Congress Simulates Attack on Taiwan by Chinese Communist Party

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On Wednesday night, The Select Committee on the CCP hosted a wargame around a fictional conflict in the Taiwan Strait in 2027. 

Republicans and Democrats came together laser-focused on how we PREVENT war. 

In fact the game was run by a member of the Biden transition team and credit goes to Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi who had the great idea to add an economic component. 

Let’s take a look at what happened:

1. The PLA massed an invasion force and preemptively struck our positions in Okinawa and Guam. Deterrence failed. 
2. Through six days we sunk 80 PLA ships in the strait - thanks to our undersea capabilities and long range anti-ship missiles.
3. Nonetheless 80,000 PLA troops gained a lodgment on the main island of Taiwan.
4. We used up almost all our best ammo–long-range precision fires—within a week of fighting. 
5. US economic sanctions imposed crippling costs on Chinese banks but many allies – even G7 partners – hesitated to join the sanctions regime.
6. PRC losses were heavy after six days – but we were nowhere near breaking the PLA’s will to fight and they were starting to use commercial ships to continue the invasion.

So what did we learn?

Neither the US nor Taiwan had nearly enough critical munitions in the theater to deter the CCP. We severely degraded the invasion but couldn’t fully deny it. 

If we want to have a hope of stopping world war III we need to arm Taiwan to the teeth right now and clear the $19b FMS backlog that is frankly an embarrassment. 

We also need to reinvigorate our defense industrial base yesterday and start cranking out critical munitions like long range anti-ship missiles. 

It’s imperative to get our allies and partners on board with the idea of economic deterrence long before the shooting starts - Russian sanctions negotiations will look like a cakewalk by comparison. 

In previous wargames, I've seen how quickly the military side escalates. What took me aback in this game was how quickly the economic side escalated. 

By day 6 global trade had ground to a complete halt and we’d kicked Chinese banks off the SWIFT system. Markets were tanking and the PRC’s aggression had created an economic and humanitarian catastrophe. Companies need to prepare for this. Failing to is a dereliction of their fiduciary duties.

The biggest lesson? To paraphrase Eisenhower, the only way to win this war is to prevent it…and that means strengthening deterrence and making it clear to Xi Jinping that attacking Taiwan would be a serious mistake.