A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would likely fail if the United States helped defend the island – but would come with a debilitating cost to the American military itself, according to a US think tank.
Military experts brought together by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the conflict’s wargame said each likely direct participant in a war — the United States, China, Taiwan and Japan — would suffer “huge” casualties.
Chinese missiles would likely destroy US air bases in Japan and as far away as Guam and sink two US aircraft carriers and between 10 and 20 destroyers and cruisers when the invasion begins.
But the Chinese invading force itself would be destroyed before it ever occupies any significant portion of Taiwan, and ultimately would be thwarted in its goal of capturing the island’s capital, Taipei, according to most scenarios tested.
This, as well as the damage inflicted by Taiwanese counterattacks on targets on the mainland, could destabilize the Chinese Communist Party’s rule, the report said.
“We came to two conclusions,” said Eric Heginbotham, a security researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“First, under most circumstances, China is unlikely to achieve its operational goals or occupy Taipei,” he said.
“Second, the cost of a war would be high for everyone involved, certainly including the United States.”
Wargaming tested 24 different scenarios centered on China attempting to conquer the island by invading in 2026. The United States was crucial: without American help, Taiwan would be conquered by the People’s Liberation Army in three months or less.
The war game assumed the invasion would begin with an opening bombardment by China, destroying most of Taiwan’s navy and air force in a matter of hours. The Chinese Navy would orbit Taiwan and begin ferrying a landing force of thousands of PLA soldiers and their equipment across the Taiwan Strait.
In what the wargamers said was the most likely scenario, Taiwan’s army would pin the invaders to shore.
“Meanwhile, US submarines, bombers and fighter/attack aircraft, often reinforced by Japanese Self-Defense Forces, are rapidly crippling the Chinese amphibious fleet,” the report said.
“China’s attacks on Japanese bases and US surface ships cannot change the outcome: Taiwan remains autonomous,” it said.
Matthew Cancian of the US Naval War College said there are critical variables on which that success depends.
First, he said, Taiwan itself must be determined to fight back.
Second, Japan must allow the United States to counterattack from its bases on Japanese territory.
Without that, according to Cancian, “US intervention would not be enough to continue Taiwan’s autonomy.”
In such cases, human losses would be high, around 10,000 in the first weeks of the war. The war game raised important unknowns, such as whether the United States would risk nuclear war by attacking China directly.
It also questioned whether the US and Japanese publics would be willing to accept the losses that came with defending Taiwan, saying US losses could hurt Washington’s ability to project global power for a very long time.
“The United States could win a Pyrrhic victory and suffer more in the long run than the ‘defeated’ Chinese,” the report said.
According to the report, both Taiwan and the U.S. military need to build forces focused on the most survivable and effective weapons in order to achieve greater deterrence against a Chinese invasion.
“Despite the rhetoric about adopting a ‘porcupine strategy,’ Taiwan still spends most of its defense budget on expensive ships and planes that China will quickly destroy,” it said.