Navy SEALs could train Taiwan to defeat possible Chinese invasion: experts

The unit carries out sensitive missions around the world, including battles in Afghanistan in 2002, a presence in Yemen, Syria and Somalia in the early 2000s and the 2011 night raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

However, the unit’s contingency plans – like most of its missions – are highly classified, and people familiar with its planning have not given the FT details about the specific missions it is preparing for.

According to three retired naval officers, the unit could train Taiwanese soldiers to fight against China if it invades Taiwan.

Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, expects the SEALs to do two things.

One, he told BI, “is to train Taiwanese forces in reconnaissance and perhaps direct attack, focusing on missions that might be necessary to defeat a Chinese invasion.”

“Naval reconnaissance forces would locate Chinese forces for long-range attacks,” he said, adding: “They could also launch attacks against offshore vessels or ships in Chinese ports.”

Another, he said, is familiarizing themselves with the terrain so they can be better employed if needed.

Bradley Martin, a retired surface warfare captain who served in the Navy for 30 years, said the SEALs’ “broad” missions include intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and potential action against an invading force.

These are “well established in the SEAL mission set,” he told BI.

Sam Tangredi, a retired US Navy captain and surface warfare officer, made a similar assessment.

He told BI that in a “conventional” war between the US, its allies and China, the SEALs would likely assume their “traditional” naval roles.

These include direct reconnaissance of coastal areas before major amphibious operations, identifying naval minefields and gaining knowledge of mine capabilities and patterns, sabotage operations against enemy naval units and ports, and land operations at sea, he said.

“A ‘great power war’ – inevitably involving oceans or ocean access – would require the traditional naval role,” he said.

“After all, Taiwan is an island. Most of the PRC’s combat capabilities in an invasion would travel by sea,” he said, using the initials of the People’s Republic of China.

Prepare Taiwan for an attack

For decades, the US has adopted “strategic ambiguity“toward Taiwan, positioning itself as the island’s staunchest ally, refusing to say explicitly whether it would come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacked.

Over the past few years, however, the mood in Washington, DC, has shifted toward greater reckoning, Graeme Thompson, analyst at Eurasia Group, said Business Insider last november

President Joe Biden himself has repeatedly suggested that the US would respond militarily if China attacked Taiwan.

Reports have already hinted at how the US is preparing for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Last year, US officials told The Wall Street Journal that the US plans to quadruple the number of troops deployed in Taiwan from the previous year, from about 30 in 2022 to between 100 and 200 troops in 2023.

In January, US officials said Reuters The US is trying to spread its military logistics centers across the Pacific, including depots in Australia.

Speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue Summit in June, Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said The Washington Post that one of the US plans is to launch thousands of unmanned systems, from surface ships and submarines to aerial drones, to fight any Chinese invasion as soon as it begins to cross the Taiwan Strait.

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, Taiwan is also one of the largest buyers of US defense equipment.

Martin said he expects the SEALs to be involved in an emergency response, but added that it does not represent a change in current U.S. policy.

“There might be more attention than in previous periods, but emergency planning has been going on for decades,” he said.

Cancian said contingency plans are not policies or commitments.

“The United States has not abandoned strategic ambiguity,” he said.

Preparations ramped up after US admiral predicted China could invade Taiwan by 2027

In its report on SEAL Team 6, the FT said preparations had intensified since Adm. Phil Davidson, then the US commander for the Indo-Pacific, said China could invade Taiwan by 2027.

During a 2021 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Davidson said that Taiwan was “clearly” one of China’s “ambitions” and that he believed the threat would be “manifested” in the “next six years.”

Since then, military experts and former defense officials have made similar assessments, some varying on China’s timeline and means, while others focused on allies Taiwan can rely on.

Most say signs — such as China’s rapid modernization of its armed forces over the past two decades and exercises around Taiwan — point to Chinese military action to occupy the island by force, possibly in just a few years.

But experts from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War said in May, that an aggressive Chinese campaign of coercion—without war, but still threatening—was more likely than a full-scale invasion, and that the U.S. needed to prepare for such an eventuality.

adm. Paparo told the Japanese Nikkei newspaper in May, China’s two-day exercises around the island “looked like a rehearsal” for an invasion.

A June report from the American think tank RAND Corp. said the U.S. may have to defend Taiwan alone because many of its biggest allies are unlikely to commit troops.

Meanwhile, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said this week that he has seen growing concern and alarm from other countries in the Indo-Pacific region about China’s capabilities and intentions over the past 15 years.

Speaking to a the main speech at an Air Force and Space Association convention, he said the threat of war between the US and China was growing.

“I’m not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable. It’s not,” Kendall said. “But I say the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so.”