US-China war game shows need for victory if deterrence fails

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently conducted a war game testing the scenarios and outcomes in a possible U.S.-China war over Taiwan. The reason for the exercise was that, “What was once unthinkable — direct conflict between the United States and China — has now become a commonplace discussion in the national security community.”

Actually, the near-doomsday scenario played out in the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, when China fired missiles toward Taiwan and Washington sent a carrier battle group through the Taiwan Strait. A Clinton official called it “our own Cuban missile crisis; we had stared into the abyss.”

Since then, only one U.S. carrier has entered the Strait, though smaller Navy ships have conducted freedom of navigation transits under the Trump and Biden administrations. China’s recently deployed carriers freely move through the Strait. 

Vladimir Putin’s latest aggression against Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s increasing pressure on Taiwan — with each other’s rhetorical support — have raised new alarms, the CSIS report acknowledges.

“The possibility of one country invading another to acquire territory seemed antiquated. Russia’s [latest] attack on Ukraine has reminded the world that cross-border invasions are possible. Speculation about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan was inevitable. … [I]nvasion is the most dangerous threat to Taiwan and is thus the first course of action that needs to be analyzed.”

The CSIS exercise was run 24 times. “In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan.”

But all parties in the war game suffered high losses. “Victory is therefore not enough. The United States needs to strengthen deterrence immediately.” The report recommended measures to improve U.S. capabilities:

“Increase the arsenal of long-range anti-ship cruise missiles. Bombers capable of launching standoff, anti-ship ordnance offer the fastest way to defeat the invasion with the least amount of U.S. losses. Procuring such missiles and upgrading existing missiles with this anti-ship capability needs to be the top procurement priority.”

The problem, however, is less what weapons America would bring to the fight than its will to do so, and to sustain its kinetic involvement in the face of China’s threatened and actual escalation.  Since the 1995-96 confrontation, that U.S.will often has been doubted by Chinese, Taiwanese, and U.S. observers.

“The United States has maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity to discourage China from attacking Taiwan while also discouraging Taipei from taking actions that might incentivize such an attack. It is also called dual deterrence, as it aims to deter China from invading Taiwan and deter Taiwan from declaring independence.”  

In the narrowest sense, the ambiguity policy has succeeded, since neither war nor formal independence has yet occurred. But the dynamic might better be termed “deferral” than “deterrence.” Over the years, China has moved inexorably toward more open and more potent aggression against Taiwan. And Taiwan’s population and government already have achieved de facto independence and greater international recognition of a separate Taiwanese identity. Each trend has reinforced the other as the irresistible force and the immovable object approach a collision point.

While the war game focused only on how a hypothetical U.S.-China conflict would proceed, Washington cannot be opposed to, or even neutral about, Taiwan’s international aspirations or its democratic security.  

U.S. credibility as a reliable security partner and ally has been seriously damaged by recent grievous mistakes of action or inaction — in Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014), Syria (2014), Afghanistan (2021) and Ukraine (2021).

Moreover, Taiwan is a global model in what both the Trump and Biden administrations have called “the existential struggle of our time,” between democracy and autocracy.

Taiwan intimately implicates not only America’s values but, as the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) declares, its interests in “the peace, security and stability in the Western Pacific” and, ultimately, the global order. Imperial Japan launched and sustained World War II in the South Pacific from the island of Formosa, what Gen. Douglas MacArthur called “the unsinkable aircraft carrier.”  China seeks to use Taiwan as the platform for its own aggressive ambitions in Southeast Asia. 

CSIS had a caveat to its exercise. “There is one major assumption here: Taiwan must resist and not capitulate. If Taiwan surrenders before U.S. forces can be brought to bear, the rest is futile.”

Here, too, Washington’s strategic ambiguity plays a critical, and negative, role. Some years ago, a senior Taiwanese naval officer told a Washington security conference that since Taiwan could neither defeat a Chinese attack, nor match China’s military spending, without a guarantee of direct U.S. intervention, it should prudently consider its options.

One CSIS recommendation would go part-way to address that concern: “Taiwan must start the war with everything it needs. Further, delays and half-measures by the United States would make the defense harder, increase U.S. casualties, allow China to create a stronger lodgment, and raise the risk of escalation.”

Decisive U.S. action is also required, the report states, if deterrence fails. “[I]n wartime, if the United States decides to defend Taiwan, U.S. forces must quickly engage in direct combat. … [If] China believes that the United States would be unwilling to bear the high costs of defending Taiwan, then China might risk an invasion.”

The same reasoning applies once a war begins: If China believes the U.S. would be unwilling to bear the even higher costs of escalation, it might risk escalating or at least threatening to do so.

Here, the report goes astray when it recommends, “Do not plan on striking the mainland. The National Command Authority might withhold permission because of the grave risks of escalation with a nuclear power.”

But “the grave risks of escalation” work in both directions. China would have at least as much to lose, probably more, including “destabilize[d] Chinese Communist Party rule.” 

Although the report states, “There is no ‘Ukraine model’ for Taiwan,” that recommendation would replicate President Biden’s initial mistake before the invasion, taking on U.S. shoulders all the fear of escalation and the obligation to avoid it. Biden assured Putin of Russian immunity, not only from U.S. action but also from the victimized Ukrainians. Even placing U.S. forces in Ukraine — e.g., to enforce a no-fly zone — “would be World War III,” he claimed.   

Allowing “privileged sanctuaries” in North Vietnam contributed to the disastrous outcome of that war. Washington must ensure that Beijing understands a war withTaiwan means war with the U.S. and its allies. It also would mean immediate international recognition of Taiwan’s independence. Public declaration of that U.S. and allied resolve would help avert a “Pyrrhic victory” where losses exceed benefits. As CSIS says, “It is better to deter the war in the first place.”

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.