The U.S. army’s best strategic problem might be aiding within the protection of Taiwan towards the huge capabilities and capability of the Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) within the occasion of an invasion. China enjoys self-evident geographic benefits in a possible battle: Its forces will all the time be concentrated in East Asia, whereas solely a fraction of U.S. forces are comparably located. Given a point of strategic shock, the PLA may goal to swiftly seize Taiwan and obtain a fait accompli earlier than the USA and Taiwan may successfully reply. The US and Taiwan want to have the ability to sluggish, disrupt, and attrite PLA invasion forces to stop such an final result. The objective ought to be to supply crucial time for extra U.S. firepower to be dropped at bear, and to scale back the variety of PLA forces that have to be both focused en route or defeated on the water’s edge. Naval mines are such a functionality, complementing varied different weapons. This isn’t a brand new concept: There have been quite a few writings on the necessity for Taiwan to develop a “porcupine” technique to make it much less susceptible to assault, and plenty of have talked about that mines can play a helpful function.1 Others have centered on the usage of mines by the USA with out specializing in their use in a possible protection of Taiwan.
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