Key Points:

• Pacific Theater Lessons: Submarines played a crucial role in disrupting supply lines, a tactic that could be vital in a Taiwan conflict.
• Defense in Depth: Taiwan should prepare multiple defensive fallback points to slow down and inflict casualties on invading forces.
• Technological Evolution: New technologies like UUVs could play a significant role, though their effectiveness in real conflict remains theoretical.
• While the defense sector is capturing attention in 2025, the smart money is already looking to “the next Nvidia” for 2025’s biggest winners. Access the report for free now.

Michael and Austin discuss the lessons from the Pacific Theater in World War II and their relevance to potential future conflicts, particularly in the context of a naval invasion like a possible China-Taiwan scenario. They highlight the importance of submarines, the shift from battleships to aircraft carriers, and the dangers of forward deployment as a deterrent strategy. They also emphasize the need for Taiwan to adopt a defense in depth strategy and the potential role of unmanned underwater vehicles in modern warfare.

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Edited Video Transcript:

So let’s talk a little bit about the Pacific Theater.

It’s a really interesting theater.

It’s got a storied history in terms of naval conflicts.

And you mentioned one of the most important right now, which is in a naval invasion.

There is no surprise attack.

There is no shock or early decapitation.

You signal everything.

And you’re the invading army, that doesn’t have the element of surprise.

So what did we learn from the Pacific Theater in World War II that might apply to a future conflict?

Sure.

Well, I think there’s a few key lessons.

Obviously, it’s not going to be one-to-one because past failures or successes aren’t necessarily going to play out in a future conflict.

To give another example, in World War II, the Allies, the British and the French, were in a different theater, but we’ll get back to Pacific in a second.

They were essentially trying to refight World War I with more effective tactics, and Germany were far less obliging because they came up with an entirely new strategy, which paid off.

So with the Pacific Theater, I think there’s a really underrated aspect of this conflict.

Now, when you say Pacific Theater, you think aircraft carriers, you think Midway, you think island hopping.

But one really important aspect of this war that I think people aren’t as aware of is the role played by submarines.

The Japanese were extremely negligent in protecting shipping lanes, and the Allies wreaked havoc on the Japanese supply line.

Submarines sank millions of tons of supplies that the Japanese badly needed, and they crippled the Japanese war machine from under the seas.

Naval aircraft as well played a huge role.

So submarines, I think, could play an extremely important role in any invasion scenario with Taiwan.

Despite advances in modern technology, they’re still very difficult to detect.

And the key for Taiwan is gonna be damaging as much of the Chinese fleet en route as they can.

Submarines will play a huge role in that.

Another aspect of the Pacific Theater in World War II was the fundamental change in naval warfare that took place.

Prior to World War II, most assumptions were around the importance of the primacy of battleships.

But that changed towards aircraft carriers.

Part of that was a consequence of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the damage done to battleships.

And that was in a much wider area, the importance of aircraft carriers became apparent.

So what we saw in World War II was a fundamental shift in the most important ship.

We may see something like that again.

It may be that what we weren’t aware of, you know, in the 1930s with the battleships, they had actually come and gone.

Perhaps the aircraft carriers’ day has come and gone, and we’re just not aware of it yet.

I’d say its main value now could be in deterrence.

The other lesson that we can learn from the Pacific Theater is the danger of forward deployment as a deterrent strategy.

In the past, not just World War II, but in the 1950s and 1990s, the U.S. was able to send fleets to the Taiwan Strait to calm things down.

I don’t think that is necessarily a viable option anymore.

This kind of brinkmanship is quite dangerous because a deterrent force, if it’s not deterring, becomes a very tempting target.

And just for the sake of our listeners, when you mean forward deployment, what you mean is getting ships or a show of force closer to a potential conflict as a way paradoxically of calming it down.

Of saying, “Hey, you know, the big heavy is here. It’s within striking distance. Let’s keep things cool.”

Right.

Is that in effect what you’re saying?

That was so.

The carrier gambit has been used in the past.

It was used in the 1950s.

The Seventh Fleet was sent to the Taiwan Strait to deter an invasion of Taiwan during the Korean War.

And then again in 1996 under the Clinton administration, the Chinese were conducting missile tests in the Taiwan Strait.

So the problem with that now is China’s military is a lot more capable.

They’ve invested a lot in munitions specifically to take down carriers.

And in some war games that have been run in the Taiwan scenario, they found that if there was a forward-deployed fleet, it would be very vulnerable, and the U.S. could lose a couple of carriers from that.

And the loss of a carrier would be an absolute catastrophe for the United States military because there’s simply no way of quickly replacing them, and obviously a huge loss of life and prestige.

So the danger of forward deployment is apparent.

And I think another lesson that can be taken from the Pacific Theater, something Taiwan would want to pay close attention to, is the value of defense in depth.

And what I mean by that is for opposing an amphibious landing, it’s not just defending the beach.

It would be opposing that initial landing and having several fallback points to inflict a lot of casualties.

Now, the thing about the Chinese military, as we’ve discussed before, we brought up the peace diseases.

This is not an operationally experienced military.

Amphibious landings are very difficult.

I expect that even if they did get forces on the beaches, morale could be an issue.

They may not be very well led.

There have been concerns in some of the intelligence reports that will declassified stuff.

So obviously, I don’t have the most up-to-date information, but China is concerned about the quality of its officers, the lack of experience.

So morale could be weak.

Disorganization.

So if they oppose the initial landing and then fall back to another strong point, the PLA tries to advance.

And then every point that they reach, they fall back.

They’re losing a lot of men each time.

We saw something similar in World War II, another theater of World War II when the Allies landed in Italy.

The Axis forces just kept pulling back to another defensive bridge, and it took years when it was supposed to be the soft underbelly.

And for Taiwan, buying time in the initial stages of the invasion is absolutely crucial.

So preparing multiple fallback points would be a really advisable thing for Taiwan to do.

So, yeah, I mean, certainly the defense in depth strategy, almost like multiple firewalls, is important.

And you’re bringing it all the way back to your first point.

I’m also thinking of defense in the depths, right?

You know, the submarines and how quickly they change the calculus of war here.

And, you know, maybe it’s not manned submarines.

We might be in the era of UUVs or uncrewed underwater vehicles in the same way we’re now transitioning to unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, but nonetheless, that format, right?

That format of war, the idea of a submersible that can wreak havoc.

It’s highly asymmetric.

It could be, you know, particularly in a UUV world, it could be potentially a lot more faster, nimbler.

It can stay underwater longer.

It could be cheaper to produce than a submarine.

You also don’t have the same risk of life loss.

So you could be a little bit more aggressive with how you deploy them.

So that point of, you know, maybe learning from the Pacific Theater and how much submarines dominated there, the newest iteration of submarines could just further extend that lesson there.

And that really is the vehicle of choice in the format for that conflict.

Potentially, yeah.

But we should also remember there’s always a gap between a weapon being introduced and becoming effective.

Fair.

Very good point.

Very good point.

What I would say is I wouldn’t rest everything on something that’s not necessarily been proven, but I think a multifaceted approach is the most viable going forward.

Certainly theoretical at this point.

So that’s a great disclaimer.

Good to mention that.

Although we have seen necessity is the mother of ingenuity when it comes to Ukraine, and the ways they’ve adapted to drones and UAVs have been remarkable.

Yeah, so I imagine there are probably some things that haven’t even occurred to us that might, you know, be deployed in an emergency situation, like you say.

And again, we’re talking theoretical.

We’re talking about things that there’s no guarantee any of this will happen, of course.

But I think it’s actually essential to be aware of some of the lessons that we can take from the Pacific Theater because that is our main point of reference.

I think another thing that is worth pointing out is at the end of the Chinese Civil War, you know, which was an overwhelming defeat for the nationalists.

But the People’s Republic did attempt to take the Kinmen Islands, which are just a few miles off of the coast, and they failed.

So that just shows that even with overwhelming military supremacy, amphibious landings against a defeated force are still a huge risk.

Obviously, it’s a different scenario now, but the Republic of China or Taiwan have form for resisting amphibious invasions from the People’s Republic.

It’s worth pointing out.

Really great context there.

Thank you.

And yeah, I don’t think anybody after this will be under any assumption that this would be an easy conflict for either side.

No.

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