Sea Control - Sea Control 578: Chinese Amphibious Warfare with Andrew Erickson

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Links1. Chinese Amphibious Warfare, edited by Andrew Erickson, et al., Naval War College, China Maritime Studies Institute, 2024.2. China Maritime Studies Institute homepage. 3. Dr. Andrew Erickson's homepage.4. "Invasion Plans: Operation Causeway and Taiwan’s Defense in World War II," by Ian Easton, China Maritime Studies Institute, Naval War College, 2024. 4. China's New Navy: The Evolution of the PLAN from the People's Revolution to a 21st Century Cold War, by Xiaobing Li, USNI Press, 2023.5. Mao's Army Goes to Sea, by Toshi Yoshihara, Georgetown University Press, 2023.6. Andrew Erickson's Twitter.Dr. Andrew S. Erickson is Professor of Strategy (tenured full professor) in the U.S. Naval War College (NWC)’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). A core founding member, he helped establish CMSI and stand it up officially in 2006, and has played an integral role in its development; from 2021–23 he served as Research Director. Erickson is currently a Visiting Scholar in full-time residence at Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, where he has been an Associate in Research since 2008. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute of Maritime Policy & Strategy’s International Advisory Committee, and the Japan-America Society of Southern New England and Japan-America Navy Friendship Association (JANAFA)-Newport’s Board of Directors. Erickson serves on the editorial boards of Naval War College Review and Asia Policy and is a Contributing Editor at 19FortyFive. Twitter

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Oi, shipmates, and welcome back aboard Sea Control. I'm your co-host, Brian Kerr, and our guest today is Andrew Erickson of the Naval War Colleges China Maritime Studies Institute. We'll be discussing the book that he co-edited, Chinese Amphibious Warfare, Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion. which was published by the United States Naval War College this month, November 2024. As a reminder, all views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or any organization with which we are affiliated. Sir, welcome aboard Sea Control. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your professional background? Thanks, Brian. And it's great to join you and your listeners today, particularly as we stand watch to see what the next PRC military developments may be vis-a-vis Taiwan. I'd say my big career break really came in June 2004. I arrived in Newport for my PhD program at Princeton. And shortly after arriving in Newport, I started working with colleagues to do the initial work on what became our original China Maritime Studies group.

Together, we approached then Naval War College Provost, Dr. Jim Giblin, with the idea of creating a China Maritime Studies Institute. Naval War College President, Admiral Jake Shuford, approved. And so Dr. Giblin established CMSI within the Center for Naval Warfare Studies Strategic Research Department. That was on October 1st, 2004. I was honored to help draft the issue paper for the Naval War College's submission into the POM process that secured the CNO's personal approval to inaugurate CMSI formally, as well as sufficient funding to hire four additional faculty so that we could grow into a true full-fledged institute. Then on October 1st, 2006, we got our second and I could say even more official birthday because that's when CMSI was launched in accordance with the CNO's decision and publicly announced. We had some good early developments that I think really helped us get off to a good start. In April 2008, SecDef Gates invoked CMSI as a model for the Minerva Research Initiative.

He particularly liked the fact that we built our work around a library of Chinese language sources. And by December 2008, CMSI had held four, I like to say, influential conferences. It's indisputable that there were edited volumes for each of those. And here's where it's important to emphasize that we had our first conference on China's future nuclear submarine force in between the two birthdays. On October 26th and 27th, 2005. So that was almost a year before we were launched officially and publicly. We really worked hard to get out some initial publications that would, back then, you have to understand, Brian and colleagues, there was a lot of skepticism about the value of open source research. What could open sources really prove? There was great concern that they were riddled with disinformation and would mainly serve as a source of confusion. I like to say we helped change that, particularly with our study Chinese mine warfare, which I would say unfortunately remains a formative study in the field because while some folks have built on it effectively or studied related areas, I personally don't believe there's been a single monograph that fully replaces it.

And I hope there will be soon. But in any case, it was seen as an example of how open sources could validate through separate methodologies some things that were known to the Navy, you could say, by a variety of other means. And then finally, the CMSI model, which of course I'm a big advocate of, proved compelling to other organizations. The Air Force with the China Aerospace Studies Institute, we were the first service to have a China Institute, but the Air Force eventually followed suit after we gave them the secret sauce and supported them for a number of years. And I'm very excited that the Army has now followed suit with the China Land Power Studies Center Classic. So that's a little background on how I came into the field and how CMSI came into being and how we came to have conferences and volumes such as Chinese amphibious warfare. Well, sir, thank you very much for that. That was a really good background, really good setup. And I can say from my perspective, more from the practitioner side of things, that the value of CMSI is, frankly, invaluable. And I'm speaking from my former time as an operational planner out of 3MAP in Okinawa, Japan, working very closely with our counterparts of 7th Fleet, our Japanese counterparts of Western Army, our senior headquarters at Morphor PAC and Indo-PACOM, of course.

The value of what you bring to the table is absolutely incredible. And to the point about the question of how valuable is information that's not necessarily classified, I would offer that the open source information brings an incredible level of rigor that oftentimes you can't get when it's just people, say, like me, trying without the training, the expertise that you might bring to bear, trying to puzzle this stuff together. And frankly, if you're looking at the same stuff where you can look at a map or look at sales or look at things that are out there in the open source, you can come to the same conclusions that you would necessarily inside of a SCIF. And just because it's classified doesn't mean it has rigor. So all that to say, I'm deeply grateful that a center like the CNSI does in fact exist, that there are experts that are looking at Chinese language sources as well and bringing that expertise to the practitioner side. Because frankly, we just don't have that expertise, so we're absolutely relying upon you. So I'll pause there with the phrase, and let me turn us back to the main topic here, which is the book that you recently edited, contributed to, and published. So can you walk us through the big blue arrows of the book's purpose, its scope, the intended audience? I guess put another way, what's your elevator pitch to the readers out there? Absolutely, Brian. Well, I'd start with, I think of myself as kind of a junior Forrest Gump of PRC military maritime development. I've been privileged to witness some incredible things, some of which are wonderful, some of which are highly concerning.

And in that latter category, my quarter century of watching China's military coincides with its most concerted ramp up. And yet never have I seen so many trend lines intersecting so concerningly as is happening today. It's really fair to say that China's engaged in the most dramatic military buildup since World War II. They already have achieved that status. But on top of that, they're constantly adding staggering quantities of advanced weapons and training relentlessly to employ them effectively. So that's the backdrop. That's why we need to study closely everything China's military is doing. Now, what are the main thrusts we need to be looking at? I think we need to look at the man who's large and in charge right now, Xi Jinping himself. And to maximize his historical legacy, he clearly covets what for him and the Chinese Communist Party is the ultimate geopolitical prize, Taiwan. Taiwan is the last redoubt of flourishing freedom in the Chinese Communist Party-claimed sphere. Now, Xi Jinping can still be deterred from invading Taiwan, but the margin for us deterring him is decreasing precipitously. Time is running short, and the stakes could

scarcely be higher. And that's why it's vitally urgent to understand what Xi's ultimate move to take Taiwan might look like, and to double down on defenses to deter him from ever doing so in the first place, which would be by far the best outcome for all concerned. And that's what we focus on in this book. What might Xi Jinping's ultimate move against Taiwan look like in the form of an amphibious invasion, and how might we deter him from ever deciding to take that disastrous step in the first place? We always try to make our findings accurate, and I guess you could say nuanced in some fashion, but we also find their bracing in this case. China's military was previously limited in its ability to conduct its joint firepower strike, joint blockade, and

joint island landing campaigns against Taiwan, but is making rapid progress across the board as it prepares to meet the requirements of Xi's centennial military building goal. That centennial military building goal is a development deadline, a top priority development deadline to give Xi a full toolkit of Taiwan-relevant military operational capabilities by 2027. So with that in mind, drawing on research, writing, and insights from some of the world's leading experts on Chinese amphibious warfare, this latest edited conference volume from CMSI offers what I like to think is something for everyone interested in these vital subjects. The volume has what I would call gripping historical narratives, cutting-edge analysis. You can quantify the numerous graphics

and data tables that help support visually the text. And we conclude, we wrap things up at the end with an appendix covering major warships and landing craft in China's amphibious order of battle with detailed ship silhouettes and specifications. And of course, I believe in this volume after all the work we put into it, but I encourage readers to take a look for themselves. They can download the full-text PDF, searchable PDF for free on the CMSI website. And we can talk about that in the conclusion, how to make sure everyone can get a copy if they want it.

So just wrapping up our purpose for the volume, we probe some key questions concerning Beijing's determined pursuit of the Chinese Communist Party's ultimate political and strategic prize. One, how might the People's Liberation Army attempt to execute a joint island landing campaign to achieve a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan? Two, what might be its prospects for success? And three, what must Taiwan, with American support, do urgently to shore up deterrence now. Thank you very much. That's a great way to lay out the logic of the book. As you noted, there's something there for everyone. I enjoyed as I was going through it, everything from, hey, the amateur wannabe historian in me seeing the

historical frameworks that were laid out by some of the contributors, the operational planner in me seeing, again, very fundamental, sound, rigorous operational art and principles being applied in both the the chinese approach as well as potential defenses against that and then of course if you really want to get down to it some wonderful tables you can check the math you can do your own math but it's all there you show your work uh so i would offer that the book overall is just quite masterful and to listeners out there who might be wondering like an entire book though you know 500 plus pages on chinese amphibious warfare and when you look at this analysis or the space of other writers or name the person that's speaking on this topic, you see perhaps

what some might think is an overemphasis on unamphibious assault or the joint island landing campaign, as it's often called. But frankly, to your point, if the object that China or Xi seeks to achieve militarily is in fact Taiwan, the only way to force it to get that against Taiwan's will demands an amphibious operation, demands amphibious warfare. So examining it, I think it really is the crux of this entire discussion when we're talking about a potential conflict between China and Taiwan. So thank you for all that stuff. Let me move on to the next question. For listeners, we're going to get to the table of each section soon. But first, I want to talk about the book's genesis. So what started you and the team down this path specifically? How did you

plan to source and develop all the content from the contributing authors? Thanks for that question, Brian. You know, I always love talking about CMSI, but seriously, we make a point of always showing our work. We want to be a reference that people can assess for themselves to inform their own analysis. That's what the painstaking footnotes and everything help support. But you were also mentioning it is a lengthy volume. I'm holding the printout in my hand, and we're talking roughly 500 pages here, but pages 1 through 12 are an introduction that summarizes everything, including chapter summaries. So that's the sort of executive summary up front, because we are very respectful of people's time and know that that can be very, very, very,

very, very scarce for people. So hopefully that would be an appetizer that brings in people for a real feast of detail and food for thought. That also brings us to CMSI's founding principles and how we go about doing what we do, including the edited volumes. We've talked about the Chinese language sources, rigorously analyzing pedigreed sources, showing our work, as you say. And among other things, we think this type of inductive methodology can yield a better feel for decision makers. Decision makers will never have all the information that they desire in certain areas. But we believe we can help paint a picture of the context and the key dynamics that will help enable them and help enable all other analysts and interested individuals to make sense of this fire hose of data that's constantly coming out of China and its military. It's always being updated, but what are the big picture aspects that help frame that?

That's critical, and that's where open source can really help if managed properly. And in conducting this analysis, a real north star of our approach is seeking inputs from key principles and consulting with them, listening to them, engaging with them, helps us rack and re-rack and stack our priorities and plans. What are we focusing on as an institute? We do so in particularly close consultation with what I would call a trinity of leading stakeholders, OPNAV, ONI, and the fleet. And by the way, as part of that, I'm really happy with your mention. We love the Marine Corps, and we love 3MEF, and we were just on a call with them literally the other day. So that's how, I can't give any details there, but that's literally how we inform this

work. And we work really well as a team. We believe that scholarship can be scaled up. It shouldn't always just be an individual cloistered in an ivory tower. It should be a team of people well informed by practical realities, and in our case, really serving the needs of the Navy, the interagency, the key principles and decision makers, and all other major stakeholders, including with our allies, partners, and friends. So in the case of this particular volume, Chinese amphibious warfare, this is the eighth conference and resulting volume. We quickly narrowed it down to two top priority topics, this one and also Chinese undersea warfare. Since the amphibious threat to Taiwan seemed most urgent than a broader theme, we saved undersea warfare for later, and we've already addressed that as well. It's a separate conference and set of papers thus far that you can find on the CMSI website.

With the amphibious warfare topic, as we drill down, we already had some background knowledge, and this just underscored how important we thought it was to go as deep as we could into this topic. We already knew that Mao had ordered the PLA to prepare an amphibious attack on Taiwan for summer 1950. No kidding. That was the default plan. And Mao would have acted had not U.S. intervention thwarted his plans thanks to the Korean War. And of course, we hope to figure out how Chinese Communist Party plans might remain perpetually thwarted in this regard. So that was the genesis. Thank you very much for that background. And I really do appreciate the reference to the historical kickoff here. For other students or listeners of this podcast or students of the era, it's fascinating to see how closely U.S. involvement with the Republic of China at the time was tied directly to the breakout of the Korean War and concerns of a Chinese cross-strait invasion as a result of that, taking advantage of that. And in the space today, you hear a lot about concerns of the PRC taking advantage of U.S. distraction in another area. So it's interesting to see these echoes of the past and some of the same rules of warfare and history just playing out again and again and again. Also appreciate the 3MF love as a former planner and the 3MFG5.

I kind of miss those days when I was in the rooms when folks like you were having those conversations. And finally, I just want to highlight your reference to inductive methodology, pedigree sources, and key stakeholders to this volume. Because as other listeners who might be really focused on this area, it's often hard to assess the validity or how much weight you want to offer, name the foreign policy article or the Atlantic Council piece or the CSIS piece or the War on the Rocks article or name the source. And that's not a knock or a plug for any of the sources I just named, which is often hard to understand the sources, the weight, and how much, I guess, credibility would offer any given resource, whether it has a methodology or not. How you describe that, I think, should give readers or potential readers really strong faith and credibility in the weight of the work and the importance of the work you just did. So the book itself, you've broken it down to five core parts, and each has chapters by different authors or contributors discussing elements of that part's central idea. So to listeners, my own perspective, as I noted before, is that of a practitioner, previously serving as an O-planner at a core-level headquarters, 3MAC specifically, under Indopaycom, working on matters related to this contingency. As you already mentioned, sir, there really and truly is something here for everyone if you are working in this field.

And to that end, I'd like to take each section of the book in turn, giving yourself the opportunity to discuss what the readers are going to encounter and should look forward to when they get their hands on their book. So maybe a reader doesn't want to read it cover to cover, but maybe there's a section or a chapter that really will sing to them or hit their note. So let's start with the first part. So part one is titled Doctrinal Foundations of Chinese Amphibious Warfare. Can you discuss why you chose to start with Chinese amphibious doctrine and some key points? Yes, absolutely, Brian. I think broadly it can be said that in the beginning there was history, and then out of that came doctrine, and from that flowed more history. So in part one, we focus on important history that informs today's PRC amphibious doctrine and otherwise shapes what we now confront. In the historical background category, we have Grant Road chronicling Admiral Sherlong's invasion of Taiwan in 1683. Now, that is far removed from modern military ops, for sure, but it is definitely leveraged symbolically and politically by Beijing in recent years. And there are, of course, some geographical fundaments here for which that serves as an excellent foundation. Next, we have a chapter by Xiaobing Li.

He's a renowned historian who himself earlier served in the PLA, and he examines the PLA's formative experiences in amphibious warfare. And this history is, it's rich, it's consequential, and it echoes through the PLA today. So to recap a couple of Professor Lee's historical findings, because they really set the table for what we're facing now. In October 1949, the PLA attempted to take Jinmen or Kinmen, but it was a complete disaster. The PLA, being a learning organization, took lessons from that right away and parlayed them into dramatic success in the April 1950 Hainan Landing, the capture of Hainan Island. And it was that victory that in turn inspired China's, the PRC's leadership to prepare for a similar assault on Taiwan. Again, the ultimate prize. Of course, as we know, the Korean War happened in that fateful month of June 1950, but the PRC was not immediately willing to give up this objective.

So first, Premier Zhou Enlai officially postponed the operation at the end of the planned landing window. That is June 30th, 1950. And of course, to Taiwan's great fortune and ours, I would argue, the 7th Fleet was able to command the Taiwan Strait and would pacify it with its Formosa patrol for the next 29 years. However, before postponing fully, China's Central Military Commission initially instructed that 1952 would be the earliest window for an attack on Taiwan. So again, this ultimate prize very much in the minds of the Chinese Communist Party. For the rest of the 1950s, the PRC curbed its enthusiasm, you might say, under Mao's specific instructions. Mao did not want a war directly with the United States, which was far stronger. So instead, he instructed the PLA to shift its focus to capturing small KMT, Kuomintang, Chinese Nationalist Party based on Taiwan-held offshore islands, and to do it piecemeal in a way that wouldn't trigger American intervention. Extremely detailed instructions and orders in that regard. Extremely, extremely stringent rules of engagement to control that. And here, by scoping down its ambitions, the PRC made a series of very tangible achievements. And by the way, for those who are interested in more of this detail, there's a lot of it. It's very important. and it is written about extremely well by Xiaobing Li himself in his Naval Institute

Press book, China's New Navy, the Evolution of the Plan from the People's Revolution to a 21st Century Cold War, and also by Toshi Yoshihara in his landmark volume with Georgetown University Press, Mao's Army Goes to Sea. So to wrap up my summation of Xiaobing Li's excellent chapter, Mao had felt he had to limit what China attempted vis-a-vis Taiwan. And so on the one hand, he initiated the 1954-55 and 1958 Taiwan Straits crises, but failed to capture the Jinmen, Kinmen, and Matsu archipelagos. And that was because of the Eisenhower administrations, meaning President Eisenhower's very credible threat of intervention and implied threat of nuclear weapons use. It was a credible deterrent. Unfortunately, as Admiral Mike McDevitt warns us

in his chapter toward the end of this volume, American presidents today face a far more powerful China than Ike ever did. So moving on to doctrine, Chris Young and Zoe Haver explain how PLA amphibious doctrine has its origins in these early offshore actions by the PLA. And the planning for what was ultimately an aborted, a completely aborted attempt to attack Taiwan provided some genesis for a PLA doctrine concerning amphibious operations. And that's because Mao's favored general for the operation, General Su Yu, in planning, had to grapple with embryonic versions of the problems confronting his successors today, including providing air cover, achieving maritime superiority, and mustering sufficient sea lift. So now to doctrine. For militaries, you might argue,

it all starts with doctrine. What they're supposed to do, how they're supposed to do it. That's widely known to the CIMSEC audience here. So we naturally wanted to frame our analysis by investigating what China's leadership has tasked its military with achieving to execute AmphibOps and how its military plans to go about it. And here, Young and Haver offer us six key pillars of PLA amphibious doctrine. These pillars reflect the gold standard principles developed by the U.S. and its allies during World War II, which greatly influenced China in its study of lessons that it had to learn from previous, more experienced militaries. One, dominance of the three domains, air, sea, and information. Two, key point strikes. Three, concentration of elite

strengths. Four, rapid and continuous assaults. Five, integrated and flexible support ops. And six, psychological attacks. So to understand how China seeks to apply its doctrine specifically regarding Taiwan, we examine the Joint Island Landing Campaign, the PLA's main operational concept for cross-strait invasion. Primary objectives are penetrating Taiwan's coastal defenses and securing lodgement to facilitate further offensives to seize and hold key targets on Taiwan. Multiple sub-campaigns require intense joint combat involving all PLA service arms. Phases include 1. Preparatory Ops, 2. Assembly, Embarkation, and Transit, and 3. Landing and Beachhead Establishment. That was a really great breakdown of that section. So much meat there.

I'll tell listeners now, I'll make sure I include the titles of the books you mentioned in the show notes so that they can dig that up for their reference. I think it's really important to start, as you did, with the doctrine and some of the historical foundations, just because, again, we see those echoes of the history. We see that, in many ways, geography is king, and cross-strait attacks have been something that have been a phenomenon involving Taiwan for hundreds of years. with, instance, you mentioned the colonization, but with the Dutch and the Spanish, the U.S. planning an amphibious operation at Taiwan during World War II. Of course, they chose to go to Okinawa instead. But there was some really good naval history work not too long ago discussing that as those plans have been declassified. So a lot of meat and potatoes there as well. And what's also important is those, you know, the forces of history. I appreciate how you noted how

those conditions changed and timelines changed with now kind of pushing things to the right. Hey, the U.S. getting involved, the U.S. standing up, the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Command playing the nuclear deterrent card and others, causing them to move that window to the right. And I think it's important, again, to draw a connection with today. We see perhaps maybe an overfixation on the Davidson window of folks assuming like, hey, this is when it will happen, certainly a time when it may happen. It's a window in which certain people are targeting the capability to do that. But any number of things could happen that might cause, say, Xi Jinping to move that same window to the right, whether deliberately or against his will. But that doesn't mean we take the eye off the

ball. I think there's a concern that if the David's window comes and goes and this thing hasn't gone yet, that people are going to think, oh, it's all over. We made it through. We're good, right? But I think all the historical examples you noted might cause us to pause and maybe not take that conclusion under consideration. And finally, really valuable, the doctrinal correspondences and differences between PRC doctrine or PLA doctrine, excuse me, and U.S. amphibious warfare doctrine. Notably, psychological operations, the emphasis on information dominance, I think it's really important. As you well know, sir, we U.S. practitioners, rather, we tend to fall into the trap of mirrored imaging and presuming that our adversary, that red, sees things the same way we do. And if we understand deeply PLA doctrine, we can see that that is not the case and we can prepare better as a result. So it's a great breakdown there.

Thank you very much. Let's move on to part two. Part two, it discusses the joint amphibious force, and that includes chapters on the many elements of what you described collectively as the joint amphibious force, Not just the military forces necessary to conduct an amphibious assault, but also the amphibious fleet needed to protect that force, and the logistics backbone needed to support such an invasion, which is a critical element. Can you describe the joint amphibious force and key ideas from that part of the book? Absolutely, Brian. Thank you. Just a few quick points, because your comments are so thorough and really add so much to the discussion here. I would just emphasize, in terms of the Davidson window, I think Admiral Davidson was observing closely what Xi Jinping is attempting to muster through his centennial military building goal of 2027.

So I just want to underscore to our listeners here that that is a top priority PRC policy concept and initiative. It is not something that the U.S. government has itself created intellectually or simply extrapolated in a very abstract form. It's a very real initiative by Xi Jinping. It's my personal view that the name of the game is a time-brying strategy through deterrence to keep pushing that window of opportunity for Xi to the right of reality, so to speak, so that he never gets the window that he seeks. We can discuss more on that later. I have a report with Rice University's Baker Institute that describes why we think that annexation of Taiwan would be a defeat from which the U.S. and its allies could not retreat, and hence why it's so important that we deter that. But the saving grace is that if we can get to the 2030s without suffering great setbacks, the slowdown of key aspects of China's national power and priorities, I think will make the problem a lot more manageable for us. But that's a discussion for another day that I hope we can have. In the history, you also mentioned, you alluded to Operation Causeway, which would have been the ultimate Pacific island hop had not that role shifted to Okinawa. And I wanted to underscore my colleague, CMSI colleague, Ian Easton's recent China Maritime Report on Operation Causeway. It's extremely well-researched with declassified documents not widely read or even known about by many, and I think it's just an extremely gripping read that has echoes today as we seek lessons in how Imperial Japan built on Taiwan's fundamental natural geographic advantages to deter the United States from invading. I also want to flag a recent article by Dr. Scott Savitz of RAND. It's a nice brief companion piece that explains how Chinese forces repulsed what I think were largely thought to be far superior French forces when they attempted invasion of Taiwan in 1884-85 during the Sino-French War. So those are two specific suggestions relating to the excellent observations that you brought up.

Now on to the Joint Amphibious Force of China. It has four main components, the amphibious units of the PLA ground forces, the PLA Navy Marine Corps, the PLA Navy amphibious fleet, and the civilian support fleet. Dennis Blasko, given his extensive expertise, naturally looks at the PLA ground forces amphibious components. And I think for non-specialists, the extreme capabilities and unparalleled reputation of the United States Marine Corps, I think fools a lot of people into assuming, misassuming that China has an equivalent or is trying to create an equivalent. That is not yet the case. Instead, this is a key point. One of the key points, if you remember nothing else from this podcast, the bulk of PLA sea lift comes in the form of six amphibious combined arms brigades controlled by the PLA ground forces. So this is an army-centric mass for China. And Glasgow does a great job looking at the details of that. He identifies some limitations in training and readiness, even as, of course, this force continues to improve in a very concerted way. And so he estimates that these units are already possibly capable of seizing

Taiwanese offshore islands, but he thinks they're not yet capable of being able to lead a successful assault on Taiwan's main island. Now, a debate in our conference and among the chapter writers in the volume that's unresolved in our spirit of open-spirited discussion is whether there are scenarios in which China might preemptively threaten strikes against or seizure of offshore islands short of attempting to invade Taiwan's mainland, or mainland Taiwan, as you might call it. There are many different views on that. Obviously, the U.S. military, in its constant watch, together with our allies and partners, has to be ready for all possible contingencies. But speaking of China's Marine Corps, that's the subject for Connor Kennedy. And while it's not parallel to the U.S. Marine Corps, it has grown tremendously, tripled in size since 2017, from approximately 10,000 personnel to over 30,000, from two brigades to eight.

But it's not laser focused solely on the Taiwan contingency. A lot of its effort appears to be focused on developing an expeditionary force charged with protecting PRC overseas interests. Of course, it would have key roles in the Taiwan invasion, advance ops to create favorable conditions for landing ops, as well as smaller landing ops of its own in support of the larger campaign. A follow-on operations beyond the beachhead could include urban warfare. Next subject that Merritt's mentioned is the PLA Navy amphibious fleet, which Jennifer Rice covers.

And there are many interesting aspects, but what's really worth underscoring is its prioritization. Prioritization of larger amphibious vessels that we believe suggests an emphasis on overseas operations similar to those that the planned Marine Corps appears to be focusing on. What China's not gone full force on, at least not yet, is surging production of smaller single-mission LSTs and LSMs. That would be required for an optimized PLA Navy contribution to a Taiwan invasion, but we have not seen that yet. So that brings up the chapter by Lonnie Henley. He has an argument ready to explain that arguable paradox. He maintains that using numerous maritime militia and militia crewed vessels to fill this gap in amphibious sea lift logistics and materiel

is in fact not a bug, but actually a deliberate feature of how China's armed forces are preparing cross-strait capabilities. It fits with the formative PLA battle experiences that we've been talking about, including capturing those offshore islands from the KMT that we discussed. It's a tempting way to leverage the extraordinary range and resources of China's maritime sector, including its so-called civilian components. And I think overall what it is is a potent example of why U.S. planners must consider the possibility of China improvising in a just good enough for just long enough fashion to pursue some key political goals. We have to be ready to deal with such a stopgap approach. Of course, there are major challenges with that approach and major

vulnerabilities that we can target. That's the good news. So much goodness there again. I really appreciate you highlighting some of the differences between the PLA forces, notably the PLA and Marine Corps is not the same as the U.S. Marine Corps and that the PLA is not the same as the U.S. Army. And I don't say that to say we rule and they drool, but rather that they are composited differently for employment in different ways than we would employ our own forces. And so that really does help the readers break through some of that misconception of mirror imaging and how the forces would be employed, not necessarily like force matching, right? I don't think anybody really believes it's going to be the PLA is going to have their Marine Corps trying to fight just

U.S. Marines, or their fighters are just going to fight our flying fighters, or that their big deck amphibs, as you noted, are just going to be focusing on necessarily Taiwan, but might rather be used for worldwide operations. And then those smaller boats or smaller form factor options, as you noted, might be the preferred option as the PLA approaches an operation like this. So all goodness. And again, the Operation Causeway study you mentioned by Dr. Ian Easton, forgive me, that was the only, I cannot remember the name. Thank you for crediting him and the others. Again, I will add those to the show notes so readers can reference that as well. So let's drive on to part three. So part three of the book, it discusses enablers of amphibious

warfare and China's capabilities with respect to those enablers. So that includes the PLA Airborne Corps, its helicopters, PLA Special Operations Forces, and as you alluded to before, mine warfare. So how would China use those enablers to support an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? So we discussed the main invasion force, but other forces would be vital to a cross-strait campaign even without participating in it directly. For example, Christina Garofalo covers a key PLA Air Force component, the PLA Airborne Corps. Its paratroopers operate from a variety of aircraft, including the PLAAF's Y-20 transport. So as with most of the PLA, the Airborne Corps has improved under concerted reforms. But as Garofalo and other contributors

discuss quite vigorously here, it remains uncertain just how effectively the Airborne Corps would support a Taiwan invasion. Some of the greatest questions center on how well it would coordinate with other arms and services, particularly in the complex, confusing conditions of an actual invasion. So Christina Garofalo examines fixed-wing delivered forces, and Tom Fox, for his part, focuses on rotary-wing possibilities, specifically the PLA Ground Forces helicopter units. Now, some outside CMSI have speculated, wrongly in my view, that helos could offer a major, a tremendous source of cross-strait force delivery. Fox draws on his own helo pilot experience and analytical expertise to identify some key limitations in training and readiness, not just small things.

So by his calculations, even using virtually all available PLA ground force helicopters would not likely be able to overcome Taiwan's defenses and compel capitulation. He examines the most extreme scenarios that China might pursue in this regard, including a sudden two-wave attack with older Helos first, newer Helos second. To him, in his assessment, that would likewise probably fail. Trying that would be contingent on forcing pilots to accept some truly terrible survival odds. So Fox concludes that Hilo's currently do not offer what he calls an easy button for conquering Taiwan. Now let's look at the PLA and People's Armed Police Special Operations Forces, the subject of the chapter by John Chen and Joel Wuthnow. Now, you've heard me use this term learning organization. China's armed forces are indeed a learning organization. And as part of

that effort. They have their own history, which we've talked about. They work to learn from it. But in some areas, they don't have sufficiently robust history. So that doesn't stop them. Instead, they engage in what you might call transferring and reverse engineering history from foreign examples, and then using that to inform their development. And so that's what they've done for the soft force. They've looked closely at the 1982 Falklands campaign as a model for how British SOF collected intel and conducted confusing and disruptive raids to help the main force of Marines land with little resistance. Likewise, or similarly, they view America's 1983 Granada campaign as a model for SOF strikes and raids. Based on all this studying and

development, SOF from China's ground forces, navy, and air force would play important roles in the prep and main assault phases of an amphibious invasion. And that would include recon and targeting, clearing obstacles, conducting raids and strikes, and performing extraction missions. The weaknesses include, the weaknesses that Chen and Wathnow assess include the employment of advanced equipment and coordinating with other forces. Might in the actual realistic conditions, unforgiving conditions of warfare, that might prove difficult. The next chapter is by Tom Shugart, who uses his undersea warfare expertise to laser in on what might be called one of the most unsung but critical amphibious elements. I'm talking about mine warfare here. Shugart

estimates that China has the world's most potent at-scale mine delivery. That's a big deal. From subs, aircraft, and surface ships, including importantly the maritime militia vessels that Lonnie Henley highlights. Prior to attempting an invasion of Taiwan, Shugart judges, China's military would likely attempt to blockade Taiwan with sea mines, but doing so would be challenging and it would invite severe countermeasures, including use of naval mines against China. Now, PRC mine countermeasures forces include some new mine-sweeping vessels and mine-hunting robots, and there's a lot of training. But here's the bottom line. MCM is slow and difficult for even the most capable military, so that would definitely apply to China as well.

Sir, all excellent points. I really appreciate this discussion of the enablers. I would offer to folks looking at this problem set, not that this is a bolt-on, oh, by the way, you should also pay attention to this too, But this should be core to your understanding of the entirety of the problem set. But when you started talking about the difficulties with the coordination of airborne operations during an amphibious operation, you took me back to some problem sets that I faced both as a student at the School of Advanced Warfighting and then later as a planner in various war games. And frankly, yeah, I'll double tap that. The challenge is there of trying to do that when you don't have air superiority.

You're effectively assigning those pilots and the troops that are embarked on this craft. they're trying to get out the door you may as well be signing them up for a death mission so that's no good and then if you don't have coordination on timing and sequencing well with the rest of the amphibious assault uh you are standing at great risk of those forces being cut off from the forces they should be uh supporting uh so there it is rife with risk that's not to say it's something we don't do and of course we have a lot of uh historical examples where we did that with a plum uh but it is frightfully challenging and isn't something that should be as you noted, look to as an easy button. And when it comes to mind warfare, hey, you know,

as far as I'm concerned, more cowbell, more cowbell. You can't hit the importance of mind warfare enough. It is unfortunate that it seems to get short shrift from certain circles. And we can speculate as to why that is. But I think the history of books, they abound with examples where in mind warfare proved in some instances, perhaps decisive and others bordering on decisive, but definitely hitting well above their weight class as far as what we're actually investing in that and the effects that they achieve for us operationally and in some cases strategically. So let me pause there and we'll drive on to part four. So part four, it discusses what are termed in book as scenario factors. And readers can think of those as items needed to set conditions

for the invasion. So that includes battle space preparation, large scale logistics. Maybe we would think of that in terms of theory of logistics, and even the PLA's own assessment of its ability to successfully execute the mission set, which I found a fascinating thing to study. So why did you choose these factors specifically to focus on, and what makes them so important? I want to be real with you and our listeners here. For an unclassified project like this, a comprehensive net assessment is simply beyond the scope. This book is not that. I'll just be really honest with you. Instead, we're focusing on China's amphibious-related developments and we identify key dynamics and trends. I submit to you that that's our added value. And so for this

section, we consider specific factors vital to a successful invasion. Now, the PLA is definitely laser-focused on accounting for all relevant variables, but it certainly retains considerable challenges and shortcomings. And these shortcomings persist in various ways, even as it builds and deploys forces at a rate unprecedented in the post-war era. It gets back to that phrase you used. I'm hoping to quote you on this in the future, rife with risk. That is the nature of the beast here, rife with risk. A large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most complex, difficult military operations of all. It's extremely challenging to achieve. Success hinges on comprehensive planning, complex C2 architectures, massive force employment, and precise

synchronization. And all that can be thwarted by factors ranging from inclement weather to enemy countermeasures to unexpected contingencies, which is a blanket phrase or a bucket for saying a whole lot of stuff that can go wrong. And assessment is even difficult here because missing the operational forest for the technical trees can generate grave miscalculations. And here's where I want to showcase and highlight the wonderful foreword that we were blessed to have with this volume from Lieutenant General Charles Hooper. I'm honored to know him from his days as U.S. defense attache in Beijing, where he hosted me and some of my colleagues a number of times and got to go around the town a bit and have some great conversations with him. So in his

foreword for our volume, which he graciously offered to write, he underscores something really important. The world's last major opposed amphibious landing was the U.S. assault on Incheon, South Korea in 1950. 1950, that is a whole long time ago, 74 years ago, if I'm not much mistaken. So China is now contemplating one of history's most ambitious amphibious operations, which would include most likely the largest ever civilian ship mobilization, greatly exceeding the evacuation of Dunkirk in ship numbers and the Falklands War in tonnage. Think about that. And at the same time, China lacks experience operating under wartime conditions at that scale. The airborne forces are a particular case in point. They've historically had a regime preservation role.

What are the two key examples of their employment? Nowhere near the ocean, the 1967 Wuhan uprising, suppressing the 1967 Wuhan uprising during the Cultural Revolution, and participating tragically in the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. Under a variety of scenarios, China might have to send some forces on a one-way mission. This is very, very serious stuff. Now, our chapter by John Culver takes a broad perspective on these scenario factors. He looks at the Paul Mill interface, if you will. He rightly argues that China is pursuing an all-of-regime approach to, quote-unquote, unifying Taiwan overall. But as we discussed before, it hasn't yet built, let alone integrated operationally and trained with, the complement of smaller amphibs required to provide traditional

sea lift for a cross-strait amphibious operation. Meanwhile, as Culver emphasizes, which we've discussed before, the PLAN Marine Corps is not optimizing itself for invasion of Taiwan, Although it is doing a number of things that would be highly relevant, that's also true. Sam Tangretti, in his later chapter in this volume, refers to this trajectory of the Planned Marine Corps as trading places with the U.S. Marine Corps, which some would say is controversially trying to shift from its previous full spectrum of traditional global operations to focusing at least on a more PRC-focused subset. Tangretti tackles that controversial, complex topic head on. On the other hand, there are many

areas in which China's determination and progress are formidable. And some of that rapid improvement is documented by William Fox and Rod Lee. They assess that PRC strategists regard air and sea supremacy as preconditions for a successful joint island landing campaign. And in their chapters, as part of their extensive methodology, they painstakingly catalog the sensors available for such an operation in the near term. In doing so, they assess that China's military likely has moderate confidence in its ability to seize and maintain control of the air and high confidence in its ability to achieve localized sea control. There are weaknesses, however. Key PRC sensors are far less numerous than key PRC shooters, and so Fox and Lee recommend this as a logical single

point failure target for limited U.S. and allied fires. PLA logistics support would be essential to any successful invasion. Logistics, like mine warfare, doesn't always get all the attention and glory that it truly deserves, and in a small attempt to rectify that, we devote three chapters. to the subject of logistics. Kevin Macaulay examines the assessments of China's military experts themselves. How do they rate their own progress? And fortunately, he was able to get his hands on an authoritative internal circulation volume from the PLA's Logistics Research Center. Thankfully, he read it all so that we don't have to. Its authors, the PLA contributing authors, documented many, many weaknesses, particularly insufficient transport capabilities and war

reserves. Now, we know that's improved since the PLA published this volume in which it talked to itself about its problems in 2017, but it's also true that the requirements of a Taiwan invasion are daunting in this regard. Now, part of CMSI's methodology, besides showing our work, is welcoming a variety of voices and having a vigorous debate. You know, nothing is ever fully settled. We want to really look at things as hard as we can. We want innovative ideas. And so before he fortunately joined us on our team, Ian Easton was a contributor of a chapter to this volume. And that chapter is a case in point of this robust discussion and debate. So I think it's fair to say that many analysts contend that China would focus its invasion on

a limited number of large beaches on Taiwan's main island, where Taiwan could prepare defenses prior to conflict. Easton challenges that conventional wisdom, and he instead considers the possibility that the PLA might seek to avoid logistics bottlenecks and exposure by centering its amphibious assaults around Taiwanese ports. That's where he believes that the majority of invading forces would likely disembark. He applies his argument by evaluating specific Taiwanese ports in relation to PLA requirements to establish lodgements with at least one working port. Now, to wrap up this section, J. Michael Dahm, former assistant naval attaché in Beijing, whom I was honored to first get to know when he was over there in that capacity. He bookends

Lonnie Henley's consideration of commercial and militia vessels as providers of logistics over the shore with his own in-depth study of related sieve mill integration exercises. Dom's prognosis is one of the more pessimistic of our contributors regarding PLA capabilities. He certainly sees some clear progress, but assesses that overall, China's commercial fleet is not yet ready to furnish the logistics support that China needs for an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Excellent breakdown of that section, sir. Thanks so much for that. And I'll say, as I was reading this and looking through each section, so many of the contributors, you hit some champions there, Dom, Tangretti, Easton, if you're paying attention to this space, or just if you're a frequent reader

of the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, or other, or you see these names appear again and again. So when I saw these individuals, among others, contributors to this book, like, again, I just, my desire to read it just shot up, and I implore other readers to give the book the same weight as a result. Anybody who's done a briefing to a commander has probably done something referred to as a risk assessment matrix. But I think it would serve the DOD much better if we took, I guess, the term of art that you just coined there of a whole lot of stuff that can go wrong. I think we should just call it that because that's what it actually is.

So thanks for that. And finally, the risks of doing an amphibious invasion at all. I really appreciate you noting the last time it had been successfully done against somebody trying to resist was at the general landing. And so long ago. And when you look at things like Normandy, right, the Allies had total air and maritime superiority going into that operation. And yet still, Ike felt compelled to have his letter of preempt of, oh, by the way, we failed. It's my fault. He had that ready to go. Right.

Thankfully, he didn't have to issue that letter, but it was kind of like flipping a coin in the assessments of many of the time. And looking at Inchon, I'd be remiss if I didn't note that so many of the advisors to MacArthur and other experts assessing the feasibility of that operation, I would say probably 90% assess this is not going to work. And when you look at all the other variables, like this is going to fail miserably. And this is Brian Kirk's personal assessment, hold the dice and thank God he rolled sevens. But that could have been a whole other slew of different ways. And I assess that perhaps some when they look at a normandy or an Inchon and say, well, it worked. Perhaps they are a little too glib or maybe that creates a direct bias in planners approaching the enormity of the challenge and just how gravely risky it can be.

And perhaps those victories have outshone something like, you know, the Darnamals campaign, which turred so many others from even considering these operations for decades. So I'll stop with my own rambling thoughts there, sir, other than to say thank you very much for the breakdown of the section. So finally, let's move to the last part of the book, part five, and it's titled Implications, which one could think of as the so what for U.S. and Taiwanese planners and policymakers who may be working on the problem set. What is the book discussed as the key implications? Well, our findings are stark and they come down to this. Even optimists should be shocked at how little margin is left in this perilous situation. But even the most hardened pessimists should take heart with evidence that deterring an invasion of Taiwan is still completely feasible. That's the bottom line, so what?

Now, our volume focuses on trying to offer dispassionate analysis rather than emphasizing policy recommendations. But given the stakes at hand, we feel duty-bound to offer some targeted suggestions. Admiral Mike McDevitt anchors the concluding section in its operational context by considering in detail how a PRC attempt to invade Taiwan might play out and how the U.S. and key allies such as Japan might respond. He offers recommendations for how the U.S. Navy should respond if tasked by the National Command authorities to help Taiwan frustrate a PRC invasion attempt. Now, up until now, the saving grace has been that Taiwan enjoys formidable defensive geography and that a large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most difficult

military operations to accomplish. Taiwan's most fundamental advantage is that its geophysical defenses offer formidable protection and a firm foundation for further fortification. The moated strait, tides, currents, weather, mudflats, coastal terrain, and infrastructure that Taiwan's built on top of it make an amphibious invasion especially challenging. And we've already discussed Operation Causeway, in which Imperial Japan built on Taiwan's strong natural geography to great effect, and also even less well-known case of Chinese forces doing so during the Sino-French War in which France attempted to invade Taiwan 1884-85. So, all told here, many lessons linger, but unfortunately for us and Taiwan, time is running short. Under Xi Jinping's concerted

directives, China's military is reforming relentlessly, bringing critical new capabilities to bear, and training tirelessly to improve its ability to execute the operations on which it is laser focus. So for America to relentlessly prioritize safeguarding Taiwan, which I think is very important, Taiwan, without a doubt, must relentlessly prioritize its defense where it matters most. And that brings us to our concluding chapter, which I co-authored with former CMSI researcher Gabe Collins. We ground the chapter in principles of physics and operational realities. And on that basis, we outlined six concrete areas which Taiwan should prioritize above all else, I must underscore, including legacy systems. Those six concrete areas are air defense, mines, anti-ship missiles and munitions, coastal artillery, information warfare, and critical infrastructure resilience. The stakes could scarcely be higher, and the clock is ticking.

Thank you very much. That's a very compelling lead into that final chapter, and I think it'll leave readers with that sense of urgency that's not overinflated at all, but I think, as we discussed in the beginning at the top of this, rigorously based in a sound methodology. and I think it's very unique that you emphasize physics as well as the operational realities because, again, the problem with the map doesn't lie, right? And that geography and the way science works and forces works and all the things you're trying to jam across the strait, I don't want to say it's not rocket science, it's physics, it is a science, but what does that mean? That means that it leads to certain sound conclusions you can make if you study it rigorously and you don't need to be inside of a skiff and have access to exquisite intelligence

to be able to come to those very, very simple, and I don't mean to say that pejoratively, but simple conclusions and important conclusions. So thank you very much for that. So I'd be doing a disservice if I did not point out to readers that a book like this, it takes a very long time to produce

and publishing just takes a long time. But a book like this with so many contributors as well, where you're also leaning on, you know, original Chinese sources and interpretation and other folks digging through that stuff takes time. And for when you started working on this, we've only moved forward with regard to Chinese capabilities and other shows of aggression, most recently the Joint

Sword 2024 Alpha and Joint Sword 2024B military drills around Taiwan, and as of this weekend, yet another, I would say, punitive pseudo-bloque or demonstration, you could say, rather, in response to President Lai's most recent visit to Hawaii and other countries in the Pacific. So would you say that any of your assessments in the book have changed significantly? It's a great question, and we're always striving to be honest in our analysis. I try to read all my work 10 years after publication to see how it holds up, and that is a very sobering and humbling process. I try to think what this book will read like 10 years after publication. Regarding this particular book, which I have recently reread word for word to make sure that I'm discussing it as it is, not as I imagine it to be or want it to be,

I would say our overall assessments have not changed substantially. However, the nature of China's military activities underscores just how complex and overlapping in nature its campaigns might be, and just how much they may well involve scenarios besides an amphibious invasion. That is far from the only scenario. In some ways, it's the ultimate scenario. But we can clearly see that China's military is not only preparing for an amphibious invasion against Taiwan, but also blockade and missile bombardment. And as we speak right now, China's all-domain pressure campaign targets Taiwan all day, every day. That's part of a consistent pattern, unremitting pressure. So in terms of how has my thinking evolved since the bulk of writing and

work on this book, there is a definite evolution of my thinking. Increasingly, I believe that the most likely worst consequence event might well be a blockade or so-called quarantine campaign on China's part against Taiwan. It would be particularly dangerous for us if Xi comes to believe that a blockade slash quarantine campaign has reasonable prospects for success. That's because such an approach may tempt him, might tempt him as a lowest barrier to entry, way to have it all, because he might think that it would employ China's numerically superlative world-leading sea forces and supporting assets and infrastructure to best advantage, draw on political legal arguments, messaging, and information operations in which the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party,

has long been maximally invested and has deepest experience. He might think that it would preserve maximum ambiguity and flexibility, at least in the early stages, and impose the burden of escalation on our forces and those of allies and partners that joined us. Finally, here's another way in which we need to think of these campaigns as having different implications in critical ways. Whereas a joint island landing campaign would target, in my estimation, Taiwan's most dedicated professional frontline forces, whereas a joint firepower strike campaign would likely target key political and military nodes precisely, in my view, a joint blockade campaign would target Taiwan's true Achilles heel. The resilience and resolve of its society writ large under conditions of protracted distress and discord with complex social societal fissures and factions, including cohorts of postmodernist youth and elder Sinophiles, as these broader groups might loosely be termed. That's what I'm worried about. I really appreciate that explanation of the development of your thinking.

So I'll tell you, 10 years from now, we'll do a Reflections episode right here on SimSec, and we'll see if the book held up. But that final discussion there on other implications or dangers and how the tools that the PLA is developing could be used for other options, vice just a go-all-in, you know, most dangerous course of action, MDCOA style, where we're just doing an assault right now, right? But rather something like the blockade, which in turn could also be perceived as like a running start. Like, hey, if we want to just go to the island landing campaign from here, the conditions are set. And I think you're right. The potential societal fissures are things that perhaps the average U.S. planner may not deeply appreciate enough. And I would endeavor such planners to get a deeper understanding of not just the modern political history and those divisions between the KMT, DPP, TPP, and elsewhere, but why those exist.

And it's not all just going back to, hey, Taiwan history started in 1949, but it goes back centuries and centuries. And there's all sorts of other groups on the island that have various, you know, stakes and potential grievances and could see this very, very differently. And there's parallels perhaps to make with Ukraine, you know, hey, Ukraine 2014 and the society's reaction at that point versus, hey, with 2022, that invasion, how much more ready the society was because it hadn't had time to solidify around that cause. And I'm wondering if there are other things that perhaps the U.S. allies, partners with Taiwan could do to help expose some of those things and help ready Taiwan in a different way. But now I'm speaking out of turn beyond the scope of this episode, so I'll stop there. Okay, sir, here we go. Ready? For a book with a subtitle of Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion. I would be remiss if I did not bluntly ask you this question. What are the prospects for a cross-strait invasion? If we just look at capability and will, what's your call on China's capability to pull this off and its willingness to do so? Well, you'll have to hold us to the 10-year standard, and I will be honored to speak with you a decade from now, and I'll be happy for our book to be wrong if Taiwan is still safe. But it's certainly a looming threat that Taiwan is facing, a looming challenge for us, and I feel compelled to do everything I can to support our preparations to hold that line on deterrence. As for specific projections, I have to frame this in a different way, because war is the ultimate gamble. And I think very few of us are prepared to make a binding bet on how it would all play out.

In this case, especially, so much would depend on the particular context of the situation and some key imponderables, such as luck, weather, leadership, intelligence, and the fighting qualities of each side, in which, for each of them, I'm talking about the Chinese Communist Party and the Taiwanese people, would be the supreme emergency and the ultimate test. What we do in our book is identify variables in that equation, but we don't claim to offer a cipher for unlocking the secrets of a not fully knowable future here. We do try to support bending things in the direction of a better future. But what we're trying to fundamentally offer readers and the listeners here today is a framework for how to think deeply about an invasion scenario and for people to judge for themselves what might happen. Several things are clear. China recognizes the inherent difficulty of a cross-strait invasion. It's rapidly building up combat power and capabilities to make such an action ever more feasible.

But at the same time, the outcome is dependent on many variables, some of which we can work to push against Xi and the Chinese Communist Party's favor. And I think that's what we need to focus on. Fair answer and a good one. So thank you very much for that. I certainly would not want to bet a paycheck on the answer to that question because it truly is probably a notable time now. And I don't want to lose that much money potentially. So I don't hope it ever happens. So I'll pause there. So, sir, we had a really great discussion of this book, but that's not all. It's not like the book is done and off you go into the sunset.

Right. You're still crushing it out there at CMSI. You're still crushing the Naval War College and other studies that you alluded to. So let me just ask for other folks who want to follow your work more closely. Where can listeners find you online and what else are you working on? Absolutely. Thank you. Well, the single most important website that I would call to everybody's attention is the China Maritime Studies Institute's website, www.usnwc.edu forward slash CMSI. And there you can find all our product lines, our Red Book monographs, China Maritime Studies, our China Maritime Reports, our CMSI notes, our translations, and then our studies in Chinese maritime development, which is what we call our edited volume conference series, of which the Chinese Amphibious Warfare is number eight. So I recommend that anyone interested go to usnwc.edu forward slash cmsi and download a copy of Chinese amphibious warfare to keyword search and read through. I'm optimistic that looking at a few parts will make folks want to read the rest. As for my own work, it can be found at www.andrewerickson.com. That's my personal research website. And just this morning, I posted a compilation in what I call my bookshelf series. It's a series in which I compile a corpus of key researchers' work. I explain why I think it matters. I have a reverse chronological posting of bibliographic information, links, and summaries of the contents together with key graphics. You can search down, you can scroll right through. And the one I posted this morning is the latest iteration of the Ryan Martinson bookshelf. My colleague Ryan Martinson does excellent work on all aspects of China's naval development, as well as with the Coast Guard, and even some great work on China's maritime militia.

And as we work to understand the implications of the fall of Admiral Miao Hua from the Central Military Commission and what other shoes may yet drop, looking at Ryan's great research on China's Navy leadership and organization will offer a great light to illuminate things as best we can. Finally, I'm active on X at Andrew S. Erickson, and I like to follow breaking developments and showcase research that I think shines light particularly on China's military maritime development. So please stay tuned in those various areas. It's not the place to go for clever, flippant lines, but it's our best attempt to showcase serious research that everyone can use to inform their own deliberations, which I think in the end is what it's all about. Well, that is a formidable body of work by yourself and another formidable body of scholars. So we're lucky you're on our team. So, sir, thank you so very much for your time. This has been a wonderful discussion, and I can't wait to share this with the SimSec community and other planners working in this space out there. So, once again, thank you so very much for joining us.

Fair winds and following seas. And so it's theirs. Bravo, Zulu, for tuning in, and we'll see you next time. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you for watching.