This is a Debate?

So this is a debate over the latest arms package sold to Taiwan (and the failure to sell 66 new F-16s)?

A university professor says that selling arms to a free Taiwan and getting angry at those arms sales are both signs that "hardliners" are winning the day in America and China. Huh.

Oh, and the Chinese public doesn't like our arms sales to Taiwan.

Another professor says that fighter planes are a waste since the 1,000+ missiles that China has make Taiwan's airfields toast. Why rapid runway repair teams with lots of practice and supplies, missile defenses, more satellite airfields (including sections of highway designed for the purpose--as long as there are detours for army convoys), and hardened aircraft shelters won't allow Taiwan to get in the air with enough time to fight back is beyond me. Our aerial offensive against Iraq's air force in 1991 didn't prevent Iraq from flying off lots of their planes to Iran to escape destruction. don't assume that China will succeed in shutting down the air fields--prepare to cope.

Another way to cope might be to disperse aircraft to places outside of China's reach but are close enough that the planes can fly in to repaired or surviving airfields on Taiwan to continue the fight. Could Taiwan rotate a significant portion of their planes to places from Singapore to the Philippines to American islands in the western and central Pacific? Maybe the Taiwanes should build a floating air base to operate east of Taiwan further from Chinese power projection assets. That would be pretty expensive, however, and other items are more important. But if money is no object, it is worth a thought.

The other weapons that Taiwan needs that are brought up are surely important, but it is insane to abandon the air to China. It simplifies China's problems and frees up those missiles for other targets, and hurts Taiwanese morale to know that anything that flies must be Chinese.

Plus, remember that when we have to decide whether to intervene, would we rather have a Taiwan whose air force needs just a little bit of American air power to tip the balance in Taiwan's favor? Or would we be fine having to deploy enough air power to do it all? A Taiwanese air force insufficient to gain air superiority on its own but that can contest the air with an amount of force we can deploy on short notice is far better than no Taiwanese air force.

The third professor from China says we need to stop selling arms because it upsets the Chinese public. Well, as long as the Chinese public supports conquering a free people, who can question that! A billion Chinese can't be wrong, right? Excuse me for pointing this out, but plenty of screaming crowds have backed some pretty terrible things.

A fourth says that selling arms helps deterrence and strengthens Taiwanese morale. Yes, it does. Here is some common sense. And that preventing China from attacking Taiwan may help them join the family of nations rather than alienate the world by stomping on a small nation. I have mixed views on this. On the one hand, it would anger and frighten a number of countries. That would be bad for business and might be enough to call off the dogs of war. But then again, Russia paid no price at all for attacking Georgia. (UPDATE: without saying it is moral equivalence to note this, remember too that a lot of countries do business with us despite thinking that liberating Iraq and Afghanistan were terrible things to do.) I think a lot of people would give a nuanced shrug and continue business as usual with China. Still, by extending the amount of time that Taiwan at least appears to be too hard to conquer at an acceptable cost, we increase the chances that the Chinese will decide that they don't really want to conquer Taiwan. Just buying time is worth it.

The last one thinks we should sell arms but makes the mistake of thinking that China sees our nuanced split-the-difference arms package as defensive in nature and not threatening. This is mirror imaging. If Peking was run by Brookings Institution scholars I could believe that Peking views the sale as non-threatening. I say sell Taiwan what they need to fight off an invasion and don't sweat worrying about what is signaled by each weapon and whether a weapon is defensive or offensive (which is a silly debate anyway).