US prepares for long war with China that might hit its bases, homeland: Peter Apps
By Peter Apps
May 16, 2025U.S. and Chinese flags are seen in this illustration taken March 20, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights
LONDON,
May 16 (Reuters) - Earlier this month, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General
Doug Wickert summoned nearby civic leaders to Edwards Air Force Base in
California to warn them that if China attacks Taiwan
in the coming years, they should be prepared for their immediate region
to suffer potentially massive disruption from the very start.
In
a remarkable briefing shared by the base on social media and promoted
in a press release, Wickert - one of America's most experienced test
pilots now commanding the 412th Test Wing - outlined China's rapid
military growth and preparations to fight a major war.
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Cutting-edge U.S. aircraft
manufactured in California’s nearby “Aerospace Valley”, particularly
the B-21 “Raider” now replacing the 1990s B-2 stealth bomber, were key
to keeping Beijing deterred, he said. However, if deterrence failed that
meant China’s would likely strike the U.S. including nearby Northrop
Grumman factories where those planes were built.
"If
this war happens, it's going to happen here," Wickert told them,
suggesting attacks could include a cyber offensive that included
long-term disruption to power supplies and other national
infrastructure. "It's going to come to us. That is why we are having
this conversation... The more ready we are, the more likely to change
Chairman Xi’s calculus."
Senior
U.S. officials have repeatedly briefed that they believe Chinese
President Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready to invade
Taiwan by 2027, although they say no direct decision appears to have
been made yet to order that attack.
As
Washington and Beijing square up for that potential fight, their
military preparations - now taking place on an industrial scale on both
sides in a manner not seen in decades - are themselves becoming a form
of posturing and messaging.
Chinese officials deny they are working on a tight specific timeline. However, Beijing has become increasingly assertive
in its sovereignty claims over the island where Nationalist leader
Chiang Kai-shek set up his government in exile after losing the Chinese
Civil War in 1949.
Ever
since the 1979 U.S. recognition of the China’s communist government as
the country's legitimate rulers, successive administrations have
maintained "strategic ambiguity" over whether they would intervene if
democratically governed Taiwan was attacked. The Taiwan Relations Act
passed the same year, however, commits the U.S. military to having
updated plans to prevent any effort from Beijing to change the status
quo.
While President Donald Trump
has said he will never make a solid commitment one way or another –
unlike predecessor Joe Biden who had gone further than any recent
president in pledging to fight for Taiwan if it was attacked – a
recently leaked official strategy document described deterring a Chinese
attack as the Pentagon’s top priority.
That
means ensuring the U.S. is both visibly and genuinely prepared for what
might be a long and brutal fight. As one senior U.S. officer put it
this columnist this month: “If China attacks Taiwan and we decide to
intervene, that is not a war that is likely to be over quickly."
Such
a conflict would likely see both casualties and destruction on a scale
that would far outstrip anything in the "war on terror" conflicts that
followed the September 11, 2001 attacks.
REBUILDING WARTIME AIRSTRIPS
Across
the Philippines and western Pacific, U.S. military engineers are now
rebuilding sometimes long-unused airstrips dating back to World War Two,
intending to deploy small groups of aircraft to many places at once to
maximise survivability.
Beijing
has invested heavily in what are termed “Anti-Access Area Denial”
(A2AD) capabilities, mainly long-range missiles, with an intention of
keeping U.S. warships - particularly aircraft carriers - out of its
nearby waters. That would make U.S. aircraft flying from bases slightly
further out even more important - but Beijing would likely hit those
locations too.
Showing
Beijing that the U.S. and its regional allies – principally Japan,
South Korea, the Philippines and Australia – have both the capacity and
willpower to handle those attacks and keep on fighting is now growing
part of U.S. messaging.
Images
and video from military drills held in recent weeks on the Japanese
island of Okinawa – part of the “first island chain” that also includes
Taiwan – showed U.S. Air Force combat engineers ready with bulldozers
and construction equipment to immediately fix damaged runways and other
essential systems.
This
month, the Washington Times quoted a senior U.S. defence official
saying that the U.S. territory of Guam would be a "major target of
Chinese missile strikes" in the opening stages of any war around Taiwan.
The
Pentagon has invested more than $7 billion of additional construction
work on the territory, with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth describing
the 6,400 U.S. military personnel stationed there as "the tip of the
spear" in the Indo Pacific.
"We're
going to learn a lot (from the air defence systems on Guam) and apply
them to defences on the continental United States," Hegseth told
reporters and civic officials, adding that the U.S. would respond to an
attack on Guam as it would for any other strike on its territory.
The
new Trump administration has made building up missile defence for the
continental United States – the so-called “Golden Dome” system – a top
priority, designed to intercept both conventional and nuclear long-range
weaponry.
Guam
Governor Lou Leon Guerrero welcomed Hegseth’s comments, but expressed
concern that the territory – which also provides support for other
islands and independent territories – was ill-prepared for either major
conflict or natural disaster, with its only hospital having less than
thirty beds.
Some
officials now believe those preparations should extend to being ready
to handle the aftermath of one or more limited nuclear strikes from
China or North Korea, which they now believe could be a feature of any
coming war without wider escalation to a much larger exchange of atomic
weapons devastating larger targets such as cities.
That
was one of the findings of a recent series of wargames conducted by the
Atlantic Council including current and former U.S. officials. The
resulting report concluded that there was a growing risk that any
Chinese attack against Taiwan might also be accompanied by North Korea
moving against the South (or indeed that any war launched by North
Korea might be taken by Beijing as an opportunity to move against
Taiwan).
THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE
A
report to Congress last July examining the risk of simultaneous
conflict with Russia, China, North Korea and potentially Iran reached a
similar conclusion, warning that the U.S. population was not
sufficiently prepared for the disruptions in supplies and services such a
conflict might produce, through cyber attacks and interruption of
supply chains.
Keeping
supplies coming would almost certainly a challenge for both sides. The
U.S. Indo Pacific Command has talked repeatedly about using smaller and
larger drones, including robot submarines, to create a “Hellscape” in
the Taiwan Strait to block Chinese forces.
Still,
U.S. commanders acknowledge China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now
has its own hefty ability to target U.S. planes and ships, rendering it
vital to forward locate equipment and weapons stocks early in advance –
particularly as China’s missile range improves.
This
month, head of U.S. Indo Pacific command Admiral Sam Paparo said the
“depth and range” of China’s military drills were now increasing fast,
including exercises to invade and blockade Taiwan while also striking
port and energy facilities.
Beijing
is also publicly highlighting its ability to conduct such actions,
presenting them as a key part of seizing the island. "If Taiwan loses
its maritime supply lines, its domestic resources will quickly be
depleted, social order will fall into chaos and people's livelihoods
will be severely impacted," said a Chinese military official in one
video released by the PLA.
"I
remain confident in our deterrence posture, but the trajectory must
change," Paparo told congressional officials in April, warning that
while his forces currently retained enough superiority to deter a Taiwan
invasion, that advantage was being rapidly eroded as China built up
forces.
"There
are gaps in defence fuelling support points," he said. "Those are the
locations where aircraft and warships would load fuel and distribute
fuel. There are shortfalls in our tanker fleet and keeping enough fuel
in the case of a contingency. And there are gaps in the combat logistics
force in order to sustain the force."
U.S.
weapons stockpiles are also a growing worry, a concern made worse by
months of strikes on Yemen believed to have further depleted stores of
critical Tomahawk land attack missiles which the U.S. has been firing
faster than it built for several years.
"God
forbid, if we were in a short-term conflict, it would be short-term
because we don't have enough munitions to sustain a long-term fight,"
said Republican Representative Tom Cole from Oklahoma, chair of the
House Appropriations Committee, at a hearing earlier this week with
acting U.S. Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby.
Kilby
warned of further shortages of torpedoes and antiship missiles, saying
the Pentagon needed to look at other manufacturers who might be able to
produce weapons that were not quite as good but which were "more
effective than no missile".
"If
we go to war with China, it's going to be bloody and there's going to
be casualties and it's going to take plenty of munitions," Kilby said.
"So our stocks need to be full."
By Peter Apps; Editing by Toby Chopra