House China Committee goes to war (game), Politico, Apr. 18, 2023.
By ALEXANDER WARD, MATT BERG, LAWRENCE UKENYE and ARI HAWKINS
It’s 2027. Taiwan’s leadership is considering declaring itself an independent country. Chinese paramount leader XI JINPING, angered by the major shift, chooses to launch an invasion of the democratic, self-governing island to force unification. How will the United States respond?
That’s what Republican and Democratic members of the House China Committee will decide tomorrow night during a tabletop exercise organized by the Center for a New American Security think tank. Starting at 7 p.m., the lawmakers will act as National Security Council advisers, deciding the best military, diplomatic and economic courses to take against China. CNAS’ BECCA WASSER and ANDREW METRICK will act as Beijing, aiming to thwart the panel members’ designs from inside the House Ways and Means Committee room. A move by either side will represent three days of the conflict.
All this is happening because Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.), the committee chair, believes that TTXs — as tabletops are abbreviated — are as instructive for policy- and lawmakers as they are for military personnel. In March, he took part in a Taiwan-focused wargame for House Republicans in Orlando and has written about why elected officials should participate in more wargames.
“These exercises are tools for visualizing the downstream impacts of policy, but, like any tool, must be used correctly,” Gallagher told NatSec Daily. “To work, you must put yourself inside your opponent’s head and understand their strategic objectives, why they hold them, the costs they are willing to bear to achieve them, and both their best and most likely strategies, which may not be the same.”
Three weeks ago, committee staff from both parties reached out to CNAS to develop and run the game when Congress came back into session. CNAS agreed and modified a previous exercise with NBC News’ Meet the Press to fit the TTX within a roughly two-hour period, a compressed timeline for such an event.
But Wasser said the TTX will focus on high-level issues, ultimately providing lawmakers with ideas about what issues need more consideration, hearings or anything else. It won’t delve deeply into tactical scenarios that would require a far longer game. “It’s experiential learning,” she told us. “It’s an important opportunity to help senior leaders to think through what can happen.”
Last year, Gen. MARK MILLEY, the Joint Chiefs chair, said China wanted the military capability to invade Taiwan by 2027 but might not launch the operation. CIA Director BILL BURNS said in February that Xi and his military leadership “have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion.”
Taiwan is increasingly sounding the alarm. “Look at the military exercises, and also their rhetoric, they seem to be trying to get ready to launch a war against Taiwan,” Foreign Minister JOSEPH WU told CNN last week. But, in a show of confidence, Wu added “Chinese leaders will think twice before they decide to use force against Taiwan. And no matter whether it is 2025 or 2027 or even beyond, Taiwan simply needs to get ready.”