Army Pacific Launches Massive “Theater Wide” US vs China Wargame

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

A massive “bolt-out-of-the-blue” salvo of attacking ballistic missiles designed to overwhelm Taiwan…..a large-scale amphibious assault to surround and take-over the island…a rapid blockade of the South China Sea …..or perhaps even a surprise 5th-generation air attack on US warships in the Philippine Sea ….all seem to be realistic possibilities should the People’s Republic of China suddenly move to annex Taiwan or claim exclusive ownership of disputed island territories in the South China Sea.

Would a large-scale ballistic missile attack designed to take-out Taiwanese air defenses and cripple its weapons, air fields and defenses be a most likely start to a surprise attack? Any attack is almost certain to be accompanied or even preceded by a commensurate PRC effort to “jam” US and allied GPS and communications signals in the region … to effectively blind US, Taiwanese and allied defenses in position to respond in the region.

Senior members of Army Pacific tell Warrior that Commanding General Charles Flynn says the purpose of Army Pacific and its build-up is to “avoid war.” At the same time, part of the method of “avoiding war,” Flynn emphasizes, is to train, prepare, experiment and refine a “war plan.”

Maybe the PLA might seek to exploit what it thinks is an overmatch or advantage in the realm of hypersonic weapons and simply seek to “deny” US warships from closing in on an area to defend Taiwan? Given the sheer size and growing technological sophistication of the PLA Navy, a massive amphibious attack on Taiwan would be another likely avenue of approach for the PLA should it seek to rapidly “take-over” Taiwan. The likely thinking on the part of the PRC, as explained in the Pentagon’s annual reports on the Chinese military, might be to take over Taiwan so quickly that their dominion becomes a kind of “fait accompli” wherein it simply becomes too costly in terms of lives and too large-scale an endeavor to try to extricate the PLA from Taiwan. Should the US, Japan and South Korea need to mass a liberation force and fully “extricate” an occupying PLA force from Taiwan … could it be done?