The United States is focused on China as the threat against which we measure our capabilities. Defending Taiwan is the way to measure the balance.
China is now the official “pacing threat” for the U.S. armed forces. Simply put, the Pentagon considers the People’s Liberation Army its most serious competition. This is a major and vital shift. But competing with China is a tremendously broad concept that could take any number of forms, and the reality is that China is too powerful to permit the U.S. defense establishment to fritter away money. The Defense Department needs to focus. Most of all, it needs to be capable of achieving U.S. objectives against China in a war.
But in which war?
They argue that Taiwan is the scenario we should adopt to measure our ability to defeat China. They are correct.
I've long posted about Taiwan and the China threat.
Last month I argued in Military Review that the U.S. should build the ability to move and sustain an Army corps to Taiwan to help the Taiwanese eject the PLA from any bridgeheads on Taiwan in a war. Leaving the PLA on Taiwan after a ceasefire is tantamount to losing because China would build up and resume the war in relatively short order.
That issue of Military Review was focused on the China-Taiwan question and you can see the rest through the link to my article.
And that ability would help move the American military's focus on northeast Asia where Japan and Korea are to a broader view that sees operating around China's periphery across the INDOPACOM region as a basic capability. Which I also wrote about in Military Review earlier.
Certainly, Taiwan is morally worthy of that focus. I'd like to see evidence that the Taiwanese value their freedom enough to vigorously defend it.
UPDATE: Hmmm. China has been exercising its navy recently and Xi Jinping told his troops to be ready for war. Is "war" going to be the seizure of Taiwan's Pratas Islands in the South China Sea?
UPDATE: If China seizes lightly defended Taiwanese islands, America is hardly going to go to war over them. Heck, Taiwan is not going to go to war over them. This is the risk of Taiwan holding islands closer to China after America and Taiwan lost absolute naval and aerial superiority off the coast of China.
But if China violates the basic deal by taking Taiwanese territory by force, America should end the prohibition of stationing American troops on Taiwan. Imagine the ability of America to reinforce Taiwan if American air defense, anti-ship, and logistics personnel were stationed on Taiwan's east coast?
Sure, if those are the only two alternatives. But I still think that a small military operation between information operations and full-scale invasion of Taiwan is more likely.
