U.S. Special Forces Conduct First Simulation of Chinese Attack on Taiwan

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Tang Siyu/Xinhua via Getty Images
John Hayward

U.S. Special Operations Command (USASOC) announced on Saturday that it conducted its first simulated defense of Taiwan against a Chinese invasion.

Military.com reported the annual USASOC capabilities exercise (CAPEX), a comprehensive simulation of a “potential real-world Special Operations Forces mission.”

This year it was a simulation of American forces being inserted into Taiwan’s capital city of Taipei by helicopter to hold off a Chinese invasion force, conducted with concrete mock-ups at Fort Bragg, North Carolina:

During the drill, American forces landed several CH-47 Chinook helicopters on a concrete structure that resembled a potential landing zone on the island nation.

Soldiers then infiltrated the area and fired Carl Gustaf recoilless rifles, simulating tactics employed during the Global War on Terror.

They also breached tunnels and operated Switchblade kamikaze drones at a training site in North Carolina.

The Carl Gustaf is a squad-level anti-tank weapon designed by SAAB Bofors of Sweden. The current version can handle a versatile assortment of ammunition designed to attack buildings and enemy personnel in addition to armored vehicles, and it can also fire smoke and illumination rounds. The U.S. Army ordered $10 million worth of programmable rounds for its Carl Gustaf rifles, giving troops the ability to quickly program shots to explode in mid-flight airbursts, detonate on impact, or engage targets at very long range.

The Switchblade drone is a new weapon system, technically classed as a “tactical missile,” that has been deployed against Russian invasion forces by Ukraine.

The drone’s nickname comes from the way its collapsible wings snap into position after it is launched from a tube that resembles a mortar launcher. The drone has cameras that help its operator locate a suitable target, which the drone then dive-bombs. Switchblades are exceptionally effective at hitting armored vehicles and convoys of trucks, and they are very difficult to intercept.

The drill included information warfare and China’s “gray zone” tactics, which are essentially coercive techniques that do not quite reach the level of “kinetic operations.” 

The most notorious gray zone tactic is China’s constant incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), which exhausts and demoralizes the much smaller Taiwanese air force by obliging it to respond to every provocative flight. China’s harassment of Filipinos in the South China Sea with flotillas of paramilitary “maritime militia” fishing boats is another example.

“Staying competitive without escalating to a crisis or direct conflict is a nuanced game of shadows in the gray zone – one that requires a balance that USASOC is trying to maintain,” USASOC Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga said.

Information warfare was a major element of the simulation, and the participating special operators were duly impressed with how important it would be in a pitched battle against a near-peer adversary.

“The information environment — it can seem overwhelming at times — just the sheer size of it, the amount of information going in and out of it,” a senior psychological operations officer told Military.com.

“What’s important, what’s just white noise? How do you navigate all of that, and create order out of chaos, so that you can gain the informational advantage over an enemy that does not operate with the same restrictions and rules that you’re going to have to operate under?” the officer explained.

“It’s difficult because fighting a near-peer requires a lot more preparation that’s not really the cool stuff that we’ve been doing for the last 20 years. I’m telling my guys as a company commander to stop going to the shoot houses and do more preparation tasks, which aren’t nearly as cool or fun to do,” a Green Beret added. 

The “cool stuff” referred to by the Green Beret would be the door-kicking tactics developed during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Several participating officers said those lessons would not be forgotten, but combat against an adversary like China’s huge and well-equipped People’s Liberation Army would be very different.

The Diplomat on Wednesday quoted U.S. officials who wanted American special forces units to inspire the Taiwanese military to train harder for defending their island. They hoped the Taiwanese might learn some lessons from Ukraine’s tough battle against Russia, and perhaps envisioned last weekend’s CAPEX exercise as an inspiration to Taiwanese commanders.

“They know that their training needs to be more realistic and probably more wholesome,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), an Army special forces veteran, said in March. “They’re sitting around a lot not really having realistic difficult exercises and training when they need it.”

Part of the CAPEX training involved U.S. special forces learning to quickly identify and work with Taiwanese resistance forces, a role that observers of the exercise were invited to step in and play. U.S. planners envisioned special forces troops giving Taiwan’s defenders the same kind of force-multiplying intelligence and logistics support they have given to the Ukrainians.

“Although leading Western analysts have consistently highlighted the Ukrainian population’s ‘iron resolve to fight to the death’ this has often been sharply contrasted with Taiwan,” The Diplomat noted.

“U.S. special forces deployments represent a critical part of efforts to cultivate a Taiwanese capacity to wage a Ukraine-style war effort and adopt a ‘partisan resistance model.’ Even partial success in achieving this would be a highly favorable development for Western interests in the region,” the article concluded.

A wargame conducted by the new House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party in April suggested that U.S. resupply of either American special forces or Taiwanese troops would be virtually impossible once a Chinese invasion began in earnest. The results suggested that highly effective resistance during the first stage of an invasion would be essential.

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