According to a report by the U.S. publication "NSJ" on August 25, at the end of last month, the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a wargaming report titled "Lights Out," which simulates the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) implementing a "non-war maritime blockade" against Taiwan and assesses the evolution of the situation after U.S. military escort intervention.

The wargame set up a series of scenarios, from the PLA "boarding and inspecting merchant ships" to a full-scale maritime blockade, and then whether the U.S. would conduct armed escort, and the possible military conflict between China and the United States that could result from this.

The CSIS team conducted 26 rounds of wargames, attempting to prove that even if the PLA does not directly attack the island of Taiwan, it may still achieve its goals through soft blockades, and that the U.S. would have to bear extremely high costs to break the blockade.

The core argument of the report is that the U.S. needs to rebuild its maritime escort capability, including building a large number of relatively inexpensive frigates like the Constellation-class, to deal with the "21st-century version of the Atlantic convoy war."

On the surface, it seems like a complete wargame model, but upon careful analysis, the logical flaws, strategic fantasies, and political calculations behind it are all just one after another.

American Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

A main conclusion in the wargame is that the U.S. side might suffer a devastating strike even if it only carries out the task of escorting merchant ships.

CSIS pointed out in multiple rounds of wargames that if the U.S. military escorts merchant ships across the Pacific into the ports of the island, even without actively attacking PLA warships, the mere act of escorting itself could still result in the loss of dozens of major warships, including aircraft carriers.

The most intense set of wargame data showed that the U.S. might lose nearly 20,000 personnel, over 30 warships—including two aircraft carriers—and hundreds of aircraft, and would be unable to replenish the losses in a short period of time.

The scale of these losses is beyond what a limited conflict can bear, and instead represents a full-scale war-like attrition battle.

The most ironic part is that this huge cost is based not on a full-scale landing operation or destroying PLA bases, but merely on getting each ship to reach the island smoothly for resupply.

This means that the U.S. would pay a cost more severe than fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If this cost is placed within real-world political considerations, any president with basic rationality would almost certainly not order such a mission.

U.S. Aircraft Carrier

The bigger problem is that this wargame itself is based on a highly idealized, completely unrealistic assumption.

From the setup, CSIS assumes that the PLA will choose a restrained blockade, meaning not actively sinking merchant ships or attacking the U.S. military, but rather cutting off supplies to the island through boarding or warnings.

But real military confrontation cannot be so polite.

If the PLA starts an action, it will have a result and will surely achieve the final outcome.

Once the U.S. military intervenes to escort, the PLA will regard it as a war action and take precise countermeasures.

A more realistic issue is that the wargame assumes that the island can maintain energy and food supplies for 20 weeks, relying on coordination between the U.S. and Japan to create a strategic buffer.

But in reality, the island has very little natural gas reserves, and a ten-week power outage would mean a large-scale grid failure, making it difficult to maintain industrial and daily life systems.

Additionally, the key condition in the wargame—America being able to quickly mobilize a large number of expendable ships, maintain damage, and sustain long-term combat—is non-existent in reality.

The plan to build 60 Constellation-class frigates has already been indefinitely delayed due to budget overruns and design failures, even before the first ship was built.

All these ideas seem meticulous, but they are actually just theoretical exercises.

Chinese National Flag and American National Flag

You don't even have your own warships, yet you start calculating how dozens of them would do this or that. What's the point of this kind of loan-based wargame?

On one hand, it's the same old trick to get more military funding, and on the other, it's misleading "Taiwan independence" supporters, sending a signal that the U.S. is willing to "fight for you." But this is actually a deception.

In reality, the U.S. would never go to war in the Taiwan Strait because a few merchant ships were detained.

The wargame may satisfy some "Taiwan independence" supporters' fantasy of U.S. military assistance, but it is essentially part of a public opinion operation.

It creates a false impression among the Taiwanese society that "if something really happens, the U.S. will come," leading some people to misjudge the situation and misjudge the red line, thus enabling the U.S. anti-China policy to push forward.

In summary, this wargame shows the U.S. people's wishful thinking about "limited conflicts" and "controlled escalation," and also exposes the anxiety of the current U.S. lack of an effective strategy toward China.

They dare not engage in a hot war with China, so they rely on this kind of middle ground that appears serious but has no cost.

The problem is that geopolitics in reality is not a simulation game.

For "Taiwan independence" supporters, if they truly rely on such misleading wargames as their security guarantee, it will only accelerate the process of unification.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7542782532073325066/

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