Exploring AI’s Operational Implications in a Future U.S.-China Conflict: Initial Observations from the Camp(ai)gn Wargame

RAND | Zachary Burdette, Barry Wilson, David R. Frelinger, Hiwot Demelash, Julia Arnold

RAND researchers conducted ten iterations of an unclassified operational-level wargame, designated Camp(ai)gn, to examine how artificial intelligence and autonomous platforms could reshape a hypothetical 2035 U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. Simulation results indicate that autonomous systems enable novel, low-intensity robotic operations with unique escalation dynamics while expanding commander decision spaces.

The wargame highlights how sustained deployment of uncrewed mass alters familiar operational trade-offs and places severe cognitive burdens on military leadership. Crucially, maintaining autonomous mass during protracted high-attrition warfare potentially favors Chinese manufacturing and industrial capacity over time. Integrating artificial intelligence also redefines allied contributions across territorial self-defense, direct combat participation, and coalition industrial production. Target data center strikes yield limited impact. Attacking adversary processing infrastructure fails to deliver decisive operational effects against software-driven forces. Consequently, these findings emphasize urgent requirements to re-examine force structure, countermeasures, coalition integration, and defense industrial sustainability for future algorithmic Indo-Pacific campaigns.

Comment

The consumption rate of autonomous platforms in high-intensity conflict shifts strategic leverage from algorithmic sophistication to manufacturing throughput. RAND's Camp(ai)gn wargame demonstrates that initial software advantages in uncrewed systems quickly erode during extended operational phases without continuous hardware replenishment. Sustaining combat-effective robotic mass across the Taiwan Strait requires an industrial ecosystem capable of absorbing high attrition rates while maintaining continuous production cycles.

This structural limitation mirrors the industrial bottlenecks experienced by the British Ministry of Munitions during the 1915 Shell Crisis, where front-line consumption rapidly outpaced pre-war manufacturing capacity. In a protracted algorithmic war, attrition of low-cost autonomous systems will rapidly deplete peacetime stockpiles. Consequently, operational endurance in the Indo-Pacific hinges on civil-military industrial integration capable of rapidly scaling mass production before front-line inventories deplete in the Taiwan Strait.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which factor will dictate operational endurance in a Taiwan Strait conflict — initial algorithmic platform performance, or the speed at which dual-use commercial manufacturing lines can replace uncrewed systems depleted during high-attrition engagements?

The trajectory of high-intensity operational wargaming indicates that manufacturing throughput rapidly overshadows initial technological refinement once high-attrition combat begins. While advanced software architectures provide early operational advantages, historical precedents from industrial-scale attrition demonstrate that replenishment capacity ultimately determines theater posture. My assessment is that defensive endurance in the Indo-Pacific will depend more on flexible commercial scaling than on pre-war inventories of exquisite autonomous systems.

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