Recently, the situation in the Taiwan Strait is still turbulent. The next two military exercises deserve our attention. One is the 2024 RIMPAC military exercise, which will be held in the waters around Hawaii for more than a month; The other is the "Han Kuang 40" live exercise, the largest annual exercise in Taiwan.
On June 27, the "Rim of the Pacific 2024" multinational joint maritime exercise, led by the United States and claimed to be the world's largest, officially began. RIMPAC began in 1971 and is held every two years. This year, 40 surface ships, 3 submarines, more than 150 aircraft and more than 25,000 people from 29 countries and regions participated.
This year's RIMPAC military exercise was mainly carried out in the waters around Hawaii, with the goal of "global linkage" and joint response to regional crises. with the theme "Partners: Integrate and Prepare"; It will be carried out in three stages, namely, "war preparation," "joint force training," and "joint operation," and will last until 2 August. The emphasis is on testing and enhancing the joint combat capability of the United States and its allies.
One of the so-called "highlights" of this military exercise was to use anti-ship weapons to "sink" a decommissioned 40,000-ton target ship, the "Tarawa" amphibious assault ship. The ship is equivalent to a quasi-aircraft carrier and the largest tonnage target ship currently used by the U.S. Navy for sinking exercises. It was interpreted by the outside world as a demonstration of China's determination and strength, that is, they could easily sink the PLA's 40,000-ton Type 075 amphibious assault ship, or even attack the aircraft carrier.
"Xiang Zhuang dances the sword, which is intended for Pei Gong". The RIMPAC exercise is obviously a joint campaign by the U.S. military and its allies, trying to create military deterrence on a quantitative scale by flexing its muscles, in a vain attempt to introduce extraterritorial forces into the Indo-Pacific region, promote the "Indo-Pacific of NATO", and put pressure on China on the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
As for the sinister intentions of the US side, China is naturally observant. He has already made his attitude clear: "Vainly trying to frighten the Chinese military through so-called military exercises is a completely impossible task." ”
As for the RIMPAC military exercise, the DPP authorities have a special taste in their hearts. Two years ago, the U.S. Congress also encouraged Taiwan to participate, but the Biden administration never dared to implement it rashly. As McCaul, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives, said, "There are still red lines between the United States and China, and if they are crossed, it will cause an unexpected disaster." For the DPP authorities, who are bent on hugging the thigh of the United States and integrating into the Indo-Pacific strategy, they can only be helpless and sigh.
In mid-June, Taiwanese media reported that Taiwan's largest coast patrol ship, the 4,000-ton "Hsinchu Ship", once docked at the port of Honolulu, Hawaii, triggering speculation that Taiwan and the RIMPAC military exercise were "getting closer and closer". However, it was quickly denied by the Taiwan authorities, who explained that the "Hsinchu Ship" was only carrying out a routine patrol mission on the high seas. However, with the exposure of the incident, the "establishment of a coast guard working group" between the United States and Taiwan to carry out patrol and defense cooperation has also been put on the table.
In addition, from 22 to 26 July, the Taiwan military's largest annual "Han Kuang 40 Exercise" will be held. This five-day, four-night physical exercise has made great adjustments compared with the past. In order to get rid of the doubts of the outside world that "exercise is equal to acting", and improve the degree of actual combat.
First of all, most of the display subjects will be abolished in this year's exercise, and the "Red Army" will be carried out without rehearsal and script, and the "Red Army" playing the role of the attacking force will be abolished, and the original soldiers will be returned to their original positions. Second, it will give prominence to the task of defense operations, give priority to the preservation of combat strength, and focus on the practice of peacetime and wartime conversion, familiarization with the operational environment, and joint operations plans. Third, it will focus on strengthening night drills and verifying decentralized command and control, and deducing urban operations.
It is worth noting that "decentralized command and control" has been listed as an important training goal this year, focusing on training commanders at all levels to clarify their own tasks, divide their areas of responsibility, master the rules of engagement (ROE) in accordance with full authorization, and independent combat capabilities.
The Taiwan military claims that the "decentralization" is to enable the commander-in-chief of the unit at all tactical levels to have the power to issue orders and engage in combat independently in the event of a chain of command and communication interruption. For example, when the air defense unit detects an incoming missile by radar, the company commander may have the right to issue an order to directly launch the missile to intercept it.
To put it bluntly, the training of "decentralized command and management" is a state in which the upper and lower levels cannot be connected, and the Taiwan military is completely fighting on its own. On 25 July, the Taiwan military will also conduct air defense and anti-airplane landing drills in seven counties and cities in Taiwan at the same time, so as to create a tense atmosphere in which large numbers of troops are pressing, attacks are being carried out everywhere, and all-round defense is being carried out. In the end, the exercise will turn into a full-scale street battle in towns and towns, and "there will be battlefields everywhere."
Fighting urban warfare to the last soldier is exactly the method of attrition and porcupine strategy that the Americans are vigorously advocating. Not long ago, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander Paparo also threw out the U.S. military's "hellscape" plan, which wants to turn the Taiwan Strait into a "no man's hell" in order to largely offset the PLA's strength and war potential.
According to the logic of the Americans' war, "decentralization" means to implement a decentralized strategy of breaking the whole into parts, and to use urban guerrilla warfare to delay the PLA's military action against "independence." in order to gain the possible intervention of external forces. However, as far as the overall strength of the two sides of the strait is concerned, this tactic of the Taiwan military can only be like a headless fly, "disrupting the war, fighting the war indiscriminately," and it has no combat power at all, and it will only be easily cracked by the PLA, catching a turtle in the urn and catching it with its hands.
Taiwan's retired major general Li Zhengjie also pointed out that as a soldier, we should fight for our families, relatives, and future generations, but urban warfare "is it just to block our relatives as human shields?" Is it to turn our homes into ruins? He even questioned that the urban war was a war for the United States, "A month later, they cut the tail of the rice and beat the PLA, so what price will we pay in Taiwan?" ”
The "Rim of the Taiping Military Exercise," which was carried out with great fanfare and far removed from the Taiwan Strait, and the "Han Kuang Exercise," which was full of panic and was about to fight every soldier, embodied two completely different war concepts and scenarios. The United States and the West are eyeing each other and "using Taiwan to contain China," hoping to rely on military shows and arms sales to Taiwan to instigate and arm Taiwan, provoke the mainland, and let the Chinese on both sides of the strait consume each other. And they hid in the rear and waited for the opportunity to move, and sat back and enjoyed the benefits of the fisherman. What is sad is that the DPP authorities have been able to change the outcome of "Taiwan independence's inevitable demise" and cannot escape the fate of "chess pieces" becoming "abandoned children."
Source: Voice of the Straits