Ukraine’s Air Force Has Survived. Taiwan’s Almost Certainly Couldn’t.
Analysis for 'The Strategist.'
The Ukrainian air force went to war against invading Russian forces in February 2022 with just 125 combat aircraft concentrated at around a dozen large bases. Given Russia’s overwhelming deep-strike advantage—hundreds of deployed warplanes and thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles—few observers expected the Ukrainian brigades to survive the first hours of the war.
But they did survive. And 38 months later, they’re still surviving—and flying daily air-defense and strike sorties.
It has been an incredible feat. Can the equally outgunned Taiwanese air force duplicate it?
Almost certainly not. Geography, and the scale of the Chinese threat, will be harder on Taiwan’s air force and its 400 fighters.
Well the fact that Russia did not go all out in the beginning stages of the war was their downfall. They tried to play a clean war and now it cost them, the fact that Russias weekly missile and drone attacks now dwarf anything they did in the first couple months of 2022 should tell you everything you need to know. They played it safe and now pay the price.
China will learn from this and not hold back. They will pound Taiwan in the first few hours incredibly hard.
Seems to me there’s really two factors here:
1) It’s well known that China has put a huge emphasis on and investment into missile tech and stocks, and airfields are relatively easy to put out of (temporary) commission by targeting runway surfaces. It really depends on what Taiwan is flying during the war, if they can use impromptu or unsanitary runways, and if China is willing to deplete missile stocks targeting runways with potentially valuable missiles.
2) Contested skies are often kept mostly empty of aircraft because attrition could be catastrophic. We see this in Ukraine with both sides leaving the front line relatively clear of manned aircraft. If the air above Taiwan is within this contested zone, with expectedly high attrition, they probably won’t be able to fly even with runways available. Losing a single airframe a day (or more) doesn’t sound like much, but could completely devastate an air force in a year or less.