Can the U.S. Win a War in the Pacific Against China? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

The Team House

In this episode of 'Eyes on Geopolitics,' Thomas Sugart, a former U.S. Navy officer and defense analyst at CNAS, dissects China's military buildup in the Indo-Pacific, emphasizing its asymmetric strategies, amphibious ca

Key takeaways

• China is building nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and transitioning entirely to nuclear submarines, signaling a shift toward global power projection.

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Islaan Geopox. I'm here with Thomas Sugart, Jonathan Hackett, and Jack Murphy. For the people that don't know who Tom is, he actually did a great episode on the Team House. You should check that out talking about his career. He's a former U.S. Navy Samariner who served more than 25 years. And he's now a data analyst, a defense analyst, excuse me. And an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, where obviously he focuses on. on the Indo-Pacific and the involving, like, and just the balance between America and Chinese militaries and stuff. So he's the guy who's keeping his eye on all this. He's got a great Twitter account. I suggest if anyone's interested in this topic to check him out and follow him there. I'll leave a link in the description as well. You can find them. Tom, thanks for joining us. Pleasure to be here. Thanks, D. Of course. I mean, obviously, I feel like the Chinese, American, you know, rivalry has kind of taken a backseat, at least in the press, since Iran started. And there's obviously some connections there, too. Like there's some rumor that China is helping Iran with some targeting or at least supplies. You know, definitely they were the biggest Iranians. They were Iran's biggest customer for oil. So there are some connections there. But I definitely want to focus on that U.S. Chinese rivalry where it's. at, you know, I just saw that China just had some like live fire drills off the coast of Taiwan a few days ago for a couple days. And like just where we're at essentially now, July 2026 with this, you know, this thing that will basically define the next probably 50 years. So I would say that while there has been perhaps a drop off a bit in the rhetoric of the competition, as it were, I mean, the facts on the ground haven't, from China's side certainly haven't dialed back at all. You know, they are being aggressive as they ever were in the South China Sea. You know, we just saw the other day Chinese sailors, you know, beating on Philippine sailors with sticks. Remember, that's a treaty ally of the United States. We're talking about that they're, you know, conducting violent action against. The development of the Chinese military has, if anything, their trajectory has increased in the last few years. We now have multiple classes of nuclear submarines under production. We have the commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and testimony recently said that Chinese submarine production is now going to go all nuclear. They're not going to build conventional submarines anymore, which is quite a surprise to me in development. We have their first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under construction. We have the revelation that they are using even more than we thought commercial shipping in practicing, conducting amphibious assaults. We have increasing numbers of Chinese aircraft crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait. We now have the Chinese not just Coast Guard, but their whole of government, other agencies as well, acting like they own the waters east of Taiwan, waters that are actually, you know, really should be divided between the Philippines and Japan. I mean, so the facts on the ground in the Pacific are, if anything more aggressive than they were in the past, it's just the U.S. government doesn't seem to be choosing to make a lot of, hey, about it right now at this point. I guess they've got other things they're busy with. Yeah, boys, any questions? Go ahead, please. Well, I mean, I think, you know, based on what you're saying, I'd be interested to hear you expand on the arms production, because my impression, at least, of China, is that their strategy in the past has been not to meet us tank for tank, fighter jet for fighter jet, carrier for carrier. Is that still true? And if it is, what do you think this, or how do you interpret this sort of like, I guess, increase in proliferation? So I think what we'll see is until Taiwan is resolved one way or another, there will be a pretty significant asymmetry between what China is doing and their capabilities are developing and what we traditionally see is U.S. power projection capabilities because Taiwan's only 100 miles away, right? So you need different capabilities to do that. So for example, let's talk about amphibious assault vessels. So, you know, when you look at the U.S. Navy and it's amphibious assault vessels, you have, you know, large amphibious assault ships, you know, 40,000 plus tons in some cases. They're equipped to operate, you know, thousands of miles from home for months at a time. That's overkill for the Taiwan Strait. You don't, you need something that can efficiently take troops as fast as possible, load them as fast as possible, go 100 miles, unload them as fast as possible, come back and get more, right? So while China does have and is building more, if there be some salt ships that are similar to those that we build, that's not the meat and potatoes of what they would need to do with Taiwan invasion. That's where China uses an asset that it has, and we don't have any longer, which is a massive merchant marine. So the vast majority of the sea lift capacity that China would use, and this is not theoretical, right? We see them practicing doing this routinely in their exercises. So they use civilian vessels that have been modified, built to national defense standards, owned by state-owned companies that are run by the Chinese Communist Party. I mean, literally the leadership structure of these companies is dual-hatted Chinese Communist Party and company. They use these all the time. These are ferries. These are landing craft tank, which I call LCTs, and I can expound on this some more. This is a kind of remarkable discovery last year. So civilian vessels that are used for kind of the dump trucks of the sea. that are derived from land and craft designs. We're now seeing them use those in exercises. So that's going to kind of be the beating potatoes of a Taiwan invasion. On the firepower end of it, it's going to be rocket launchers, like kind of China's high mars, so to speak, but that are longer range. So those are capabilities that are asymmetric that are going to be focused on that kind of assault. Now, at the same time, China is developing capabilities that do look more like the traditional markers of U.S. global power projections. So nuclear power aircraft carriers, more nuclear submarines, nuclear power ballistic missile submarines, tankers, strategic airlift. That's all going to, is starting to look in some cases toward the future where you have a China that has, you know, they made it clear their goal is to have a world class military. Well, that's the kind of things you have. They have a world class military that projects power worldwide. So over time, I think it will start to look a little bit more like those U.S. capabilities, but they've still got to get past Taiwan first. And Tom, I'm curious, you know, China is building up a lot of these assets, these physical things, but their forces haven't been tested in combat. And of course, that is a huge question mark of how will they stand up, just like any military, including our own World War II. You know, there were early moments when we learned a lot of lessons very quickly. And I'm curious, how do you see that playing out? How has China developed kind of a rapid lessons learned uptake to in anticipation of something like that happening? So I think that that point has validity. sense that they have not engaged in combat operations. But what I'd say it's important to keep in mind is what kind of combat operations have they engaged in and have we engaged in. So the United States, yes, has engaged in lots of wars over the last, you know, 20 years. However, none of them were against a peer competitor that had anything close to our capabilities. So I think the utility of that and calling a difference between the two is maybe a little less than people might think. Let me give an example, between World War I and World War II, you know, the Vermacht didn't fight anyone for 20 years. There was almost no one in the German army, very few, you know, you had a few really senior officers who had been in World War I 20 years before, but very few of their personnel had been involved in combat with a peer adversary and high-end warfare. On the other hand, you had the UK who had been engaged in all kinds of brushfire wars, you know, colonial, essentially imperial management around the world against various, we call them third world countries today, well, which army was better prepared for high-end combat when the shooting started between peer industrialized nations? I would say, I don't think you would want to look at the Germans and say, well, they weren't ready for the war because they didn't fight for 20 years. Clearly they were. They were doing the right kind of training for the fighting that they were going to have to do. Now, of course, you did have German observers in other conflicts, you know, in the Spanish Civil War, probably observing. I know, I think they're working with the Russians some, probably in the Finland War that might have been observing there. The Chinese civil war also. Yeah. And well, and who do we have watching the Russo-Ukraine conflict? You've got Chinese observers. They're getting the latest lessons learned, probably at Russian headquarters, seeing how they do business, learning lessons for them. So I'm not as confident about that. Also, I would keep in mind that we have to look at the fact that any conflict in the Western Pacific is going to be, it's decisive element. are probably going to be in the air and at sea. You know, they're going to be air-enabled combat. I mean, if there is an attempt to invade Taiwan, the conflict will eventually be finished one way or the other on the ground in Taiwan, but it will be decided in the air and at sea. You know, if the Chinese military through air and sea superiority has unfettered access to Taiwan, it can send as much troops and supplies as it wants across, I don't see any way that Taiwan survives that. So, and assuming that Taiwan is isolated and can't get supplies, lies in like Ukraine can. So if that conflict is going to be decided in air and at sea, well, when's the last time anybody fought a peer Navy at sea? It's not the Iran War, that's for sure. The closest thing we have is the Falklands in the 1980s. So, you know, we have to remember that there's two ships in the United States Navy that have sunk another warship at sea, and that's USS Constitution, which we did it in the war of 1812, is in Boston Harbor. And now we have USS Charlotte, the submarine that sank in essentially, I wouldn't say defenseless, but pretty helpless Iranian frigate. So I don't think either side has a lot of experience in really high-end naval combat. And I think we have to be very careful about thinking that way. I mean, the other question I'd like to ask, and this is more of a political question, I suppose, is sort of the timing. And we've been having this conversation for many years. And China has made, it's always been China's policy to reintegrate, unify Taiwan into the mainland. Why hasn't that happened yet? What are the Chinese waiting for? Is the wars in Ukraine, in the Middle East? Is that sort of like figuring into their calculus that they don't want to become a global pariah? What do you think is the reason why they haven't made this attempt yet? So I always make clear that I am a military analyst, not a political I know. So I look at it from a military perspective, and I think certainly up until this point, it's been pretty clear that they didn't have the military capability to be able to successfully, to have confidence that they would win an invasion of Taiwan and succeed in the event of a U.S. intervention, that they didn't have the ability to deter a U.S. intervention, and they didn't have the ability if they failed to deter to defeat a U.S. intervention. So that's a pretty clear reason why they wouldn't try. So the question becomes, when do they reach the point where they do have the confidence that they're going to succeed? That either they have the confidence that they will be able to convince the United States not to intervene, or if the U.S. intervenes, they'll prevail. They'll be able to defeat it. So that's why we have to, I think, if you're watching those capabilities that they're developing, I think at this point probably deterring a U.S. intervention is what they may be hoping for. But if you look at Chinese doctrine, they always say you have to be ready for that, intervention of the powerful enemy, they call it, which is their code for the United States. That means they have to be ready for a protracted conflict. They also talk about that in their doctrinal text. So, you know, that is, I think, what they're worried about. I think that's what's kept them from making an attempt from a military perspective. So then the question is, will there come a time, you know, Xi Jinping has told the PLA to be ready to execute an invasion of, or an assault on Taiwan in 2027? are they going to be there? I don't know. I mean, it's hard to tell at this point, but I think they're doing the kinds of things that I would expect them to do to be able to do that. You might be muted, John. Oh, yeah. I was having some mic problems. Yeah, we'll see. John is, I'll be right back after these messages now. Hello, everyone. If you're hearing this, you are not a member of the Patreon. You can get your hands on ad-free episodes that come out early and you can ask us questions. maybe we'll answer them. You can also watch the Teamhouse podcast completely ad free and early and you can also watch it live as we interview our guests. And it's the best way to support the channel. So if you can, if you're open to it, you can go to patreon.com slash the team house. That link is in the description. We appreciate the supporters and we hope you would consider being one. So it's patreon.com slash the team house. Thanks, guys. In your mind, Tom, what's your like, what's the most pressing issue between the U.S. and China,