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So as one of the resident Taiwan pessimists, I have surprising news. Contrary to all my expectations, Trump might have actually pushed back a Taiwan invasion. I'm always a little suspicious of the variable quality of Time magazine stories, but this laid out a pretty cogent case. First, my prior base case:
You can definitely still make this case. I'm almost tempted to. On a very substantial fact-based level, the US in the next 1-2 years especially will be possibly at the lowest level or readiness in a great while: large portions of the fleet will need refits, interceptor stocks will take years to recover even under optimistic scenarios, other precision munitions are also low, every conflict lowers US domestic appetite for more, and contrarily war would improve domestic approval within China that's otherwise a little grumpy with recent so-so growth. Additionally, there's some mild but decent evidence that US defenses are indeed still vulnerable to the new classes of hypersonic missiles. US capacity and abilities are sure to spike again in the 3-5 year time frame as the US not only implements highly relevant fixes to problems that have been exposed recently, but also continues to re-orient its efforts to prioritize things that threaten China more both directly and indirectly, so the window is real but closing.
However, on a more how-the-real-world-works level, war is less likely. Trump demonstrated quite clearly that the US military is far more capable and combat-ready than observers had assumed. It has the capacity to plan carefully thousands of targets, kidnap or assassinate world leaders (though with nuclear-armed China I disagree that this is very relevant), completely overwhelm air defenses without losses (including at least some amount of Chinese-made equipment in both Venezuela and Iran), sustain and project power across the globe, process an enormous amount of intelligence and surveillance with decent accuracy, and more. And clearly the President can unilaterally do whatever they want, with Trump in particular shedding a previous (avowed) aversion to conflict. DPP is not weak exactly, but definitely having some down moments compared to the more pro-China KMT within Taiwan, mildly raising hopes of a political reunification. And Taiwanese self-defense efforts as far as I can tell remain pretty lackluster despite continuing to shell out for some high end systems. Furthermore this is a tiny little dry run of how badly the global oil supply can get screwed with even a regional war, doubtless actual action would be worse, and I'm guessing China feels a bit of that pain.
And sure enough this seems to be the initial reaction. Here for example, we have a typical bellwether academic at a flagship university saying stuff like this:
Reading between the lines, the obvious message is: wow, actually, the US is doing really well at deterrence recently in all of these three areas, especially demonstrated capacity and resolve, and China has, well, very little to show for its own efforts. No big operations besides military exercises. No real allies willing to pitch in. Unclear transmission of internal resolve to America, too. So in our how-the-world-actually-works framework, China is missing the essential psychological ingredients to actually pull off deterrence even if I still believe that in terms of the nuts and bolts, China could win pretty handily even if the US intervenes (in terms of a conflict itself) and has more cards to play in terms of the "how". They know it, too, but that's likely not going to be enough.
As such I'll take a predictive L in advance. My predictions about 4-5 years ago that a Taiwanese invasion would happen in approximately this timeframe was wrong. Difficult to foresee political factors significantly distorted the general strategic picture, which I assert remains accurate. My primary failing was underweighting the political side of things and the significant variance there, along with its impact on the strategic calculations necessary to pull the trigger on a big move.
But without proper planning or strategy. Trump apparently didn't consider that Iran might close the straits of Hormuz, only now is there bleating about insuring vessels, only now are defence company executives being summoned to boost production. The plan seems to have been 'big strike package and then we win', which just isn't how things work.
Maybe nobody in the US decision-making cabal knows that Taiwan imports the vast majority of its food, energy and fertilizer by sea. Maybe they aren't aware that Taiwan can be blockaded into submission while China retains access to land markets and enjoys self-sufficiency in grain if not meat. Maybe American leaders are still thinking in terms of wars lasting a few days or weeks, rather than years. Wars between strong powers tend to drag on for a lot longer than expected. What is the plan to defeat China in attritional, industrial warfare?
THAAD getting wrecked by Iran's missile and drone arsenal is also pretty alarming. THAAD is what's supposed to defend Guam and other US bases necessary for this war.
Capability is not just tactical success but understanding the nature of the war you're going to fight, preparing the proper force and choosing the right missions and tactics. Executing the wrong approach proficiently isn't good enough.
He could well be saying 'how do we deter Trump, he doesn't seem to think strategically at all.' And that is indeed a nightmarish situation to be in, since quantitative superiority means nothing to a man who doesn't understand numbers, just makes them up. Qualitative superiority is useless since Trump always thinks he has the biggest and best of everything. What can you do but roll the dice and let the outcome speak for itself? Or just wait for more unforced errors? The waiting for unforced errors strategy seems to have been going pretty well for China thus far.
I am very certain that the US military considered the possibility that Iran, known for threatening to close the straits of Hormuz for decades, might close the straights of Hormuz. I think the stuff about insurance was in response to rising insurance premiums - there's really no point in saying anything publicly about that ahead of time.
Trump has also been on the production thing for some time now.
Unlikely, CSIS has done public simulations of Taiwan blockades, and some of the players are or were in said cabal.
It's very unclear to me the extent to which this damage is real. A lot of reported hits on THAAD locations doesn't necessarily mean much given that it's a semi-mobile system. We'll see how it shakes out.
If it turns out that "the missile will always get through" – which is obviously true given enough missile mass – then that's bad for the power that needs successful missile defense to win a war in Taiwan. And that power is not the United States. China cannot win a war over Taiwan if their ships get sunk by missile salvos. If the US and Chinese Navies sink each other in a Taiwan fight, the status quo is maintained and the US wins.
But is the US military actually involved in decision-making, or is it more people like Hegseth and Laura Loomer? CSIS and RAND are serious about strategy. Are their reports actually read by the decisionmakers? The serious strategists have been saying for years that the US needs more cost-efficient SHORAD and anti-drone weapons and large-scale production of munitions yet the message doesn't seem to have filtered through.
If the US and Chinese Navies sink eachother in a Taiwan fight, the Chinese build a new navy much faster and win. They also bomb Taiwan's ports and energy infrastructure to threaten or actually inflict intolerable suffering on the island.
How are big, slow, flammable cargo ships supposed to get through to a port if the Chinese decide to sink them with missiles or just wreck the ports? These are the east coast ports not needed for invasion... How is Taiwan supposed to produce its own food without fertilizer, without power for food processing and refrigeration, without fuel for food distribution? How are the fuel storages and food storages supposed to survive bombing? All of those things go away if the Chinese decide to hit them with their huge arsenal of missiles and drones. The world's biggest drone producer is not going to have a shortage of drones.
That's where I disagree with the CSIS wargames, they assume a very rosy picture:
How are inventories going to be sustained and distributed under a constant bombing campaign? Hardening fuel storage is good but what about the engine rooms and pumping machinery needed to get the fuel out of storage? That's tricky to harden, needs ventilation...
And what are the chances this conflict is over within nine months? This would be a great power war and they last for years and years. China's greatest strength is in industrial power and manpower, they would prefer a quick victory but will accept attritional, industrial warfare too.
Yes.
This isn't true at all, as you'd know if you've been reading my posts - the Navy's been testing improved ammo for the 5-inch gun, we've deployed lasers and we've used laser-guided rockets (which pretty much fix the cost curve for Shahed-type weapons). Similarly the large-scale production ramp up is (at least supposedly) underway.
If the US ramps up said production to 1,000 Tomahawks a year (stated goal) then it can just blow up their port infrastructure and call it a day.
Possibly! But it's not exactly an EZ win for the United States, either, which means people are paying attention.
We'll see how this works on Iran. So far it hasn't worked on Ukraine.
A war with China over Taiwan? If they launch an invasion and the war is still going on after nine months, it means the invasion failed. I would say it depends on a lot of factors, as a flat-out invasion is not the only outcome, nor does its failure terminate the war, but consider that if it lasts over a longer term the Chinese inability to sustain their domestic consumption of oil will start to increasingly hurt them, and all of the stuff you've said about inflicting hurt on Taiwan will start to work against China writ large.
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