China’s 2024 Joint Sword exercises, and more recent Strait Thunder-2025A exercise, awakened the public psyche to the reality that the People’s Liberation Army is not just training, but rehearsing to blockade Taiwan. Such a blockade would involve halting traffic in and out of Taiwan and disrupting information flows to and from the outside world. This would isolate the nation and set the conditions for a subsequent invasion.
In terms of maritime forces, a blockade would almost certainly consist of China’s navy, coast guard, and maritime militia. These forces would likely seek to close the Taiwan Strait and adjacent channels with the goal of diverting civilian ships enroute to Taiwan.
To disrupt Taiwan’s airspace, Notices to Airmen would likely be issued warning of serious consequences, resulting in civilian aircraft bypassing Taiwan and the strait region. China’s air force and naval aviation forces would be primarily responsible for interdicting aircraft that attempt to approach or depart Taiwan. Additionally, China would certainly attempt an information blockade, which would control and restricting access to information in a designated area. These activities would likely include cutting undersea cables to Taiwan, launching cyberattacks on civilian and military infrastructure, disrupting local media, and jamming communications networks.
While Taiwan has spent years preparing for this eventuality and can make tough decisions to protect its population, food and fuel would quickly become scarce. Under these trying conditions, its citizens would be subject to more intense Chinese Communist Party psychological pressure campaigns designed to compel Taipei’s surrender.
This strategic picture is growing bleaker with each passing unchallenged rehearsal, as the Chinese Communist Party creates a new normal that favors their aggressive actions. Taiwan, the United States, Japan, Korea, and all nations that benefit from a free and open world order should prepare for the possible eventuality that a Joint Sword exercise or similar rehearsal turns into a wider blockade of Taiwan. It will likely fall on the United States and others to call out these actions for what they are: a blockade of Taiwan and an act of war.
Although American naval forces would likely come into play to counter a blockade, America’s most likely immediate response option is strategic airlift of vital supplies. The successful Berlin Airlift in the earliest phase of the Cold War offers both potential objectives and serious challenges of carrying out such a mission.
The Historical Precedent
On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union chose escalation. Soviet forces blocked all road, rail, and river access to the Western sectors of Berlin, initiating the Berlin Blockade. The Soviet Union declared it would not supply food or fuel to these areas, threatening the lives of over two million German and Allied citizens and soldiers. Moscow believed that, in the face of potential war, the West would be forced to make political concessions and cede political influence over Berlin to the Soviet Union.
Just one day later on June 25, Gen. Lucius Clay (commander in chief, U.S. Forces in Europe and military governor, U.S. Zone, Germany) set Operation Vittles in motion and officially launched (on 26 June) what would later be known as the Berlin Airlift. The mission statement was simple: “To supply the island of Berlin with the necessities of life by air.” The U.S. military estimated that Berlin required about 1,500 tons of food daily, assuming strict rationing at around 1,800 calories per person. Additionally, the city required 2,000 tons of coal and other raw materials per day to sustain itself. The challenge was how the U.S. should escalate to enforce the status quo, relieve Berlin, and deter war.
The United States and Britain were not prepared, but their forward posture gave them the capacity to respond. British airlift operations, including nearly all civilian transport, could provide about 750 tons per day, while the U.S. Air Forces in Europe could add another 225 tons — collectively far less than Berlin required. To boost the effort, the U.S. Military Air Transport Service deployed nine C-54 squadrons to support the airlift, committing over a third of America’s airlift and two-thirds of available C-54 aircrews worldwide to the effort.
As initial relief efforts grew, and after months of coordination between the United States and Britain, the Combined Airlift Task Force was formed. At its height, nearly 400 aircraft were dedicated to executing the airlift. Aircraft landed and offloaded cargo in Berlin every three minutes, allowing total tonnage to rapidly increase. From a start of 1,000 tons per day, deliveries grew to 4,500 tons, then 6,400 tons, and on April 17, 1949, nearly 13,000 tons of cargo were delivered on a single day during the “Easter Parade” — all conducted under the imminent threat of Soviet use of force to interdict the blockade runners. As the blockade continued, Combined Airlift Task Force planners concluded that meeting West Berlin’s increasing requirements would require the entire fleet of the U.S. Air Force’s C-54s, essentially all of the nation’s airlift.
Allied planners understood that breaking the blockade, while a feat, was not enough to stop the Soviet Union from continued aggression. In conjunction with the Berlin Airlift, Western powers conducted an economic counter-blockade of East Germany. The Soviet Union viewed East Germany as one of its key manufacturing nodes. Halting exports of vital industrial inputs such as coal, metallurgical products, and machine tools brought the East German economy to its knees.
The economic counter-blockade, in coordination with external political pressure, as well as internal division within the Soviet Union, led to the end of the 324-day Berlin Blockade on May 12, 1949. This dramatic display of combined national power vis a vis the Berlin Airlift and economic coercion against Soviet-controlled East Germany compelled the Soviet Union to abandon its aggressive behavior, safeguarded the lives of over two million West German and Allied citizens and soldiers, and bought time for Western leaders to devise a diplomatic solution to the crisis that was in the West’s favor.
Breaking a Blockade of Taiwan
There are critical differences between West Berlin of 1948 and Taiwan of today. U.S. and allied bases in the Western Pacific are held at risk by Chinese long-range precision fires. Moreover, Taiwan sits hundreds of miles away from key locations (approximately 300 miles from airbases on Luzon, 400 miles from Okinawa, 1,300 miles from major mainland Japan airbases, and 1,700 miles from Guam), while being just 100 miles from the aggressor, the Chinese Communist Party-controlled People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is also extremely geographically complex. It has several key populated outlying islands within kilometers of the People’s Republic of China. The main island of Taiwan is also split into an eastern and western sector by the largest mountain range in the region, with over 90 percent of the population residing on the west coast. Taiwan, at nearly 24 million souls, has over ten times the population that the Berlin Airlift supported in West Berlin, and has a modern developed economy deeply integrated into global supply chains.
Yet just like West Berlin, Taiwan finds itself in an overwhelming existential struggle against a belligerent power bent on its absorption. Like Berlin then, or Ukraine today, the simple size of the aggressor is not guaranteed to predetermine the outcome.
According to Taiwan’s public statements on its strategic reserves, without support, the main island of Taiwan can hold out for at least 90 days on existing fuel stores and has at least seven months’ worth of food stocks. These reserves will likely decrease during the road to crisis, considering China telegraphed strikes on fuel storage facilities during Strait Thunder-2025A. For outlying island clusters such as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, and Wuqiu, these numbers are certainly lower.
90 days, while not great, provides time for Taiwan, the United States, and an international coalition to challenge the blockade with humanitarian resupply efforts. Politically, the people and leaders of Taiwan cannot be expected to endure a blockade alone for weeks or months. As in Berlin, clear action and evidence of support will be needed in the first few days. If the Chinese Communist Party chooses to take direct action against an international humanitarian mission, it will almost certainly invite serious international consequences in Washington and Taipei’s favor.
Within weeks the United States could reposition the bulk of its strategic airlift to the Indo-Pacific. At the same time, the United States and allies can create an air and maritime conveyor belt of food and fuel that would stretch from the west coast of the continental United States. With expanded access, basing, and overflight rights from allies, additional belts could be established from Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and/or Korea. From a series of distributed airbases, combined airlift from just two to three of these airlift corridors could begin transporting relevant quantities of humanitarian cargo to relieve pressure on Taiwan. The airlift would provide the United States and allies with a rapid response while the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration activates the National Defense Reserve Fleet. That process can take months — not including transit to the Pacific. U.S. Army and Navy lift assets would likely be tasked with surging military personnel and equipment into the theater.
With a large percentage of the U.S. Air Force’s global strategic and tactical lift of approximately 255 C-130s, 220 C-17s, and 52 C-5s operating from Northern Luzon, the Batanes and Babuyans, the Southwest Islands, Okinawa, mainland Japan, Guam, Tinian, and Palau, the United States could keep Taiwan supplied with food. The country imports approximately 8.7 million tons of corn, soy, and wheat per year, or approximately 23,000 tons per day. U.S. Air Force lift capability across the above platforms is, by our rough calculations, 30,000 tons at a 90 percent mission capable rate. This is not including any resources from the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which would certainly be utilized.
The greater challenge is fuel. Taiwan imports nearly 98 percent of its energy resources, with most of its energy coming from coal and natural gas-fired power plants. Transporting these resources to Taiwan will be exceptionally difficult because the majority of Taiwan’s existing primary oil and gas terminals are located on the west coast at locations such as Kaohsiung, Mailiao, Taichung, and Taoyuan. To maintain some level of resource flow to Taiwan, the United States and the international coalition would need to proof a maritime corridor to Kaohsiung or Keelung and offload fuel at small alternative ports in the East like Su’ao and Hualien. For this to be effective, ports, berths, and facilities specialized for storing and transporting oil and natural gas should be developed and expanded along the east coast.
The effort to sustain Taiwan would require the United States to be prepared to respond to Chinese Communist Party belligerence and accept risk in other theaters due to rapid force re-posturing. Significantly expanded access, basing, and overflight agreements with host nations — who themselves would be under tremendous pressure from the Chinese Communist Party —would also be required.
Breaking the Blockade is Not Enough
In 1949, Soviet resolve did not waiver solely because of the material success of the Berlin Airlift. West Berlin was 100 miles behind Red Army lines and the Soviets could maintain the blockade — even if to little effect — indefinitely. The Chinese Communist Party should be expected to be similarly tenacious. What the Soviets could not maintain was the increasing damage to their reputation on the international stage and growing economic hardship. China in 2025 may have a more significant economy than the Soviet Union in 1949, but it is far from invincible.
The blockade further alienated regions of free Germany from supporting the Soviets and hastened the formation of an anti-Soviet coalition that became the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Like the Berlin Airlift, it is unlikely that a Taipei Airlift alone would be enough to end a blockade of Taiwan. If initial deterrence fails, the United States should compel the Chinese Communist Party to change course and manage further escalation. There are several ways to achieve this.
First, Taiwan and the United States, ideally with allies like Japan, Australia, Korea, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom, should form the core of a new coalition. The stated purpose of this coalition would be a commitment not only to maintain the current free and open world order, but to specifically prevent and counter the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive attempts at revisionism. Without Allied resolve, West Berlin would likely have fallen at the outset of the blockade in 1948. This commitment to counter aggression over Taiwan must be clearly communicated to the Chinese Communist Party through the coalition.
Second, the coalition should communicate clear objectives to the Chinese Communist Party. In 1948, Washington, London, and Paris informed Moscow their goal was to access West Berlin, avoid humanitarian crisis, and de-escalate tensions without the use of force. The coalition can assure the Chinese Communist Party their goals will not shift to more escalatory aspirations like regime change as long as the Chinese Communist Party changes course. If the Chinese Communist Party does not acquiesce, the coalition should be ready and willing to operate across the spectrum of coercion and conflict.
Third, the coalition should credibly communicate it has the capability and willingness to bring force against the Chinese Communist Party if necessary. If a blockade is already in place, it means that deterrence has already failed to some extent, but in the ensuing days and months the coalition should surge military forces into the region and signal to the Chinese Communist Party that further escalation will result in roll back.
After the Soviets initiated the blockade in 1948, Truman moved B-29 bomber groups to Europe to communicate to the Soviet Union that the United States would not be idle and accept further escalation. This commitment signaled America’s capability and willingness to deny the Soviet Union from achieving its goals.
Fourth, the coalition should recognize that piecemeal sanctions and Swiss cheese-like tech restrictions will do little to punish the Chinese Communist Party and may in fact embolden Chinese Communist Party leadership to take further action. The coalition should be willing to enact an embargo on critical People’s Republic of China exports/imports and enforce severe consequences for violations.
The embargo could begin with vital inputs to the economy like integrated circuits and electrical equipment, be enhanced to include oil and natural gas, iron ore, and lithium, and further enhanced to include food imports. Imposing severe costs on Chinese citizens would ensure the Chinese Communist Party has high costs to pay at home for aggressive action abroad.
Deterring a Blockade
Compelling a change in behavior, once already initiated, is extremely challenging and can run the risk of conflict. A less costly option would be strengthening deterrence prior to the outset of a blockade. Current reported actions such as an alleged special forces presence on Taiwan’s outlying islands, military equipment sales to Taiwan, and high-tech drone programs, do little to credibly communicate the United States’ or any coalition’s ability to counter the Chinese Communist Party. On the contrary, these actions antagonize Beijing without communicating credible capability – a significantly more dangerous path.
Washington should recognize that rehearsals like Strait Thunder-2025A are a serious form of escalation. Not responding, or not appearing to respond, will invite further escalation. Washington should clearly communicate steps taken in response to Chinese Communist Party actions surrounding Taiwan.
Conclusion
The Berlin Airlift demonstrated that a clear strategic vision, coupled with economic and military resolve, can overcome a blockade and shift the balance of power in favor of a free and open world order. Breaking Chinese military blockade of Taiwan, while a daunting challenge, is not insurmountable. The success of a Taipei Airlift would require a robust coalition of nations willing to take calculated risks, ensure Taiwan’s continued survival, and impose severe costs on the Chinese Communist Party. However, history shows that breaking a blockade is only one part of the equation. Economic and diplomatic pressure must be applied to create steep costs for continuing a blockade while complementary military efforts compel the Chinese Communist Party to change course.
Half-measures and symbolic gestures will invite more serious Chinese Communist Party escalation. Instead, forward-deployed military forces, air and maritime logistics prepositioning, economic resilience planning with Taiwan, and building the coalition should be priorities.
A Chinese blockade of Taiwan will likely occur in the future. American leaders will be tested. Washington should have the focus to realize that a blockade operation comes with enormous risks to Beijing’s position.
The ultimate question is whether the United States, in concert with Taiwan and a broader coalition, can demonstrate leadership, act rapidly and with clear conviction in crisis, and impose costs on the Chinese Communist Party that are magnitudes greater than just defeating the blockade, resulting in the Chinese Communist Party abandoning aggression. If this can be achieved, it would prevent a wider war and reaffirm the resilience of the free and open world order for generations to come.
Reid Yankowski is an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves.
Robert Wes is a Marine Corps veteran of the Global War on Terror and current works in the defense startup industry.
The views in this article are those of the authors and not those of the U.S. Marine Corps, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
Image: Senior Airman Natalie Doan
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