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While it’s unclear what lessons Chinese military planners are learning from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they learned to “go big and go early” from America’s quick victory in the first Gulf War, a panel of defense analysts agreed Thursday.

It’s a strategy the Chinese could use against Taiwan.

Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said if the Chinese don’t win early on they’ll see their cross-strait invasion become “very messy, very quickly.” He added it would “become a slog,” as the Russian drive on Kyiv became. Later, Clark added he didn’t expect China to have the same “nuts and bolts failures” that the Russians have experienced in logistics and command in Ukraine.

Matthew Costlow, a senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, said a key to the defense of Taiwan and deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific is denying Beijing’s “hopes of … an easy asymmetric victory.” Critical to doing that is Guam, a U.S. territory, and America’s allies and partners.

China has seen how European allies and partners have rallied to Ukraine’s support in sending military and humanitarian aid and “the international backlash” imposed on the Kremlin following the invasion. The backlash included harsher and more targeted sanctions against Russian financial and political elites since Moscow launched the unprovoked attack.