Taiwan has had nearly 72 years to prepare its defense. However, today we see a Taiwan that is inadequately prepared to defend itself, cannot unify around a common defense strategy, and whose population is growing increasingly complacent and unconcerned with the prospect of an invasion from China. To effectively defend Taiwan from a military standpoint, the United States must be willing to defend Taiwan from outside of Taiwan. In other words, the defense of Taiwan from an invasion from China need not be confined to the main island of Taiwan, nor the Taiwan Strait. Moreover, expectations held by the United States should be that an invasion of Taiwan by China will look nothing like the previous four Taiwan Strait Crises (1954–55, 1958, 1995–96, 2022), which were generally limited, and instead be prepared for a conflict of a much larger-scale and intensity.
An Island-Hopping Campaign
While aiding Taiwan through foreign military sales, security assistance, and security cooperation programs could gradually improve the situation on the ground in a long-term strategy, it still would do little to negate the significant antiaccess/aerial denial (A2/AD) threat and positional advantage that China has in comparison to the United States. The United States does not have the luxury of time to implement strategies that may or may not obtain results in a decade or more. Therefore, the United States should expand the scope of the Taiwan defense problem beyond what could best be termed as a modern-day attempt at re-fighting a World War II style island-hopping-campaign, and instead look for opportunities to exploit gaps in other locations bordering China. This could draw China’s military resources and capabilities away from its Eastern Theater Command and disrupt China’s ability to commit the entirety of its resources to a Taiwan invasion campaign. However, to do so, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (IndoPaCom) would have to be able to effectively fight with up to three or more Joint Task Forces (JTF) against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) simultaneously.
Force China to Fight on Multiple Geographic Fronts
Today, it appears that each of the service components have pledged to fight in all-domains or multi-domains through the salesmanship of their new employment concepts, employment models, and force designs. Fighting and maneuvering on an enemy in a close conventional fight is now seemingly considered unacceptable by today’s standards, when other methods could be employed through information warfare, electronic warfare, cyber, or space—and with much more stand-off. Consequently, the days of large-scale land warfare are largely considered to be too reckless and generally unacceptable with modern technological advancements. Irrespective of the validity of these assertions or the opinions held by the larger academic community, whatever happened to the age-old problem of an adversary having to fight on multiple geographic fronts simultaneously? Surely, this problem remains as relevant today as it did in previous military conflicts. A2/AD has not rendered the challenge of fighting on multiple geographic fronts to be irrelevant—especially when the battlespace is further complicated by operations in five-dimensions.
China Cannot Defend Everywhere, with Everything
Aside from all the A2/AD threat rings and weapon engagement zones that line maps of the U.S. IndoPaCom area of responsibility, the fact is, China cannot defend everywhere with everything that it has in its A2/AD arsenal. A2/AD is largely dependent on the ability of weapon systems and sensors to be mutually supporting, integrated, and effectively command and controlled. The loss of an A2/AD asset, or reallocation of an A2/AD asset to deal with another threat, could be the broken link in the chain. As stated in the adage, “He who defends everything defends nothing,” China may have the capability to defend out to the First or Second Island Chain, but that does not necessarily mean that it will, when presented with other dilemmas. Yet, there is this overwhelming fixation from the Joint Force, with fighting in the First and Second Island Chain, as if we are re-fighting the Pacific Campaign of World War II, with the twist of having to fight off DF-21s and H-6 bombers. This seems like a tremendous waste of energy and resources when the Joint Force could focus on closing with and destroying the PLA from other avenues of approach—ones that could be more consequential and decisive.
Force China to Deal with a Bigger Problem
The onus is on the United States to have a sense of urgency to further complicate China’s military decision-making. The United States must be willing to expand the defense of Taiwan from outside of the maritime domain and beyond meager defense of an island. In essence, force China to deal with having to defend against the threat of a counter-invasion on its own mainland territory through penetrating raids from nearby countries. After all, China may be a large country (slightly smaller than the United States), but it is also bordered by 14 countries, some of which continue to have territorial disputes and historical grievances. If the United States were to secure basing in bordering countries and reposition troops and capabilities to them, this would raise the stakes for China, change their focus from a “few scattered rocks in the Pacific,” to mainland territorial defense and internal security concerns.1 It could also convince the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, that they have overextended themselves and will not be able to consolidate gains. To use a sport analogy, the United States needs to avoid staring at the ball and getting drawn into the middle, just like it needs to avoid getting overly focused on the island of Taiwan, when there are opportunities elsewhere on China’s periphery. In other words, forget the shiny object and look for other ways around. As one U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel likes to say, “Mark and bypass” could be the better option.
Conventional and Unconventional A2/AD
When examining A2/AD, one of the foremost findings is that there are varying definitions and concerns associated with A2/AD across the whole-of-government for U.S. national security. A2/AD can be broadly categorized into conventional A2/AD and unconventional A2/AD. Conventional A2/AD comprises of a layered defense-in-depth with early warning capabilities, sensors, and shooters. Common characteristics/attributes that make up Conventional A2/AD are China’s large inventory and disposition of short, medium, and long-range ballistic missiles, coastal defense cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, integrated air defense capabilities, and strategic/long-range bombers, among many other mid-to-long range threat capabilities. When examining conventional A2/AD, it is critical that we look at it from multiple dimensions and include subsurface threats, cyber, and space-based capabilities.
In contrast, for unconventional A2/AD, China may be using clandestine networks to secure a strategic naval port through debt-trap tactics, gain placement/access to a country’s critical infrastructure through bribery and infiltration of its government institutions or private-sector, or employ similar tactics to what has been observed during the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests with respect to cyber and legal warfare. Some service components are even equating Unconventional A2/AD with an even more ambiguous term—gray zone warfare. However, for the play of the problem, this essay focuses on the conventional A2/AD threat, when considering how would the United States defend Taiwan.
Avoid Predictability
China is counting on the United States lacking the political will and moral strength to risk escalation of the conflict into a third world war (and perhaps a nuclear war) and preys on those fears daily. China does this by deviating from the baseline norms of military interactions and attempts to erase those lines and draw new ones to its advantage.2 China knows that we take comfort in preserving a range of low-risk options, that we would rather not go it alone, but with support from allies, and that we prefer to limit our escalation in military response and to keep the fight on the low-end of the spectrum of conflict. That is because this is what we have been taught to do—across all our Professional Military Education. Fighting China will require Commanders and Staffs that are risk-takers and will make very tough decisions—that may escalate the conflict, instead of containing it and keeping it on the low-intensity side.
What Defending Taiwan May Require
Potentially, U.S. IndoPaCom would have to organize three-to-four JTFs to focus on fighting the PLA. These JTFs could be broken down accordingly: JTF-East (via the Japan-corridor), JTF-Central (via the Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam – Corridor), JTF-West (via the India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh—corridor), and JTF-North (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia –corridor). Of note, these JTFs may have to conduct forcible entry operations in countries that are not supportive/will not permit U.S. military operations due to the nature of the crisis, diplomatic, economic, or military pressure from China. Burma and Cambodia would likely be the most resistant. Additionally, the assumption is that JTF-East and JTF-Central will be U.S. Navy/Marine Corps-centric, while JTF-West and JTF-North are U.S. Army/Air Force-centric. One of the significant findings in this concept is that the U.S. Army lacks the access, pre-positioning, and force presence required to sufficiently put pressure on mainland China’s Southern, Western, and Northern border. Also, this concept revealed that agreements would have to be made with nations involved to secure access, such as the JTF-North Corridor’s proximity to Russia.
JTF Construct for Defense of Taiwan (Google Maps)
Implications for the Sea Services
Three of the JTFs depicted in Figure 1 require robust Joint Force Maritime Component Command (JFMCC) capabilities. It is estimated that at least Three Amphibious Ready Groups-Marine Expeditionary Units (ARG-MEU) and three Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) would be required to support both JTF-East/JTF Central and JTF-West simultaneously. This does not include at least one ARG-MEU and one CSG in reserve (in theater). The CSGs and ARG-MEUs would conduct their operations between Sea of Japan, East China Sea, Philippine Sea (JTF-East), South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand, Andaman Sea (JTF-Central), and Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean (JTF-West).
Looking Forward
To effectively defend Taiwan, from a military standpoint, the United States must be willing to defend Taiwan from outside of Taiwan. This means that U.S. IndoPaCom may have to break away from predictable behavior and escalate the conflict, instead of containing it and keeping it on the low-intensity side. To deter China from committing the entirety of its resources to a Taiwan invasion campaign, the United States must force China to deal with the bigger problem of having to defend against the threat of a counter-invasion on its own mainland territory through penetrating raids from nearby countries. These raids would likely be conducted by multiple JTFs, operating simultaneously, and supported by no less than three ARG-MEUs and three CSGs. Additionally, these JTFs may have to conduct forcible entry operations in countries that are not supportive within their assigned corridors. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps will need to collaborate and establish more synergy to operate effectively during the land campaign. Furthermore, the U.S. Army needs to assume a larger role of taking the burden off the U.S. Navy by gaining access, pre-positioning, and establishing force presence in the JTF-Central, JTF-West, and JTF-North corridors – on-land and near strategic crossing points into mainland China.
- Sean McFate, The New Rules of War: Victory in an Age of Durable Disorder (New York: William Morrow, 2019).
- McFate, The New Rules of War.
