TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A member of the U.S. think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) predicts that Taiwan's military would only be able to hold out three months before being overrun by Chinese forces if the U.S. were not to intervene militarily during an invasion of Taiwan.
On Tuesday (Jan. 10), CSIS members presented their findings via live streaming in a report derived from war games titled "The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan by Mark Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham." Mathew Cancian, a senior researcher at Saalanx Solutions, presented the costs, caveats, and conditions of such a conflict.
Cancian said there are four key conditions for Taiwan to survive an assault by China, including putting up stiff resistance, immediate U.S. intervention, U.S. use of bases in Japan, and sufficient U.S. supplies of anti-ship munitions. First, Cancian said that Taiwan must actively resist an invasion of People's Liberation Army (PLA) forces as the U.S. would be unable to reverse rapid capitulation by Taipei.
Second, he argued that the U.S. must immediately dispatch forces when China launches its invasion of Taiwan. Cancian said that his team estimated that if the U.S. failed to intervene militarily, it would only take the PLA two to three months to capture Taiwan, even if the country "resisted to the best of its abilities."
He warned that there is "no Ukraine model" for a PLA invasion of Taiwan. The researcher explained that the U.S. will not be able to stand back and merely resupply Taiwan from a distance because the PLA will be able to "intercept any sort of shipment."
Cancian warned that "any delay or hesitance" on the part of the U.S. military to arrive at the scene will increase the number of casualties and odds of "Chinese success." Third, the analyst said that it is critical that the U.S. Air Force utilizes its bases in Japan.
He pointed out that the U.S. is required by law to consult with and receive permission from Japan to use those bases to launch military missions. He cautioned that if the U.S. is unable to obtain permission to operate these bases, especially for the use of tactical aviation, the U.S. would not be able to provide enough air power to prevent Taiwan from being overrun.
Lastly, Cancian called for the U.S. to amass an adequate supply of long-range anti-ship munitions, especially air-launched anti-ship cruise missiles. He asserted that with "thousands" of such missiles, "it becomes a much simpler task and there will be many fewer U.S. casualties."
However, even in the event of success on the battlefield, casualties will be high at a level the U.S. military has not witnessed since WWII. He predicted that "aircraft carriers are going to be sunk and hundreds of aircraft will be destroyed on the ground."
Cancian stated that in the first hours of the war, Chinese intermediate-range missiles would destroy the U.S. bases on Guam. He noted that in all but five of the simulations, China assaulted bases in Japan, often prompting Japan to enter the war.
Over a conflict lasting three to four weeks, U.S. aircraft and naval vessels would come under constant attack by PLA forces, leading to high attrition levels. He estimated that there would be about 10,000 casualties as a result of the conflict.