[Music]
hello there welcome to another episode
of meet the press reports where each
week we do an in-depth exploration of a
single topic today we have a unique and
special episode this is a war game that
takes a look at how the united states
might react if china were to invade
taiwan
the self-governed island a little bigger
than the state of maryland that sits
about 100 miles off the coast of
mainland china at the junction of the
east and south china seas china has seen
taiwan as a breakaway province ever
since chiang kai-shek and his forces
fled there following their defeat by the
communists in the chinese civil war in
1949
china has vowed to take control of this
island preferably it says by peaceful
means but possibly by force if necessary
increasingly u.s officials warn it could
be by force and possibly sooner than we
think so what would the u.s do
well the united states has ever closer
ties with taiwan which it sees as a key
partner in the pacific security order
where the united states would defend
taiwan if it were attacked by china
however is a matter of what's called
strategic ambiguity which has been the
official policy for more than 40 years
the pentagon though is unambiguously
preparing for that possibility
and war games which are simulations of
military conflict that helped develop
and test strategies well these war games
figure very prominently into those
preparations and we wanted to know more
about these war games what do they look
like how do they unfold what would it
take to win especially
in this moment we're in and what's
happening in ukraine so to find out we
worked with the gaming lab at the center
for a new american security cnas this is
a think tank that specializes in
national security cnas convened two
teams to fight it out here in our
washington studio the blue team a group
of defense experts members of congress
and a retired air force general who
played the role of american defense
officials on the national security
council advising the united states
president and the red team china experts
and the ceo of cnas played the part of
china's central military commission
advising president xi jinping cnas
drafted the terms of the hypothetical
conflict set five years from now in 2027
with china poised to launch a direct
attack on taiwan to force unification
after taiwan had elected new leadership
increasingly
defying chinese pressure how would the
u.s respond there were three rounds and
a game master from cnas determining the
new reality on the ground after each
round the red team had the benefit of
proximity the blue team had the benefit
of allies and partners
neither team had the edge and that's
where we begin
as you can see here on the map is a very
large concentration of chinese people's
liberation army forces at potential
ports of debarkation
for an invasion we want to focus on a
last-ditch effort to deter this is a
time to be sending the strongest
possible message to beijing both
privately and publicly that there will
be very severe costs if they actually go
through with us
china has sort of seen our reaction to
ukraine and we want to make sure that
that we're surprising them with how we
react here hit the americans as hard as
we possibly can in the western pacific
keep them out of the fight while we move
on taiwan i would support
an early knockout punch against guam
from our point of view a failed invasion
of taiwan is worse than the risk of
conflict with the united states we think
that the united states is already going
to intervene and so we have to do a
knockout punch before they can
neutralize us is the assumption that
your assault on guam is going to make
the united states pull back we think
it's going to make them militarily less
effective and so even if they desire to
intervene they won't have as much
capacity to uh to intervene on behalf of
taiwan i think we start very forcefully
with a missile bombardment on taiwan i
think we want to bring that military to
that means are you making an assumption
that when that china is going to attack
any of the alliance as they attack
taiwan or not i think china would
doesn't want to they would like to tell
the world that we're going to discipline
our unruly province and it's none of
your business stay out of it and if we
stay out of it they'll stay out of it
but if we decide to defend taiwan then i
think they will attack our forces around
the region the priority for the first 24
hours is to try to
go as fast as possible against taipei
right i think it matters to deter united
states japan australia other countries
from intervening we learned the lessons
from ukraine when the russians led
zelensky survive and he organized
resistance he got international support
and we're not going to let taiwan do the
same thing i think we try to keep japan
neutral i think we try to i think you
hit them in the port before they get out
because otherwise we know exactly where
they're going which is toward taiwan to
start shooting it off hitting them in
the porch you were guaranteeing that
japan has got an early conflict
not sure that we can would you rather
take the american uh military station in
japan out to the greatest degree
possible and have japan enter the
conflict or let it steam toward taipei
attack us and have japan maybe stay out
of the cops like those are the two
options
you gonna attack japan we are going to
attack u.s facilities on japan so with
u.s air bases and u.s ports that the us
uses in japan we are not yet going after
japanese air bases part of this is
communicating you're not just taking on
this little you know rogue island that
you see as your own taiwan you're taking
on the united states japan
you know australia i'm sort of in the
camp of let's be as aggressive as
possible
short of launching a preemptive strike
if that makes sense regardless of which
course of action
the chinese red team takes here
if we are prepared for the bigger fight
the potential large strike campaign we
are better off than if we assume that
there's going to be a blockade or a
lower level fight and then suddenly find
ourselves in a much bigger war the
insight that comes from this is you have
to have a peacetime posture that allows
you to be prepared to deter on day zero
and fight if they if deterrence doesn't
work
all right stacy high level here
what just happened with move one
china's invaded taiwan it began by
attacking taiwan's outlying islands near
the mainland then it followed it with a
large
air and missile strike on taiwan and on
u.s bases in japan and on u.s bases in
guam and the northern marianas in
response to that the united states
followed up with bomber attacks on u.s
ship on chinese ships
in port and there was an air battle over
taiwan
where american aircraft flying from the
philippines came in
and um
engaged in combat with chinese aircraft
that were trying to bomb taiwan so after
move one
can you assess which team is winning
i think it's a stalemate right now uh
china has strategically blundered by
pulling japan in and the united states
is still well positioned to defend but
china also has a lot of its assets left
and has a lot of power that it can apply
china went with a very very aggressive
strike campaign against u.s forces and
bases throughout the region the gloves
are off if you if you will i mean by
attacking us territory of guam killing
americans the chinese have crossed the
line um i think they've also
miscalculated already that they they
took some actions against u.s forces in
japan that they thought would maybe
prevent japan from coming in it actually
drew japan in same with australia how do
we prevent
the the chinese force that's trying to
get across the strait of taiwan to
actually be able to successfully land
and start
taking taiwanese territory now this is
just a matter of getting as many things
into the flight as we can as quickly as
possible getting the australians
involved in a blockade and
looking at what's in the straight with
the marine little regiment subs that
rely on our allies to
watch the rear
and maintain supply lines and maybe
implement a blockade while we're
fighting in the street in and around the
straits with taiwan we believe the
longer this takes
the less able we will be able to achieve
our objectives and so we are in in the
courses building in fall back positions
although we want to tell that to the
other team move two is building on all
that
and moving forward to land on taiwan to
further try to take out american assets
in the region and also to go after japan
which has entered the war the fact that
they aggressively hit guam and japan
was frankly
just a very quick way to make sure our
allies were all in and now we have
japanese resources willing to contribute
to air and undersea we have australians
willing to contribute and others coming
on board my sense is that you need to at
least take out the airfields in northern
australia
so like darwin and tyndall darwin and
tyndall um the fuel tanks are very
important because that's how those
planes get refueled and the runways are
important because it needs someone to
take off
in hawaii you have both obviously
american territory which they seek to
preserve plus you have uh all of the
naval and air assets that the americans
have dispersed back that way once this
war started so there's a lot of targets
out there they hit our ports in china
we're going to take the fight to hawaii
i'm a little bit hesitant to use
conventional kinetic attacks in hawaii
just because i feel that will be
interpreted as a pearl harbor in the
united states we could galvanize
significant u.s support
china's big strike which was in response
to the u.s attacking its ports was on
hawaii and they launched their stealth
bombers and which launched cruise
missiles and hypersonic weapons against
hawaii it took out the command center on
hickam air force base where they're
controlling
blue air forces and commanding the air
war
so an american state has now been
attacked what was the blue team's move
the blue team was focused on destroying
china's big warships that provide a lot
of air defense for the invasion fleet
so they
had submarines within the strait i would
say right now the red team is ahead
they're starting to make progress
towards their objective of actually
gaining control over taiwanese territory
but they have a long hard slog in front
of them after move one you said we were
at a stalemate after move two what would
you say
i would say that china has a slight
advantage right now because it's
actually a shore
so it has made progress towards
achieving its objective it still has a
long way to go but both sides are
probably running low of some of the key
missiles and munitions that they use so
the character of the fight might change
going forward
all right on to move three
i don't see anything in the game right
now that means that the u.s or the west
would back down i wonder if we could do
a hem shot not over but near where the
u.s most of the u.s forces are because
that would be clear signaling to them
that we are serious about using nuclear
weapons
but obviously we wouldn't want it right
over in this area at this point so
you're saying a demonstration explosion
yeah at higher altitude
and is this a bluff are we really
willing to use nuclear weapons i think
that depends on folks in the room but i
think in a case in a no kidding taiwan
scenario if we are really
facing the prospect of the speed we
should be willing to use equal weapons
it might not be nuclear weapons on
taiwan it could be attacked by music and
invading
or intervening u.s forces a real big
weakness is our inability to contest or
or threaten china's air superiority we
keep trying the is in our dispersed
posture with limited access to tankers
we're not able to push enough tactical
aviation forward over taiwan to really
maintain persistent air skirting or even
just contest chinese or sporty i think
the the key insight already in this game
is
if you have not spent years preparing
for this pre-positioning munitions
getting the taiwanese ready
pre-positioning your own forces
developing your dispersal bases if you
haven't spent years preparing for this
then you're going to be behind the eight
ball the whole way how about putting a
bunch of seals on the island
by submarines and try to support the
marines the biggest concern is
that the united states will
come roaring back with everything it has
not over a short period of time but a
long period of time we have calculated
that america is in and america's end
but there may be gradations of what it
means for america to fight our country
and uh we have seen time and time again
once the enraged bull elephant is fully
stirred right its ability to make war
and to generate the resources to make
war is unbelievably large the only thing
the americans seem to to declare defeat
on is really really long wars
not short violence
afghanistan
iraq forever they wanted to go home
vietnam they wanted to go home they get
tired
but they don't get scared i think
experience has shown that this bridge
out here
just like in ukraine it's not going to
be over in a few days unless
taiwan capitulates if you watch what
happened in ukraine you know the actions
that were taken before the invasion were
important but so is continued resupply
with ukraine you have borders that you
can move things across taiwan's a long
ways off
so here we are after move three the blue
team the united states seemed to
increase try to do what it could to make
command and control more difficult in
the actual invasion itself of taiwan and
all of that
china and the red team wanted to
send more of a message to the united
states attempting to strike alaska
and california san diego specifically
plus hawaii again
so escalation everywhere including a
nuclear test
to be sent by china to essentially
um make the united states take the
nuclear
option more seriously
so where are we now
things spiraled really quickly the the
headline is the nuclear test which is
unprecedented since uh world war ii we
haven't seen limited nuclear use
certainly during combat we don't know
where things go from here
there were also the attempted strikes at
the on the united states
uh china has continued to reinforce its
lodgment on taiwan but it's still very
small and it's heavily contested the us
is pushing in some of its
ships now that munitions stockpiles have
gone down
to try to support them and it looks like
we're in for a long hard fight so
best case scenario is that it's a ground
war in taiwan worst case scenario is
where we're starting to have some
nuclear exchanges yes china still has um
uh it's intercontinental ballistic
missiles that are nuclear arm but it
also has the ones that can range guam
and um sort of this area that it could
use which have nuclear warheads well
there are a lot of lessons to take away
from this this was fascinating and i
can't wait to get to the lessons learned
portion when we do that in a little bit
thank you stacy thank you
so the stakes pretty high and at the end
of three moves so are the costs on both
sides of this fight which is why
avoiding war altogether may be in both
countries best interests we're going to
talk over that and other key takeaways
from this game when we come back
[Music]
welcome back after the exercise wrapped
i sat down with dr stacy petty john our
game master and the director of the
defense program at cnas to talk about
the results and we were joined by two
players from each team from the blue
team were the two members of congress
mike gallagher republican wisconsin and
mikey cheryl democrat new jersey and
from the red team it was bonnie lin the
director of the china power project at
the center for strategic and
international studies and joel what's
now a senior research fellow at the
national defense university
stacey i want to start with you what did
you learn
i think i was surprised by how quickly
things escalated and the fact that the
blue team didn't really seem to believe
the red team's threats about nuclear use
that that didn't seem to be honored they
it seemed to me that they thought that
they were bluffing and they were willing
to call that bluff
uh joel i would say that
going you're the plan going in i
remember you explaining to me we're
going to go in quickly we're going to go
in with off with with big force
and we're going to end this quickly that
didn't happen
well the americans put up a fight
we sacrificed a lot
i was unsatisfied that we weren't able
to take out taiwan's president early in
the game and so we had to move harder
throughout the game we paid a big price
but ultimately i don't think we lost i
think we got the foothold that we wanted
and we'll get the prize but we will have
paid an enormous cost in blood and
treasure to have gotten it bonnie do you
the the decision to target japan is that
is that going to be with
assuming this war gets drawn out in this
scenario is that going to be
an initial mistake or miscalculation
from the red team or the chinese side i
don't see that as a miscalculation one
of the things that we discussed during
the team is of the us allies and
partners which u.s allied partner we
knew would be involved in the conflict
and we were most certain that regardless
of what the scenario was if it was a
crisis or major conflict in taiwan japan
would be there to support the united
states so for us the calculation was do
we want to take out the assets in japan
now while they're still relatively
easier to target or do we want to wait
later when it was much more difficult to
strike japan
and
knowing either way that japan would be
in the fight with the united states so
they went with a preempt preemptive
strike essentially on japan you guys
debated and that's my understanding
there was a little bit of debate on that
first move
should should the u.s side be more
aggressive explain
well uh you know obviously i think
particularly if china's pursuing a
fadicam police strategy and the quicker
that goes the more they're actually able
to establish facts on the ground in
taiwan the more difficult it is for us
to
react to that right the same thing that
makes taiwan a difficult problem
geographically for the chinese to solve
makes it very difficult for us to to
resupply so if we weren't going to do a
preemptive strike because we wanted the
moral authority that came from
responding to an attack on us we at
least wanted to be ready to start taking
out their ships while they were in port
while they were transiting across
the strait and i think i mean the lesson
for me is just how costly deterrence
failures are i mean we've come
accustomed to sort of low intensity
conflict over the last two decades
if this happens i mean a lot of people
are going to lose their life which is
why we want deterrence to actually work
and which is why we need hard power in
place prior to the conflict breaking out
you know uh mickey cheryl i was when i
hear
some other country has air superiority
over anything we're the united states of
america but obviously we're a lot closer
to their main land there that was to me
a surprise that we could not establish
air superiority over taiwan well
certainly i think what we've been so
concerned about on the house armed
services committee
is the fact that we see china's growing
predominance in certain areas and
catching up very very quickly to
what had been for decades really
presumed superiority in military matters
by the united states and what was so
helpful
to both of us
was to and you know to be at the table
for this war game so that when we do
make decisions for this country when we
are looking at how we modernize our
military and and where we strategically
use the the taxpayer resources that were
given most effectively
that we're thinking about
how to really as mike said how to make
sure this never happens how do we make
sure that we are able to present such a
credible threat across the world that we
never actually have to go into a hot war
like this bonnie you were saying one
thing we just don't know is what the
chinese
the with the red team derived the
decision-making process was through the
writings of of the army of the chinese
army and you were very um you know stuck
to that script
what do you suspect they are going to
take away from russia's essentially
failed attempt to
do what the chinese strategy for your
your chinese strategy to do here was
which is to and you know take taiwan
quickly that was the russian strategy it
didn't work for them and it didn't work
for the chinese so i think china looks
at what russia is doing in ukraine and
they don't see the russian failure as
directly applicable to the pla because
of the differences in how russia invaded
ukraine versus how china plans for
taiwan
so one thing i think china is going to
take away is as exactly like what we did
with the war game was china is going to
try to move much faster on taipei
decapitation and focus on concentrated
forces on taipei one other thing that
china's taking away is the extent to
which nuclear russia's nuclear signaling
deter united states and nato from going
into ukraine so i don't think the
chinese necessarily are confident that
nuclear weapons will deter the united
states from intervening to help taiwan
but
china is going to invest in its nuclear
capabilities and will likely play up
nuclear signaling in a taiwan conflict
you know joel michelle flournoy told me
after one of the debriefs after after
one of the moves
that she was surprised at that the
chinese fired the first shot at first
meaning
her assumption was they would just
slowly move their ships
basically go as close as they could
without ever firing a shot
and then all of a sudden what are we
going to do they're at the front door of
taiwan well i think in in reality what
would happen is that china may indeed
use a large-scale exercise as the cover
for an actual invasion much as russia
has tried to do this i also think that
china will be better at russia i think
they will do large scale exercises year
over year over year and make it very
difficult for us in the u.s side to
determine what is an exercise and what
would be the actual invasion that being
said from our point of view we have to
establish air and maritime superiority
which means that we have to fire the
first shot
stacey what is
the idea that i feel like we're very
familiar with russia's
aspiration to use tactical nukes
where are the chinese right now actually
on this front and obviously in five
years they aspire to be better at it but
do they think that you can use nukes
tactically
other people at this table are probably
better positioned to answer this than me
but no their doctrine is explicitly no
first use but a lot of people are
beginning to question that because their
nuclear posture is changing and they're
expanding their arsenal so much
they're
building new nuclear weapons and new
types of weapons where some of those
medium and intermediate range ballistic
missiles that they used in the game they
can uh also carry nuclear warheads
so
my biggest takeaway and i want to save
this last question for the two of you
because you're you're the elected
officials you're going to have to to try
to do this
we need an asian nato
it is pretty clear we need one um
you know look at all of the assets we
have to tap into right now to help
ukraine in so quickly whether it's
slovakia whether it's in poland there's
not as many assets that's what i learned
from this can we do it
well certainly we have a lot of friends
um
in the indo-pacom region and we spoke
about some of our allies today and i
think there were some other
allies in the region that maybe would
have been a bit more helpful than was
presented in the scenario
korea would be korea south korea um
but i i do think
there's a discussion to be had about
making about doing more outreach here
doing more diplomacy here there has been
a hesitancy because of china's economic
predominance i'm wondering now as we
look at what's just happened with
ukraine if some of our allies in the
region aren't more willing to become
to form a stronger partnership with each
other and with the united states um to
ensure that that they don't face some of
these threats you know
mike gallagher the i go back to the
decision
by both essentially leaders of the of
the political parties in 2016 to walk
away from the trans-pacific partnership
this was going to be essentially what
could have been step one in creating a a
west
a western or a small d democratic
umbrella in asia we didn't do it is it
possible to what how do we do it now
well we may have to start with uh
certain bilateral agreements and put
aside sort of the economic agreements i
think we have an urgent need for more
basing agreements in the region and that
became very apparent throughout the war
game we had three treaty allies that
were involved in the conflict but we
still struggled to project power where
we needed to project it
we quickly in the game clarified the
policy of strategic ambiguity we
suggested that the president make it
explicit that we would defend taiwan
that's something we need to re-examine
in congress i think
very quickly because we can't wait two
weeks three weeks if congress isn't in
session to have the debate and
potentially give the president the
authority he needs to defend taiwan so
there are ways we can make progress even
though a big regional trade agreement is
probably not likely in the short term
well i have to say this was fascinating
i i learned a lot and uh i hope some of
the knowledge i learned we never have to
actually use on air no offense guys but
thanks for making us a bit smarter
that's all we have for this episode of
meet the press reports thanks for being
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