Beyond The Taiwan Scenario: Applying the Dark Arts of Force Planning to Long-Term U.S.-China Competition
Force planning—the art and science of determining the forces, posture, and capabilities most appropriate for the nation—is inherently uncertain and subjective. While data and analysis support decisions, political judgment and scenario-based assumptions play a dominant role. In recent years, U.S. defense planning has tightly focused on a singular scenario: a large-scale Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan.
This Taiwan scenario involves a short, decisive conflict in which the U.S. military responds quickly to halt a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) assault aimed at rapidly seizing the island. Proponents argue that planning for this “worst-case” contingency stress-tests U.S. capabilities. If the military can win here, then it’s likely prepared for anything less demanding. This is a sensible approach. Given the immediacy and danger posed by a Taiwan contingency, it is appropriate for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to procure as many readily deployable, purpose-built weapon systems as possible to deter, and if necessary, deny an PLA invasion force. However, it is also the case that the dominance of this scenario in defense planning carries distortionary risks—skewing investments, doctrine, and operational design toward one set of assumptions while potentially blinding the Pentagon to other credible threats. And that distortion may have a multiplier effect over time, as the future becomes less certain and opportunity costs become even higher in the long-term U.S.-China military competition.
The Distortionary Effects of the Taiwan Scenario
The decision to focus on preparing for war against China in one theater is a political one, derived from the U.S. government’s assessment of U.S. strategic interests, resource constraints, and the threat environment.[1] Yet, while the Taiwan scenario is strategically relevant and rightly commands attention, its dominance introduces bias. It promotes a vision of short, decisive conflict centered on maritime and air denial capabilities. But the future of great power competition—particularly with China—may not look like this.
To be sure, scenario-based planning has historical pedigree. It was instrumental to the birth of AirLand Battle doctrine during the Cold War and guided U.S. success in the Gulf War. But over-reliance—particularly on any one scenario—has limitations. First, it can lead to a fixation on certain assumptions that support service parochialisms or wish away the hardest problems, such as contested logistics. Second, scenarios are inherently static, depicting war as a sequence of predictable phases, overlooking the unpredictable and protracted character of modern conflict. Finally, scenarios can lead to strategic blind spots. On one hand, sharp focus on a given scenario can reassure allies and deter adversaries; on the other hand, it lets the adversary “off the hook” to focus equally sharply on one thing, rather than hedging his bets.
Another major issue with focusing on a specific scenario is that its value as a realistic representation of conflict may decline as time horizons stretch and the future becomes even less knowable. Questions about medium- to long-term investments in force structure become more complicated, not only because of the uncertainty, but also more time may open new options to invest in systems that take longer to build, cost more, and/or push technological limits. The gamble in sophisticated technology may be worth taking if these systems, such as low-observable submarines, and aircraft, or perhaps fully autonomous robotic systems, yield an asymmetric advantage in a long-term U.S.-China competition. Planners that over-index on a specific vision of a near-term Taiwan scenario may do so at the expense of identifying longer-term opportunities to tip the military balance in America’s favor.
Broadening the Toolkit: A Catalogue of Dark Arts
Scenario analysis should not be discarded. But it must be balanced with other methodologies that can mitigate its distortionary effects by identifying key vulnerabilities and building toward resilience in the force structure. Alternative force planning methods may suffer from the same pathologies that plague a scenario-based approach (service parochialism is likely to haunt any force design effort) and in fact, many alternative approaches might still use scenarios as a basis for analysis. But efforts to broaden the scenario space – i.e., introducing a number of scenarios across geographies or time horizons, for example – and apply alternative force planning methods can play a critical role. They can raise awareness of novel, if less likely threats, force tough conversations about trading “fight tonight” forces against the force of the future, and identify versatile capabilities with utility across the spectrum of conflict and over time.
A relatively obscure 1996 book chapter on force planning by Bartlett, Holman, and Somes catalogues the various force planning dark arts and calls for a pluralistic approach that extends well beyond scenario-based assessments.[2] Many, if not all, of these alternative methods are already in use both inside the Pentagon and in the broader analytic community. The key is to ensure they are applied as complements to analysis of the Taiwan scenario.
Capabilities-Based Planning (CBP) allows for the design of a more flexible force structure. It begins not with a specific adversary or theater, but with a broader question: what types of capabilities would allow the United States to respond effectively to a wide range of possible threats? This approach builds versatility into the force structure, and may be helpful in ensuring U.S. forces charged with deterring the PLA can adapt to warfare across domains, geographies and intensity, from cyber warfare to gray zone competition, and geographically distinct scenarios such as in the Indian Ocean.
Anti-Groupthink Tools include historical analysis, red teaming, and informed speculation. These approaches help planners identify hidden vulnerabilities and explore black swan scenarios that might fall outside normal expectations.[3] RAND, for instance, developed a series of unconventional scenarios for a potential conflict with China, ranging from the Indian Ocean to cis-lunar space. These studies emphasized that even seemingly improbable scenarios can yield important strategic lessons for the U.S.-China military balance—especially about the need for the United States to get serious about long-term industrial capacity and stressing logistical demands.[4]
Systems Thinking & Complexity Theory encourages planners to anticipate cascading and simultaneous effects. Rather than assuming a linear sequence of events, such as missile attacks followed by amphibious landings, planners must consider the possibility of regional escalation, economic disruption, and cyber spillovers into other theaters. For example, PLA strikes on U.S. ports or infrastructure could severely hinder the nation’s ability to project power. These types of interactions are often overlooked in traditional scenario-based models.
Net Assessment compares U.S. military capabilities with those of its adversaries over time, taking into account strategic posture, technological trends, and political will. Rather than optimizing for a single outcome, it promotes adaptability across multiple conflict types and timelines. This approach, with its focus on identifying asymmetries, underpinned innovations such as stealth technology and precision-guided munitions, both of which enabled the United States to rapidly defeat Iraq in 1991. Net assessment, with its focus on the military balance, also recognizes the enduring value of scale, encouraging force planners not to take for granted the humble “bean count.” Mass, in the form of munitions, platforms, and manpower, allows forces to respond quickly and across multiple axis, forcing adversaries to consider the possibility of a serious U.S. challenge across a spectrum of geographies and scenarios.
The Scenario Is Dead. Long Live the Scenario.
Traditional scenario-based analysis, which focuses tightly on the most strategically relevant, stressing, and plausible case, plays a critical role in U.S. force planning. But, like any force planning approach, a focus on a singular scenario presents serious limitations and introduces strategic blind spots. Alternative force planning approaches can complement scenario-based methods by providing unconventional perspectives that expose critical vulnerabilities and encourage resilience in U.S. force design across both time and conflict type.
Specifically, the alternatives identified here emphasized the importance of pairing preparation for rapid denial of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan with other considerations including the potential for a U.S.-China conflict to migrate across the spectrum of conflict, from gray zone to nuclear challenges; for protracted conflict; for homeland attacks on power projection nodes; and for U.S.-China conflict occurring outside the western Pacific. All of these contingencies might place different demands on U.S. force structure. U.S. policymakers do not need to immediately and completely address these demands. But they need to be aware of them, continually mitigating distortions in force design to ensure U.S. forces can rapidly adjust and hedge to deter the gravest threats to U.S. interests.
[1] U.S. government priorities and constraints have driven a gradual shift in force planning from planning to fight two wars simultaneously to fighting just one, see Jim Mitre, “Eulogy for the Two-War Construct,” Washington Quarterly, 2018.
[2] Henry C. Bartlett, G. Paul Holman, Timothy E. Somes, “The Art and Strategy of Force Planning,” Naval War College Review, 1995. https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3188&context=nwc-review
[3] Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, New York: Random House, 2007.
[4] Joel Predd, Paul DeLuca, Scott Savitz, Edward Geist, Caitlin Lee, Thinking Through Protracted War With China: Nine Scenarios, Santa Monica; RAND, 2025.
