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Would that mean that the US would not strike at mainland china?
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We proably would. If they are invading Taiwan, then why would we want to make it cheap for them? War isn't nice.
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The Taiwan straits is about 180Km wide. Does that really need a heavy troop lift capability? If (and I emphasise the "If" to stave off a flame war ) the chinese could paradrop/airlift sufficient troops to hold a single port open, couldn't they just press in merchant vessels for transporting troops?
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The American submarine fleet in the Pacific can easily knock out any merchant fleet being used for transportation. Than we have carriers (see below). And their airlift capability would be nonexistent because a single battle group contains several AEGIS ships that can engage hundreds of targets at a time at a long range.
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Further, I would suggest that the Chinese navy having evolved primarily into a sea-denial role would while running to significant losses still be able to able to keep the straits open.
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Every nation uses its navy partly for sea denial, and that would be the mutual purpose for the USN, and PRN.
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The US is not capable of sustaining a high casualty war.
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You got that right. But that's only because the left-wing nutjobs cry like babies everytime a bomb goes off.
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An aircraft carrier has a compliment of roughly 3000 sailors. Woudl you really stick it in a rather small area with a lot of hostile submarines? Hence my "sea denial in the taiwan straits = limited sea control"
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A battle group is easily capable of protecting itself against enemy subs, because, once again, AEGIS ships. Their anti-submarine capability is awesome. Plus, we don't need carriers. Air bases on Taiwan, Okinawa, and Guam will easily provide the support we need. That plus the Marine Corps will be shifting 2 marine divisions to Okinawa (or was it Guam?) in 2008. That was on the news a few months ago in 2006. My point there being that 40,000 U.S. marines are capable on taking on any
limited number of PLA soldiers that are massed, and they can be easily shifted without fear from the PRC.
The USN, the USAA, and the USAF added to that of Taiwan would make a war catastrophic for China.