From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   War Game Finds U.S., Taiwan Can Defend Against a Chinese Invasion   
   By Warren P. Strobel, Aug. 9, 2022, WSJ   
      
   WASHINGTON—In the first 3 weeks after invading Taiwan, China sank two   
   multibillion-dollar U.S. aircraft carriers, attacked American bases across   
   Japan and on Guam, and destroyed hundreds of advanced U.S. jet fighters.   
      
   China’s situation was, if anything, worse. It landed troops on Taiwan and   
   seized the island’s southern third, but its amphibious fleet was decimated   
   by relentless U.S. and Japanese missile and submarine attacks and it   
   couldn’t resupply its own    
   forces. The capital, Taipei, was secure in Taiwanese hands, and Beijing was   
   low on long-range ballistic missiles to counter America’s still-potent air   
   and maritime power.   
      
   This complex daylong war game, played out late last week at a Washington think   
   tank, demonstrated how destructive any attempted Chinese invasion of Taiwan   
   could be across the Indo-Pacific—and what a forbidding challenge the island   
   would be for Beijing†  
   ™s military forces.   
      
   The exercise—involving “Redâ€� and “Blueâ€� teams, maps, 20-sided dice   
   and complex computer calculations—seemed less like a simulation than a   
   preview of a possible future. In the real world, as the game unfurled, China   
   launched missiles around    
   Taiwan and near Japan, part of a massive show of military might to protest a   
   Taiwan visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.   
      
   â€œNo one thought this was realistic until the last few years,â€� said retired   
   Air Force Brig. Gen. Paula Thornhill, one of the participants. In the past,   
   she said, war gamers were sometimes accused of being “warmongers,â€� but   
   since then, China has    
   increased both its military capabilities and aspirations.   
      
   China has pledged to reunify Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade   
   province, with the mainland, and hasn’t ruled out using military force.   
   Russia’s unexpected early setbacks in its invasion of Ukraine may have given   
   Chinese President Xi Jinping    
   pause, some analysts say. Others worry Mr. Xi has drawn the opposite lesson:   
   use maximum force and strike Taiwan’s leadership from the start.   
      
   The 7-hour war game, simulating three weeks of combat, illustrated what a   
   daunting task it would be for China to launch an amphibious invasion across   
   the 100-mile Taiwan Strait, even with its military advances of recent years.   
      
   â€œProbably the biggest [takeaway] is, under most assumptions, the United   
   States and Taiwan can conduct a successful defense of the island. That’s   
   different from many people’s impressions,â€� said Mark Cancian, a senior   
   adviser at the Center for    
   Strategic and International Studies think tank, which hosted the game in its   
   Washington offices.   
      
   But the cost would be high: Taiwan’s economy would be shattered, and the   
   U.S. military so battered that it would take years to rebuild, with   
   repercussions for America’s global power.   
      
   Some U.S. military commanders have pointed to 2027, the 100th anniversary of   
   the founding of China’s People’s Liberation Army, as a possible invasion   
   date.   
      
   Becca Wasser, another of the game participants, said 2036 is a likelier time   
   frame. “In 2027, China is unlikely to have the ability to successfully   
   launch an amphibious invasion of Taiwan,â€� said Ms. Wasser, a fellow at the   
   Center for a New American    
   Security think tank. If so, she said, “that suggests they are going to take   
   another approach.â€�   
      
   Many specialists say the large-scale live-fire exercises China is conducting   
   following Mrs. Pelosi’s visit portend a strategy of blockading Taiwan and   
   squeezing rather than flattening it into submission.   
      
   The war games, which specialists said are similar to classified games the   
   Pentagon conducts, were designed to test how various scenarios play out, as   
   well as how the Chinese and U.S.-led sides react to one another’s moves, and   
   the impact of their    
   weapons inventories.   
      
   The imagined conflict is set in 2026, and each side is limited to military   
   capabilities it has demonstrated in real life. The opposing teams take turns   
   at maps of the Pacific region populated with game pieces denoting military   
   dispositions, conferring on    
   strategy. They then move to a detailed map of Taiwan. Computers calculate   
   everything from the size of aircraft runways to how long it takes submarines   
   to rearm. The dice introduce an element of randomness.   
      
   â€œThis is the only such game that’s in the public domain,â€� said Mr.   
   Cancian, who spent two years designing the game along with experts from   
   Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Naval War College. The game’s   
   creators, he said, wanted to be    
   able to share the results with a broader audience than is possible with   
   classified ones.   
      
   The war-game scenario assumes China has decided to attack Taiwan and that the   
   U.S.—which officially has a policy of “strategic ambiguityâ€� about   
   whether it would defend the island militarily—comes to Taipei’s aid. The   
   game didn’t include the    
   potential role of nuclear weapons.   
      
   This day’s game, the 17th in a series of 22, began with pessimistic   
   assumptions for the U.S.: It is distracted by a separate crisis in Europe,   
   slowing its surge of forces to the Pacific. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s ability to   
   respond has been hampered by    
   Chinese information operations and sabotage.   
      
   China, played by the red team, attacks aggressively, hoping to subdue Taiwan   
   as quickly as possible while staving off an expected American response.   
      
   The Chinese military shoots ballistic missiles at U.S. air bases in Japan and   
   an aircraft carrier strike group in the Pacific, destroying several squadrons   
   of jet fighters and sinking the carrier and other U.S. ships. It deploys a   
   defensive picket line    
   of surface ships on Taiwan’s east coast and bombs the island’s   
   infrastructure to interfere with Taiwan’s movement of ground troops.   
   Finally, China lands 22,000 troops on Taiwan’s southeast coast and fights   
   slowly northward, hoping to seize a port    
   or airfield while avoiding cities and the urban warfare that comes with them.   
      
   But as the days drag on, the momentum shifts to the U.S. and Japan. Despite   
   horrific losses in ships, aircraft and personnel, American forces bomb Chinese   
   ports, eliminate the picket line of ships and successfully attack Beijing’s   
   weak spot—the    
   amphibious ships its needs to ferry troops and supplies to Taiwan.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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