Jahara Matisek, Ben Lowsen, John Amble

It is 2028 and Xi Jinping has begun his fourth term as president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After a month of threats, he sends wave after wave of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to invade Taiwan. Scholar Lyle Goldstein writes, “Between parachute and heliborne forces, China could quite reasonably hope to put 50,000 soldiers on the island in the first wave and well over 100,000 in the first 24 hours.” This is the common conception: China launching a massive conventional assault on Taiwan. But what if China did not attack with conventional troops? What if it used covert forces trained to win without fighting? Such a scenario presents vexing challenges for a conventional mindset. Already, U.S. intelligence officials are warning that the PRC wants to peacefully take Taiwan and is “working hard to effectively put themselves into a position in which their military is capable of taking Taiwan over our [U.S.] intervention.” Thus, as America considers how to defend Taiwan against conventional forms of invasion, it must also pay significant attention to attack along non-traditional vectors.