Disturbing warning new commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Paparo. In statements reported by the Washington Post, the military high command said if Xi Jinping’s China invades the island of Taiwan, Beijing will face a large lethal drone force that will crush its army. The top US military official in the Pacific said that the “Hellscape” strategy is designed to distract China and buy time for the United States to respond. “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into hell using classified capabilities,” the military man said. By doing so, he added, “I can make their lives completely miserable for a month,” which would give the US time to deploy a broader military response.
This plan involves the launch of thousands of unmanned systems or drones from surface ships and submarines to aerial drones to fight against Chinese forces in the event of an invasion of the island, which Beijing claims as part of its territory since it became independent in the 1940s.
This type of strategy would require large investments in cheap and reliable drones, something the United States has been doing with its Replicator initiative, reveals the South China Morning Post newspaper. Last year, the Department of Defense officially announced the program, which is a long-term plan to deploy thousands of autonomous systems. While progress on the ambitious plan has been relatively quietly low-key, there have been some signs of movement. With this initiative, the US is preparing for the worst scenario. It should be remembered that the president Xi Jinping has called on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be prepared to take Taiwan by force by 2027.
The Pentagon intends to spend $1 billion this fiscal year on the Replicator program, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in March. If this drone swarm strategy is not ready in the short term, the prospects for a long conflict would increase and could cause heavy losses for US naval assets and the US Air Force, which would end up involving Japan, South Korea and South Korea in the conflict. South and the Philippines, as concluded by most war-gaming exercises conducted by American think tanks.
China’s most likely strategy is to launch a massive attack on Taiwan without warning, said Paparo, who assumes President Xi does not want to repeat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mistake in Ukraine in 2022, when Russia’s initial large-scale invasion It failed and became a long war of attrition.
Journalist Josh Rogin, who spoke with Paparo at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, organized by the International Institute for Strategic Strategies, explains that the PLA – the Chinese People’s Liberation Army – is expanding its nuclear, naval, air, cyber, intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities at record speeds. According to Paparo, China’s military budget is probably triple what Beijing publicly acknowledges, which would put it at around $700 billion annually, close to what the US invests in defense.
The Washington Post article argues that the US military currently has no reliable way to stop the China’s “aircraft carrier destroyer” hypersonic cruise missiles.
Commander Paparo has described the Chinese government as “revanchist, revisionist and expansionist” and believes that four decades of friendly diplomacy trying to convince Beijing to liberalize its political system have failed, which in his opinion has given way to an eranew and more dangerous for Asia.
What is the US strategic ambiguity?
The US policy of “strategic ambiguity” towards Taiwan It does not clearly establish what Washington would do if Beijing finally orchestrated an invasion of the island. President Joe Biden has said on several occasions that he would come to the aid of Taiwan, but his words were later qualified by senior officials. Even the president himself said in an interview with The New York Times that such help “would depend on the circumstances.” It seems less likely that a hypothetical president Donald Trump from 2025 intervene on behalf of Taiwan. According to him, he told a Republican senator when he was president of the United States that if China attacks the island “there is nothing we can do about it.”
Who is Commander Paparo
Paparo is the brand new commander of the Indo-Pacific Command and has extensive experience within the US Navy. Pilot with experience in F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle and F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft, He commanded the United States Fifth Fleet and Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain. The Indo-Pacific Command that he now directs covers 36 countries and is responsible for the Pacific Fleet, the Pacific Marine Corps Forces, the US Army in the region, the Air Force and the Special Operations Command. from Pacific.
