust in our national institutions because of the fear of foreign influence.

We will see in this period of tension trade used as a weapon and we’ve seen that towards Australia now in relation to beef, wine, and barley. We will also see incredibly in this 21st Century period of tension, the maneuvering of offensive devices in space with a view to later destroying enemy satellites, or even at some stage attacks on us from space.

We’ve seen diplomatic hostage-taking Australian citizens in Iran and in China. We’ve seen very aggressive language, not quite diplomatic by the Wolf Warriors calling us white trash and that’s not unusual, of course, as we all know.

We’ve seen in this period, the forming of threatening alliances, I speak often about the American assessment of the threats to liberal democracy being four nations and an ideology. And those four nations could, for convenience, come together in some way.

We’re seeing China and Russia work together with Iran, for example, to overcome United Nations embargoes on arms shipments to Iran. And that is very, very worrying. We’ll see gathering of information, intellectual property theft, such as we’ve seen with the Thousand Talents Program.

And we’ll see espionage. Most people in Australia don’t know that the FBI are currently investigating 2000 active counter-intelligence cases involving Chinese espionage in the United States now. And they’ve even closed down Chinese consulates for spying.

We will see the gaining of control of United Nations body. I spoke before about how coalitions of nations have stopped U.S. attempts to extend the arms embargo to Iran and then supplying around with those arms.

And finally, there’ll be an increase indirect threats and building up force capability.

And we’ve seen that against the U.S. incredible threats only in the immediate past against the United States saying that if you locate U.S. troops on Taiwan, then China will go to war with you.

We’ve seen continuous threats against Taiwan and military maneuvering all around. Threats against Japan. Conflict against India and Chinese nuclear capability is being increased.

Deterrence is Crucial

What our priority should be is to increase the level of resilience of this nation and to defend the homeland against what I call a collateral attack, a collateral attack from China, in a war between the United States and China.

Collateral really means a secondary attack, not the main attack.

We’re unlikely to ever face the might of China by ourselves, but we may have to prepare for attacks into our nation and the impacts of total trade breakdown caused by war without considering a major war, a major invasion, they are big enough.

The question we’ve got to ask ourselves is, “Are we self-reliant enough?”

The answer is, “No”.

And that is what a nationwide strategy should concentrate on….

In my view, it will take us, in Australia, 5 to 10 years to get past COVID, restart the economy, and then start building resilience in this nation. Even if we started the intellectual parts of it, that is the deciding on what our strategy is going to be.

Even if we started that tomorrow, it would still take us five years best, 10 years probable.

We are well behind where we should be.