The United States will defeat China in a fight for Taiwan despite enduring heavy losses? Please define "defeat".
I think China can invade Taiwan (don't discount the large Chinese coast guard's potential role), with the objective of quickly seizing the capital in the north. The Pescadores Islands would be captured to knock out Taiwanese threats to ships and planes in the Taiwan Strait, provide advanced bases for fire support and logistics, and freeze Taiwanese troops in the south.
Chinese air and naval assets would attempt to defend lines of supply across the Taiwan Strait and interdict enemy attempts to reinforce the Taiwanese and supply Taiwanese and allied forces on Taiwan.
Unlike many analysts, I assume China would not immediately strike American or Japanese bases. I think China would want to maintain the fiction that Taiwan is an internal matter for as long as it can to complicate foreign reaction and provide excuses for others to remain neutral.
China, keep in mind, does not need to defeat America to defeat Taiwan. China needs to delay American-led intervention to buy the time needed to defeat Taiwan. If China attacks America or Japan before or while it attacks Taiwan, China makes our decision to intervene for us. Mind you, if China believes American intervention is going to happen fast regardless of what China does, that wrecks my assumption.
And decisive delay could come after America intervenes.
The limit is China's willingness to endure the casualties.
Throughout the week the game always reaches a stopping point where the players know the likely outcome and, nearly always within the roughly three-week timeframe of simulated combat, it reaches a stalemate on Taiwan between U.S. and Chinese ground forces. ...
By the end of the game, the China team had more than 30 battalions on Taiwan, quite a feat in under three weeks of battle.
But the U.S. was able to cut off the Chinese resupply entirely, leaving thousands of simulated Chinese soldiers foraging for food, low on ammunition and trying to outmaneuver U.S. forces in a cat-and-mouse fight.
One, how much warning time prior to invasion did the wargames assume? It would take some time to secure a sea line of communication, get significant American ground forces to Taiwan, and establish lines of supply. And it would take time just getting troops moving toward Taiwan in case they were ordered to land.
How likely is it that America would begin preparing for a war when all Chinese moves within China would be ambiguous without clear notice of Chinese intent to invade? Plenty of people would insist this was to support Chinese diplomatic pressure. Or that China only wanted something along China's coast or in the South China Sea. The mobilization of that size was only to deter America, they'd argue. There would be plenty of arguments that moving American military assets would itself contribute to risking war.
Recall that there was a lengthy Russian mobilization starting in 2021 prior to invading Ukraine in 2022, and a lack of American or NATO counter-moves in the east. We should have started moving significant forces just in case. Especially since our models (wrongly) predicted a rapid Russian victory.
There was much uncertainty as to Russia's intention. We endlessly discussed what Putin planned to do with all those troops. Even when America was openly predicting invasion, the world was unpersuaded. It made no sense to invade (I certainly felt Russia could not easily win so would not invade) and there were good arguments why this was just unusually well-supported diplomatic pressure or a prelude to a much smaller attack to grab something. So we did not move significant numbers of troops.
Which makes me question whether we would do that for Taiwan even though we should take advantage of warning time to do so.
Two, I have my doubts that American logistics would be so robust that American and Taiwanese forces have plenty of ammunition and supplies after three weeks of fighting.
Three, Chinese missiles and aircraft from the mainland could provide a lot of firepower support to PLA forces on Taiwan, lessening the logistics burden of sustaining the Chinese forces on Taiwan.
Four, I have very strong doubts that America could cut off Chinese resupply entirely. Our logistics would sustain that effort?
Five, what happens in week four? Or after? "Stalemate" between U.S. and Chinese ground forces after three weeks means 30+ PLA battalions remain on the island. That's a problem, as I argued in Military Review. If the U.S. really thinks it won the war because the PLA was stalemated short of conquering Taiwan, we are seriously mistaken. Ending the war with stalemate on Taiwan means China has won the war.
Will America really refuse a ceasefire offer when it can't eject the PLA, and instead threaten to isolate and strangle more than three divisions of Chinese troops on the island? When China has nukes? When economic dislocation sends Western economies into recession? Yes, an American blockade of China's sea trade will hurt China, too. I have no idea whose economic pain will be more significant first.
And if we don't try to drive the PLA into the sea, China will have far lower logistics needs if it simply aims to defend its bridgeheads on Taiwan. Are you telling me China can't manage to do that just 100 miles from its shores? While our logistics hold up over much longer distances?
If a ceasefire is agreed to, how do we get the Chinese to leave?
If the Chinese troops aren't ejected with a counteroffensive as soon as possible, eventually the war ends formally with a ceasefire, with a "peace" agreement, or as a "frozen" conflict; and China reinforces their army on Taiwan and starts over in 5 or 10 years.
Does America keep troops on a new DMZ on Taiwan to deter that? Troops that could face isolation and destruction if China can gain temporary control of the air space and sea around Taiwan. Brush up on the defense of the Bataan Peninsula, please.
Always check the "definitions" section. And make sure "Defeat" includes pushing every PLA soldier on Taiwan into the sea.
NOTE: Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
