Taiwan 2027: What Can WWII Teach Us About a War With China?

Island hopping has similarities with the modern "Agile Combat Employment" doctrine.

US Marines with Alpha Company, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division, hold security outside a subterranean tunnel system during subterranean training during Korean Marine Exchange Program 25.2 on LPP Gold Mine Training Area, South Korea, July 26, 2025. KMEP is a semiannual bilateral exercise that brings together ROK and US Marine Corps units to enhance combined capabilities and combat readiness, strengthen the ROK-US alliance, and reinforce regional stability and deterrence on the Korean Peninsula and across the Indo-Pacific. (US Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Paley Fenner) Public domain

When I served in the infantry, our commander used to gather the company once a month for a mental “war game.” As far as I know, this was unique among the companies in my battalion: 2/327th “No Slack” Battalion in the 101st. But then again, my commander was something of an intellectual, and he enjoyed these thought experiments.

Perhaps it was his way to elevate the grunts’ thinking beyond “shoot, move, and communicate.”

This is just a thought experiment. My assumptions, while based in fact, may be mistaken.

If you squint at the Pacific today, you can almost see the ghosts of 1942. Back then, America was flat on its back, watching the Japanese Imperial Navy carve a bloody swath from Pearl Harbor to Singapore.

The United States clawed back island by island, finally battering Japan into submission with a mix of attrition, logistics, and industrial overmatch.

Fast forward to 2027 and swap the Rising Sun for the five stars of the People’s Republic of China. Beijing is building warships like they’re Toyotas, churning out stealth fighters, and fielding missiles designed to sink carriers from halfway across the South China Sea.

The question on everyone’s mind: if China makes a move on Taiwan, can the United States pull off a sequel to its 1941–45 Pacific comeback? Or is this going to be Guadalcanal with ballistic missiles?

So, in honor of Captain Connors, let’s war game it.

Assumptions Worth Fighting Over

When I was on active duty, every war game started with ground rules. Ours begins in spring 2027. Beijing has manufactured some political crisis in the Strait, maybe a referendum in Taipei, maybe a contrived provocation, and decides the time is right.

China has three carriers of varying utility: the old Liaoning, the somewhat modernized Shandong, and the shiny new Fujian with catapults still fresh from the shipyard. Carrier aviation has improved, but it’s not US Navy quality.

That won’t matter if Beijing’s missile salvos do their job.

The PLA’s real power is its anti-access/area denial umbrella: hundreds of DF-21 and DF-26 ballistic missiles, layered with long-range SAMs, submarines, and bombers slinging anti-ship cruise missiles.

That bubble makes the western Pacific look less like an ocean and more like a very well-guarded moat.

Taiwan is better off than in 2022, but still not the porcupine many US planners want it to be. One-year conscription is back, missile and mine stocks are larger, and reserves are at least trying to improve. But if you asked me to bet on their mobilization system, I’d put my money on delays and uneven readiness.

The United States comes in with fewer big fixed sanctuaries than in the Cold War but a much more mature concept of Agile Combat Employment (ACE): dispersed fighters on highways, bombers flying from Tinian, and Marines hiding in littorals with anti-ship missiles. Japan has finally broken out of its postwar cocoon with long-range strike missiles on order, the Philippines has granted US access to austere sites, and the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment is fully in place in Okinawa.

WWII Pacific Airpower: Organized Chaos With a Purpose

The US Army Air Forces had to fight a war that was essentially a giant leapfrog campaign across an ocean the size of two continents. Instead of a single front, they were moving from one volcanic rock or coral atoll to the next, building bases as fast as engineers could clear jungle or blast coral.

The key was island-hopping airfields: every captured island became a forward base for fighters and bombers, extending the range one step closer to Japan.

Fighters (P-38s, P-40s, F6Fs when flying from Navy carriers) provided local defense and bomber escort. They were often scattered across multiple small strips, sometimes nothing more than pierced steel planking laid over mud.

A Vought F4U Corsair lifts off from Barakoma Airfield in the Solomon Islands. Designed with ruggedness in mind, the Corsair could operate from rough or improvised runways. Its powerful engine and distinctive gull wings made it a formidable close air support aircraft.

Bombers were tiered by range. Medium bombers like the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder could strike the next island chain. Heavy bombers like the B-17 and later the B-24 extended deeper. By late war, the B-29 was the crown jewel, flying out of the Marianas (Tinian, Saipan, Guam) to reach the Japanese home islands.

The organization was essentially hub-and-spoke, but with very crude hubs. Engineers carved out airfields wherever they could, supply chains ran by ship across thousands of miles, and fighter squadrons could be uprooted overnight to a newly secured strip.

Similarities With Agile Combat Employment

Fast forward to today, and ACE sounds familiar: disperse forces, operate from austere locations, keep the enemy guessing, and avoid putting all your eggs in one big airbase.

That’s basically what the US was forced to do in WWII, only then it wasn’t called ACE, it was survival in a theater where logistics moved at six knots and your “runway” was often still steaming from bulldozed lava rock.

Both systems share core principles:

Dispersal: WWII fighters were spread over multiple strips across island chains. ACE talks about dispersing F-35s and F-15s to highways or remote Pacific airstrips to complicate Chinese targeting.

Flexibility: Squadrons in the Pacific had to pack up and move every few weeks. ACE is designed for the same “pick up and go” ethos, but with modern fuel bladders, containerized munitions, and satellite comms.

Risk reduction: In WWII, cramming all bombers into one field made them sitting ducks for Japanese raids. Today, parking 100 jets at Andersen AFB, Guam, is begging for DF-21 ballistic missiles to make it a very expensive coral reef.

That said, WWII operations were more linear. The US pushed island by island, always forward. ACE is less about conquest and more about denying an adversary (read: China) an easy strike on fixed bases.

Technology: WWII units relied on engineers with shovels and Seabees with dynamite. ACE relies on pre-positioned kit, rapid runway repair, and jets that need precision fuel and weapons handling.

Command Structure: In WWII, massive numbered air forces (5th, 7th, 13th, 20th) handled different chunks of the Pacific. ACE instead plugs into modern joint command and C2 networks, where a dispersed F-35 flight might be coordinated by Link-16, AWACS, or satellites.

Mobility vs. Permanence: WWII strips often became permanent hubs (Tinian became the busiest bomber base in history). ACE doesn’t aim to “own” new territory, it aims to use temporary operating locations, then vanish.

The WWII Pacific campaign was ACE’s great-grandfather. It proved you can project airpower across scattered islands if you’re willing to disperse, improvise, and keep moving. The difference is that back then, airpower was about paving new runways to push forward. Today, it’s about making sure the runways we already have don’t get turned into smoking craters in the first salvo.

That’s our chessboard. Let’s play.

The Red Playbook: China’s First Ten Days

Blind and Bind (Days 0–2)

China opens with cyber and space disruption, power grids, communications, GPS spoofing. Early-warning radars and air defense batteries across Taiwan take precision missile hits.

Airbases get cratered. A few shots may even streak toward US and Japanese facilities in Okinawa or Guam, though Beijing will probably hold back at first to avoid locking in total war.

Quarantine (Days 3–7)

The PLAN declares a “customs quarantine.” Destroyers and frigates push east and south of Taiwan. Submarines lie in wait. Maritime traffic is interdicted, and the first salvos of economic strangulation begin.

Instead of storming Taipei, the PLA makes symbolic grabs, outlying islands like Penghu, Kinmen, or Matsu, keeping the main effort at sea.

Bite and Hold (Days 8–10)

If cracks appear in Taiwan’s defenses, limited landings follow. Otherwise, Beijing sticks to blockade and bombardment, betting the world will choke on $10-a-gallon oil and supply chain seizures before it chokes on principles.

The Blue Playbook: America and Allies Fight Back

Don’t Die in Port (Days 0–2)

Taiwan disperses its aircraft, hides mobile SAMs, and rolls out decoys. US and Japanese fighters hopscotch across highways, islands, and austere airstrips under ACE. Tinian’s World War II runways roar back to life.

American submarines slide into the Strait, waiting for fat PLAN amphibious hulls.

Cut the Throat, Not the Fist (Days 3–7)

The coalition knows it cannot kill everything, so it targets logistics. Oilers, ferries pressed into service, and amphibious ships become priority kills. Japan fires Tomahawks and long-range Type 12s at Chinese ports and coastal missile batteries. US Marines in the littorals seed no-go zones with sensors and long-range anti-ship missiles.

Choke the Chokepoints (Days 8–10)

ISR networks paint the maritime picture. Submarines and strike aircraft kill the support ships that keep a blockade alive. The PLAN can posture, but without gas and logistics, it cannot hold the line.

Echoes of 1942

If this feels familiar, it should. In 1942, Japan’s opening gambit left the US with its back against the wall. Geography and superior Japanese tactics gave Tokyo the edge for about six months. America clawed back with attrition, codebreaking, and the miracle of wartime shipbuilding.

In 2027, the disadvantage is not sunken battleships but geography and missile reach. China begins with local superiority inside the first island chain, just as Japan did in its defensive perimeter.

The US response is different: submarines, long-range missiles, dispersed aviation, but the rhythm feels the same: survive the opening salvo, preserve combat power, and then grind the opponent down where it hurts most.

The Key Differences

Here’s where the analogy breaks down.

Industry: In WWII, the US outbuilt Japan tenfold. Today, China’s shipyards outbuild America in tonnage, and US defense production is slow. Washington cannot expect to replace losses at 1943 speed.

Alliances: Imperial Japan fought alone. China faces the US, (likely the U.K.) Japan, Australia, South Korea, and the Philippines. That lattice of allies is a massive multiplier.

Technology: In WWII, radar and proximity fuses were cutting-edge. Today, cyber, space, stealth, and hypersonics redefine the battlefield.

The first side to lose its networks is effectively blind.

Nuclear deterrence: The Pacific War ended with atomic bombs. In 2027, both sides sit on nuclear arsenals. The ceiling is much lower, and every shot risks escalation.

Decision Points That Shape the War

1. Does China strike US bases early?
   If Beijing hits Okinawa or Guam in the opening days, alliance solidarity hardens instantly. If it holds back, US reinforcements under ACE arrive intact. Either way, China is gambling.

2. Can the PLAN sustain a blockade?
   Lose the oilers and civilian ferries, and the blockade collapses. This is the weak link.

3. Japan’s trigger point
   Once Tokyo launches its Tomahawks and Type 12s, Chinese coastal launch sites and ports are in danger. That shortens the war dramatically.

4. Fujian’s real value
   If the Chinese catapult carrier actually generates sustained sorties by 2027, China gets real maritime air cover. If not, it’s a prestige target guarded by nervous escorts.

So, I see three possible outcomes:

Short War, Failed Fait Accompli

This is the scenario that keeps Chinese planners up at night. Beijing rolls the dice on a quick knockout blow, only to discover that war is not a sprint, it’s a bar fight where the other guy keeps getting back up.

The opening missile salvos punch hard, but not hard enough. Taiwan’s air defenses don’t collapse; they bend, scatter, and keep firing. Mobile launchers roll out of camouflaged garages, radars switch on briefly, then shut down again.

A few F-16Vs slip through the net and keep the skies contested. More importantly, the US submarine fleet begins to cash in its chips. Amphibious transport ships and oilers start disappearing in the dark, punched full of holes by torpedoes no one sees until the water boils.

By the end of week two, the PLAN still has ships on the surface, but the lifeblood that makes a blockade credible, fuel, logistics, and steady resupply, is bleeding out. Japan adds long-range missile strikes into the mix, hitting ports and coastal staging areas.

Suddenly, the calculus changes: Beijing’s amphibious assault units are stranded without cover, and Taiwan’s beaches are still defended.

At that point, Chinese leaders face a hard choice: escalate dramatically or pause and declare victory in failure. History suggests they would choose the latter. Beijing could frame the entire operation as a “warning lesson” to Taipei, claiming it proved the island is indefensible, while quietly stepping back from the brink. The problem is that such a retreat would echo Japan’s stumble at Guadalcanal. It would sap morale, embolden US allies, and reveal to the world that China cannot actually seal the Strait against a determined coalition.

A short, failed war would not just be embarrassing, it would be strategically disastrous. It would poison Beijing’s narrative of inevitability, showing Asia that China’s rise is not unstoppable.

For a regime obsessed with perception, that is worse than losing ships.

Protracted Blockade

The second scenario is the slow bleed, the grinding stalemate. Beijing calculates that storming beaches is too risky, so instead it leans on strangulation. No invasion fleets, no amphibious gambling, just a steel cordon around Taiwan.

It looks simple: declare a “customs inspection zone,” push PLAN and Coast Guard ships into choke points, and let the missiles loom overhead as insurance. Over weeks, Taiwan’s shipping lanes clog with idled vessels.

The global market starts to panic. Semiconductors, energy imports, and food shipments all slow to a crawl. Prices spike worldwide.

The US and allies respond, but the blockade is a hydra. Submarines sink oilers, long-range strikes hammer resupply points, yet new Chinese hulls take their place.

Each kill helps, but it never breaks the noose. To really smash the blockade, the coalition would have to hit missile launch complexes and airbases deep inside China proper, a move that risks escalation to full-scale war. For Washington and Tokyo, that’s a line they hesitate to cross.

Meanwhile, Beijing bets on time. Every day the blockade holds, Taiwanese fuel reserves drain, markets tighten, and global companies pressure their governments to sue for peace.

Insurance companies stop writing policies for Strait transits. Shippers reroute through alternate ports at immense cost. What began as a military contest morphs into a war of endurance fought in boardrooms and parliaments.

This is the nightmare for democracies: not a spectacular Pearl Harbor, but a slow economic choke that frays alliances and tests political will. China doesn’t need a D-Day moment; it just needs the world to decide Taiwan isn’t worth the price of groceries tripling.

Escalation Across the Theater

The third scenario is the one that war planners whisper about in secure rooms: escalation that outruns everyone’s control. A skirmish, a miscalculated strike, or a political overreaction triggers a theater-wide inferno.

Imagine this: a US submarine sinks a Chinese amphibious ship near the Strait. Beijing retaliates by firing on a US logistics hub in Okinawa. Washington responds with strikes on Chinese missile sites along the coast.

Suddenly, the gloves are off. Bases in the Philippines burn under precision missile strikes. Guam takes a hit, forcing B-52s and tankers to scatter. Japan, now directly under fire, commits its entire strike arsenal.

At that point, the war is no longer about Taiwan. It is a regional slugfest involving every base, every satellite, every undersea cable. Supply lines are shredded, ports are blockaded, and cyberattacks crash civilian infrastructure from Manila to Los Angeles.

The US would almost certainly win a long war of attrition. Submarines would steadily sink Chinese surface combatants, American and allied long-range strike would thin out coastal assets, and the PLAN would struggle to replace lost ships at the same tempo.

But the costs would be staggering. Hundreds of ships on both sides sunk, thousands of aircraft lost, and entire bases reduced to rubble. And looming above it all is the nuclear ceiling, daring both sides to step one rung higher on the escalation ladder.

This outcome is the closest modern echo to total war in the Pacific, but unlike the 1940s, there is no guarantee industry can keep pace, and there is every guarantee the global economy would be wrecked.

War planners don’t like to speak of it openly, but this is the scenario that keeps them awake.

So, Could the US Do It Again?

The short answer is yes, but not with the same playbook. The United States cannot count on cranking out carriers and destroyers in a few years. It must win with what it already has: submarines, long-range missiles, dispersed aviation, and alliances that stretch like a chain from Japan to Australia.

Think of it as 1942 in reverse. Then, America built its way out of trouble. Now, America must innovate its way out, leveraging agility, undersea warfare, and coalition power rather than assuming Detroit can outproduce Shanghai. I live in Michigan. Trust me, Detroit is not outproducing anyone, anytime soon.

Licensed by the author from Envato Elements

The lesson from Guadalcanal still applies: survive the first punch, target what the enemy cannot replace, and keep fighting until their system collapses.

Only now, the system is not a fleet of carriers and battleships. It is an A2/AD bubble, a fragile logistics train, and the political illusion that Taiwan can be strangled without consequence.

History doesn’t repeat, but it does plagiarize itself with a lazy smirk.

In 1941, the United States was outnumbered and outgunned in the Pacific. By 1945, it was dictating terms on the deck of the USS Missouri. In 2027, China may begin with local superiority, but the United States has allies, technology, and a century of hard lessons in how to claw back from disadvantage.

The fight for Taiwan wouldn’t look like Midway or Leyte Gulf. It would look like dispersed fighters operating from highways, submarines choking off ferries, and Marines hiding missile batteries in jungle coves. It would be ugly, fast, and dangerous.

But if you’re asking whether the US can do again what it did in 1942, the answer is yes, with fewer battleships, more information dominance, and a lot more satellites.

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