A Navy Seal Unit That Killed Osama Bin Laden May Be Training Taiwanese Forces To Defeat A Possible Chinese Invasion, Experts Say

SEAL Team 6 may be training Taiwanese forces to fight back against Chinese forces, former Navy officers said.Daniel Ceng/Anadolu via Getty ImagesA Navy SEAL unit is busy preparing for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the Financial Times said.It may be training Taiwan's forces to fight back against Chinese forces, retired Navy officers told BI.The US has become more hawkish about the possibility of defending Taiwan if China ever invades.An elite Navy SEAL unit may be preparing Taiwanese forces for reconnaissance operations and missions to repel a Chinese invasion, retired Navy officers said after a report said the unit had been training for such an eventuality for over a year.Last week, the Financial Times reported that SEAL Team 6 — famous for killing Osama bin Laden in 2011 — has spent more than a year planning and training at its Dam Neck base in Virginia for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.The unit conducts sensitive missions around the world, including 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.However, the unit's contingency plans — like most of its missions — are highly classified, and people familiar with its planning did not provide details to the FT about the specific missions it's preparing for.According to three retired Navy officers, the unit may be training Taiwanese soldiers to fight back against China should it invade Taiwan.Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, expects SEALs to do two things.One, he told BI, "is training Taiwanese forces in reconnaissance and perhaps direct attack, focusing on missions that might be required to defeat a Chinese invasion.""Naval reconnaissance forces would locate Chinese forces for long-range attacks," he said, adding: "They might also launch attacks against offshore ships or shipping in Chinese ports."Another one, he said, is familiarizing themselves with the terrain so that they might be better employed if necessary.Bradley Martin, a retired surface warfare captain who served in the Navy for 30 years, said the SEALs' "broad" missions include intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and potential actions against an invading force.Those are "well-established in the SEAL mission set," he told BI.Sam Tangredi, a retired US Navy captain and surface warfare officer, made a similar assessment.He told BI that in a "conventional" war between the US, its allies, and China, SEALs would likely take on their "traditional" naval roles.These include direct reconnaissance of coastal areas before major amphibious-type operations, identifying naval mined areas and obtaining knowledge of capabilities and mine patterns, sabotage operations against enemy naval units and ports, and land operations from the sea, he said."A 'great power war' — which inevitably involved oceans or ocean access — would require the traditional naval role," he said."After all, Taiwan is an island.