The Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden is busy preparing for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan, report says
A Navy SEAL unit is busy preparing for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the Financial Times said.
The US has so far declined to explicitly say it would come to Taiwan's aid if it was attacked.
SEAL Team 6's planning is classified, people familiar with the preparations told the FT.
The Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden is busy preparing for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the preparations.
SEAL Team 6, an elite military special-missions unit, has spent more than a year planning and training at its Dam Neck base in Virginia Beach for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, per the FT.
The unit's contingency plans — in keeping with most of its missions — are highly classified. People familiar with its planning did not provide details to the FT about the specific missions it's preparing for.
While SEAL Team 6's official purpose is to test, evaluate, and develop technology and tactics for all naval special-warfare forces, it is "unofficially" involved in sensitive missions around the world.
These include battles in Afghanistan in 2002, a presence in Yemen, Syria, and Somalia in the early 2000s, and the 2011 nighttime raid on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
Special Operations Command, which oversees the command in charge of SEAL Team 6, told the FT to refer inquiries about the unit's Taiwan preparations to the Pentagon, which declined to give details.
A spokesperson said the Department of Defense and its forces "prepare and train for a wide range of contingencies."
The FT reported preparations had intensified since Phil Davidson, then the US Indo-Pacific commander, said in 2021 that China may invade Taiwan by 2027.
Military experts and former defense officials say signs point to Chinese military action to seize the island by force, possibly in just a few years. These signs include the rapid modernization of its armed forces over the past two decades and drills around Taiwan.
But experts from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War said in May that an aggressive Chinese coercion campaign — short of war but still threatening — was more likely than a full-scale invasion and that the US needed to prepare for such an eventuality.
The US Indo-Pacific Command's commander, Adm. Samuel Paparo, told Japan's Nikkei newspaper in May that China's two-day drills around the island "looked like a rehearsal" for an invasion.
However, it's unclear whether the US or its allies would get involved militarily if China invaded.
For decades, the US has adopted "strategic ambiguity" toward Taiwan, positioning itself as the island's most steadfast ally, while declining to explicitly say whether it would come to Taiwan's aid if China attacked.
A June report from the American think tank RAND Corp. said the US — if it decided to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion — may have to do it alone as several of its biggest allies are unlikely to commit troops.
The European Union, which recognizes the government of the People's Republic of China as the only legal government of China, said in July it would work with regional partners to "deter" China from invading Taiwan.
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