The army of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducts long-range live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait, Aug. 4, 2022. The Eastern Theater Command on Thursday conducted joint combat exercises and training around the Taiwan Island on an unprecedented scale. Photo: Xinhua)

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is ranked as the world's top defense and national security think tank. It was therefore a surprise when it was reported in the open press that CSIS-hosted war games which permitted players to exercise a ground invasion of sovereign China.

Eager to demonstrate the value in fighting China, the Marine Corps have been marketing a dubious new doctrine to stake out and service turf in defense of Taiwan island. In exercising their doctrine,  retired Marine players liberally simulated numerous scenarios with only one prohibition, namely no nuclear weapons.

One of the selected courses of action was the amphibious assault of a Marine Littoral Regiment on Taiwan, and subsequent combat with Chinese ashore. A US ground invasion of Taiwan was consistent with the US' new strategy for the 1st Island Chain. But CSIS' permitting that inflammatory game move and then cavalierly broadcasting it in the open press was disastrous.

The Marines and CSIS would defend the game's rules and conduct. The players came from the private sector. Their authorities to make policy are long past, and games were unclassified and publicized for the sake of transparency. Supposedly, there is a firewall between private sector players and official Pentagon plans and policy makers. As retirees they were just expressing personal opinions informed by open sources.

But the benign insignificance of the games defies credulity. CSIS is located within a stone's throw of the White House. Its revered leaders and trustees advise presidents and US defense policy makers, and some of the senior retired game players are highly regarded in Washington, DC. Any observer would assume that a Marine amphibious assault on Taiwan island is an actual war plans option.

Diplomatic sensitivities may be irrelevant to Marines, but not the Intelligence Community (IC) and Department of State (DoS). The DoS and IC delicately manage PRC perspectives of US intentions. So, while CSIS war-game referees were permitting an amphibious assault on Taiwan island, US government  officials were placating the PRC with US commitments to the One China policy.

CSIS, the Marines, IC and DoS would dismiss concerns. They will claim the whole world knows Taiwan's status is undetermined, and the Chinese are well aware of this. But that is not true. For China, Taiwan is and always has been sovereign China. If the PRC perceives our willingness to entertain a ground invasion of China, everything has changed.

For the Chinese a ground assault across Taiwan's beaches is the same as ground invasions into Fujian, Shandong, or any other province.  They are all sovereign China.

Many in the US government draw comparisons between Ukraine and Taiwan. The US thinks of Ukraine as a proxy battlefield. The US kills and maims many Russians and Ukrainians by fueling the conflict with weapons and support provided from the distant safety of Washington DC. However, the US will not commit troops to the fight because that could cause Russian escalation.

Until the senseless gameplay at CSIS, US Taiwan military intervention was expected to follow a similar pattern. Direct US-China kinetic exchanges might occur at sea, in the air, and even space, but like Ukraine, any consideration for the insertion of regiments and divisions of US troops was taboo for Taiwan as well.

The US has adopted a false narrative that Taiwanese are not Chinese. The war games apparently showed that Marine-Taiwanese ground forces can fight the Chinese aboard Taiwan island to a stalemate, PRC negotiation, or even outright victory over China.

Reckless public promotion of an invasion against a part of Chinese territory by retired Marine war-gamers and CSIS staff, just to market a flawed doctrine could change Chinese assumptions overnight.

The possibility of a US ground invasion serves as a dramatic force multiplier that strengthens Chinese resilience beyond measure. Even when it was young and inadequately armed, the PRC defeated the nuclear-armed US in North Korea, a clear indicator of our nuclear peer's unbreakable determination to protect its sovereignty today.

For CSIS to permit a US ground invasion of China proves that the US government has no clue how core China's sovereignty is to its 1.4 billion citizens. It is this sort of military and diplomatic ignorance of the Chinese that will embroil us in an unlimited war that the US will lose decisively.

There is still a window of opportunity for us, the American public to wise up and prevent the violent catastrophe that our US political leaders have in store for us. But if the US government continues to act stupidly time will assuredly run out.



The author is a retired Marine Corps infantry officer and a former Pentagon employee. Opinions are of the author and do not represent the US government. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn