While Col. Macgregor talks about this and understands it well, he misses a point. Taiwan isn't jsut a little island, as he asserts, any more than UK or NZ are little islands. The point of sea power is that it allows you to defend your islands. MacArthur was clear about the importance of Taiwan in the island bulwark in the Western Pacific.
This is where the neocon globalists went very wrong. They forgot our natural strategic advantage being protected by two oceans over which we trade with the rest of the world.
Being an asian landpower is a sad lot in life. It is bad enough for those who have to live with it because of geopolitical realities [Russia is but one]. We don't and we shouldn't have tried. You have too many enemies, no natural defensive barriers, and victories are too fleeting.
It isn't us who gave up on America. It is the neocon globalists who tried to turn us into something we cannot be and squandered a fortune doing so.
Taiwan is a little island. It’s about the size of Maryland. The eastern 2/3 is mountains. The western 1/3 is plains and where the major cities and port are located, approximately 120 miles from China.
Taiwan’s ports are all within short range missile range of China. Not to mention all the semiconductor fabs.
I served for 22 years and my perspective is from the inside.
The problems are all due to politics. I don’t disagree that we screwed up going after Iraq. Afghanistan was right and correct for us, but the nation-building efforts were a huge mistake. Colin Powell’s “you break it you own it” policy was ridiculous and driven by crybabies in the media. The successful policy would be “we break it and will do it again if you threaten or hurt us.”
We’re still the strongest military power on Earth. It is Washington DC and New York City where things get messed up.
There’s a lot of reasons for this, more than you or I could type in a single post. There are three basic political factors: The public’s response to casualties and enemy civilian deaths (they overreact), the place the media carved out for itself as the “experts” and “judges” of military policy and tactics (they’re not, they’re arrogant Monday-morning quarterbacks), and the back-and-forth democrat party (when they’re in power) attempts to use the military for social purposes (total distraction).
We have nothing to show for it because we’ve been reactive to the media’s constant criticism.
I want to see the problems reversed. The only way for us here to do something about it is to elect the right people.
There’s far too much naval gazing and trying to be the smartest poster on Free Republic and not enough actual activism. I don’t care how smart anyone is, or how well they talk.
If we don’t get Trump back in office and Biden wins, or some RINO, then we’ve lost more than an election.