Pentagon War-Games the Military Defense of Taiwan—and Loses

March 28 , 2021 (EIRNS)—According to a report in NBC, “David Ochmanek, a former senior Defense Department official who helps run war games for the Pentagon at the RAND Corp. think tank,” stated that recent war games run by the U.S. indicate that America would not be able to defend Taiwan if war broke out between the island and the mainland. “In tabletop exercises with America as the ‘blue team’ facing off against a ‘red team’ resembling China, Taiwan’s air force is wiped out within minutes, U.S. air bases across the Pacific come under attack, and American warships and aircraft are held at bay by the long reach of China’s vast missile arsenal, he said,” according to NBC.

The Pentagon will also be conducting highly classified wargames this summer against fictionalized Russian and Chinese enemies and “a global crisis erupting on multiple fronts,” according to an unconfirmed report in CNN.

In reporting on Ochmanek’s comments, NBC predictably failed to mention the fact that the only thing that would drive China to militarily move against Taiwan is an escalation of American and NATO provocations in the region encouraging Taiwanese separatism, which is precisely the policy now being advocated by both outgoing Indo-Pacific Command head Adm. Philip Davidson and incoming head Adm. John Aquilino. Rather than calling off the provocations, NBC reports that “Ochmanek argues Taiwan should invest in mines, drones and mobile anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles that could slow a Chinese amphibious and airborne invasion, providing precious time for U.S. help to arrive.”