Here is a larger, more powerful,  authoritarian, and revisionist bully  

attacking its democratic neighbor for  nothing more than historical proximity.

And beneath a mountain of explanations,  theories, and models is really just  

one man's deranged pursuit of empire. Or,  something else entirely — we truly don't know.

It even began like we expect an attack on Taiwan  would — with a long, drawn-out buildup of forces,  

followed by a sudden and  chaotic barrage of missiles.

With very large present populations  but below-replacement fertility,  

both China and Russia are what you might call  “demographies in decline” — and there isn't  

much time left. A man born today can expect to  live 74 years in China and a mere 67 in Russia.  

“Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow”  isn't just hypothetical, either.

Quote “reunifying” with the island has been the  goal of every Chinese leader for the last 70 years  

and chairman Xi Jinping has gone well  out of his way to eliminate ambiguity.

Needless to say, China's refusal to call  Russia's actions in Ukraine what they  

are — an invasion — wasn't too comforting  to the 23 million residents of Taiwan.

…Yet, China is not Russia. And Taiwan is  not Ukraine. For all their similarities,  

there remain huge differences the  world would be unwise to ignore.

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Just 100 miles, or 160 kilometers,  east across the narrow Taiwan Strait,  

you could be forgiven for thinking China could one  day just swallow up its little disconnected tail.

Russia has three times the population of  Ukraine. China, 60 times more than Taiwan.

The Russian economy is — or, more accurately,  was — 9 and a half times larger than Ukraine's.  

China's is 22 times the size of Taiwan's.

The Russian landmass is 28  times larger than Ukraine's.  

And China's, 265 times larger than Taiwan's.

In 2020, China spent $244 billion on defense.  

Taiwan, just 11, about as much  as the Netherlands or Colombia.

Of course, as the American Navy demonstrates, not  every dollar spent on defense is created equally.

Still, the disparities are quite dramatic. China  has upwards of 2 million active duty troops,  

thirty-three hundred fighters, and 59  subs to Taiwan's 160,000, 560, and four.

In other words: China is probably every bit  as big, strong, and powerful as it looks.

And yet, ask just about anyone in the  defense community and they'll tell you:  

a Chinese invasion of Taiwan  would be just downright hard.

Now, there are many different ways China could go  about this — by launching a Cuba-style blockade,  

by first seizing smaller islands on its  periphery, or even infiltrating from within.

But the most likely sequence  of events would be as follows…

First, China would start bombing critical  Taiwanese infrastructure — ports, airports,  

and bases — in hopes of causing chaos, confusion,  and a breakdown in the chain of command.

Second, China would attempt to establish air  

superiority — control of the skies and  therefore cover for what comes next.

As we've seen in Ukraine, this  is much harder than it sounds,  

even for an ostensibly larger  and more powerful attacker.

Still, up to this point,  there's no doubt China could,  

at the very least, quickly inflict  serious and irreparable harm.

This next phase is when the People's  Liberation Army likely runs into trouble.

As anyone who's seen “Saving  Private Ryan” can attest,  

amphibious assaults are no walk in  the park, even on the best of days.

Generally speaking, to be successful, they  require three conditions: air superiority,  

overwhelming fire and manpower or surprise,  and the ability to quickly reinforce.

Every battle is different, of  course, but historical successes  

have, with few exceptions,  possessed all three criteria.  

In the vast majority of cases, the absence  of even one of these has led to failure.

If everything goes as planned for China, it  will have accomplished the first. But that  

still leaves two very difficult hurdles,  which brings us to the real challenge…

Russia's struggles so far in Ukraine make it  easy to lose sight of the basics. This is not,  

with one major exception, a geographically  challenging environment. When you come across  

pictures of the war, make a note of what you  see: roads — and what you don't: mountains.

We're used to seeing Russia's invasion on a map.  

But this is what it looks like on the  ground — what geographers would call  

flat, Eurasian Steppe. The biggest natural  impediments are trees, grass, and… tractors.

The coast of Taiwan, on the other hand, is much  trickier. Sure, there are flat mud plains and  

coastal rice paddies, but any invader would  soon be met with 2 and 3-thousand foot peaks  

within artillery distance of the shoreline.  In between are fairly populous, urban areas.

Take the usual defender's advantage — 2  or 3 attackers per defending troop and,  

thanks to Taiwan's tall and irregular  coastline, multiply it several times over.

If that sounds hard, well, the  world's most powerful military agreed.

The United States considered  attacking then-Japanese-occupied  

Taiwan in 1944 — going so far as to  draft plans for “Operation Causeway”.

Overtaking a patchwork of 30,000 starving  Japanese defenders, it estimated,  

would require an invasion force over twice the  size of D-Day — 400,000 marines and 4,000 ships.

Despite commanding this  incredible concentration of force,  

Pacific War planners considered the idea too  risky and opted for the Philippines instead,  

referring to Taiwan as an  “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.  

Suffice to say, China would need a figurative  boatload of troops. Somewhere between 1 and  

2 million, to be precise — making it the  largest amphibious operation in history.

If war is primarily an exercise in logistics,  

this would be the ultimate challenge. Moving  that many bodies simultaneously is no easy feat.

Take a simple, back-of-the-envelope calculation,  for instance. Assuming China was using that same  

2020 equipment from earlier, this is all it  could transport across the Strait at a time.

Even if all it transported were troops — it  could only move about 30,000 — or 3% of the  

total number of active PLA Ground  forces — at a time. And remember,  

that's if they just carried  people — with no tanks or armor.

For obvious reasons, this hypothetical operation  has been nicknamed the “million-man swim”.

Oh! And by the way, nothing  about this would be a secret.

Experts estimate the world  will have no fewer than 30  

and up to 60 days of warning — giving Taiwan a  full 1-2 months to make itself as impenetrable  

as possible — laying mines, staging weapons,  and repositioning critical infrastructure.

Not only that but we also already know during  which parts of the year China could attack.

Waves are too strong in the Winter  and typhoons too unpredictable in the  

Summer — leaving just two good  candidates — April or October.

So too do we know where it would happen.

There are only about 13  beaches across all of Taiwan  

suitable for landing — and  “suitable” is being generous.

Take one of these — Linkou beach, for instance.  Although invaders would be welcomed by about  

a mile of flatland, they would soon be  confronted by two huge mountain ranges.

This would also be these PLA soldiers'  and generals' first real experience  

with combat. China hasn't fought a  single major war for over 40 years,  

when it invaded Vietnam and  was quickly forced to withdraw.

Now, even if it was 'successful',  China would now face a new challenge:  

occupying an island of 23 million people  — most of whom hate it — with much of  

what it considers 'valuable'  about Taiwan utterly destroyed.

Military doctrine suggests a 1:10  ratio of soldiers to population  

for successful counterinsurgency operations,  

which, on paper, would require the entire  PLA — leaving no one for anything else.

As we see in Ukraine, local resistance can  be incredibly powerful, especially given  

that Taiwan has been preparing for its entire  modern existence for precisely this scenario.

In one 2020 poll, 77% of the Taiwanese public said  they were “willing to fight” for their country.

Still, it should be noted that,  at least today, conscription  

only lasts 4 months in Taiwan. How much  can one really do or learn in 120 days?  

And, in general, conscription armies  are less competent and more apathetic.

But don't get too lost in the weeds asking  whether China can attack before asking if it will.

Balance of strength is important,  but it's far from the whole picture.

Any theory about what China wants or how it thinks  

has to contend with two  seemingly contradictory facts…

On one hand, China has been beating the drum of  war for seven decades, making countless explicit  

threats and seemingly preparing its population  for conflict. Like North Korea and missiles, the  

issue seems to percolate to the surface several  times a year. Each time feels like a crisis.

Yet, on the other hand, China has…been beating the  drum of war for seven decades and has never once  

actually followed through. No  matter your political affiliations,  

you can't say China hasn't had the full range  of American administrations to choose from.

The funny thing is that, look at a graph  of Google searches for headlines related  

to war between Taiwan and China, and a clear  pattern emerges: Panic, at least by this metric,  

is a relatively recent, and uniquely  English phenomenon. Searches in traditional  

Chinese — used in Taiwan — have been pretty  much steady for as long as the graph goes back.

Likewise, when Chinese jets make mock attack  runs toward Taiwan, it's very often the American,  

not Taiwanese public who panics. So, what do  calmer minds know that the rest of us don't?

In democracies like the U.S., it's often said that  each party needs the other. That, if one party  

were ever given too much power for too long, it  would be forced to deliver on its promises — many  

of which it never intended to. It would have no  excuse, no scapegoat to blame when it failed.

A similar dynamic plays out in autocracies  like China. The enemy, in this case,  

is not the opposing party — there are none —  but some manufactured national humiliation.

Remember! Taiwan, the island, was  never ruled by the Communist Party.  

The framing of Taiwan as a  source of shame for China,  

that it can only ever be “complete” after  quote “reunification” — is entirely artificial.

China, in other words, wilfully  chose this version of history.  

And its predictable effects give us a hint as to  why. Chinese citizens are regularly told their  

country could easily “take Taiwan in a day”,  constantly reminded that they, personally,  

are being transgressed upon when American carrier  groups sail through the Taiwan Strait. Chinese  

artists render video game-like scenes of valiant  Chinese soldiers roaming the streets of Taipei.

This mix of shame, patriotism,  and thirst for conquest  

makes a large number of Chinese citizens  love the party just that much more.

One can't help but wonder: Given what  an invasion would entail, is Taiwan  

more useful to the Chinese leadership as a  perpetually imminent national rejuvenation?

A button, in simplistic terms, Chinese authorities  can press, whenever things aren't going  

particularly well at home, not only to distract,  but more importantly, to stoke Nationalism?

This does not, however, rule out an invasion.

The danger, for China, is that it can  easily become dependent on this button.  

Each time China gains short-term  domestic approval for threatening  

Taiwan or making outlandish claims  about how easy an invasion would be,  

it is, in effect, writing a check that  would be extraordinarily costly to cash.

Yet, it has created conditions under which  it may feel forced to — if, for example,  

Taiwan were to formally declare independence  or if it faced a legitimacy crisis at home.

And, ultimately, predictions can only get  us so far. One of the principal lessons  

so far from the war in Ukraine is not  that the “experts” were wrong, exactly,  

but that rational models of how humans  should behave don't always match reality.

We can only see the world as it is,  not as Putin or Xi Jinping see it.

Russia will pay an enormous  economic cost for its actions.  

It has already been reduced on the world  stage to the status of North Korea.  

But, although these sanctions may slow  its efforts, they have not dissuaded them.

While the odds of a Chinese invasion  of Taiwan may appear slim on paper,  

we cannot proceed under that assumption.

…In no small part because the world's vigilance is  itself one of the things that may dissuade China.

By taking the possibility seriously,  we may make it less likely.

The status quo is ideal for no one. China will  forever see Taiwan as a “renegade province”,  

a piece of unfinished business from its  past. Many in the United States are likewise,  

angry that we have to tip-toe around  the “issue” so as not to upset a bully.  

And, of course, the people of  Taiwan face the biggest burden of  

all — being denied the privileges, safety, and  opportunities of widely-recognized statehood.

But, at least for now, all three parties have  seemingly and for vastly different reasons,  

decided the status quo is still  better than the alternative.

Still, predicting China's  actions is hard — in fact,  

currently harder than it has been for  decades, as it remains effectively cut  

off from the rest of the world thanks to its  extremely heavy-handed COVID restrictions.

China is so cut off from the outside world that  it's now banning all, quote, “unnecessary travel”,  

preventing many of its own citizens, even  students studying abroad, from leaving.

Almost no one expects China  to open up again anytime  

soon. Why? That's a question that's  been on my mind for a long time,  

and one I try to tackle in the second episode  of my new Nebula Original series. Some argue  

it's about the economy. Others say it's more about  presenting an image of China abroad. But none of