The Cost of Maintaining an “Autonomous Taiwan”

I found this article by bill Gertz at the Washington Times interesting:

The Center for Strategic and International Studies conducted 24 separate war game scenarios involving an amphibious assault by China across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait, setting off a war with Taiwan, the United States and Japan. U.S. military officials say Chinese strategists see a military “window” for action against Taipei in the next few years.

“In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan,” the report concludes. “However, this defense came at high cost.”

The cost, even in the “optimistic scenarios,” according to the report: “The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of service members. Such losses would damage the U.S. global position for many years. While Taiwan’s military is unbroken, it is severely degraded and left to defend a damaged economy on an island without electricity and basic services.”

“China also suffers heavily,” the report noted. “Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war.”

The article did not include a direct link to the report on the exercise itself which is here.

The assumptions included conventional weapons only, participation only by China, U. S. Taiwan, and Japan, and no U. S. attacks on the Chinese mainland, all of which leave me skeptical. As I have pointed out ad nauseam in wargames in which it was allowed direct great power conflict inevitably led to a nuclear exchange. Here are the studies findings:

1. Taiwan must vigorously resist. If it does not, the rest is futile.
2. The United States must join hostilities within days and with the full range of its capabilities. Delays and half measures make the defense harder, increase U.S. casualties, and raise the risk of the Chinese creating an irreducible lodgment on Taiwan.
3. The United States must have use of its bases in Japan. Without them, the United States cannot use its numerous fighter/attack aircraft.
4. Finally, the United States must possess enough air-launched, long-range ASCMs.

I suspect that if anything the wargame underestimates the costs to both sides. Chinese military doctrine is almost completely untested. Its performance is likely to underwhelm. Conversely, damage to U. S. aircraft and ships is likely to be higher. Furthermore, I can’t help but imagine that if China were to actually invade Taiwan it would not attempt to disable U. S. airbases in Japan as a precursor. Somewhat similar to the Russian-Ukraine War the overwhelming likelihood is that Taiwan would not simply be harmed but economically destroyed.

Read the report for yourself. You might find it interesting.

Update

Here’s more commentary on the report from Blaise Malley at Responsible Statecraft:

The results of the simulations, and the recommendations offered in the report, in general reflect those found in the Quincy Institute’s earlier Active Denial report. Simulations conducted for that study produced similar results, and its recommendations were virtually identical, stressing the need for the United States to harden bases in Japan, employ smaller carriers, increase inventories of anti-ship missiles, and deploy more submarines and bombers equipped with missiles, among other things.

But even these actions will not by themselves ensure that China would be deterred from attacking Taiwan, if Washington backs Beijing into a corner. The ultimate lesson of these and other war games is that credible political and diplomatic assurances by the United States and China regarding, respectively, One China and the possibility of peaceful unification, are essential for keeping peace in the Taiwan Strait.

The only remark I can make about this is that China’s abandoning a claim to Taiwan is only slightly less likely than Russia’s relinquishing Crimea.