A war over Taiwan would directly challenge U.S. interests. Avoiding such a conflict while still maintaining American goals for peace and security is among the most vexing problems confronting U.S. political leaders. However, recently conducted simulations of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan give rise to cautious optimism about one of the most challenging scenarios. They show that although such a war would be costly to all sides, China would lose—so long as the United States continues to invest in maintaining deterrence and chooses to intervene directly and vigorously.

Together with colleagues from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the U.S. Naval War College, I developed and ran 24 iterations of a wargame modeling a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026. Dozens of current and retired senior military officers and policymakers participated in the wargame. Because there is no precedent for large, modern air and naval conflicts—and therefore very little data about how modern weapons would perform—we varied assumptions about the performance of key weapons systems across many of the games.

The project reached two broad conclusions. First, despite China's robust and growing military capabilities, the prospects for a successful Chinese invasion of Taiwan are poor. Second, losses would be high, including among U.S. forces. Media attention has focused on these high casualties, but the operational outcomes are arguably more important in considering questions of war and peace, deterrence, and U.S. policy.