"Defense Experts Game Out US-China War Over Taiwan; Dalio Warns Escalations 'Very Dangerous'" (Excerpt)

"Defense Experts Game Out US-China War Over Taiwan;

 Dalio Warns Escalations 'Very Dangerous'" (Excerpt)

by Tyler Durden

Excerpt: "A group of American defense experts operating out of a 5th floor suite in Washington DC have been mapping out a hypothetical war between the United States and China over Taiwan. "The results are showing that under most - though not all - scenarios, Taiwan can repel an invasion," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which has been simulating various war scenarios. "However, the cost will be very high to the Taiwanese infrastructure and economy and to US forces in the Pacific."

"In sessions that will run through September, retired US generals and Navy officers and former Pentagon officials hunch like chess players over tabletops along with analysts from the CSIS think tank. They move forces depicted as blue and red boxes and small wooden squares over maps of the Western Pacific and Taiwan. The results will be released to the public in December." - Bloomberg

The base assumption is that China invades Taiwan to force unification, which the US responds to with its military. Another assumption (that's 'far from certain') is that Japan would grant 'expanded rights' to use US bases on its territory - but wouldn't intervene directly unless Japanese land is attacked.

Nuclear weapons are not part of the scenarios, and the weapons used in the simulation are the most likely to be deployed based on current capabilities of the nations involved.

News of the war game simulations come as China began test-firing missiles in recent days following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) visit to Taiwan.So far, 18 of 22 rounds of the simulation to date have resulted in Chinese missiles sinking a large part of the US and Japanese surface fleet, and would destroy "hundreds of aircraft on the ground," according to Cancian, a former White House defense budget analyst and retired US Marine.

"However, allied air and naval counterattacks hammer the exposed Chinese amphibious and surface fleet, eventually sinking about 150 ships," he added. "The reason for the high US losses is that the United States cannot conduct a systematic campaign to take down Chinese defenses before moving in close," Cancian continued. "The United States must send forces to attack the Chinese fleet, especially the amphibious ships, before establishing air or maritime superiority. To get a sense of the scale of the losses, in our last game iteration, the United States lost over 900 fighter/attack aircraft in a four-week conflict. That’s about half the Navy and Air Force inventory."

View this complete article here:

- https://www.zerohedge.com/