F-22 Raptor on life support?

[SSgt Viljuri]

Sounds like Hitler and the Sudetenland crisis, then.

Though, the Chinese are probably more pragmatic and do not subscribe everything what the left in the West does, despite the shared marxist roots, weirdly enough.

[Bigduke6]

Well I wasn't speculating all the Euros would come in. Just the Brits who like to fight, plus some minor Euros for whatever reason. Canadians fit into that mold too, they might fight the Chinese and they might not, depending on the public mood. More or less like Afghanistan.

[JonS]

The Brits and Canadians sat out Vietnam with no qualms.

I'm not sure that the RAAF a/c could 'seamlessly' integrate to a US C&C environment. I don't think their avionics suite wouldn't be up to it. OTOH, they'd be capable of independant peripheral tasks like maintaining CAP over Clark, the Parcels, Spratleys, or the South China Sea, while the USAF did the same over Taiwan.

[dieseltaylor]

Chinese since the 17th century - apart from the Japanese for 50 years - 73 miles from mainland China. Sounds like a recipe for disaster and I too cannot see any nation would really feel it was a battle that was feasible to win in the long term, and fairly pointless as a short term prospect. Not a hope in hell [apart from a deluded PM with God on his side] would the UK fight for Taiwan.

Cruise missiles might be sufficient for a low intensity war which the US would have to escalate to mainland attacks to stop. Very unattractive. I still think the PRC would substantially subvert Taiwan before anything too aggressive.

I have no doubt that it has been very useful to have Taiwan as a conduit for high tech information to go into China. Its usefulness as a stalking horse is diminishing rapidly as US and other countries build factories in the PRC. However very high tech probably still needs to be mined for .....

[Bigduke6]

You guys make some good points. Here are my counter niggles:

The Brits and Canadians sat out Vietnam with no qualms.

I'm not sure that the RAAF a/c could 'seamlessly' integrate to a US C&C environment. I don't think their avionics suite wouldn't be up to it.

Well, "seamlessly" as compared to say trying it with the Indians or the Brazilians or some one like that. Same language, NATO common standards, a similar attitude towards air ops. I assume that since British fighters use AWACs they can get vectored and warned the same way US fighters could, and if some of the radars differ I think the Americans are up to compensating for that. After all the Brits and the Americans have operated air together fairly frequently; Iraq I, Kosovo, Iraq II, and now Afghanistan.

OTOH, they'd be capable of independant peripheral tasks like maintaining CAP over Clark, the Parcels, Spratleys, or the South China Sea, while the USAF did the same over Taiwan.

My guess is they'd be pretty much equal to US on strike missions, and close to equal on air superiority missions. But I could be wrong, are there any US-British air interoperability experts out there?

As to Brit/Canadian non-involvement in Vietnam, fair comment, but then if the Americans can get the Australians, Thais, and Koreans involved on the ground in a nebulous mission war like that, then it seems to me the Americans would have at least a good a shot getting contributions to an air effort to oppose naked Chinese agressions vs. Taiwan.

After all, as far as the Chinese are concerned, all of Indochina, the Korean peninsula, and most of the good bits of Russia's maritime provinces are lost Chinese provinces. just like Taiwan, only lost a bit longer ago; but we should always remember there is no statute of limitations on Chinese history. What happened a millenium ago still counts. No in the region one likes the Taiwanese, that's true, but Chinese territorial aggrandizement at gunpoint is also not a precedent countries like Thailand and the Phillipenes would want set, I would think.

But IF the Chinese went to war and IF the Taiwanese didn't fight, and IF every one from Korea to Thailand to Poland to India decided they could live with that, and IF the US decided to go to war with China alone, then yes the US would lost Taiwan if there were not alot more F-22, or some other way to get air superiority in the region.

For me, that is a pretty improbable chain of "ifs" on which to justify the expenditure of 25 - 30 billion dollars on 150 or so more F-22es. That's a serious chunk of change; for that kind of money you could for instance buy about 50 modern diesel-electric submarines for Taiwan, and with the Taiwan Strait that infested the Chinese aren't going anywhere even if you don't bring a single F-22 to the region.

It's all about cost effectiveness, and an air force opinon of a cost effective expenditure for the air force, is not not necessarily the same thing as a cost effective expenditure for US national security. It might be, but then again it might not, and if the air force is unbiased in pushing for this or that aircraft they are the first military bureaucracy in the history of mankind not to mix bureaucratic self-interest with national interest.

[Sergei]

As to Brit/Canadian non-involvement in Vietnam, fair comment, but then if the Americans can get the Australians, Thais, and Koreans involved on the ground in a nebulous mission war like that, then it seems to me the Americans would have at least a good a shot getting contributions to an air effort to oppose naked Chinese agressions vs. Taiwan.

It's a different thing to send units to an anti-guerrilla operation. It's a totally different matter to send units to fight against the world's biggest nation. One that can retaliate with missiles to your backyard, with or without nuclear warheads. If China nuked Korea, Thailand or Australia, would USA automatically retaliate?

It's just not even closely the same thing.

After all, as far as the Chinese are concerned, all of Indochina, the Korean peninsula, and most of the good bits of Russia's maritime provinces are lost Chinese provinces. just like Taiwan, only lost a bit longer ago; but we should always remember there is no statute of limitations on Chinese history. What happened a millenium ago still counts. No in the region one likes the Taiwanese, that's true, but Chinese territorial aggrandizement at gunpoint is also not a precedent countries like Thailand and the Phillipenes would want set, I would think.

By that account, even Vietnam and Russia should be willing to defend Taiwan! Considering the not so distant past, that wouldn't be a surprise. But considering the present, unlikely. I don't have a pornstache, so this is not the 1970's.

[JonS]

RAAF =/= RAF

I said CAP-type missions because the degree of integration and system kludges would be somewhat less than when trying to integrate with the USAF and various ground forces. And, let's face it, CAP is gonna be safer than mud moving and therefore more attractive to minor airforces and their govts.

IIRC, both the RCAF (or whatever they're called now ... CFAC apparently) and the RAAF were extremely limited in the kinds of taskings they could undertake with their F-18 variants in recent ops in Iraq and Kosovo.

[Affentitten]

RAAF =/= RAF

I said CAP-type missions because the degree of integration and system kludges would be somewhat less than when trying to integrate with the USAF and various ground forces. And, let's face it, CAP is gonna be safer than mud moving and therefore more attractive to minor airforces and their govts.

IIRC, both the RCAF (or whatever they're called now ... CFAC apparently) and the RAAF were extremely limited in the kinds of taskings they could undertake with their F-18 variants in recent ops in Iraq and Kosovo.

One non-technological issue being totally different RoE, RfOF and weapon release protocols. Like in the RAAF it's considered bad form to drop bombs on one's own troops, civilian weddings etc. Or basically any time when you don't have 100% target ID.