How Taiwan Can Win the Strait: A Nimbler Navy Can Deny China

Foreign Affairs | Holmes Liao and Dennis Blair

Taiwan is attempting to counter potential Chinese amphibious invasion threats by shifting its naval procurement strategy from large surface combatants toward smaller, stealthy vessels. Traditional destroyers and frigates face critical vulnerabilities in the narrow Taiwan Strait due to China's advanced intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and missile capabilities. Restructuring the fleet around 700-to-1,000-ton missile corvettes provides a dispersed, survivable force capable of executing sea denial against Beijing's invasion fleet.

Large warships remain attractive political status symbols despite their tactical fragility in contested littoral waters. Modern warfare demonstrates that smaller, networked combatants backed by mobile land-based missiles, submarines, and uncrewed systems can effectively disrupt superior naval powers. Taiwan's proposed 2027 defense budget is projected to surpass 3 percent of gross domestic product alongside a recently passed $25 billion special defense allocation. Decommissioning aging surface ships frees vital resources for cost-effective catamaran corvettes costing under $200 million each. Taiwan can enforce effective sea denial.

Comment

Naval sea-denial doctrine in narrow channels increasingly privileges dispersed sensor-killer nodes over high-value capital platforms. The vulnerability of large combatants in heavily monitored choke points shifts operational emphasis toward distributed lethality across littoral zones. The 1988 engagement during Operation Praying Mantis demonstrated how integrated ISR and multi-domain fires quickly neutralise concentrated surface ships in confined waters. Modern sensor density renders traditional surface fleet visibility a critical operational liability.

The destruction of the Russian cruiser Moskva in 2022 illustrates this same structural shift in maritime denial doctrine. Ukrainian forces leveraged land-based antiship missiles and external targeting networks to neutralise a heavily defended flagship without maintaining an equivalent surface fleet. Distributed strike nodes allow coastal defenders to suppress high-value targets like the Moskva without deploying symmetric battlelines.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If the sensor density demonstrated in the Moskva engagement becomes standard across narrow sea lanes, which variable ultimately determines sea-denial success: the quantity of distributed strike nodes or the resilience of the underlying command network?

The pattern suggests that node quantity provides initial tactical saturation, but command network resilience ultimately decides prolonged conflict outcomes. While distributed platforms like anti-ship missile launchers can be rapidly produced or dispersed, an adversary capable of severing data links renders those nodes ineffective regardless of their inventory numbers. Consequently, operational longevity depends more on hardening communications architectures against electronic warfare than on simply increasing hull count.

Share your assessment in the comments below.

To read in details click here