Wargaming a Taiwan invasion scenario: Lyle Goldstein on the CSIS wargame “The First Battle of the Next War"

Sinica Podcast

Kaiser Kuo

Culture, China News, Hangzhou, Chinese, International Relations, Chongqing, Beijing, Sichuan, Currentaffairs, China, Politics, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China Economy, News, China Politics, Business, Film, Shenzhen

4.8 • 676 Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2023

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes back Lyle Goldstein, director for China engagement at the think tank Defense Priorities and previously a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 20 years. Lyle offers his perspectives on an extensive wargaming exercise focusing on a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan, conducted under the auspices of CSIS (the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and published in January of this year — the first such exercise whose findings were made public. He offers insight into the real value of the exercise, as well as some of its shortcomings.

01:03 – The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan – the first large-scale publicly available wargame conducted by CSIS

04:05 – The history of wargaming and its significance

09:09 – What is the value of wargaming?

13:12 – The physical setup of the wargames and the role of dice and technology in contingency

17:49 – The assumptions that go into the game

22:05 – How much agency do the players have?

24:16 – How are the decisions of other countries factored in the wargame?

26:11 – Pros and cons of the CSIS wargame

31:57 – Thoughts on the possibility of nuclear escalation

38:43 – A take on the report’s assumptions and conclusions

47:37 – Will we get a warning?

A complete transcript of this episode is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

CSIS Report: The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan

Lyle: Yin Yu Tang in Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

Kaiser: The Story of Civilization [Volumes 1 to 11] by Will & Ariel Durant

Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume 1 by Will Durant

Mentioned:

Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry by Lyle J. Goldstein

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, with the discussion of current affairs in China produced in partnership with the China Project.
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0:34.9	We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious
0:38.7	entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghers and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang
0:43.7	region to Beijing's ambitious plans to shift the Chinese economy onto a post-carbon footing.
0:50.1	It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world.
0:56.4	We cover China with neither fear nor favor.
0:59.8	I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
1:03.8	What would happen if China launched a full-scale amphibious assault against Taiwan?
1:10.6	This is a question that has preoccupied American
1:13.0	war planners and presumably their counterparts in Beijing, in Taipei, in Tokyo, and in other
1:18.3	capitals. Really, since the KMT's retrenchment on the island in 1949, the question has, of course,
1:25.2	gained new currency in recent years,
1:32.3	whether you think the likelihood of such a scenario has markedly increased or not.
1:37.9	So now, how do war planners answer or attempt to answer that question?
1:41.0	Well, by staging wargaming exercises.
1:45.4	Today, we are going to look at one such exercise, one that stands out because unlike the vast majority, which are conducted by war colleges or in Annapolis or within the
1:50.9	Pentagon, and are classified for the most part, this one is in its methods, its assumption,
1:57.6	its execution, and its results public. They were all made public, and I think that's to its great credit.
	...

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