Keep in mind that the U.S. forward-deployed forces include large batches of F-22s and F-35s, as well as Virginia class submarines constantly patrolling the waters of South and East China Seas. The stealth weapons could degrade large numbers of PLA naval and air assets during the "jump-in." Yes, the PLARF will annihilate large numbers of U.S. and Japanese bases, but the forward- deployed F-22s and F-35s, along with the Virginias, could do tons of damage to the PLA to significantly slow down the invasion. Yes, large numbers of U.S. pilots and sailors will die, but that's called war.
Do not underestimate Washington elites' and decision makers' will to maintain their hegemonic position. It was stupid for Britain to try to contain Germany and bled white after the two world wars, but the fears of relative decline drive decision makers of a status-quo power mad (or rational, if you believe in hegemonic war), and they will do anything to hold onto whatever they still possess. And since Washington still arguably "possess" Taiwan, the former will likely fight due to self-perceived strategic and ideological interests. In reality, nobody would peacefully handover something that he or she already possesses (or believe that he or she possesses), especially if that person is in a position of perceived material and ideational domination over others.
I see you have completely disregard my warning about taking Hollywood war porn seriously.
SK would not allow the US to use their bases to attack mainland China directly as doing so has a huge risk of re-starting the Korean War. Their bases are poorly positioned in any case.
That just leaves Okinawa and Guam. Guam is 4,750km from China, its 2,750km from Taiwan, but that’s still comfortably outside the combat radius of F22s and F35s. That means tankers and tired pilots, which naturally limits sortie rates.
Okinawa is a lot closer, but that also makes it a lot more dangerous as they will be in range of a hell of a lot of Chinese weapons. Stealth fighters still need to land, and on the ground they blow up just like anything else.
The US is massively constrained by the number of available bases in terms of how many land based fighters it could deploy. With Chinese missile technology, it also faces the dilemma that anything it forward deploys will be at massive risk of being annihilated in the opening stages of war, and America does not have Raptors to waste like that.
The only way it can cause even a fair amount of damage to Chinese invasion forces is if it waited for the invasion to begin before launching a Pearl Harbour like surprise attack. If it made its hostile intentions clear before then, its forward deployed forces would be long destroyed before Chinese invasion forces were on their way to Taiwan. But even then it will have to fight through the bulk of the PLAAF and PLAN to get to the invasion forces, and even if it does manage that, the few survivors would have no bases to return to by the time the got back, so the more the US forward deploys, the more forces it will loose.
Same deal with Virginias and Seawolfs.
Hunting for them in the open waters of the Pacific is one thing, but if they enter the natural choke point of the Taiwan straits to try to get to the invasion fleet, they will box themselves into a narrow stretch of water, with all new PLAN warships having very comprehensive ASW capabilities as well as large numbers of new Chinese MPA aircraft available, not to mention China’s own massive fleet of SSKs waiting at choke points, that’s as much a suicide mission as one can have in modern warfare. At best they get a few torpedoes off before they are destroyed, but more likely they get ambushed by lurking Yuans and Songs before they can even get within firing range.
The US military machine, like all militaries, work well as a whole. There are no magical sliver bullets, not even stealth figures or SSNs. If the US is foolish enough to throw their prized spear tip assets like those at China piecemeal and without the necessary support, they will at best achieve limited results before being obliterated. But most likely they will be totally ineffective and lost for little effect. Either way, to throw US forward deployed, defensive oriented forces and assets against the entirety of the Chinese military machine is just throwing them away. Just like covid19, there is no magical protection from real world realities just because of the colour of your skin or passport.