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Top-secret war document reveals China could crush US and 'destroy' world's largest aircraft carrier
The United States would suffer a devastating defeat and lose its largest aircraft carrier if it tried to stop China's invasion of Taiwan, according to a top-secret Pentagon report.
The war games showed that the United States would be defeated by China's arsenal of about 600 hypersonic weapons, along with missiles and nuclear submarines.
The grim assessment, uncovered by the New York Times, confirmed the conclusions of previous war games but also highlighted broader concerns about the future direction of the US military and its continued reliance on outdated methods.
This means that Pentagon leaders will face accusations that they are “generals fighting the last war” and that they have failed to adapt to rapidly evolving, cheaper, and more usable forms of weapons technology, including drones.
The dominance of a small group of megacontractors in the US military-industrial complex will also be called into question after the report, which reportedly made one White House official "faint" when he saw it.
Ships like the $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, have often been destroyed in scenarios designed for the U.S. defense of Taiwan.
However, the Pentagon still plans to build nine more such ships. Supporters of a different course will argue that some of this funding should be spent on drone capabilities and cybersecurity. The war in Ukraine has shown the declining power of traditional weapons, including tanks, they will argue.
The latest shocking Pentagon report comes after President Xi Jinping ordered his generals to prepare for a possible invasion of Taiwan as early as 2027.
Beijing claims the self-ruled republic is part of China and has not ruled out taking the island by force. With the US poised to defend Taiwan, China could launch cyberattacks on US energy and water networks.
A secret Pentagon report, recently sent to the White House, is said to have provided disturbing details about how China could shoot down American ships, planes and satellites.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has previously said that “we lose every time” in Pentagon simulations of a conflict in Taiwan. Earlier this year, he said China was “preparing” and added: “We’re not going to sugarcoat the situation, the threat posed by China is real and could be imminent.” China accused Hegseth of making “baseless accusations.”
During President Trump's second term so far, US military resources have been pulled from the Indo-Pacific region to support military needs in the Middle East and Europe. Even under Biden, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US would quickly run out of artillery shells in a war over Taiwan.
Michael Swain, a senior fellow in the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsive Politics, said: “I agree with this call for the United States military to abandon many of its older weapons and transition to a force that more accurately reflects the types of threats and capabilities the country faces.”
But he added that “the assumption is that the United States must maintain its global military dominance, which is completely unrealistic and prohibitively expensive. Does the United States really need hundreds of overseas bases housing tens of thousands of troops? And is it in the vital interest of the United States to wage war with China over Taiwan?”
Trump's National Security Strategy document, released last week, made it clear that the US should try to deter a Chinese invasion by having a superior military. "Given that a third of the world's shipping passes through the South China Sea, there are significant implications for the US economy," he said.
“Therefore, preventing conflict over Taiwan, ideally by maintaining military superiority, is a priority.” Any Chinese move to invade Taiwan could begin with a naval blockade. The results of a previous series of war games, conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, suggest that this would have dire consequences.
This indicated that the US could lose thousands of men, hundreds of planes, submarines and dozens of ships, including aircraft carriers. A blockade, rather than an immediate full-scale invasion, would force Taiwan into submission and trigger a desperate struggle to evacuate a million foreign nationals from the besieged island.
President Trump would face the monumental and historic decision of whether to attempt to break the blockade militarily with naval convoys or leave Taiwan to its fate. He would also have to consider a dangerous and sustained airlift, as the Allies did for Berlin after World War II. A total of 26 war game scenarios were considered by CSIS.
In the worst-case scenario, his attempt to break the blockade would cost the US 21,000 casualties, 45 ships, an aircraft carrier, two submarines and over 1,000 aircraft. China could suffer 13,000 casualties and lose 42 submarines, nearly 100 ships and about 1,000 aircraft. /Adapted from Pamphlet/
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