This week on Sinica, Kaiser welcomes back Lyle Goldstein, director for China engagement at the think tank Defense Priorities and previously a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 20 years. Lyle offers his perspectives on an extensive wargaming exercise focusing on a Chinese amphibious assault on Taiwan, conducted under the auspices of CSIS (the Center for Strategic and International Studies) and published in January of this year — the first such exercise whose findings were made public. He offers insight into the real value of the exercise, as well as some of its shortcomings.
01:03 – The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan – the first large-scale publicly available wargame conducted by CSIS
04:05 – The history of wargaming and its significance
09:09 – What is the value of wargaming?
13:12 – The physical setup of the wargames and the role of dice and technology in contingency
17:49 – The assumptions that go into the game
22:05 – How much agency do the players have?
24:16 – How are the decisions of other countries factored in the wargame?
26:11 – Pros and cons of the CSIS wargame
31:57 – Thoughts on the possibility of nuclear escalation
38:43 – A take on the report’s assumptions and conclusions
47:37 – Will we get a warning?
A complete transcript of this episode is available at TheChinaProject.com.
Recommendations:
CSIS Report: The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan
Lyle: Yin Yu Tang in Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts
Kaiser: The Story of Civilization [Volumes 1 to 11] by Will & Ariel Durant
Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume 1 by Will Durant
Mentioned:
Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry by Lyle J. Goldstein
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
China's soft power collides with the hard realities of the Russo-Ukrainian War: A conversation with Maria Repnikova
China’s Ukraine conundrum, with Evan Feigenbaum
Biden's China policy needs to be more than "Trump lite:" A conversation with Jeff Bader
Veteran diplomat Bill Klein recalls the turbulent Trump years at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing
What China is reading and why it matters: A conversation with author Megan Walsh
China's ideological landscape, with Jason Wu
Why the law matters in China, with Jeremy Daum of Yale's Paul Tsai China Law Center
Personality and political discontent in China, with Rory Truex
Dan Wang on China in 2021: "Common prosperity," cultural stunting, and shortcomings of the "modal China story
Mental models for understanding complexity, with Anthea Roberts and Nicolas Lamp
The sociologist watching the China-watchers: A conversation with David McCourt
Damien Ma of MacroPolo on China's economic and political outlook
The investigative team from MIT Technology Review that found major flaws with the DoJ's China Initiative
FOCAC 2021 in Dakar, Senegal, and B3W — the U.S. counter to China's BRI?
Sinica presents the best of China Stories 2021
Revisiting the Red New Deal, with Lizzi Lee and Jude Blanchette (live at NEXTChina 2021)
The Carter Center's survey on Chinese perception, with Yawei Liu and Michael Cerny
Peter Hessler live at the NEXTChina 2021 Conference in New York
Psychologist George Hu of the United Family Mental Health Network on mental health in China
The worldview of Wang Huning, the Party's leading theoretician
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free