The Heritage Foundation created a war theatre about Taiwan based on artificial intelligence in which the US came off so badly that the Pentagon demanded parts of it be blacked out, even though it was based on open sources.

Such a war theatre is of course relevant to the discussion about Greenland. It is the US that will fight the war against China. A defeated USA will not be able to defend either Europe or Greenland.

The redacted report, TIDALWAVE, warns that the US could reach a breaking point within weeks of an intense conflict with China – conclusions that, according to the authors, prompted senior national security officials to request redactions for fear that adversaries could exploit the findings or use them to identify vulnerabilities in the US and allied militaries.

These conclusions include warnings that US forces will peak far earlier than China, suffer catastrophic losses of aircraft and infrastructure in the Pacific, and still fail to prevent a global economic shock estimated at around $10 trillion, nearly a tenth of the world’s GDP.

It’s clear that such scenarios send shivers through Washington. China’s goal is to take over world domination without firing a shot. If the other side knows it doesn’t stand a chance, he, read: The United States, may not be willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of soldiers.

Unlike traditional tabletop games, TIDALWAVE uses an AI-enabled model that runs thousands of iterations, tracking how losses of platforms, ammunition and fuel accumulate over time and lead to cascading effects of operational failures early in the conflict.

According to a Heritage spokesperson, the report was shown to “senior national security officials” who requested that some of the details be crossed out in black ink before it was made public. The report goes on to describe how quickly US forces could reach a breaking point and why the conflict will have global consequences.

“The redactions were made at the request of the U.S. government to prevent disclosure of information that could reasonably enable an adversary to (1) remedy or “close” critical vulnerabilities that the United States and its allies could otherwise exploit, or (2) identify or exploit vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies in ways that could impair operational endurance, resilience or deterrence,” the report states.

If AI-generated models are able to predict that the US lacks the resources to fight a war against China, it is safe to assume that China is running the same programmes and knows the same things as this report: China will win a war over Taiwan. The costs will be so great for the US that it will have a ripple effect on the US’s standing around the world. Europe will have to recognise that it is wide open.

China will be in complete control.

According to the report’s redacted findings, the US will reach culmination in less than half the time needed by the People’s Republic of China in a high-intensity conflict. Culmination is defined as the point at which a force becomes unable to continue operations due to loss of platforms, ammunition and/or fuel.

The report concludes that the US is not equipped or organised to protect and sustain the joint force in a conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific region. Rapid wear and tear on platforms, fragile logistics, concentrated basing and insufficient industrial capacity to ramp up production all contribute to forcing an early operational breaking point for US forces.

The scenarios drawn up are reminiscent of a new Pearl Harbour.

The report warns that US reliance on a few large, concentrated forward bases – particularly in Japan and Guam – leaves US air power dangerously exposed to Chinese missile forces.

In several scenarios, up to 90% of US and allied aircraft stationed at major forward operating bases are destroyed on the ground in the initial phase of the conflict, as runways, fuel depots, command facilities and parked aircraft are hit simultaneously.

China is targeting logistics. Without fuel, a military power cannot fight.

Fuel emerges as the most crucial vulnerability of all. The report makes an important distinction: The US doesn’t run out of fuel in most scenarios – it loses the ability to transport fuel under fire.

China has been buying up ports around the world and controls 129 ports worldwide, such as Piraeus, Zeebrugge and indeed Haifa, Israel’s main port.</p

There’s a reason China is aggressively vying for islands and atolls in the Pacific and even building reefs for floating airports.

Chinese doctrine explicitly prioritises attacks on logistics vessels, ports, pipelines and supply vessels. Even limited losses of tankers, disruptions to port operations or pipeline interruptions are sufficient to reduce fuel supply to unsustainable levels, forcing commanders to sharply reduce air and sea operations, despite the fact that there is still fuel in overall inventories.

Putting all the pieces together shows that China has a global strategy for control. China does not need to wage war, the facts speak for themselves. Resistance is futile.

Some have already come to a conclusion and are seeking an alliance with China, such as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Jonas Gahr Støre praised Carney’s wisdom in Politisk kvarter on 22 January.

If the US is struggling, one can only imagine the situation Europe will find itself in. Europe is not worried about the Chinese threat and is sending all its weapons to Ukraine. It wants the US to do the same. It’s like tempting China to invade Taiwan, where 90 per cent of the world’s chips are produced.

The report concludes that critical US precision-guided weapons – including long-range anti-ship missiles, air-to-air interceptors and missile defence systems – begin to become unavailable within five to seven days of major combat operations. In most scenarios, these critical weapons are completely depleted within 35 to 40 days, leaving U.S. forces unable to maintain a high tempo of fighting.

But Trump refuses to resign and has issued orders for rearmament. He said in Davos that arms manufacturers will not be allowed to buy back shares. They will build new factories.

On the other hand, China is judged to be able to sustain intense combat operations for several months under the modelled conditions.
China’s stocks of critical munitions begin to deplete after about 20 to 30 days of major combat operations. However, substitution effects extend China’s ability to sustain combat operations for months – well beyond the point where US forces reach their peak, according to the report.

A war with China would devastate the global economy.</p

The redacted report concludes that it is highly unlikely that the US will be able to prevent massive global economic consequences once a conflict in Taiwan erupts.
Disruption to shipping routes, destruction of critical infrastructure and collapse of Taiwan’s semiconductor production would trigger a global economic shock estimated at around $10 trillion, with long-lasting ripple effects in financial markets, industry and world trade.

The US needs to rearm if it is to have any chance of deterring China.

The report comes after years of concern about US military readiness and industrial capacity, while China is rapidly expanding its naval forces and shipbuilding capabilities.

The US Navy is operating with a smaller fleet than planned, while US shipyards are struggling with labour shortages, aging infrastructure and chronic delays – all while China, the world’s largest shipbuilder, continues to outpace the US in the production of new hulls.

Secretary of State Pete Hegseth and other military leaders have vowed to put the Pentagon on a war footing regarding industrial capacity.

A war over Taiwan could tempt enemies to strike elsewhere in the world. The US no longer has the ability to fight two wars at once.

A war over Taiwan could open the door to further aggression from adversaries such as Russia, Iran or North Korea, fundamentally destabilising the global security order.

The report is clear in its assessment: existing Pentagon programmes and congressional funding are too slow, too fragmented and too modest to address the scale of the challenge. In many cases, the timeframe required to fix critical vulnerabilities exceeds the likely timeframe of a conflict.

Warnings that the US is depleting its stockpiles have long been heard and this report is a wake-up call for those who want the US to increase exports to Ukraine. What kind of politicians are saying that Europe needs to be prepared for a decade-long war with Russia? That’s the same as guaranteeing that China will win. Europe doesn’t have the resources and the US is being overstretched.

To avoid what the authors describe as a strategic defeat, the report urges Congress to immediately expand ammunition stockpiles, bolster fuel reserves and distribution infrastructure, reinforce and disperse forward operating bases, and accelerate maintenance and logistics reforms. Without swift action, the authors warn, the US risks ending up in a conflict that it is structurally unprepared to fight or sustain.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admin-sought-redactions-key-china-war-game-report-warning-us-military-readiness-gaps

Rather Chinese despotism than American populism? It will be Europe’s suicide