Taiwan. An invasion by China would be a failure. Sunken aircraft carriers, shattered armies – CSIS simulation

A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on January 9 covered CNN. The documentary, titled “The First Battle of Another War,” is based on war simulations that have been described as the most insightful ever conducted in the context of a possible conflict over Taiwan.

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CSIS ran the simulation a total of 24 times under different scenarios to “answer two fundamental questions” – whether a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be successful, and what the costs would be. “The likely answers to these two questions are ‘no’ and ‘huge’,” conclude the report’s authors, quoted by CNN. “China’s invasion of Taiwan in 2026 would result in thousands of casualties among Chinese, US, Taiwanese and Japanese forces, and would be unlikely to end in a Beijing victory,” CSIS said.

According to the report, although a war for Taiwan would probably bring victory to the coalition defending the island, the enormity of losses of each side would weaken their military power for years. “United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of warplanes and thousands of soldiers. Such losses would damage the US’s global position for many years, the document said. In most scenarios, the US Navy lost two nuclear aircraft carriers and 10 to 20 other large ships in the simulations. American soldiers, which is almost half of the military casualties that the United States lost over two decades of wars Iraq and Afghanistan,” notes CNN.

According to CSIS, Japan would lose over 100 military aircraft and 26 ships in a possible conflict, and one of the targets of Chinese attacks would be US military bases on Japanese islands. “China would also be severely affected. Its naval forces would be in disarray, the core of its amphibious force would be shattered, and tens of thousands of soldiers would be taken prisoner,” the report said. The simulation is supposed to show that in total China would lose about 10,000 jobs. soldiers, 155 military aircraft and 138 large ships.

A potential invasion, while unlikely to result in Beijing taking control of the island, would have “devastating” consequences for Taiwan as well. “While Taiwan’s army was unbroken, it would have been severely weakened and would have been left with the defense of a shattered economy on an island without electricity and basic services,” the report said. Taiwanese forces would lose about 3.5 thousand. soldiers and 26 ships.

The authors of the report stressed that they did not suggest that a war over Taiwan was “inevitable or even likely” and pointed out that China may also choose to escalate the conflict other than military action. “The Chinese leadership may adopt a strategy of diplomatic isolation, gray economy pressure, or economic coercion against Taiwan,” it said. In their opinion, the simulation was needed because previous government and private simulations were “too narrow or too flawed to provide the public and politicians with a true picture of how the conflict in the Taiwan Strait could play out.” “There are no overt US-China war games available,” said Mark Cancian, one of the project leaders and a senior advisor at CSIS.

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Recently, tensions have been growing around Taiwan, which Beijing considers its rebellious province and does not rule out the use of force to take control of it. On Sunday, January 8, the Chinese army again conducted military exercises around the island, during which land and sea strikes were practiced. Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense said in turn that 57 Chinese warplanes and 4 surface ships were detected around the island in the past 24 hours, of which 28 aircraft entered the island’s air defense zone. Some of them exceeded the the median line in the Taiwan Strait constituting an unofficial buffer zone between the two sides. They were to include Su-30 and J-16 fighters as well as H-6 bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Unprecedented Chinese maneuvers near Taiwan also took place in August 2022 in response to the visit of the then Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. Chinese military then fired, many ballistic missiles – some of them flew over the island, and a few fell into the water in the exclusive economic zone of Japan. In addition, December 30 The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning approached the US military base on the island of Guam for the first timewhich would be of strategic importance in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

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Taiwan, as a result of successive Chinese maneuvers, has been conducting its own military exercises in recent months, and at the end of December 2022 it started the decision to extend the compulsory military service from 4 months to a year. Japan also reacted to the increasing Chinese military activity. Japanese media reported on January 7 that authorities in Tokyo are considering a plan to build dozens of ammunition and weapons warehouses on remote southwestern islands in preparation for a potential crisis in Taiwan. 70 percent of all of Japan’s 1,400 ammunition depots are now located on the northernmost island of Hokkaido. Defense officials want to lay out these warehouses so that the islands bordering China have better access to supplies.

SEE ALSO: Japan is strengthening its defense forces on a strategic island