| For a variety of reasons, it is not desirable for America to openly support Taiwan in the event of a war between Taiwan and China. One of these reasons is the potential for massive economic retaliation by Beijing, which could cause great damage to the US economy.
Here's my idea:
In public, United States would officially – and loudly – declare that it was not going to intervene on Taiwan’s behalf, and that Taiwan was on its own. Behind the scenes, however, the United States would intervene in such a way that the Chinese operation would be thwarted while the U.S. still maintained plausible deniability.
To be fully believable, not even the Taiwanese would be notified about such an operation. The U.S. operation would remain invisible to and hidden from foe and friend alike.
This would involve intervention with stealth aircraft and submarines. Stealth fighters such as F-22s and F-35s would fly BARCAPs on the Taiwanese side of the Taiwan Strait to deny China air superiority, while Los Angeles, Seawolf and Virginia SSNs lay hidden under the Strait to sink targets of opportunity.
For simplicity’s sake, the rules of engagement could be simply that the Strait was a free-fire zone for American submarine commanders, and all ships and vessels in the Strait were to be sunk on sight.
To avoid friendly fire against other American submarines, the rule could be to divide the Strait into halves or quarters, assign a submarine to each section and order the submarine commanders to fire on vessels within their own respective kill zone only.
Why such a method? Because this would give the impression that Chinese combat losses were due to Taiwanese action. A Chinese bomber that was shot down by an invisible American F-22 could simply be believed to have been shot down by a Taiwanese fighter. Likewise, a Chinese warship that was sunk in the Strait by an American submarine could easily be believed to have been sunk by a Taiwanese missile or torpedo.
We are talking, after all, about hundreds or even thousands of military vessels, aircraft, missiles, ships and systems moving and shooting at each other in real time, so the fog of war would be very thick and small details could easily be lost or overlooked in the din of battle. |
