For some reason, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington decided to create a new war game model and play out what a direct American military engagement with China would look like if the United States decided to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. (As Joe Biden has repeatedly threatened to do before someone was rushed out to “clean up” his comments.) The prediction generated by this new model does not look great for America. They concluded that the losses America would suffer in fending off the Chinese would “break the back of U.S. military power for a generation.” And the death toll just among America’s military would run anywhere from four to ten thousand troops. But the “good news” coming out of CSIS is that we would eventually prevail and the Chinese military would be utterly destroyed as well. As a result, the architect of the study concludes that it would still be “worth the cost.” (NY Sun)

In the event of a Communist Chinese attack, the toll in defending Taiwan would be so great that it “would break the back of U.S. military power for a generation.” That is the conclusion of an architect of a new war game conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Matthew Cancian.

That does not mean defending Taiwan and holding the line against Chinese aggression is not worth the cost. Plus, Mr. Cancian adds, Communist China’s military would also be destroyed. So, he says, “it’s not like we lost our military and now somebody else is gonna be taking over the world.” Yet, unlike China, America has global commitments and risks that require a military presence, including new ones that might arise in the wake of a battle over Taiwan.

Assuming this model is accurate, America would lose up to 370 aircraft (and probably their crews) in the first three weeks of the war. Anywhere from eight to eighteen of our large warships would be sunk. CSIS also predicts that America would lose “between two and eleven aircraft carriers” and their crews. That last figure is pretty alarming when you consider that the United States currently has just eleven carriers in operation. Would we really send all of them to Taiwan?

That would indeed wipe out a significant portion of our military assets. It’s believed that it would take five years to replace all of the aircraft and as much as a staggering thirty years to build that many ships. We’d still have an army, but we would have no way to deploy it far from home. And as the author of the study goes on to point out, the United States has many other commitments to allies around the world. We would be unable to honor those pledges and defend our allies for decades. The study makes no mention of any nuclear weapons being exchanged, so they apparently feel that both sides will resist the urge to break out the nukes. But if China looked like it was on the verge of losing, can we be sure of that?

These prognosticators believe there are things we could do to cut our losses. They suggest investing in a lot more long-range anti-ship missiles. That could allow our planes and submarines to sink China’s ships before they make it across the strait. They also suggest that we move away from having so many surface ships (which are “not survivable” within firing range of the enemy’s coast) and rely more on planes and submarines.

It’s difficult not to notice one of the fundamental assumptions that CSIS uses in playing out this scenario. They are assuming that if China launches an invasion of Taiwan and the United States rushes to the island’s defense, we will be doing it totally on our own. No other country will lift a finger and fight alongside us. And sadly, that sounds about right. Most of our allies have relied on the military muscle of the United States for so long that they barely have militaries of their own.  I mentioned above that we currently have eleven full-size aircraft carriers (not counting helo carriers and light-duty carriers). There are a total of 21 of them in the world. Our allies have six between them and Russia, China, and India have the other four.

With that in mind, is it really worth fighting China at the potential cost of tens of thousands of lives and destroying our military for a generation? Just to save Taiwan (which will be largely destroyed anyway) and when nobody else is willing to fight alongside us? It sure doesn’t sound like a very good deal to me.