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Notes -
Why does this matter? The big geopolitical question in 2027 isn't going to be China's capacity to deter America - it will be America (plus some bit player allies)'s capacity to deter China from invading Taiwan. If China wants to attack Taiwan and thinks they can win, they just do it. The act is self-communicating.
The core point that Tanner Greer is making is that America curb-stomping a weak enemy in days rather than the expected weeks* doesn't change the credibility in Chinese eyes of American deterrence very much.
* No, there isn't a huge body of establishment Iran doves claiming that Iran could beat America. The standard Iran dove argument was (and is) that
I addressed this:
I stated right at the top that in terms of an actual conflict, I think China would win relatively decisively. But even if you think you will probably win, that's not the only option on the table. I think that on balance, military options should be downweighted because of pre-existing preferences to take it over without US intervention. Why?
To oversimplify, to take Taiwan without a major intervention, you're counting on one of these:
Here's my logic. Since China has realized that it's bad at meaningfully bluffing, this makes the relative chances of pulling off a non-intervention takeover much lower in relation to the risk of an intervention. The risk shifts to military conflict. And of course in all of this, there's the "nothing happens/waiting" scenario. Since China's "utility function" is afraid of risk, and weights a nonintervention so much higher than a risky direct conflict, the overall effect of this risk shift is, somewhat counterintuitively but valid mathematically, towards "nothing happens". That's what I'm trying to get across: not all these options are of equal desirability, and this new reality where Chinese deterrence is ineffective means the most desirable options are less likely to work.
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