Washington, DC [US], December 22 : An unclassified war game conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests that the United States' nuclear buildup would not help deter China from using atomic weapons in a potential conflict over Taiwan, Taipei Times reported.
The simulation, the first large-scale unclassified exercise of a potential nuclear war over Taiwan, found that while "favourable outcomes were possible, a complete victory was unachievable" if nuclear weapons were deployed.
The exercise, conducted in response to growing calls for the US to modernise its nuclear weapons to counter China's increasing capabilities, explored conditions under which both the US and China might be pushed to use nuclear arms, as per Taipei Times.
The war game did not focus on the likelihood of either side using nuclear weapons but examined the pressures commanders might face in escalating a conflict to that point, the Financial Times cited the CSIS report as saying.
The greatest pressure for using nuclear weapons came when teams playing China faced defeat, giving credence to US concerns that China could be backpedalling from its pledge to not use nukes first in a conflict, it said.
According to the Taipei Times, the result formed a sharp contrast to the decisive US victory in last year's CSIS-MIT exercise that did not permit the use of nuclear weapons.
In the nuclear games, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) retreated from Taiwan five times out of the 15 times the simulation was played, including four in which neither side used nuclear weapons.
The US team was the first to use nuclear weapons in only one iteration of the war games. In another iteration, Taiwan returned to the "status quo" after the US hit PLA forces in Taiwan with nuclear weapons following a Chinese nuclear strike on Taiwanese forces.
Three iterations of the war game ended in the US and China's mutual annihilation in a nuclear exchange that destroyed cities and killed millions. This occurred after one side used nuclear weapons on the other's tactical forces.