The First Battle of the Next War: A US-China Conflict over Taiwan

War with China was once unimaginable but is now a frequent topic of analysis and discussion. CSIS ran 24 iterations of a wargame to see how such a conflict might play out. The bottom line: although in most scenarios Taiwan endured as an autonomous and democratic entity, the costs were staggering for all involved.

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[kowanmcgarry]

Thank you for your insight and knowledge.

[lasagnajohn]

Your wargame is so highspeed, you don't even have catering. The U.S. would not lose any ships or aircraft in any conflict with China, that's just silly. Don't you guys remember gulf war 1? That was the 4th largest military in the world with all the latest and greatest Russian equipment oil money could buy, and we wiped it out without losing even a single dude. Taiwan would be far easier. It would be in the air, sea, space, night, underwater; we own all that. Plus, it's our own prepared turf. And China has no idea what they're doing. And to top it all off, you can't wargame all the classified surprises we obviously have up our sleeve. Remember that time Japan spotted one of our DARPA toys that malfunctioned and we had to admit we had kinetic impactors in orbit? And that was like 20 years ago. China's new blue water navy is a total joke compared to us, it's only for messing with the neighbors.

[shanzation]

Nostradamus predicted, that China will lose naval war on Taiwan 🤣

[shenmisheshou]

I don't think the US will engage military. There is far too much risk of escalation into nuclear war. Also, the war games are probably off because the Chinese have added several new anti-ship missiles, so all attacks would have to be launched forward land basses. I do think that the US might put a couple of battalions of Marines on Taiwan to help with defending the land assault and clearly the Marines have been re-configuring for this mission (No more tanks, which would be useless on Taiwan), but the US won't be able to re-supply them, so they are in for the duration and have to depend on what they can put on the island in advance and what the Taiwanese supply them with. The US has also sold about 400 anti-ship missiles to Taiwan. The only open question is whether China will use the same brute force that Russia has chosen to use, such as bomb civilian buildings to try to force the Taiwan leadership to surrender and otherwise cripple the economy. As for the US intervening militarily, I am reminded of the words of WOPR "Strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Would you like to play a game of chess?"

[fnilxxml]

Muchly supporter Taiwanese tend going to vote to BLUE KMT going president Taiwan 2024 income💙🇹🇼