Should America Fight A War with China over Taiwan? Hell No.

The author is very shortsighted when he says Taiwan is “not worth the risk”. He further explains that Taiwan is thousands of miles away so who should care. History yends to repeat itself. Nazi Germany was took over Austria and Czechoslovakia while the world looked on. It was only when they invaded Poland did the British and French declare war. The biggest mistake was for the United States to look on and do nothing. Europe was almost entirely in Nazi Germany’s hands. To let China take over a sovereign country without a fight is the biggest mistake that could happen.

Daniel Davis: how can you claim a cold objective analysis without asking the cost of losing influence in the Taiwan strait? Lacuna much?

Wrong! The US doesn’t need to send any actual military personnel to fight in any war against Taiwan!
It can supply and re-supply the island state with all of the defensive ground-air, ground-ship, ground to ground, cruise-missiles and air-air missiles to both adequately deter and to defend, mainly Taiwan’s airspace, in an a similar manner in which the US did with Israel in the Yom Kippur war in the early 1970s. Taiwan’s technical manpower and training along with a powerful military buildup of supplies and support, will be more than enough to hold the day.
As supplies and re-supplies are being replaced, by both ships and transport aircraft on the Eastern seaboard of Taiwan, they can easily be protected by a large combined Naval fleet with both aircraft and anti-aircraft missile defenses placed sufficiently East of the Taiwanese East coast.
That will very securily work as an efficient deterrent and defense at preventing Taiwan from being defeated and at the same time, the US not getting involved directly in fighting a war that only China and Taiwan can be actively engaged in and if China then chooses stupidly to escalate that, then the US forces within the region, including all the Naval assets, will be in as prime and as safe a position to both adequately defend their positon and to effectively and swiftly counteract any and all threats.
Fear Not! Except Fear Itself, Because Fear Is One’s Biggest Insecurity That One Can Have!!^^

This guy is full of shit, never appease a tyrant.Taiwan first, what next? China actually belongs to Taiwan as the communist where the usurpers of the original nationalist chinese.The u.s. has always stood for freedom and the American way. Taiwan is no Hong Kong, it is sovereign. The u.s.cannot and should not let taiwan fall, no matter the cost. And china should know that!

Heh, operations like Overlord (june 6 ’44) and Iceberg (early’ 45) are old school and irrelevant to today’s people, except gungho types like the leathernecks.

Today, people whack living daylights out of recalcitrants using shock & awe or galactic-class firepower – one futuristic method (among vast array of methods) could be use of EMP bombs and/or neutron bombs.

Given during China’s 50th year celebration they bragged they would TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD IN THE NEXT 100 YEARS, you should look at this as the same threat Germany posed to the world in WWII.

All the arguments made in this article are the same used to to keep the US out of WWII originally.

Taiwan is a sovereign free nation. The globalist policies has helped built up our foreign adversaries so they now threaten us. With a State Department that believes bad people are really not that bad if you can just figure out how to agree with them. Seriously, I have had political debate with insiders who do not have a clue what evil truly is. You compromise with evil, the only direction you take / go is evil. And when a nation decides the short term cost are too great, they pay for ten times more on the long term. We cannot afford to continue to have short term vision in our policies. Nor can we give up our rights and freedoms, as well other nation’s rights and freedoms, to compromise with evil.

“Since 1979, the United States has had an unbroken policy of “strategic ambiguity” … That would be Jimmy Carter, nuf said.

I agree with the trend above in the comments. We need to take a stand here or we will face increasing and unrelenting efforts by China to control the South and East China seas and much of the world’s trade routes. That is something over which big wars get started. We must project a strong image now and with the current set of politicians with substantial financial connections with China, that may be difficult (e.g. McConnell and Kerry).

This was obviously a deeply considered and thoughtful article written by someone who has NO concept of the word Honor, Integrity or
Gratitude.
The Free Chinese people were petitioned for the last two years of WWII by Japan to sign a peace treaty, thereby freeing up hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers along with all of their artillery, air power and naval resources still in China. Those massive resources would have then been shifted to inflict casualties upon US forces and could have even changed the outcomes of some strategic battles for key islands, and would likely have even prolonged the war despite the atomic bomb. At the behest of the US government, Free China declined.
Tens of thousands of American lives that would have been lost returned to America, had families, started businesses and produced the greatest economic engine in world history. Millions of Americans alive today are decendants of those ‘saved American lives’, and would not actually exist if not for the resolve of Free China. Our allegiance to Taiwan was betrayed once by Truman, who could have easily allowed American bombers to wipe out Moa’s communists and stop their takeover of the mainland. American honor demands a defense of Taiwan, and to fail to do so would be a betrayal of epic proportions that would diminish the current shame of Afghanistan to a footnote. America would never be trusted again in any theatre. Sadly, Joe Biden is exactly the wrong man, at the wrong time during the most crucial period of modern history. I predict disaster.

Japan and the Philippines are pretty far away too. Should we write them off too if China moves against them?

How the US should respond to any new Taiwan Straits crisis depends on the detailed facts and circumstances around it. That is the whole point of strategic ambiguity.

I agree! It’s not worth fighting over the Sudetenland!

I can’t believe this guy was in the military. China is not omnipotent. China does not have the amphibious capabilities to mount that sort of invasion. The US, Japan, and Taiwan all have superior air and naval power compared to the PRC. China has to transport men and weapons across a 100 mile body of water. Taiwan is safe as long as we control the sea lanes and body of water around Taiwan.

A Lt. Col. is a person with a degree in any subject who stayed in the Army long enough to be promoted along with all his cohort and he both stayed in because he couldn’t imagine a livelihood in the private sector and stayed behind his either more intelligent or better character peers who were promoted on to Col. and Gen. As a deep thinker, a generic Lt. Col. is not going to have my attention.

As long as China can frighten the American military retirees into ceding anything within 100 miles of Chinese missile forces, the Chinese method of creating islands then claiming seas will leave the entirety of southeast Asia, except Vietnam, in the control of China. America didn’t have the means to fight for Guadalcanal when America did, but America made do with what America had. It was hard and expensive and costly in blood. By the time China gets to Guadalcanal, it will be too late for America to do anything about it next time.

This is a simple solution. It is the same solution that protected Western Europe for year from Soviet invasion. We knew we could not defeat the Soviet Union on a ground war in Europe so the “threat” was “if you invade Western Europe we will respond with an all out nuclear attack on the Soviet Union”. This should be the same threat we give the Chinese, invade Taiwan and we unleash the full nuclear arsenal upon the Chinese mainland. With our anti-missile technology we would be the one to come out the least harmed, but that will never happen, just like it never happened in Europe.

The problem is the bumbling fool in the White House would never have the guts to say that nor do any of his pantie waist staffer!

No this fool will be one to respond with conventional forces and screw that up and lose with catastrophic loses.

It is always more dangerous to have a coward in power than a cowboy!

Does USA have treaty agreement with Taiwan? Is USA now a nation that fails to uphold its vows?

We will fight them now or later. It is best to battle an opponent when they are not conditioned.

“How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.” — Neville Chamberlain, rationalizing Munich.

I think Taiwan is well worth fighting for. Quite aside from the semiconductor and other chips manufacturing, it is both a constant reproach to the mainland government for their own failures and an unsinkable aircraft carrier in its own right, right smack in the middle of one of the most important seas in the world.

We do not — and should not — get into a land war in Asia to preserve Taiwan’s independence. Submarines in the straits, coupled with airpower from friendly countries such as Japan and carrier air, not to mention more crazy ideas such as filling the straits so full of mines you couldn’t sail a rubber raft through without blowing up, will suffice. Allow the forces of the Republic of China to defend on land, ensure air and sea superiority in the straits. If the mainland government can’t get ships across the straits in meaningful numbers they can neither land troops nor resupply those who do arrive. Make it a debacle for the mainland government.

Indeed, it is precisely to oppose the mainland government that the current US administration made withdrawal from Afghanistan such a priority. It was a disastrous operation poorly executed, and that hurts our credibility greatly, but the administration recognizes that competition — not necessarily war — with the People’s Republic will be the primary American struggle for at least the first half of this century.

Countering aggression by communist China will come with a high price to pay, but so will Neville-Chamberlain-style appeasement, and I think the price of appeasement will be the higher price.

China is trying to rapidly build up it’s naval forces, with at least two objectives in mind. Ultimately China hopes to establish regional hegemony in and around the South China Sea by forcing the U.S. out of the region, starting with forcing the U.S. Navy out of the South China Sea. China falsely claims that it owns the entire South China Sea. China is making, or has made, similar false territorial claims, past and present, that China also owns Taiwan, most or all of Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and several land masses, real and artificial, within the South China Sea.

Failing to respond to Chinese aggression would be a first giant step toward our abandonment of the entire region around the South China Sea, including not only Taiwan, but also the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Appeasing China rather than confronting their aggression would be the beginning of Joseph Biden Jr.’s second great abandonment.

And China would end up controlling one-fifth of the world’s most active sea lanes, diminishing our current 100% control of the world’s sea lanes that we use to ensure freedom of navigation on the high seas for all of the nations of the world.

And, because Joseph Biden Jr. is the weakest American president in history, China is now sorely tempted to invade and conquer Taiwan, because they expect Biden to do nothing in response.

And any military conflict with China would involve primarily the U.S. Navy, and to a lesser extent, our Air Force, with little if any involvement of our land forces, and certainly no involvement of our nuclear forces. China would not escalate a conflict to the level of the exchange of nuclear weapons because, while China’s nuclear forces can be thought of as a hammer, and you can do a lot of damage with a hammer, our nuclear forces are better thought of as several large sledgehammers.

So, while no one is likely to win an exchange of nuclear weapons, China would clearly be the Biggest Loser, and Xi Jingping doesn’t want to die in a ball of fire as he leads his nation into nuclear oblivion, because even a feeble minded President Biden, who has difficulty walking upright, is still capable of pushing the little red button on the nuclear football that he is never supposed to be without.

The other goal of China’s naval buildup, and by far the greatest threat to China, is to be able to overwhelm the US Navy in the South China Sea in order to prevent a naval blockade of China’s eastern seaboard. The United States Navy is capable of successfully blockading China’s east coast, and that naval blockade would very quickly bring China to it’s collective knees, cutting off their import of fuel and foodstuffs that China is dependent upon to feed it’s people and fuel it’s industry. Without access to imports by sea, China would come to a grinding halt very quickly, within o longer than a few months, and possibly within weeks. A naval blockade would quickly result in massive starvation and the complete shutdown of industry and commerce within China

And, the U.S. Navy keeps ten nuclear attack submarines on station in the South China Sea at all times to help ensure the success, especially, of a naval blockade of China’s east coast, as well as to help prevent a successful amphibious invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese People’s’ Army’s navy should China decide to become the aggressor.

So, our greatest danger right now is the perceived weakness of our feeble-minded president.

I’m also a former Lt. Col. in the U.S. Army who began my military career at age 17, serving, as I progressed in rank, first as a crew chief on a Bell UH-1 Iroquois, “Huey”, helicopter, later serving as a combat medic before finishing my Active Duty service as an officer with the 82nd Airborne Division.

It is only Czechoslovakia.

Everyone seems to be underestimating the political aspect. The Mainland’s problem is that its model of developmental dictatorship is not very attractive to a place like Taiwan that is already developed and has democracy. And intimidation won’t work for this type of existential issue. It might end when one side loses patience with the impasse and triggers a crisis. Nobody should hope for that. A better ending would be for the Mainland to reform itself and become an attractive society for Taiwan to join. So what can the US do? Support patience on both sides, and support reform in the Mainland. That means the Mainland needs to know that it can’t succeed by brute force. That’s why I disagree with this article.

Amature hour at 1945, or a sad attempt at gaining some notoriety? The author is warranted his opinion, he lays it out nicely … and he is a fool. How far is Taiwan from Guam? That’s U.S. soil. How far is Taiwan from the Philippines? We have a Treaty obligation to come to their aid. What is the price of our word as a nation? I’m sure for Mr. Davis he was okay with how the retreat from Afghanistan unfolded, but how many hits to our credibility like that can this nation withstand and still meet its world-wide obligations and strategic needs? Mr Davis touts himself as a former Army LTC who deployed to combat four times. Well, congratulations and thank you for your service. That record will garner him thanks on November 11 … but means nothing in terms of his intellectual acumen. This article will do nothing but embolden the CCP.

It has been often said that discretion is the better part of valor. Or put another way, the best way to win at war is to not fight one. Trying to defend Taiwan; is likely to be all but impossible from a simply military standpoint. The distances make the logistics of equipping ans supplying our own forces, a total nightmare. While it might be possible to slug it out with the Mainland Chinese; what are the likely outcomes even if we were to be successful; and nothing like that is likely to be guaranteed. Are the likely results worth the costs. I think not. A war with China will de-stabilize the entire world, and lead to a world war that in the end will ruin everybody’s future. This is one conflict we should sit out. We can have a far greater impact on China’s future economically than wasting trillions of dollars and thousands of lives just to draw even. In the end; our goal is likely to be stalemate. One that is likely to last forever. I agree with the article’s author; this is one war we shouldn’t fight!

Defense Priorities is in bed with China. Daniel Davis and his buddies are arguing China’s victory cannot be avoided and the USA should accept it and pass the torch and embrace a China-dominated world. A world that would in reality be a hell on Earth.

Hi, I read your blogs daily. Your humoristic style is awesome, keep it up!