How devastating a war between China and the US would be

A full-scale conflict between China and the United States over Taiwan would lead to devastating losses of American warships and aircraft, a war-game analysis by a Washington think-tank has concluded. However, in an unprecedented naval battle, the US and Japanese navies and air forces could launch a counter-attack that would sink as many as 150 Chinese amphibious and other surface ships. The sheer scale of the destruction on both sides in the event of China launching an invasion of Taiwan is laid out in the analysis carried out by former Pentagon and US Navy officials and other experts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Details of the war game emerged as the eastern theatre command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced it had successfully completed joint combat exercises around Taiwan, described by the Taipei government as a simulated invasion. After the display of aggression against Taiwan over the last six days, involving the launch of 11 short-range ballistic missiles and hostile crossings of the median line in the Taiwan Strait by Chinese warships and aircraft, the CSIS scenario painted of a war in 2026 over the breakaway republic suggests there would be no clear winners. However, despite the projected involvement of a massive offensive force embracing every component of the PLA, Taiwan itself would succeed in repelling the invasion , according to the initial conclusions.The results of the war game by the think tank will not be published until December but in 18 of the 22 rounds completed so far, PLA anti-ship ballistic missiles sunk a large proportion of the US and Japanese fleets and destroyed hundreds of aircraft on the ground. In one version of the war game, 900 US fighter and attack aircraft were lost in just four weeks. That’s around half the US navy and air force inventory. That is described as “the worst scenario”. “However, allied air and naval counterattacks hammer the exposed Chinese amphibious and surface fleet, eventually sinking about 150 ships,” Marc Cancian, one of the participants, said. “The reason for the high US losses is that the United States cannot conduct a systematic campaign to take down Chinese defences before moving in close, “ said Mancian who served three decades in the US Marine Corps before working as a senior official in the Pentagon and later the White House. The Pentagon has carried out its own assessment of how a war with China over Taiwan would end. But the findings remain classified. Six years ago, the Rand Corporation also analysed the possible outcome of a war between China and the US and envisaged that in early exchanges there would be “steep military losses on both sides”. But the PLA would suffer far greater losses, the 2016 report concluded. However, in the period since, the PLA has achieved significant technological advances and has built a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles, part of China’s policy of deterring US carrier strike groups from entering the region in time of war – Beijing’s anti-access, area-denial (A2D2) strategy. During the latest PLA military aggression against Taiwan, the US Navy’s 7th Fleet headed by the carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, remained on operational duty in the Indo-Pacific region but stayed away from the Taiwan Strait. That was a clear message to Beijing that while the US denounced China’s reaction to the visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, the American military was not going to get involved in confronting the PLA. In the CSIS war game it is assumed that the US would intervene in the event of a PLA invasion of Taiwan to fulfill Beijing’s longstanding plan to reunify the island to mainland control. Cancian told The Times in an interview that the just-completed exercises by the PLA reflected the capabilities taken into account in the war game. “In nearly all the scenarios, the US/Japan/Taiwan are able to prevent Chinese forces from occupying the entire island, However, the cost is extremely high,” he said. “It would take years for the US to rebuild its forces because of low production rates. Other nations such as Russia and Iran might take advantage of US weakness, “Cancian said. “The US will need to strengthen its position enough to deter China or to win the war without experiencing high attrition,” he said. No assessment has been made about the casualty toll or the economic damage to Taiwan and to China. But the last four rounds of the war game will examine what might happen if the US were to delay intervention and Japan stayed out of the conflict. The scenario will include an assumption that China would strike at US warships in the region as well as launch attacks on US forces in Guam and possibly Okinawa and Kadena in Japan as part of the invasion plan for Taiwan. “So we are assuming the US will intervene but it’s not a certainty,” Cancian said. In the statement on the conclusion of the military exercises around Taiwan, Shi Yi, spokesman for the PLA’s eastern theatre command, said: “The command will closely monitor the changes in the Taiwan Strait situation, continue to train and prepare for combat, routinely patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”