.

.

The Pentagon needs fresh ideas for evading Taiwan logistics pitfalls.

Air Force Logistics Officer School students discuss their teams strategy in a tabletop game simulating challenges in the Indo-Pacific..

.“Every time I pass a bulldozer, I want to stop and kiss it,” said Adm. William Halsey, the commander of the South Pacific in 1945. He had lived the adage that logistics wins wars, overcoming the four tyrannies of distance, water, time, and scale, on the way to victory.

The Indo-Pacific remains an unforgiving theater of operations to this day, and, when combined, the four tyrannies interact to undermine U.S. deterrence against China—most notably, the deterrent effect of airpower. Pentagon planners need to understand this interactive effect and seek solutions that address the entire problem, not just each individual component.

.First, the “tyranny of distance” works against U.S. deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The continental United States stands twice the distance from bases in the Indo-Pacific as it is from those in Europe. This distance extends supply lines, resulting in a larger portion of the force being allocated to support functions (“tail”) rather than combat roles (“tooth”). In contrast, China’s closer proximity to the combat zone simplifies its logistics, allowing it to rapidly concentrate combat power. This asymmetry favors Beijing to the detriment of U.S. deterrence.

Second, the vast Pacific Ocean – or the “tyranny of water” – not only increases the distances that U.S. aircraft and naval vessels must close to put their weapons within range of targets, it also severely constrains basing options. Short-legged fighter jets lack the necessary fuel to complete missions in the Taiwan Strait, for example, and return to limited bases in the region. In-flight refueling would extend their operational ranges, but tankers make attractive targets for Chinese missiles.

As a result, the U.S. Air Force finds itself in danger of not being able to generate sufficient sorties to deny a Chinese victory. In pushing tankers back, the People’s Liberation Army could achieve air denial, and possibly even air superiority, without ever defeating U.S. air superiority fighters in combat. Given that achieving air superiority is critical to Beijing’s theory of victory, especially in a Taiwan scenario, the constraints of maritime geography, as well as Chinese missile threats, substantially weaken U.S. deterrence.

.Third, successful extended deterrence depends on rapidly projecting massive combat power into the region. But U.S. forces and capabilities will not matter if they arrive too late to the fight. This is the “tyranny of time.” U.S. warplanes can fly across the Pacific from the West Coast in a matter of hours, but they require tanker support along the route, adding 24 to 48 hours of lead time.

Moreover, it would take months to deploy large numbers of U.S. forces and weapons into the theater. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, even with a continuous presence in the Middle East, and no enemy interference, it still took six months to build up U.S. personnel and the “iron mountain” of materiel required to support initial combat operations. More fundamentally, time was on the United States’ side. The United States held the initiative, commencing military operations at the time and place of its own choosing. In the Indo-Pacific, China would most likely hold this advantage.

Finally, in the event of a conflict with China, U.S. logistics operations would be staggering in scale and complexity. The “tyranny of scale” is not linear — there is not a one-to-one correspondence between additional “tooth” and “tail.” Limited ramp space, for example, would require military planners to employ aircraft from more operating bases, which would increase both aerial-refueling requirements and on-the-ground sustainment needs (e.g., maintenance and servicing, support facilities, and weapons storage sites, etc.).

The planning and execution of logistics operations at scale is no easy task. Even with months of careful planning, the July exercise Mobility Guardian 23 encountered complications. For example, one C-17 aircraft only made it to Hawaii because of mechanical issues, while others fell behind schedule at various points. These incidents are all manageable in isolation, but they compound one another to quickly have a cascading effect.

.Of course, Beijing is planning to make it a whole lot worse. The real danger is that Chinese leaders calculate a window exists for them to achieve a fait accompli before the United States has sufficient combat power in the region. The ability to mobilize, deploy, and sustain the U.S. military is thus key to effective deterrence.

Unfortunately, the logistics problem defies simple solution, complicated by the fact that solving one tyranny often makes the others worse. For example, the United States could deploy more forces forward to try to address the tyrannies of distance and time. Without additional basing options, however, these forces would end up concentrated at large bases and vulnerable to an adversary’s first strike. To mitigate this threat, the United States could try to distribute its forces more widely within the first island chain, but a distributed force posture exacerbates the challenges of operating across large swaths of water and increases the complexity and scale of logistics and sustainment.

Instead of trying to solve each part of the logistics problem independently, the Pentagon should develop an integrated approach to cope with the four tyrannies simultaneously. Doing so requires new ways of thinking, along with making hard choices and accepting risks that the individual military branches would prefer to avoid. There are no silver bullets to make the logistics and sustainment that underwrite U.S. deterrence in the Indo-Pacific any easier, faster, or more efficient and effective.

.

..Is it USA planning join the war game with China & Taiwan.? 

美國「國防新聞周刊」（Defense News）指出,美軍想要介入台海衝突,更需要克服距離,水域,時間與規模這4大殘酷障礙,削弱了美國對中共的嚇阻力道,尤其是空中威懾能力。

1:「距離」。美國與印太地區基地的距離是與歐洲基地距離的兩倍。這代表美軍補給線的極大延伸,迫使大部分美軍部隊被分配到支持職能而不是戰鬥角色。

相比之下大陸距離戰區更近,簡化了後勤保障,能夠迅速集中戰鬥力。「這種不對稱因素有利於北京,而不利於美國的威懾」。

2:是廣闊的太平洋。它代表美國戰機和海軍艦艇必須接近到足夠近的距離才能將目標置於武器射程之內,而且還嚴重限制了可用的基地選擇。

例如美軍戰術飛機缺乏足夠的燃料,來完成從印太地區的大部分美軍基地起飛、往返台灣海峽的任務。雖然美軍可以透過空中加油擴大戰術飛機的作戰範圍，但加油機對大陸飛彈來說是有吸引力的目標。透過擊退加油機,解放軍可以實現空中的「區域拒止」,甚至可能掌握空中優勢,而無需在戰鬥中正面擊敗美軍的空中優勢戰鬥機。

3:是「成功的威懾取決於向該地區快速投送大規模戰鬥力的能力」。如果美軍抵達戰區的時間到來得太遲,那麼它們就毫無意義。美國戰機可以在幾小時內從西海岸飛越太平洋,但沿途需要加油機支援,使準備時間增加了24至48小時。。「而在印太地區,大陸很可能擁有這一優勢」。

4:如果與大陸爆發衝突,美國需要準備的物資規模和複雜性將令人震驚。例如停機坪空間有限,美軍計畫制訂者必須動用來自更多作戰基地的飛機,這將增加空中加油需求和地面保障需求,例如維護和服務,支援設施和武器儲存地點等。

美國可在前方部署更多部隊，試圖解決距離與時間的限制問題。然而，如果沒有額外的基地選擇，這些部隊最終將集中在大型基地，很容易成為敵軍優先打擊的目標，當前駐沖繩美軍基地群就面臨這樣的尷尬處境。要解決台海衝突的後勤問題,美國需要新的思維。但「沒有什麼靈丹妙藥可以使美國在印太地區威懾力的後勤和保障變得更容易,更快捷,更高效和有效...................