Every June, the world pauses to honor the Allied landings at Normandy—but Chinese strategists have been doing something more: studying them.1 A rigorous comparison of D-Day and a hypothetical PLA invasion of Taiwan reveals uncomfortable lessons U.S. defense planners cannot afford to ignore.
The rapid PLA buildup is squarely aimed at Taiwan. Beijing could bring extreme military pressure against Taipei through a limited use of force or a blockade, but U.S. defense analysts should keep in mind the possibility of an all-out amphibious invasion as well.
WHY THE COMPARISON IS COMPELLING
The three basic similarities make the comparison compelling: geography, the scale, and the stark power asymmetry. Allied forces coming across the English Channel to the Normandy beaches traveled between 60 and 120 miles. A Chinese invasion across the Taiwan Strait would approximate this same cross-domain leap, affording the attacker the twin advantages of mobility and choosing “the time and place the battle would be fought.”2 Likewise, it is anticipated that a Chinese invasion to subdue the island of approximately 23 million inhabitants would require about the same level of effort. In mid-1944, the Allies employed thousands of aircraft and ships to land about 160,000 U.S., British, and Canadian soldiers at Normandy. The Chinese invasion would be on this scale or perhaps even larger. A related point of similarity is that Chinese forces would hold a massive quantitative advantage over Taiwan’s defending forces: more ships, combat aircraft, and soldiers. Just as the immense weight of force and firepower carried the day at Normandy decisively for the Allies, the overwhelming mass of the PLA could do the same for China against Taiwan.
From a strategic point of view, Taiwan’s defenders face a difficult set of dilemmas, not unlike those confronting the generals of the vaunted German Wehrmacht in early 1944. As military genius Frederick the Great once said, “He who defends everything, defends nothing.”3 At its most acute, this dilemma for the defense against amphibious attack involves whether to try to defeat the invaders on the beaches or adopt a more conservative defense-in-depth approach that would rely on a decisive counterattack against the landing forces with reserve forces. In 1944, the former strategy had the advantage of allowing for fortifications and obstacles to make defense easier, but the latter approach had the benefit of ensuring the defenders would not be outflanked or utterly destroyed by naval gunfire and the initial aerial bombardment.
This debate occurred between the German Generals Erwin Rommel, the combat veteran commanding the French coast, and Gerd von Rundstedt, the Field Marshal in charge of all German forces in the whole western sector. In his classic treatment of the battle, historian Stephen Ambrose concludes: “Rommel’s insistence on close up defense of the beach . . . had not worked.”4 Notably, this debate is still ongoing with respect to Taiwan’s defense, with a major U.S. think tank simulation arguing Taiwan should hold its forces back from the beaches and prepare to defend the island’s interior for a prolonged period instead.5 Below are some uncomfortable facts that suggest—contrary to conventional wisdom—that the Normandy comparison likely favors Beijing.
CHINA HAS ADVANTAGES EISENHOWER MIGHT HAVE WISHED FOR
It has become common among U.S. strategists to talk about “Fortress Taiwan” and how Taiwan’s mountainous geography is so forbidding as to preclude a Chinese attack.6 True, the island does have myriad, sheer mountains, but they face east rather than west, so they do not offer much of a shield against a PLA invasion. In fact, the prevailing wisdom does not account for numerous key developments favoring Beijing that emerge from a rigorous comparison with the Normandy invasion.
First and foremost, there is the issue of Hitler’s “Atlantic Wall.” As the original great D-Day historian Cornelius Ryan recounts: “Millions of tons of concrete were poured . . . staggering quantities of steel were ordered . . . By the end of 1943 . . . over half a million men were working on it and the fortifications had become a menacing reality.”7 By contrast, Taiwan’s coastline is punctuated by national parks, golf courses, and hotel resorts with nary a hint of active fortification, as I witnessed on a recent tour around almost the entire island perimeter. One can find military fortifications of a historic nature, largely built by the Japanese to defend against a U.S. attack that never came (from the East), but Taiwan’s coastline remains, on the whole, demilitarized.8 That seems like a conscious decision by the Taiwan people to prioritize quality of life rather than defense, and this is consistent with the rather low level of defense spending the island has maintained for the past three decades—approximately 2 percent of GDP. When probing this important historical analogy, the key observation is the invading PLA would not confront anything like the forbidding guns and obstacles the Nazis had embedded into the coast of France.
Not only did the Germans apply their characteristic attention to detail in constructing the Atlantic Wall, but this enterprise was led by a combat-experienced leader of rare genius in Rommel, who masterminded major Nazi victories in France and North Africa. Ryan explains that Rommel was initially “shocked” and dismayed by the state of the German defenses along the French coast, but the German general’s “ruthless drive” and perfectionist zeal were turned toward anti-invasion obstacles that proved “both simple and deadly.”9 According to this account, Rommel was obsessed with mines, and he made sure more than five million “infested the coast” by mid-1944.10 Mines certainly could help Taiwan’s current defense efforts, but Taipei is likely constrained by political concerns about an outcry among civilians if they had to live among active minefields. It is just as clear that China is aggressively pursuing mine countermeasures and will make major efforts to destroy mines before they are put into place.
Taiwan’s ground forces have long been the poor cousin among its armed services with the air force and navy accustomed to getting the best equipment and recruits. The 2023 CSIS comprehensive war game study of a Taiwan scenario concluded pessimistically that Taiwan ground forces “may not be as ready and competent . . . as China’s.”11
U.S. defense experts often point out that neither China nor Taiwan’s armed forces have serious combat experience in the contemporary era. That fact is often underlined by those arguing the PLA could not undertake a Normandy-scale amphibious invasion. However, these experts should reflect on the fact that most U.S. troops that went into action on D-Day had never seen combat. According to Ambrose, the U.S. Army that came ashore at Normandy “was the greenest army in the world,” but he contends this was actually helpful on that fateful day.12 With more certainty, it can be said that the PLA will not have to contend with defenders on par with the combat-experienced and highly effective Wehrmacht.13
Other technological and economic trends that favor a Chinese invasion also should be noted. For one, China has built a massive fleet of helicopters to complement its robust airborne capability. PLA planners know the airborne element proved decisive on D-Day, and Chinese helicopters are likely to be safer and more effective than the dangerous gliders the Allies employed extensively during the Normandy invasion. A Chinese invasion would be assisted by enhanced intelligence—ranging from China’s vast array of military satellites to open-source imagery providing exquisite details, including all angles of likely beaches and other high-value targets. A Chinese invasion would benefit from the precision-weapons revolution, including massive numbers of glide bombs, supersonic and hypersonic missiles, and kamikaze drones. Finally, the PLA would be staging out of some of the world’s largest and most advanced ports, so the loading process for its invasion armada would likely go faster than the five days required for the Allies in 1944.
APPLYING COMMON SENSE TO THE HISTORICAL ANALOGY
It is important to acknowledge some aspects of the D-Day analogy favor Taiwan’s defense. For example, Nazi Germany was defending a much longer coastline, stretching all the way to Norway. The Wehrmacht was not only committed to another theater of war but was losing badly on the Eastern Front. German soldiers in Normandy were not defending their own homes and families, but occupied territory. The French resistance played a vital role in setting up the Allied armies for success by hampering German operations prior to, during, and after D-Day. In addition, the PLA would not be able to learn from several dry runs before attacking Taiwan, as the Allies had in North Africa, Sicily, and many locations across the Pacific. Taiwan would benefit from intelligence on China’s invasion preparations, and its rapidly improving drone fleet could pose major challenges to Chinese invaders.
Nevertheless, U.S. decisionmakers and military planners should not base their decisions on hope or false readings of history. For all the chatter at defense conferences these days about the complexity of amphibious operations, history suggests most major landings from the sea over the past century have proven successful with few exceptions.14
D-Day casualties for the Allied side were relatively light. Despite the bloody encounter on Omaha Beach, the total killed in action on that fateful day totaled 4,414—less than 3 percent of the soldiers who landed in Normandy on 6 June.15 Chinese losses on Taiwan could be higher, but given the stark asymmetry of firepower that exists across the Taiwan Strait, they might be similar to D-Day. And if China’s leaders make the decision to use force, no one should doubt their willingness to pay a heavy price to achieve what they view as national unification.
The assault on Normandy 82 years ago was a bold move that marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. Today, it provides lessons and insights for analyzing the security and vulnerability of Taiwan. For those who think China could not possibly invade Taiwan, a close look at D-Day says otherwise. This does not mean all is lost for the island democracy. Ukraine’s brave defense against Russia’s invasion—featuring the agile use of new technologies and defense in depth—shows how a modern-day David can hold off a Goliath. At the same time, defense planners in Washington should be looking for low-cost ways to bolster Taiwan, but it is also essential to realize there are genuine diplomatic off-ramps to avert this war and that process might involve difficult, but necessary compromises on all sides. Finally, Americans need to thoroughly debate the costs and risks of possible conflict with a nationalistic, nuclear-armed superpower that would be fought in its backyard.
1. Lyle Goldstein, “China Is Drawing Lessons from D-day for an Invasion of Taiwan,” The Diplomat, 6 June 2024.
2. Stephen Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944 The Climactic Battle of WW2 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014 illustrated edition), p. 29.
3. Ambrose, p. 16.
4. Ambrose, p. 540.
5. Mark F. Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham, The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan (Washington: CSIS, 2023), pp. 108-09, https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan.
6. See, for example, Dan Grazier, Siebens, and Mackenzie Rawlins, Rethinking the Threat: Why China Is Unlikely to Invade Taiwan (Washington: Stimson Center, 2025), https://www.stimson.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Taiwan-Invasion-Realities_PDF.pdf.
7. Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959) pp. 25-26.
8. “Seven Historic Forts and Walks around Keelung” https://keelung-for-a-walk.com/culture/7-historic-forts-around-keelung/. It’s true that one can find some major tunnels in the interior of the island, and there is even an underground airbase at Hualien. See, for example, Emma Helfrich, “Extremely Rare Photos Inside Taiwan’s Underground Fighter Jet Caves,” War Zone, July 26, 2022, https://www.twz.com/extremely-rare-photos-inside-taiwans-underground-fighter-jet-caves. Yet, it seems clear that even if the caves can protect aircraft, it will be quite simple for China to prevent active air operations by closing the entrances and/or related takeoff areas.
9. Ryan, p. 28.
10. Ryan, p. 29.
11. Cancian, Cancian, and Heginbotham, First Battle, p. 75.
12. Ambrose, p. 38.
13. It should be noted that the German Army by 1944 was not what it what a few years prior – having suffered enormous casualties in battles with the Red Army on the Eastern Front. Moreover, many of the soldiers manning the fortifications were not Germans but rather were comprised of men from colonized nations who often surrendered quickly. However, the German units at Normandy fought skillfully.
14. Notably, Chinese strategists study these cases of failure too. See, for example, CCTV7, National Defense and Military Affairs [国防军事], May 7, 2026, https://x.com/lylegoldstein/status/2052191960438317399?s=20.
15. “Here Are Some Key Facts about D-Day Ahead of the 79th anniversary of the World War II Invasion,” PBS Newshour, 5 June 2023, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/here-are-some-key-facts-about-d-day-ahead-of-the-79th-anniversary-of-the-world-war-ii-invasion.