Is a Chinese military attack on Taiwan inevitable?

Second, should the mainland leadership opt to use force, it might resort to peripheral air or sea campaigns meant to impoverish and demoralise Taiwan’s populace into submission while enfeebling the island’s military. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy could mount a close or distant blockade of merchant shipping bound to or from the island, starving the island of natural-resource imports and the prosperity that comes with seaborne trade. The PLA Air Force and Rocket Force could bombard critical infrastructure to cripple the Taiwanese armed forces and government.

Taken alone, though, such a strategy probably would not subdue the island on Xi Jinping’s timetable. Beijing craves a short, sharp, decisive war should it decide to launch an assault. Otherwise friends of Taiwan, notably the United States and Japan, might have time to rally to reverse aggression.

Naval blockades and air offensives are the diametric opposite of short wars. These are incremental, slow-moving strategies. They make valuable supplements to more direct campaigns, chiefly those on dry land, and PLA commanders would undoubtedly use them in conjunction with a cross-strait amphibious assault.

They are unlikely to prove decisive in themselves.