Taiwan, America, and other friends of Taiwan need to do a lot to deter or defeat China if Emperor Xi decides to crush Taiwan. But the goal should be much bigger.
Of course Taiwan must deploy lots of anti-ship missiles and naval mines to resist a Chinese invasion.
But those are relatively inexpensive weapons that should be included in much higher Taiwanese defense spending.
Yet have no doubt that if the Chinese get ashore, the Taiwanese will need to send their combat brigades against the PLA troops on Taiwanese soil, with as much air cover as Taiwan can manage. The Taiwanese objective must be to drive them into the sea, as I put it in Military Review.
Without the ability to defeat the Chinese invaders on the ground, relying on asymmetric means of defense will only increase the cost of Chinese victory. Who knows what the Chinese Communist Party will consider an acceptable price during a crisis that might threaten their monopoly on power?
China's rising power means that Taiwan can't cope all alone. Allies must be ready to resist Chinese aggression. This has good points but I want to quibble with this:
To survive [a strategic contest for military dominance], the United States must win this struggle by deterring Chinese military action before conflict or by defeating it in wartime.
Surely we want to deter China. And if that fails, defeat China in war. There is a better goal:
No, defeating China makes the best of the worst case and deterring China makes the best of the second worst case. We need to shovel the Snow back north. We need to play the Great Game in Asia to achieve our best case--a China pointed away from the south--Taiwan and the United States and our other allies--and pointed toward the north and the interior of Asia.
That involves strengthening India and Vietnam. Weaning Russia off of their appeasement of China--assuming Russia doesn't alienate the West for a generation by pouncing on Ukraine again. Helping Russia and India strengthen Central Asia's ability to resist China. And thinking about what the Army can do to increase China's ground warfare problems, as I addressed in Military Review.
Basically, China needs to have problems that need ground forces.
And Taiwan itself has to expand the struggle beyond the military realm. This is truly an advantage that Taiwan has:
Taiwan’s success as a democracy also represents a fundamental challenge to the Chinese Communist Party, as it puts a lie to the CCP’s assertion that democracy is a Western system incompatible with Chinese culture.I went on to repeat my call for Taiwan to go on offense:
Which is why I think Taiwan should host a League of Democracies to promote and support rule of law democracy at the local and national levels[.]
Taiwan should be exploiting the internal wounds of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong. Is
it possible to reach the inland peasants who have not shared in the
coastal prosperity? And are the Chinese middle class really happy with autocracy that puts what they've built at risk at the whim of any petty CCP official?
The Chinese Communist Party needs to have bigger and more immediate problems than conquering Taiwan.
UPDATE: Well that's not worrisome one bit (via Instapundit):
Ships in Chinese waters are disappearing from industry tracking systems, creating yet another headache for the global supply chain. China's growing isolation from the rest of the world — along with a deepening mistrust of foreign influence — may be to blame.
Adjust your pucker factor accordingly.
UPDATE: I moved the meme.
