Robert Greenway and Anna Gustafson

Structure of the Report

The United States currently faces no greater threat than the People’s Republic of China (PRC). TIDALWAVE was thus conceived through the anticipation of a conflict between the U.S. and the PRC and by identifying the need for strategic planning and sustainment preparation. The purpose of TIDALWAVE was to identify gaps and deficiencies and corresponding solutions to resolve anticipated shortfalls in our ability to project and sustain forces and to exploit adversary vulnerabilities in order to degrade their ability to conduct military operations. TIDALWAVE examined two primary systems that will affect the ability of the United States to project and sustain its force: Fuel and ammunition. Given these systems are imperative to the employment of forces, they will also become vulnerabilities of the PRC during conflict. To examine these vulnerabilities with greater granularity, we modeled both fuel and ammunition systems of the U.S. and the PRC, conducting an extended simulation of the conflict and analyzing each system in depth.

This report serves as an artifact of the process. Beginning with the purpose of the project, it explains the context and research questions that drove the start of Tidalwave. To accomplish this purpose, we employed a layered methodology that began with AI-enabled knowledge development that gathered over 7,000 sources for expert review. The resulting data then informed development of the models of all four systems: U.S. Fuel, U.S. Munitions, PRC Fuel, and PRC Munitions.

These models allowed us to conduct a target system analysis of the PRC fuel and ammunition systems in which we determined (1) the critical capabilities of each system and (2) the requirements supporting each of these capabilities, from which we finally derived (3) the vulnerabilities of each requirement that thereby affect the function of the entire system and are subject to exploitation by various tools of U.S. national power. An optimal targeting strategy was built based on this analysis.

Using a similar method of system analysis, we evaluated our own vulnerabilities in fuel and ammunition systems and used the resulting data to inform opportunities for mitigation that we highlight in the report.

The assessments of all four systems and TIDALWAVE’s conflict simulation provided us with the necessary facts to guide our recommendations to Congress and the executive branch as to which proposed solutions mitigate our most critical vulnerabilities and offer a targeting sequence to exploit those of the PRC most effectively ahead of and during a conflict. In other words, TIDALWAVE yields recommendations that, if executed, will extend our sustainment and push the U.S. culmination date beyond that of the PRC, buying us time and resources to achieve our national security objectives.

Taken together, the report’s structure reflects the logic of the analysis itself. It progresses deliberately from problem definition and research questions, through evidence collection and model construction, to system-level assessment and simulation results, converging in actionable judgments and recommendations.

Purpose

The purpose of Tidalwave is to identify gaps and deficiencies and corresponding solutions to resolve anticipated shortfalls in our ability to project and sustain forces and to exploit adversary vulnerabilities in order to degrade their ability to conduct military operations. We examined the two primary systems that we anticipated will have the greatest impact at the strategic level in a U.S.-China conflict: fuel and ammunition. Conversely, Chinese fuel and ammunition can also become potential adversary vulnerabilities in a conflict between the U.S. and China. Tidalwave will use a progressive Artificial Intelligence–enabled computer simulation to simulate an extended (greater than six months) escalation scenario between the U.S. and the PRC in the Indo-Pacific. This simulation has addressed some of the most pressing questions regarding a potential conflict with China:

1. When would the U.S. be incapable of sustaining conflict (defined as the ability to generate and deliver fuel and critical ammunition) with the PRC?
2. When would the PRC and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) be incapable of sustaining its military operations against the U.S.?
3. What changes are required in existing programs and appropriations to ensure that the U.S. military can effectively prevail in extended escalation scenarios against the PRC?
4. What new programs and appropriations will ensure that the U.S. military can effectively prevail in extended escalation scenarios against the PRC?
5. What PRC deficiencies exist in fuel and ammunition systems, and how can we exploit these critical vulnerabilities most effectively?

By answering these questions, this simulation will inform Congress and the executive branch with respect to what changes are required to ensure that the U.S. military can effectively deter and prevail in a protracted conflict against the PRC.

Potential fuel and ammunition shortages could be potential risks or potential opportunities. On one hand—due to the vastness of the Indo-Pacific region, the limited infrastructure, the contested nature of the environment, and area denial strategies—the production, transport, storage, and distribution of fuel and ammunition for military operations in the Pacific are likely insufficient to prevail in a prolonged conflict with China. On the other hand, China’s dependence on oil imports—with 43 percent coming from the Gulf region—could constrain its military operations. These risks and opportunities are often overlooked when simulating a potential conflict with the PRC despite the increasing potential of confrontation as many insiders point to 2027 as the year for a potential conflict between China and the U.S.

After analyzing how PRC and U.S. fuel and ammunition levels would fare in a potentially prolonged conflict, this project hopes to correct deficiencies in our ability to project and sustain the Joint Force and exploit adversary vulnerabilities.

Methods

Tidalwave was designed to answer the complex and critical national security challenges of the day. The scale and scope of such an undertaking required a disciplined methodology.

Hybrid Approach and Project Structure

Tidalwave employed a human-led, AI-enabled hybrid architecture that integrates professional military judgment, structured intelligence tradecraft, and large-scale data processing. The methodology deliberately avoided the limitations of traditional tabletop wargaming (high judgment, limited data volume) and purely algorithmic modeling (high data volume, limited operational context) by combining the strengths of both.

The project thus became a three-part effort:

1. A protracted conflict simulation of fuel and munitions sustainment;
2. A visualization layer to make those dynamics intelligible to policymakers; and
3. This report, which documents the methodology, analysis, conclusions, and recommendations.

The research workflow paired expert analysis with constrained, auditable AI pipelines (for literature triage, extraction, normalization, reconciliation, sensitivity sweeps, and compliance checks). Human analysts retained ownership of model structure, scenario logic, assumptions, and final judgments, and any claim not verifiable by a human reviewer was removed or explicitly flagged as an assumption.

Scope, Parameters, and Strategic Focus

To preserve analytical clarity and strategic relevance, the study was bounded by several deliberate constraints:

• Conventional-only, non-nuclear conflict (theater nuclear escalation will be addressed in a separate report);
• Primary focus on air and naval forces, which dominate plausible combat power in a Taiwan contingency;
• Strategic-level analysis centered on the fuel and munitions systems that enable force projection and endurance;
• Geographic anchoring in the Indo-Pacific while accounting for some global supply disruptions;
• Contemporary force posture and infrastructure without assuming future force growth or new basing; and
• No attempt to model the full range of disruptions inside the United States (e.g., CONUS strikes) where assumptions would outstrip defensible quantitative modeling.

These boundaries ensured that the modeling remained defensible while directly targeting the most binding sustainment risks and corresponding leverage points.

Key Intelligence Questions and Analytic Design

The simulation was organized around seven Key Intelligence Questions (KIQs) assessing:

• PLA fuel and munitions endurance, chokepoints, and vulnerability to kinetic and non-kinetic pressure;
• U.S. fuel throughput, stockpiles, and munitions sustainability in a contested Indo-Pacific theater;
• Foreign-sourced dependencies in both systems;
• Comparative timelines of degradation, leverage, and exhaustion; and
• Optimal sequencing of cross-domain levers across pre-crisis through mid-campaign phases.

Together, these KIQs treat U.S. and PLA sustainment as competing logistical architectures whose performance determines campaign feasibility and outcomes.

Scenario Framework

Four scenarios were modeled to capture different combinations of preparation and escalation:

• Scenario A: High U.S. / High PRC pressure.
• Scenario B: High U.S. / Low PRC pressure.
• Scenario C: Low U.S. / Low PRC pressure.
• Scenario D: Low U.S. / High PRC pressure.

All scenarios shared a common campaign frame (365-day horizon, major combat onset at Day 30, common geography, and shared modeling structures) so that observed differences reflect policy-relevant choices, not modeling artifacts.

Modeling Architecture: System-Level Sustainment and Day-by-Day Operations

Tidalwave’s core analytic engine is a daily time-step logistics model across the four linked systems:

1. U.S. Fuel,
2. U.S. Munitions,
3. PLA Fuel, and
4. PLA Munitions.

Each module integrates platform demand, stock, throughput, interdiction, and replenishment to produce:

• First-deficit days,
• Collapse windows, and
• Magnitude/location of unmet demand (including critical nodes and bases).

Data, Validation, and Tradecraft

The methodology rests on a large and diverse open-source evidence base supported by structured tradecraft:

• Together, analysts and AI agents ingested and structured more than 7,000 sources from government, industry, commercial, academic, and operational sectors.
• AI outputs were constrained to structured procedures and subjected to human review for source integrity, logical validity, and tradecraft compliance.
• Verification included claim-source auditing to detect citation drift, false inference chains, and unstated assumptions, complemented by subject-matter expert (SME) review, red-team reads, and alternative-hypothesis testing.

Where high-quality data existed, they were normalized and reconciled across sources. Where the open-source record was thin—especially regarding PLA reserves, wartime consumption behavior, and certain operational rates—analysts used bounded ranges, explicit assumptions, and calibrated confidence language.

Throughout this process, our human and AI methods enforced ICD-203 and ICD-206 standards, which establish the analytic and sourcing rules for all U.S. intelligence products. This yielded 182,135 derived observations, findings, and judgments across 499 variables per system. Together, they require analysis to be objective, accurate, and independent of political influence (ICD-203) while also ensuring that every key judgment is transparently sourced with reliability and limitations clearly communicated (ICD-206).

Systems Vulnerabilities

PRC Fuel

• Deep-Water Ports and Terminal Infrastructure: VLCC-capable terminals like Ningbo-Zhoushan are indispensable funnels for crude. Their destruction would sever the supply chain at its source.
• Reliance on the Strait of Malacca: Significant disruption or blockade of this single chokepoint would cripple China’s crude oil imports, rapidly depleting reserves.
• Complex Refinery Process Unites: Hydrocrackers and distillation towers are irreplaceable; kinetic strikes would inflict irrecoverable, multi-year damage.
• Refinery and Pier Infrastructure: Fixed, unhardened links between tankers and depots are easily targeted bottlenecks.
• ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

PRC Munitions

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• Civilian Transportation Networks: Kinetic strikes on high-throughput rail or port hubs could critically disrupt the flow of munitions to operational units.
• Fixed Production and Storage Sites: Targeted strikes could eliminate the PLA’s ability to sustain a moderate to high-intensity conflict for more than 90 days in the air domain and 120-140 days in the naval domain.
• Digital Communication Systems: Cyber attacks targeting JLSF command and control (C2) and logistics management databases, combined with EW targeting of coastal relay stations and civilian communications architecture would force PLA reliance on less efficient systems.
• ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

U.S. Fuel

• Fleet Oiler Force: The thin, aging, and low-survivability CLF inventory likely makes at-sea fuel replenishment the primary throttle on sustained naval operations.
• Trans-Pacific Sealift: The strategic sealift capacity from the U.S. West Coast is almost certainly too slow and fragile to backfill forward losses in a timely manner, making it a critical lagging constraint.
• Marine Offload Terminals: Fuel throughput is almost certainly throttled by physical and procedural bottlenecks at the handful of fixed piers that serve as the primary intake valves for the entire theater.
• Concentrated Forward Fuel Hubs: An over-reliance on a few large, centralized “mega-hubs” almost certainly creates predictable, high-value targets and single points of failure for an adversary to exploit.
• Allied Port Access: U.S. logistics are critically dependent on access to allied ports, which is not assured and very likely can be denied or delayed through non-kinetic means.
• U.S. Air Force Aerial Refueling: The aerial tanker fleet serves as a brittle, short-term relief valve for aviation fuel, almost certainly not a sustainable logistics backbone.
• Unhardened Fuel Infrastructure: Pervasive use of “soft,” above-ground storage tanks makes the fuel inventory highly susceptible to attack, very likely accelerating throughput-to-issue losses during recovery.

U.S. Munitions

• Finite Stockpiles: U.S. munitions inventories, particularly for critical long-range precision-guided munitions (LR-PGMs) and heavyweight torpedoes, are almost certainly insufficient to meet the consumption rates projected for any high-intensity conflict.
• Naval Reload Bottleneck: The U.S. Navy’s reliance on pierside-only VLS reloading creates a critical operational bottleneck, almost certainly forcing surface combatants off-station for multi-week periods.
• Concentrated Forward Basing: U.S. reliance on a small number of large, concentrated bases (especially Guam and Kadena) in the forward area makes critical airpower assets and munitions stockpiles vulnerable to catastrophic PLA missile strikes in the opening hours and days of conflict.
• Brittle Logistics Flow: The capacity of the U.S. strategic sealift, intra-theater airlift, and underway replenishment is very likely insufficient to meet surge demand in a contested environment, creating critical bottlenecks in moving munitions forward.
• Slow Industrial Base Response: The current U.S defense industrial base is unlikely to be able to produce key munitions at the rate required to replace wartime expenditures or surge production within an operationally relevant timeframe (the first year).

Results Assessment

Tidalwave’s results highlight a consistent and consequential pattern: A U.S.–PRC conflict is decided early by how quickly platforms are destroyed and logistics are strained. We found that the first 30–60 days determine the long-term shape of the war by quickly attriting aircraft and ships.

From these results, several conclusions were made.

First, the U.S. will almost certainly not achieve its strategic aim of preventing the enormous adverse economic impact of a conflict with the PRC in all scenarios. The fact that an invasion takes place at all in the scenarios causes immense economic damage through sea lane closures, trade pattern changes, and probable destruction of critical industry in Taiwan, among other reasons.

Second, the high attrition demonstrated in TIDALWAVE’s model reflects the likelihood that the U.S. Joint Force cannot deter or respond to a second, nearly simultaneous Major Regional Contingency. Essentially, the losses incurred by the U.S. greatly reduce the capacity to deter and therefore fosters conditions in which conflict could continue or develop in additional theaters.

Third, missile-driven attrition has an outweighed impact on outcomes. Even when the U.S. expends interceptors at rates that exceed long-term logistical feasibility, saturation effects still produce severe losses.

Fourth, platform destruction, not munition exhaustion, limits combat power. In the highest-intensity scenarios, aircraft and ships are destroyed so rapidly that some portions of munitions inventories remain unused. Conversely, when platforms survive longer, munitions depletion persists because forces retain the capacity to generate sorties and strikes.

Fifth, fuel is the dominant endurance constraint for surviving forces. U.S. naval fuel stocks deplete fastest in scenarios where a large fleet remains operational, reflecting the structural difficulty of sustaining high-tempo naval operations over time. Flatter fuel curves in high-loss scenarios do not signal efficiency; instead, they signal forced reductions in usage due to attrition.

Sixth, China’s fuel endurance is conditional, not inherent. Sustained PLA fuel availability across several scenarios is driven by a deliberate modeling choice: U.S. forces do not strike China’s strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). This assumption bounds the analysis and demonstrates how long China can sustain operations if energy storage infrastructure remains untouched. It should not be interpreted as guaranteed endurance in spite of any prospective U.S. actions.

Similarly, it is important to acknowledge the model’s limitations: Operational tempos are scripted rather than adaptive. As a result, Tidalwave should be understood as a means to identify vulnerabilities and opportunities, not strictly as a predictive forecasting tool. It was designed to evaluate strategic sustainment capacity and its impact on force projection, not tactical or operational possibilities.

In this series of simulations, military force was insufficient to prevent or deter the adverse economic impact of a U.S.–PRC conflict but may limit its scope and duration, depending on the courses of action taken by each side. The evidence derived from our model demonstrates that restraint does not necessarily preserve strength, that aggressive defense may still fail under saturation, and that attrition and logistics determine how long forces can remain effective.

Moreover, while the conflict may begin in Taiwan, it will likely not remain contained. It could potentially expand to the Second Island Chain and even the broader Indo-Pacific theater. As simulated, the United States’ inability to project and sustain U.S. forces erodes deterrence and constrains options to achieve decisive results. Chinese vulnerabilities are present but require early action to exploit an advantage. The model and simulation series conclude that the most important factors in a U.S.–PRC conflict in the Indo-Pacific are force survivability, long-range precision strike munitions availability and employment, fuel endurance, and targeting decisions. It is also our judgment that the retention or control of Taiwan is a critical operational objective, but the U.S. vital national security interest and corresponding strategic objective is the prevention of the adverse economic impact of a conflict on global markets, trade, and our economy.

Conclusions

Tidalwave has identified gaps and deficiencies and corresponding solutions to resolve anticipated shortfalls in our ability to project and sustain forces and exploit adversary vulnerabilities in order to conduct military operations in a protracted conflict between the U.S. and PRC. Our modeling and simulation have provided unparalleled analysis that addresses the most pressing questions regarding a potential conflict with China from which we derived the following conclusions:

1. Our inability to project and sustain the Joint Force successfully in a potential conflict with the PRC invites aggression and erodes deterrence, making a conflict for which we are unprepared more likely. High Confidence.
2. The time horizon to correct the deficiencies identified may exceed the potential window before the PRC has prepared itself to initiate hostilities. Conversely, aggressively addressing our deficiencies contributes to deterrence and increases the probability of prevailing should a conflict occur. High Confidence.
3. Many of the U.S. requirements are insufficiently defined; therefore, no corrective action has been proposed. The time to correct in many cases exceeds the possible window in which they are required. High Confidence.
4. The critical capabilities of the PRC’s fuel and ammunition systems are vital to sustaining their forces in conflict, but they are vulnerable to a range of U.S. tools before and during conflict and more visible or exposed than the forces they support. Allowing the systems that support the PLA to operate with impunity before and during conflict would carry grave strategic consequences. High Confidence.
5. Our failure to sufficiently recognize and address our own vulnerabilities and those of our adversary reflects a systemic challenge that must be understood and resolved to prevent recurrence. High Confidence.
6. Regardless of the outcome in each scenario, the United States is highly unlikely to achieve its strategic objective of preventing the severe and widespread economic consequences (global recession or depression) of a PRC invasion of Taiwan and would almost certainly fail to do so in a protracted U.S.–PRC conflict. This reinforces the conclusion that deterrence may be the only viable way to preserve our vital national security interests. Moderate Confidence.1
7. Tidalwave’s simulation results yield significant attrition that is very likely to significantly degrade or preclude adequate response to a second major regional contingency (MRC), constituting significant risk to our vital national security interests and providing adversaries with a compelling opportunity for provocation. Moderate Confidence.
8. The absence of sufficient forward deployed capabilities and prepositioned critical materials and the challenges constraining the employment of the Joint Force also contribute to limitations on our ability to control escalation. Moderate Confidence.
9. Indicated by the massive vulnerabilities identified, the potential inability of the U.S. to prevail in a conflict or manage escalation once initiated, whether protracted or otherwise, diminishes the probability of successful deterrence. Moderate Confidence.
10. The availability of data and accelerating developments in computational power and methods—including artificial intelligence—have demonstrated the potential to assess vulnerabilities within complex systems supporting a range of applications of instruments of national power both rapidly and continually. The tools and methods (including sound research methodology, rigorous validation, and subject-matter expert evaluation throughout) must be rapidly exploited to preclude adversary competitive advantage. High Confidence.
11. The U.S. government requires a comprehensive, systemic, and defendable basis for judging defense requirements. It is insufficient merely to evaluate individual appropriations requests absent an understanding of the full requirements necessary to deter and, if required, prevail in conflict. Specifically, without a reliable estimate of the fuel and munitions required, it is impossible to ascertain the appropriate procurement, inventory, transfer, or disposition needed both for U.S. forces and for those of our partners and allies. High Confidence.
12. Our military strategy and supporting economic and diplomatic efforts should be guided and informed by a strategy that addresses the infrastructure supporting our adversary’s armed forces. The resources required by our enemies to initiate and sustain conflict are of paramount importance and largely determine the scope, scale, and outcome of a conflict. High Confidence.
13. The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) must prioritize our adversary’s source of strength (commonly referred to as its center of gravity), derivative critical requirements, and critical vulnerabilities at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war to ensure that our strategy and the forces required to conduct it successfully are properly enabled. We cannot afford to focus the preponderance of our resources on our potential adversaries’ military forces without a corresponding emphasis on the systems that support their growth, employment, and ability to reconstitute. High Confidence.
14. The more complex a problem or system is, the more valuable the contribution of computational power and associated methodologies—including artificial intelligence—can be in understanding, anticipating, and resolving it. High Confidence.
15. While Tidalwave did not include the full spectrum of partner and allied capacity and capabilities, we judge that they would not dramatically alter the trajectory or outcome of a potential U.S.–PRC conflict. Low Confidence.2

These conclusions encompass both challenges and opportunities that require redress. The possibility of a theater or global conflict with a peer adversary whose capacity and capability are projected to challenge or exceed our own and the grave economic consequences that constitute a significant threat to our vital national security interests have informed the following recommendations. It is vital to recall the grave consequences of looming conflict, appreciate the rapidly expanding Chinese threat that could eclipse our own capacity and capabilities, recognize their accelerated preparations, and assess our declining capacity and lack of preparation when considering the urgency of the hour and cost of redress.

Recommendations

1. Disrupt, degrade, and deny the PRC’s access to critical resources that sustain the military’s growth and operations. The ability to establish, maintain, project, and sustain armed forces constitutes a strategic source of strength. The vast complexity of its systems is vital to the PRC’s military capacity and capability. Yet these systems are visible to the broadest array of collection methods and vulnerable to disruption by all of our instruments of national power including during the critical period before a conflict could occur.

   We have identified a wide range of critical vulnerabilities within the PLA’s supporting fuel and munitions systems that are exposed to a wide range of U.S. options and those of partners and allies and that therefore should be evaluated and—as appropriate—impacted. We therefore believe it is imperative that Congress expand the scope and scale of available authorities and resources3 to incentivize the executive actions4 required to constrain PRC access to critical resources with corresponding reporting requirements.

   We further recommend private agreements with U.S. allies that export petrochemicals including oil and gas as well as other critical resources to China that, in the case of conflict and using a predetermined pricing mechanism divert, all oil exports to the U.S. or other agreed upon destinations, thereby achieving 100 percent interdiction from sources with agreements in place without the use of military or other assets. In addition to completing such agreements, we recommend that the Executive develop a list of leverage points to encourage compliance with said agreements that is sufficient to overcome Chinese economic coercion.

2. Establish a strategic ammunition reserve required to sustain the Joint Force. Across simulation scenarios, key munitions ran out rapidly, and those that did not maintained inventory only due to substantial attrition of the platforms that employ such munitions.

   We therefore recommend that Congress mandate the calculations of critical munitions required by the DOW to conclude two simultaneous major regional conflicts successfully while preserving a sufficient contingency supply along with regular reports on the status of the reserve’s production, storage, and consumption. This should include existing and projected requirements for similarly armed partners and allies that depend on our systems and associated munitions.

   We further recommend that Congress authorize and appropriate the funds needed to establish the required inventory based on a rigorous assessment such as the kind undertaken by Tidalwave including drawdown thresholds and authority, reporting requirements, role of partners and allies with munitions stockpiles, distributed storage including war reserve stock, and prepositioned assets abroad.

3. Purchase the lift and sustainment required to project and sustain the Joint Force. The vast distances of the Indo-Pacific and the pace of high-intensity operations require a larger, more resilient maritime sustainment force than exists today. Absent sufficient lift and protected replenishment, the Joint Force will be incapable of decisive maneuver at best or largely unavailable at worst—especially under the strain of a single MRC and the credible risk of early attrition.

   We recommend that Congress authorize and appropriate funds to (1) protect and shorten the Combat Logistics Force (CLF) reload cycle—including predecided allied and commercial berth access, defended reload windows, and dispersed CONSOL geometry—and (2) expand last-mile at-sea delivery capacity by accelerating procurement of T-AO-205 oilers and CONSOL-capable connectors and procuring 10–15 ammunition-capable transport ships.

   We also recommend that the Administration expand our shipbuilding capacity and agreements with partners and allies sufficiently to provide ships capable of transporting an additional ~300,000 bpd (combined JP-8/ F-76)5 as well as munitions and other critical supplies in contested environments in a contingency. We further recommend that the Administration and the DOW direct the Joint Staff, U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), and Military Sealift Command (MSC) to validate this single-MRC sustainment requirement, certify inventory shortfalls against it, and program to close the delta so that any remaining gap is an explicitly JCS-acknowledged risk rather than an implicit assumption.

4. Expand, fill, and distribute the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). As our analysis indicates, we lack sufficient fuel storage and distribution to project and sustain the Joint Force in an MRC with the PRC, let alone in simultaneous conflicts. Congress should increase the U.S. SPR6 to 1.5 billion barrels distributed in storage locations including those along the West Coast, which better support power projection into the Indo-Pacific. In addition, Congress should establish a minimum threshold at 50 percent capacity, the withdrawal below which would require congressional approval based on a validly declared national emergency (as defined in IEEPA) and/or national security imperative as well as an automatic trigger to replenish with immediate funding at predetermined price levels.
5. Establish the theater-critical infrastructure required to preposition the fuel and ammunition required to sustain the Joint Force. The lack of critical supplies, specifically fuel and ammunition, and supporting infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific prevents flexible response, deters effective deployment of the Joint Force, and restricts freedom of action, which erodes deterrence and significantly reduces the probability of successful employment if conflict should occur.

   We therefore recommend that Congress authorize and appropriate sufficient funds to establish a secure, distributed constellation of critical fuel and ammunition. We further recommend that the Administration encourage the expansion of partner and allied contributions to this architecture to a level that is sufficient to provide uninterrupted access to a projected demand of ~970,000 bpd.

6. Elevate the responsibility for the PRC/Chinese Communist Party (CCP) threat to the Joint Staff. The PRC threat exceeds that of the former Soviet Union in both scope and scale. China’s economy, conventional military, and soon its nuclear weapons inventory, as well as its military-eligible population, dramatically eclipse those of the Soviet Union.

   We therefore recommend that the President direct the DOW to modify the next UCP (or modify out of cycle) accordingly. Delegating responsibility for the PRC threat to a COCOM risks an artificial constraint in our response.

7. Restrict the critical commodities and components that the PRC requires to sustain the expansion of its offensive platforms, munitions, and sustaining infrastructure. While the PRC has the advantage of significant natural resources, it currently lacks various externally supplied commodities and many of the sophisticated advanced technology components, such as those that provide missile guidance and telemetry, that are often sourced from U.S. and partner and allied providers with little or no restriction.7

   We therefore recommend that, recognizing the threatening trajectory and lack of restrictions, Congress enable broad export enforcement and sufficient controls on critical commodities, goods, and services that provide China with a strategic advantage as the Administration expands enforcement and cooperation with partners and allies to deny the CCP the resources required to grow and sustain the PRC threat to our vital interests.8

8. Support partner and ally contributions. Our partners and allies provide vital contributions to collective security in pursuit of shared national interests and are increasingly taking steps to bolster their capacity and capability to deter and engage in combat.

   Meanwhile, we recommend that Congress authorize and accelerate DOW requests for critical partner FMF/FMS and EDA as well as COCOM UPL.

9. Model systems that comprise adversary critical requirements to expose critical vulnerabilities using all available information enabling effective targeting to deter and, if necessary, prevail during a conflict. Tidalwave successfully built models of PRC fuel and ammunition systems as well as our own. This is critical both to allowing the identification of vulnerabilities that could alter the trajectory of conflict and to exposing the variety of instruments of national power to be employed before and during a potential conflict.

   We therefore recommend that Congress authorize and accelerate the construction and appropriate the necessary funds to leverage emerging technology and data9 at all levels of classification required to support the Executive update to the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF)10 and establish a dynamic environment across the policy silos of departments and agencies as soon as practical to identify adversary critical vulnerabilities and evaluate its utility continuously.

10. Prioritize strategic analysis over the tactical or operational. Since the conclusion of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, we have prioritized the operational and tactical requirements related to the forces our adversary would employ at the expense of the systems upon which they depend.

    We therefore recommend that Congress incentivize the restoration of proportional strategic analysis focused on the systems that support and sustain an adversary’s military in order to ensure that the IC resumes the analysis required to exploit adversary vulnerabilities through the prudent and timely application of all instruments of national power.

11. Reduce the policy obstacles that impede the exploitation of emerging technology. The scope and scale of Tidalwave were enabled and supported by emerging technology that can be used to answer other complex problems. This exercise has provided numerous examples of the benefits of AI and related technologies properly employed to provide the unique ability to model complex systems continuously encompassing the spectrum of variables.

    We therefore recommend that the Administration dramatically expand the authority of departments and agencies to overcome obstacles that prevent accelerated adoption of exploitive technologies on existing architectures as Congress authorizes the adoption of new and more flexible systems to provide greater capability to government users who are responsible for understanding and responding to the range of growing threats to our security. This could include the migration of essential data and tools to environments optimally suited to effective disposition like the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

12. Prepare for a protracted conflict. History is replete with cautionary tales of the consequences of false assumptions regarding conflict duration. The real and perceived lack of sufficient preparation and the inability to ensure that we can thwart PRC aggression also imply corresponding challenges in controlling escalation. As Newton observed of the governing laws of physics, a force in motion tends to stay in motion. So, too, the PLA may continue escalation until compelled to stop if for no other reason than to consolidate gains and safeguard its freedom of action in the First Island Chain.

    We therefore recommend that Congress rapidly restore our critical capabilities as we expressed in our NDAA priorities11 while the DOW reevaluates the requirements for successful deterrence and theater force posture, accounting for the possibility of theaterwide conflict that begins in Taiwan but rapidly escalates.

Acknowledgements

The Sarah and Douglas Allison Center for National Security extends its sincere gratitude to the many internal and external partners whose expertise, time, and collaboration made Tidalwave possible. Special appreciation is owed to Jim Fein’s indefatigable research and analysis which directly enabled the execution of this unprecedented effort. And we owe notable recognition to The Watch: Jesse Wilson, whose expert analysis enabled us to broaden the project’s scope and achieve greater depth and impact, and to Barclay Adams, whose tireless work was instrumental in developing TIDALWAVE’s model.

Within The Heritage Foundation, we thank the Center for Data Analysis for their continued work to improve the simulation. We are also grateful to our visiting fellows—Mike Jernigan and Jason Camilletti—for their consistent support through analytical insight, expert review, and constructive feedback. So too for our subject matter experts, including John “JV” Venable, Colonel, USAF (Ret.), Dr. Mike Bell, Scott Modell and his team at Rapidan Energy, Mark Vandroff, Captain, USN (Ret.), and John Konrad at gCaptain, each of whom played an essential role in expert review and refinement, ensuring that the project met the highest standards of accuracy, precision, and excellence.

We likewise extend our gratitude to the University of Central Florida Research Foundation and Eric Shwedo, Colonel USA (Ret.), in particular—whose partnership brought the simulation to life through innovative visualization, and to Leo Keay at King’s College London who deserves special thanks for his work on nuclear escalation pathways for TIDALWAVE: Azure Dragon.

And, of course, none of this would have been possible without the assistance of Heritage’s support staff, including but not limited to our contracting and legal, editing, publishing, and graphics, communications, and events teams.

Tidalwave could not have been realized without the unwavering support of our donors, especially the generous support and encouragement of Ambassador and Mrs. David Fischer whose dedication and commitment to our national security are greatly appreciated.

Finally, we thank the Heritage Executive Team, led by Dr. Kevin Roberts and Derrick Morgan, and the Vice President of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, Dr. Victoria Coates. Their trust and confidence empowered us to take on this unprecedented project—and for that, we owe them our deepest thanks.

To all who contributed to the success and impact of this effort—thank you.