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.
Talking Taiwan with former national intelligence officer Paul Heer
A new U.S. strategy in East Asia, from the Quincy Institute
China's judicial decisions database and what it means
Ryan Hass on the Biden administration's China direction
Ian Johnson and Lin Yao on "liberal" Chinese Trump supporters
Historian James Carter on the final days of Old Shanghai
Veteran diplomat Evan Feigenbaum on U.S. policy in a changing Asia
China and India: Pallavi Aiyar and Ananth Krishnan on mutual misperceptions
Is coercive environmentalism the answer?
Chilies and China: Brian Dott on how a New World import defined regional cuisines in China
Jennifer Pan studied clickbait in Chinese propaganda. You won’t believe what she discovered!
Rana Mitter on the reshaping of China’s World War II legacy
A China policy for the progressive left
The wuxia storyverse of Peter Shiao
Southeast Asia in the dragon's shadow: A conversation with Sebastian Strangio
The American journalists still in China
The fight over Inner Mongolia's "bilingual education" policy
U.S.-China relations in 2020 with Susan Shirk
Online vitriol and identity with The New Yorker’s Jiayang Fan
Sinica celebrates the 500th episode of the China in Africa Podcast
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free