By the time reserve US forces arrive in theatre, China has troops on Taiwan. How well situated is the US to do a cross-Pacific amphibious invasion of Taiwan? How likely is the US political system to be willing to take on that project?
Your point about the political system is valid, but if the USA was behind the invasion of Iraq, I imagine watching another great power chew up an ally would unite the country as well. Times do change, though, and I could be wrong.
Parking an invasion+battle fleet off of Taiwan's coast would probably lead to huge US ship losses to Chinese missiles.
However, island hopping campaign is a thing. Islands make for good unsinkable carriers.
Assuming war isn't concluded permanently in a couple months[1], the real advantage is self-sufficiency in regards to raw materials (especially oil[2]) and ability to ramp up and then build out military production. High tech is secondary issue, and would be only slightly on the US' side. Probably the most important advantage would be in submarines and to extent in carriers, again as it was historically. Lastly, the presumable advantage in comms crypto protection, and codebreaking/backdooring could make or break any long term war, by repeatedly giving better starting positions before each battle or campaign; again to historical precedent.
All in all, US would do just fine, however the local allies would suffer a lot.
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[1] i.e. excluding an overwhelmingly effective ABC attack on mainland China or US
[2] both previous and current administration helped ramp it up
The US' carriers would be sunk in the first few minutes of open warfare.
They are useless in case of open war - and only of use as a threat of war/policing device. All-out war means the carriers get sunk, first.
Snark first: weapons[1] to defeat rockets and free-falling bombs have been operational for quite a while now. Next gen (laser) is being made operational; both shipboard versions and air versions for the CAP. Next next gen (railgun) is on the horizon, but still uncertain.
Serious reply: a carrier is a highly mobile, flexible airport. Like any other major fleet element, it's a threat in being, and best used that way. Might even be best used by always being held beyond radar horizon, to keep the opposing forces spread thin and deployed overtime, preventing any transports from resupplying the enemy troops deployed to Taiwan.
A carrier is also by its nature an anchor point for a whole battle group, with flexible capabilities of long range detection, jamming, attack, and defense, including major ASW threat. It can also make a 300 mile dash at 30kn to deliver several dozen F35 to an island. An overnight miracle.
[1] anti-rockets and CIWS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-26
There is no known defense yet fielded against this missile.
Lasers might do it, but those aren't going to be ready for deployment for a few years yet .. none of your "rocket/free-falling bomb" defenses are relevant against this thing.
And, then there's this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M22_Zircon
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-tests-missiles-us-no-defense...
This is why the US desperately needs to complete its laser program ... until then, the Carriers are a complete and utter liability in all-out-war ..
Carriers in today's world are as obsolete as the battleships that the carriers displaced 80 years ago.
Mind you, the fact that battleships were obsolete did not stop the US from building quite a few more in the 1940s before the penny finally dropped.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/10/asia/china-missiles-south-chi... 'According to a report from the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China may have an anti-ship version of the DF-26 under development -- and may have even tested it in 2017. However military analyst Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, cast doubt on whether the DF-26 was workable as an anti-ship weapon. Using one effectively would require practicing procedures and tactics that China had not yet shown, he said. "Remember, the Soviet Union never successfully developed an ASBM (anti-ship ballistic missile) and no country in the West has one," Schuster said.'
Do you have some information to the contrary?
Second, DF26 is all over the South China Sea. You think they'd be deploying them if they didn't have confidence in their efficacy?
One of the first political acts of the US would undoubtedly be to officially recognize the state of Taiwan. Given how much of the world relies on Taiwan's manufacturing output, other countries would be close behind and China would be looking at a joint liberation force rather than China vs the US.
Their only hope is that there would be a multinational response. The US certainly wouldn't go it alone against China on their own doorstep.