Andrew Latham
Key Points and Summary – War in the Taiwan Strait wouldn’t yield a clean U.S. win. China’s missiles, submarines and proximity threaten carriers and forward bases.
-Taiwan is shifting to asymmetric defense—mobile missiles, hardened infrastructure, civil resilience—but the U.S. industrial base, munitions stocks and repair capacity lag.
-Likely phases: opening missile/cyber/space strikes; a brutal sea-denial fight against invasion convoys; possible blockades and urban combat if a beachhead forms, with nuclear risk overhead.
-The most plausible outcome is denial—China fails to conquer—but at staggering cost. To deter or prevail, Washington must surge production, harden bases, lock in allied access and prepare publics now.
A Taiwan War: Who Wins and At What Cost?
On any given day in the not-too-distant future, the Taiwan Strait could erupt in war. Missiles and aircraft could race across the Strait’s skies; warships and submarines could fight in its waters. And the world will ask: did America—and its friend Taiwan—have a fighting chance?
This question is not idle speculation. More than a year of stepped-up Chinese military exercises, an expanding Chinese submarine fleet, and accelerating defense reforms in Taiwan have given new urgency to the question.
The answer, uncomfortably, is that the United States can probably prevent a Chinese conquest of Taiwan. But it can do so only at far greater cost, risk, and uncertainty than most public debates suggest.
Preemptive Efforts
Deterrence is the best hope, but if deterrence fails, America will not “win” cleanly. Indeed, the most likely outcome is a bloody denial of Beijing’s objectives, one that depends on the industrial depth of the American and allied response and the strength of Taiwan’s asymmetric defenses.
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