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What a chessgame.

The first question to ask is what do we get for our support of Taiwan?
A question we virtually never ask about our support for Israel.

What are the risks we are courting for such support?

What cards do we have to play?

One point that seems strikingly absurd is the matter of the need for US ground troops in the event of a war in the Taiwan Straits. Where would they be used? On Mainland China? Good grief, while I don't think the PLA is a match for the US, to put any US troops on China Mainland is absurd--it plays straight to the PLA's one strength--sheer volume of bodies.

Put US troops on Taiwan? Why? It is not anywhere near clear that China can land troops on Taiwan at all, much less in a number that would succeed in defeating a well equipped Taiwanese military (I do not believe that the KMT supporters would help the PLA if they actually attacked Taiwan--at worst some of them would just sit the conflict out, but many would be called up and would go).

So it is back to the US Navy--the exact support Taiwan would need to a). break a naval blockade or b). shoot down every plane the PLA has (if, and only if Taiwan's airforce needed that help).

Of course, all of this assumes there is not a traitorous demonRAT in office in the White House.

Stratfor is turning into a DNC mouthpiece - which is why I no longer subscribe. Our military is stretched thin? Let's see, we've got 140,000 in Iraq, 20,000 in Afghanistan, 37,000 in Korea, and less than 50,000 left in Germany. That total is less than 250,000, out of a force total of just under 875,000. That's thin????

Plus, who in their right mind would consider fighting China in a conventional sense? They've got less than 100 ICBMs, and we've got the capability to keep them on the ground or in their subs. (Remember Russia's last nuclear exercise??) Yes, I mean to say nuclear first strike in the event that China turns from push to shove. We've got "excess" capacity in the nuclear area, and they've got a huge excess in population. That doesn't take a GED to do that math.

This is merely their attempt at trying to read the tea leaves with China while forgetting our capabilities. But then again, maybe this is the emessage we want to send China - that we're stretched super thin and can't respond. Go ahead, ChiComs. You'll see for real who the paper tiger is, and it ain't us.

...socialist idealism in the face of the crony capitalism into which China's Communist Party has fallen

Uh, I think that is called fascism. The idealism is maintained with nationalism and military adventures. Hmmmmm...