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Why invade Taiwan now when they didn't in 1991, you ask. Several reasons:

1. China has built a large force of ballistic missiles that can reach Taiwan. They didn't have it in 1991.

2. The US military was at a peak in 1991. It had been designed to fight one major war against the Soviets and another intermediate size war simultaneously. Today, we are stretched thin in just the middle east. After eight years of Clinton . . .

3. Perhaps most important. China is at a use it or lose it point. In 3-4 years we will deploy ship based anti missle systems that will negate the entire Chinese advantage (ballistic missles) in the coming Taiwan conflict. If they don't take advantage of this window of opportunity, they will not have another for many years.

I think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a not unlikely result of an invasion of Iraq. Because of the strategic importance of Taiwan, we must be prepared to fight that war also. We have smart guys running this show. They will do what they can.

Also keep in mind one thing, Chinese conventional weapons are far more modern and the troops are far better trained then they were almost 12 years ago. The problem for the ChiComs is that they have only a limited number of the high-tech equipment.

You're smoking crack!

The question isn't "Will China invade Taiwan", but rather, "Will India reclaim Kashmir from China and Pakistan".

China has lost its last two ground wars (to India circa 1961 and to Vietnam in 1979) and has no troop landing craft. Since the Taiwanese Straight is 50 miles of killing fields for shooting up hardened military transport landing craft, an invasion would be pretty stupid. Especially an invasion without air superiority. Chinese jet fighter pilots tend to crash their lousy F-7's and F-8's when they go up against unarmed American propeller aircraft like EP-3's, much less the F-16's that Taiwan fields in its modern air force. So it's pretty safe to say that China isn't going to have air superiority over any invasion force in the Straight.

But if they did try it, while their air force, army, and navy was tied up fighting for an island on one side of the world, on the other side of the world you'd see nuclear-power India's multi-million man army retake Kashmir.

Oh yeah, that'd just be brilliant! < /MOCKING >