Please join the CSIS Defense and Security Department for the launch of a joint report with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Security Studies Program Wargaming Lab titled Confronting Armageddon: Wargaming Nuclear Deterrence and Its Failures in a U.S.-China Conflict over Taiwan by Mark Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham. This event will feature a presentation by the report’s authors and a panel discussion with Kari Bingen, Charles Glaser, and Tong Zhao.
This study examines nuclear dynamics in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a war that the authors hope will never occur. What creates the greatest pressure for nuclear weapons use in such a conflict? What happens if nuclear weapons are used? To answer these questions, the CSIS-MIT team modified its existing U.S.-China wargame to include nuclear weapons and ran it 15 times.
The greatest pressure for nuclear use came when China teams reached a crisis: their invasion was in danger of a defeat that might threaten Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. To dissuade China from gambling for resurrection—using nuclear weapons to salvage a failing conventional campaign—U.S. diplomacy was much more important than nuclear brinksmanship. Favorable outcomes were possible, but total victory was unachievable. The United States must therefore be prepared to successfully prosecute a high-end conventional war while at the same time providing face saving off-ramps to the adversary. To do otherwise risks a nuclear holocaust, as indeed occurred in three game iterations.
The research for this project was funded by a grant from the Department of Defense. The MIT Wargaming Lab supported the completion of this report and is grateful for generous family foundation support.
