A Question of Balance: Political Context and Military Aspects of the China-Taiwan Dispute

Abstract

The military balance across (the Taiwan Strait is changing in ways that make more complex both the set of operational challenges associated with defending Taiwan against a possible Chinese attack and the strategic imperative of shaping Chinese behavior so that no such attack ever occurs. This report documents a follow-on effort to one published in 2000 (Shlapak, Orletsky, and Wilson, 2000), reassessing and expanding that earlier study's snapshot of the cross-strait balance, looking ahead to the 2010-2015 period. As in the 2000 study, we employed a mix of theater-level combat modeling, simpler mathematical models, historical analysis, interviews with experts, and qualitative judgment. The conclusions of the present work have proven to be substantially less optimistic for the Taiwan (and U.S.) side.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA504046

Entities

People

  • Barry Wilson
  • David A. Shlapak
  • David T. Orletsky
  • Murray S. Tanner
  • Toy I. Reid

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Biomedical
  • Cyber
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerial Warfare
  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Anti-Tank Missiles
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Guided Bombs
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Rockets
  • Satellite Guided Weapons
  • Semiconductor Manufacturing
  • Short Range Ballistic Missiles
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Asian Economic Studies
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Theoretical Analysis.