NPEC War and Diplomatic Simulations

China’s timetable to absorb Taiwan by force of arms lags that of Washington, which feared an invasion might occur as early as 2027. Instead, in the mid and late 2020s, China fears the economic and military downsides of any military invasion. Taiwan’s successful pursuit of a “porcupine strategy” by employing accurate drones and missiles only reinforce Beijing’s concerns. China has developed advanced airborne mine countermeasures, unmanned underwater vehicles, and electronic jamming tools to counter Taiwan’s sea denial systems, though their effectiveness in contested waters remains uncertain. In 2028, Taiwan reelects Lai Ching-te as its president and the United States elects J.D. Vance, who asserts that Taiwan must defend itself (albeit with continued U.S. military sales).

By 2032, China has deployed 250 conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (C-ICBMs), each capable of carrying up to six MIRVs (either unitary high-explosive warheads or runway-busting submunitions). These missiles, outwardly identical in form to their nuclear-armed counterparts (e.g., DF-31, DF-41), were designed to hold U.S. territory at risk without initiating nuclear war. However, their physical resemblance to nuclear systems creates a profound problem: adversaries cannot reliably distinguish a conventional launch from a nuclear one during the short warning timelines of intercontinental flight.

Although the United States began developing a similar conventional missile in 2029, its progress lags behind. By 2032, America has yet to field a deployed C-ICBM force and instead continues to rely on stealth bombers, forward-deployed standoff systems, and precision strike cruise missiles. Even so, Washington grows increasingly alarmed at the strategic instability introduced by long-range systems that are tactically useful yet escalatory in appearance. U.S. officials debate whether any observable features—launcher markings, trajectory profiles, or basing patterns—could meaningfully reduce the risks of misinterpretation.

Chinese doctrine, meanwhile, views C-ICBMs as a core component of a new deterrence calculus: able to threaten U.S. CONUS infrastructure (including airbases, shipyards, and fuel distribution nodes) without crossing the nuclear threshold. The PLA Rocket Force assigns AI-assisted targeting systems to generate optimized strike packages, often shaped by machine learning models with minimal human override. This compressed decision loop raises further concern in Washington, where military officials fear misclassification errors, automation bias, and time pressures might escalate a conventional exchange into nuclear conflict.

In 2032, Washington reaches out to Beijing to discuss possible limits on numbers of conventional intercontinental missiles. China insists that negotiations must include US forward deployed long-range precision strike forces that threaten China. Beijing also argues that its C-ICBMs were designed to deter US forward deployed forces by posing a direct threat to CONUS at a lower level than nuclear-armed missiles.