US officials who are ready to fight China over Taiwan don't understand how much is at stake

https://www.yahoo.com/news ^ | March 18, 2021 | Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, ret, Defense Priorities

[RomanSoldier19]

US defense officials are increasingly warning of the potential for conflict with China over Taiwan.

There is almost no way in which the US could intervene in that conflict without devastating losses.

Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, ret, Defense Priorities Thu, March 18, 2021, 7:16 AM·5 min read Shiyu Kinmen County Taiwan China Shiyu, or Lion Islet, one of Taiwan's offshore islands, with the Chinese city of Xiamen in the background. Carl Court/Getty Images US defense officials are increasingly warning of the potential for conflict with China over Taiwan.

There is almost no way in which the US could intervene in that conflict without devastating losses.

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Many of America's leading military and political figures have issued increasingly alarmist warnings in recent days about the potential for conflict with China, especially related to issues surrounding Taiwan.

But before the US gets into a crisis that brings it to the threshold of war - or finds itself stumbling into one - policymakers and military leaders need to address some hard realities.

There is almost no scenario in which the United States can successfully intervene in a war between China and Taiwan that will not leave our country in far worse shape than it is right now; in a worst-case scenario, American territory could be struck by nuclear missiles.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of US forces in the Indo-Pacific, warned that Chinese military developments looked to him like a nation planning for a war.

Davidson added that he believed China would attempt to forcibly reunify Taiwan "in the next six years." To guard against this possibility, Davidson asked Congress to provide a whopping $27 billion in additional funding over the current defense budget.

[servantboy777]

I’ve noticed the uber leftist Yahoo news has been running story after story about China / Taiwan takeover over the last month. There are days three or four articles.

Need to look at who owns Yahoo news. I was speaking to an engineer who came from Hong Kong the other day and he believes these relentless articles spouting how China is readying to take Taiwan and articles regarding American response are Chinese propaganda.

Does China own a portion of Yahoo?

[Trailerpark Badass]

lol, we’re already bowing. Why would china fight us if they can buy us out?

[redgolum]

Study strategy and diplomacy. A good choice would be Victorian England and Bismarck.

We can’t hold Taiwan from a determined China. They know, Taiwan knows it.

China holds most of our debt and supplies most of our electronics. Their nationals are in all of our industries, schools, and financial institutions.

What does Taiwan mean to the US? A few words on paper? If you haven’t noticed the .gov types haven’t been following the constitution for a while.

I hate it. I do. But the US lost to China. Nixon betrayed Taiwan, and ultimately the US>

[Trailerpark Badass]

We have a treaty to defend Taiwan? Seriously asking because I wasn’t aware.

[Trailerpark Badass]

What, exactly, would we be defending here, in the US? Seems like alot of boomer nostalgia going on.

[Kevmo]

Yea we do, but American guvmint has broken dozens of such treaties. Just ask the Native American tribes.

[Tallguy]

So China gets Taiwan. There’s still the issue of China will get Middle Eastern oil back from the Persian Gulf via the Indian Ocean. A handful of SSN’s will take care of that. Still want Taiwan?

[central_va]

I’ll answer that. Because a nuclear capable country has not yet lost a war on their own soil. When that happens, they will use nukes. Inevitably.

Nope. Not going to happen. Nobody commits suicide.

[Tallguy]

Yeah, the “Mandate of Heaven” thing.

[Tallguy]

I think you are underestimating the incompetency of Democrat administrations and the desire of Joe Biden to act like Anthony Soprano when he’s been dissed. Big wars start thru miscalculation. And China thinks they own Uncle Joe. But Joe can’t remember what he had for breakfast.

[Trailerpark Badass]

It would seem that defense treaties are only worthwhile if they’re mutual. Who’s Taiwan going to help us fight, George Soros? If so, where are they?

[Kevmo]

Taiwan isn’t into helping anyone but themselves.

[Tallguy]

The Taiwan Strait is like the English Channel — wide with serious tides and lots of storms through most of the year. There are also few beaches that would be suitable for a Normandy style invasion. A pure airborne operation wouldn’t cut it. The PLA might her the first wave ashore, but without supplies, command of the air, those troops March into POW camps.

[daniel1212]

. 71% of young people are ineligible for the military. The Army dropped grenade throwing as a requirement to graduate because new recruits could not throw far enough. “We are finding that there are a large number of trainees that come in that quite frankly just physically don’t have the capacity to throw a hand grenade 20 to 25 [82 feet] to 30 meters." Also, there is the Intellectual Decline of the Army Officer Corps. The size of the U.S. military in 2017 was half of what it was in 1990, and in general I think many signed up for the benefits rather than patriotism. 16% were women and racial and ethnic minorities made up 43%, and a poll from the Military Times and Syracuse University's Institute for Veterans and Military Families conducted in July 2020, 49.9 percent of 1,018 active-duty military respondents had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view. That poll showed Biden with a 4-percentage-point lead over Trump

[billyboy15]

“Going nuclear is the last thing we want to do...but it’s still on the list!😎”

Right, having a weapon without the willingness to use makes that weapon useless as a deterrent.

[Chainmail]

"We have a treaty to defend Taiwan? Seriously asking because I wasn’t aware."

I stand corrected: we don't have a treaty as such, not since the formal recognition of the Communist Chinese Government in the late '70s.

What we have instead is the Taiwan Relations Act and other subsequent legislation which provides us the cover to supply Taiwan with defensive armaments and kind of weasel-words around whether we'd join the fight if they were attacked.

The idea that the US would step in is the only thing that has kept Taiwan out of Chinese Communist hands all these years.

[Eleutheria5]

So they will not have the passion to wage war against their neighbors just so that China can take over and institute communism, anymore than the American English ultimately were willing to wage war against their Scots-Irish and “redneck” countrymen just so the King can rule with an iron hand and preserve Mercantilist monopolies on trade. Maybe the Lees, Jeffersons and other aristocrats were socially arrogant, but they fought on the side of the rebel colonies. So long as America has Taiwan’s back, going over to the Chicoms becomes a dubious undertaking with little or no prospect of reward.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Sorry, I have desire to pay for defending Taiwan. We already do business with Red China, so I’m not really seeing what the difference would be for me if Taiwan was also Red China.

[Chainmail]

Well, I'll be darned: a genuine Chicom Bot on the FreeRepublic! I'd heard that you existed but this is the first time I have actually dealt with one.

Get lost.

[redgolum]

I am not a boomer.

I am a realist.

We can not defend Taiwan. China knows it. Taiwan knows it. A great many want to reunite with the mainland (stupidly IMO) China can afford to sacrifice a few tens of thousands of men to take it. We will not sacrifice one tranny overweight sailor.