The United States could expect to lose dozens of warships – including aircraft carriers – hundreds of aircraft and thousands of service personnel in an intervention against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China would probably fare even worse, possibly losing hundreds of vessels and tens of thousands of men and women. Taiwan’s economy would be savaged, while neighbouring Japan could be expected to suffer severe damage.
Taiwan would, however, survive.
This is the outcome of a recent series of war-games on the course of such a conflict, conducted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and reported on in The Spectator.
Writing in the publication, Ian Williams described the scenarios as studying a possible invasion attempt by China in 2026. Taiwan was assumed to resist, the US was assumed not to hesitate in coming to Taiwan’s aid and to be able to use its bases in Japan. Strikes on China were permitted, but on facilities directly involved in the operation so as not to escalate the conflict.
The difficulties of mounting the operation and the superior military capacities of the US and its allies saw China fail, but at enormous cost to everyone.
The CSIS report said that prevailing in the conflict would demand that the US ‘recognise the need to continue operations in the face of heavy casualties. In three weeks, the United States will suffer about half as many casualties as it did in 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.’
It said that the costs of such a war made deterrence a preferable strategy: bringing preparedness by both the US and Taiwan to a level that would make war unfeasible for China. For Taiwan, it would make more sense to invest in large qualities of low-cost but high impact weapons suited for defence – such as drones and smart mines – than to put its resources into large and expensive assets like warships.