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Their most obvious path (diplomatic / ‘peaceful’ / semi-peaceful unification aside) is a blitz campaign (with or without attacks on US bases in the region) followed by a quick deal with whoever survives in the leadership. The options for them at that point are “make a deal with Xi” or “call in the yankees and turn my country into a wasteland and die along with hundreds of thousands of civilians and my family and friends”, and they will pick the former.
I am begging you to think through the implications of "Operation Epic Fury has failed" (as you posit) for China if their most obvious path to seizing Taiwan is "Operation Epic Fury With Chinese Characteristics."
What makes you think that it failing in Iran isn’t due to specific characteristics of Iran rather than some universal strategic truth?
Let me give you an example: if Trump bombs Belgium heavily tomorrow demanding some political arrangement, they would surrender by midnight; the political leadership don’t want to fight and won’t, they would rather be ruled by America than die. Maduro’s party preferred making a deal with America to dying. The Iranians don’t.
Taiwan is neither Venezuela nor Belgium nor Iran, but its political leadership is closer - when it comes to ideological position on this - to the former than the latter. If the Islamic Revolution is overthrown then the IRGC are penniless and prosecuted at best and hunted and slaughtered at worst, probably the latter. If the Taiwanese elite accept Chinese rule relatively quickly…they get to go back to being rich in Taipei, or at worst exile themselves to America if they love democracy.
If Iran was ruled by people with the character and belief system of EU bureaucrats they would have surrendered on the day, shaking their heads.
Has Delcy actually done anything that benefits America and goes against their interests? So far it seems like sanctions shuffling or limited sanctions relief with oil being redirected to US refineries. I'm not plugged into what the flow of drugs looks like at a statistical level, but it sure doesn't feel like there are fewer drugs around.
Has this ever come true? The same was said about Ukraine wasn't it, that surely they would surrender their fake bullshit country? I don't know what country has ever actually surrendered under bombardment without even a threat of ground invasion.
It's not like Maduro was incredibly uncooperative either, he was even helping out with deportations. I've yet to hear anyone explain what major concession Delcy made that Maduro was obstinate on.
Who knows, maybe it was actually a rescue operation to free Maduro from the Cubans, give him an easily beaten trial to avoid the resulting political turmoil of flipping on a bunch of big public pledges (that the real elite in Caracas don't give a damn about) and then return him once things have calmed down.
The darkly cynical answer (that Rodriguez has allowed a substantial amount of Venezuelan oil money to be paid into a bank account in Qatar which is controlled by Donald Trump but operates outside the US laws concerning custody of government funds) remains the most plausible.
Before Maduro was taken out, Trump was imposing a naval blockade against Venezuelan oil exports. After Maduro is taken out, Trump permits oil exports as long as he gets to keep a large part of the money. It looks like Maduro was not willing to accept those terms, and Rodriguez clearly is.
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I am open to the idea that Taiwan might be different, but traditionally coercive bombing campaigns by themselves have had limited success achieving regime change. Operation Allied Force is the typical example of a successful bombing campaign, but NATO was preparing for a potential ground campaign, and Yugoslavia threw in the towel on the same day as a JCOS meeting specifically about pivoting to a ground invasion, leading some to conclude that it was the preparations for a ground offensive that tipped the scales. But even this did not lead directly to regime change, although it set the stage: Milošević was overthrown by his own people at a later date.
You can even see similar arguments about Japan, even after nuclear weapons were used against them, there were those inside the Japanese government of the opinion that the Japanese should continue resisting, and some argue it was the Soviet success on the ground that ended up tipping the scales.
That's not to say that air operations never succeed - for instance, Operation Preying Mantis or Operation El Dorado Canyon. But these were retaliatory, punitive strikes, not regime change operations.
Furthermore (unlike Belgium) Taiwan is preparing for this sort of coercive action to be taken against them. I have real questions about the resiliency of the Taiwanese people in the face of adversity and the effectiveness of their efforts to prepare, but it's not as if they have not taken steps to harden themselves materially and psychologically against an attack by the mainland.
It is also worth noting that the parallels between Iran and Taiwan extend beyond just "might get bombed." Iran's mountainous terrain and underground fortifications are often cited as an advantage; Taiwan has both. And while Taiwan is isolated due to its status as an island nation, Iran is relatively isolated geographically as well (in the sense that they are not going to be receiving regular resupply from China or Russia, unlike, say, Ukraine) and more vulnerable to ground attack, since it shares a border with potential adversaries. Iran is much larger than Taiwan, and much more populated, which is a massive advantage, although their domestic military technology stack might lag Taiwan's.
It is also worth noting that "Epic Fury With Chinese Characteristics" might be less effective and face steeper resistance than Epic Fury. Because of the comparatively long flight time, Chinese ballistic missiles in particular will likely be inferior to American air-delivered guided munitions as a way to hit mobile targets (such as missile launchers) and Ukraine has been able to contest Russian air dominance with systems like the Patriot, which is also in Taiwan's inventory, although it is possible China might be more capable than Russia in performing SEAD/DEAD, and Taiwan less capable than Ukraine in preserving their assets. And unlike Iran, Taiwan has a superpower patron (the United States) that has deployed a tripwire force on the ground, enabling it to "wave the bloody flag" in the event of an attack. In the event of such an attack, if it has not already occurred, Taiwan will likely be able to follow the Ukraine model of integrating closely with US intelligence apparatus, while Iran's ability to integrate with China and Russia's inferior intelligence capabilities is likely less efficient.
I don't actually think that the fate of Taiwanese leadership is all that rosy if China takes control of Taiwan. Presumably they noticed what happened to Hong Kong and will respond accordingly.
No Hong Konger has been hanged, precision stroke or killed by ice axe yet. Please remind me when that happens and we could discuss if the Lai Ching-Te or Tsai Ing-Wen would suffer the same fate. For that matter no Tibetan in Dharamshala or Uyghur in Syria/Iraq has been killed by the Chinese government either. Exactly as @2rafa said they were either “united-front”-ed and enjoy bossing over their own people (check the fate of Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme for example) or forced to exile like Dalai or Rebiya Kadeer. At worst they rot in prison like Jimmy Lai. Americans surely love to imagine the Chinese as brutal and hard-willed as they are but we simply aren’t.
This isn't exactly an attractive outcome.
What's the per capita rate of execution in China compared to America?
Better than “martyred” by tomahawks for sure. Or poisoned by plutonium.
More. Irrelevant of course. Again wake me up when they start striking or assassinating DPP or NPP leaders. They’re right there across the narrow water.
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