America Errs In Viewing Ukraine As A Template For Taiwan: The situation in Taiwan could not be more different, but there is a simple, bloodless solution if only the parties would be open to it

American Thinker ^ | 02/22/2023 | Molly Slag

[SeekAndFind]

A few days ago, on several internet news sites, a bone-chilling claim appeared: The U.S. is looking to the Ukraine war to shape its planning for the coming conflict with China over Taiwan. This is completely wrong because there is no connection between events in Ukraine and a possible Chinese assault on Taiwan.

The comparison between current events in Ukraine and possible future events in Taiwan has been common practically since the Ukraine conflict began.

On May 19, 2022, Politico wrote that “U.S. officials are pushing their Taiwanese counterparts with new urgency to look to Ukraine’s success in fending off Russian forces as a blueprint for countering a Chinese attack.”

Less than a year later, News published an article entitled, “How Ukraine war has shaped US planning for a China conflict“: “As the war rages on in Ukraine, the United States is doing more than supporting an ally. It’s learning lessons — with an eye toward a possible future clash with China.”

Reading these articles, one must ask whether our military “experts” have a realistic grasp of the coming battle of Taiwan? I doubt it.

Apparently, “US officials” imagine that Chairman Xi is channeling Gen. Robert E. Lee and intends to reenact Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg by charging across the Taiwan Strait, in the same way that Russian President Vladimir Putin reenacted it with his infantry and armor against Kiev.

The simple fact is that Pickett’s charge is as bad an idea in 2023 as it was in 1863. It’s rather amusing to see Americans think that the Chinese will fall for it.

For thousands of years, the only offensive tactic the generals of the world could imagine was the frontal assault.

[redgolum]

Then you can go.

But that doesn’t answer the question. What treaty do we have with Ukraine?

[MeganC]

There is no treaty and you know it.

But there is the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 in which the UK, USA, and Russia assured Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan of their sovereignty as they joined the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

Ukraine and Kazakhstan removed their nuclear weapons to Russia while Belarus put them under Russian control.

Ukraine upheld their part of the agreement. Russia obviously did not. And the US and UK are IMHO falling short of their promises.

You may not like this but the proper response to Russia’s violation of the agreement was to restore Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal. Russia voided the 1994 agreement and therefore Ukraine has no obligation to honor it.

[Wizdum]

During the 70's a series of satellites named VELA was launched into a geosynchronous orbit. It's sole purpose was to identify nuclear detonations anywhere on the planet.
On September 22 of 1979, VELA recorded what appeared to be a detonation in the South Atlantic. At first it was dismissed as an anomaly. Carter called it a collusion between South Africa and Israel. There was a lot of consternation about how a nuclear Israel would affect the Middle East.
At that time there were three countries that were pariahs to the rest of the world.
Israel, because of it's continued conflict with the rest of the Arab world, that led to the gas crisis of the 70's, and the pressure put on the UN to condemn the the attacks from Israel on the some of the terrorist organizations.
South Africa, because of it's continued apartheid policies.
And finally, Taiwan, which had been relegated to indifference with the rise of mainland China as an economic power.

Israel provided the plutonium, South Africa provided the place to develop and assemble and test, and Taiwan provided the necessary precision tooling machines to construct the components, along with the electronics.

The old adage, "The enemy of my enemy, is my friend" applies here. The technical combination of these three countries, and the 'cookbook recipe' on producing a nuclear device has been available since the 50's, so it is not out of the realm of thinking that the 'price' for contributions to the South Africa/Israel experiment would be enough of the plutonium to produce one or two weapons. Taiwan is what we call a '90-day' country, meaning they could produce a usable, deliverable weapon in 90 days or less. It is the one trump card Taiwan has to keep the mainland from invading. And if the mainland does decide on armed conflict, it may be a huge surprise for the China Politboro.
The Carter Administration denied it was a nuclear test, three or four different panels have conflicting conclusions, however, there is only one thing that produces the flash the VELA system was designed to recognize. The following article has a lot of good information and sources.

VELA INCIDENT