Grant Newsham: When China Attacks & PRC Threat COA’s, New Paradigms w/Sargis Sangari EP #136

On Monday, 6 FEB 23, Grant Newsham, Senior Fellow Japan Forum & Center for Security Policy, joins me on New Paradigms w/Sargis Sangari EP #136 to discuss his new book When China Attacks and the #PRC Threat Courses of Action in the coming years.

COl Grant Newsham #USMC (Ret.) and I began our discussion by focusing on the #military and #political outcome the Chinese Communist Party (#CCP) was trying to accomplish with the #Chinese #spyballoon.

Grant stated that months ago, a pilot friend of his and other #American #pilots spotted balloons between #Hawaii and the mainland united states, so he was not entirely surprised that a #Chinese #spy balloon had traversed the United States.

According to Grant, these #surveillance balloons suck up #electronic #intelligence, which can be data-minded for readings to help #target our #intercontinental #ballistic #missiles and can be used as delivery platforms for Chinese #hypersonic missiles.

According to Grant, the Chinese were testing our response, and China was testing the #Biden administration's ability to react. These balloons have been used against #India, #LatinAmerica, #Japan, and others.

In our discussion, I relayed my concern if these platforms use #nuclearfuel and if the balloon could have had Light Detection and Ranging (#LiDAR) capability, that would allow the People's Liberation Army (#PLA) to map our ballistic missile locations within 100-300 meters.

We discussed the comments made by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (#CIA), Mr. #WilliamBurn, who stated that we need to take Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the CCP and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (#CMC), serious in his preparation to invade #Taiwan by 2027. Xi's third term as #President of the Peoples Republic of China (#PRC) will end in 2027.

Grant stated that Xi #Jinping is a #dictator who gave the PLA marching orders to attack Taiwan by 2020. In his assessment, the PLA was ready to invade Taiwan in 2020 and should not be underestimated.

However, instead of taking direct action to grab the island nation, which would cut off China from world trade and access to the USD, making the PRC an international pariah in its attempt to #enslave 23 million free people, China can accomplish this mission in the 2024 #Taiwanese elections.

The incumbent President, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (#DPP), who was reelected in 2020, is ineligible to seek a third term. The winner of the 2024 presidential election is scheduled to be inaugurated on 20 May 2024. If XI can have his candidate or a candidate willing to cut a deal with the PRC, win the election, then an invasion may be unlikely.

Grant also stated that even though the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have an estimated 80 billion dollar budget, most Intel analyses without such a large budget have reached the same assessments.

We discussed the China and Taiwan #wargame conducted by the Center for Strategic International Studies (#CSIS) earlier this year and the points not covered by the wargame.

Grant stated that the wargame highlighted how catastrophic the war would be for the entire world. Grant took issue with the wargame because it looked at a force-on-force fight in a narrowly defined area. Grant suggested that the political aspects must be addressed in the next wargame to holistically understand a possible outcome at the geostrategic level.

According to Grant, we need to see if the U.S. will be willing to fight to defend Taiwan and if Taiwan would be willing to fight if it feels isolated and with no friends coming to its rescue. Furthermore, given that we do not have joint training and planning with Taiwan and not knowing if Japan will be delayed in its response to join the war given an overestimation of #Japanese capabilities, we need to be cognitive that these political elements may be planting the seed in the minds of the Taiwanese people that a costly war that destroyed the Island nation may have to be fought by them alone.

Additionally, If we expand the fight to the rest of the world, the war will be costly to China, given the PRC needs more #energy or the ability to feed itself when isolated.

Other issues to be considered are that the U.S. may be worried about a nuclear war if it defends Taiwan. The more serious COA for the U.S. is that if China takes Taiwan, the first island chain is broken through #Japan, #Malaysia, and # Australia. So if you lose Taiwan, you can not contain the PLA as it enters the American defensive line in #Asia. If this happens, the #psychological and #political message to Taiwan and the global polities would say that a U.S. nuclear force backed by an excellent economy could not keep #ethnic Chinese free even after promising them that we will.

Grant believes that if we lose this fight, Asia may not entirely turn red but will at least be purple. So currently, it's a 50/50 possibility that we will win or lose this fight.

According to Grant, by 2005, we should have known what china was doing, but by 2013, most should have seen the PLA operations defeat our military as it moved against the #Philippine #Scarborough #Shoal.

Today we have to break the 40-year isolation of Taiwan as we ensure U.S. businesses do not prop up the PRC. Instead of removing officers like Captain James E. Fanell, U.S. Navy (Retired), who served during the #Obama administration as the chief of intelligence for CTF-70, 7th Fleet, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet because he called China an adversary, we should find the next Admiral Robert F. Willard who last served as the 22nd Commander U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (#INDOPACOM) to win the war against the CCP.

Join us for this critical conversation.