Posted on 08/21/2002 8:22:12 AM PDT by tallhappy
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:01:05 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Yet the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) response to Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence statements earlier this month has been bone-chillingly disturbing.
The generals' hawkish outbursts have highlighted the perils of rising nationalism coupled with a military force deemed to have extra-constitutional powers.
(Excerpt) Read more at asia.cnn.com ...
Two problems with that scenario; China is not the USA and Taqiwan is not Serbia. My guess is the Chinese would expend their load of missiles and cause a lot of damage to airfields and ports, but fail to knock them out. Any planes attempting to attack Taiwan would be cut to pieces by the ROC airforce. The ROC (Taiwan) has better pilots, better planes and the defenders advantage of being able to stay over their own territory longer compared to the PRC jets that would have to use up much of their fuel to get there.
In short it would be a humilating failure that would ensure Taiwan's independence, cut off their trade surplus with the US, and lead to the collapse of the Chinesse economy. Of course they may just be stupid enough to believe this garbage and do it.
Kind of like the Japanese, right?
The idea of a Fortress America, one which defends itself only when attacked, is foolishly naive. It would allow a powerful nation or coalition attain control over the people and resources of the Eastern Hemisphere, and allow it/them to attack us on their initiative (strategically, not tactically, speaking). Imagine if we had not opposed the Soviets from 1945 onwards - they'd have rolled over Europe in no time, then taken the Persian Gulf oil fields and ultimately taken the strategic mineral treasures of southern Africa (chromium, cobalt, etc.). Then they and the Chinese could've had a truly massive military to use in an assault on us, say in the 1960's.
We are a free people, and wealthy because of that freedom. That automatically makes enemies for us, some from jealousy, some from greed. That is the way of the world, and history confirms it. That being the case, I'd rather fight in my enemy's back yard before he's too powerful, than in my backyard when he's strong and can choose the time of the fight.
Notwithstanding the above, there is always the risk of "imperial overstretch." It affected Rome, England and a host of other nations and empires, all of which are gone. The US is not immune from this. But that doesn't mean that we have to, or should, run away from the world. It does mean that we should pick our fights carefully (and sometimes you can't pick a fight - it picks you).
I would bet Taiwan already has them.
Not as worrisome as you may think, the way I understand it. We know the range they have, and we have faster ships, and far superior air power. So, if a ship equipped with the Sunburn moves in, we just stay out of range and pound it from the air. No more Sunburn then. I'd bet the Air Force and Navy have figured out some jamming and other countermeasures for it too.
True enough but Roosevelt and Churchill who fought WW II because of the German invasion of Poland ended up by handing over Poland to the Soviets. Plus we had traitors who provided the bomb to Russia and favored Mao. The Communist heritage survives today because our government was loaded with supporters of foreign interests with their own favorites.
Saddam is but a pimple on our arse compared with China. I think the unintended or intended consequences of what you favor means we should attack China on their land today before they attack us on ours. Nah, fortress America with strong retribution is a much better idea.
I'm opposed to that. We should be strong enough to ensure that threats never even approach our shores. The smart way is to play other countries off against one another, so that they are too distracted or exhausted to bother us. We should minimize the need for our troops to be present wherever possible, both to save blood/treasure and to avoid having other nations view us as "the enemy."
Nope. The idea is to be willing and able to strike overseas at enemies before they can hit us in the short term, not to just decide to invade a nation because they are a long-term potential threat. To do that would be to go the way of Rome and Britain into empire, which we should absolutely NOT do.
However, a better idea than that is to identify potential big threats (like China) and then support their enemies. This must be done carefully, more carefully than we've done it in the past, to avoid being in bed with the worst riff raff in the world just because they are the enemy of our (potential) enemy. Keep the enemy distracted and/or exhausted and/or so technologically behind us that they can never present a challenge to us.
We should also play off of our strengths, as the Brits did. They had the strongest navy, bar none, but a not-so-large army. They kept various potential challengers (all with large armies) busy with their enemies for a couple of centuries, thereby leaving their critical edge, the Navy, untouchable.
In short, we should avoid the route of empire, but not retreat into isolationism as you favor. Neither of these courses will adequately protect us. Keeping our enemies tied down with their enemies in their own backyards will keep them out of ours. It is a proactive policy, but not so much as an empire.
Appreciate your points but this seems to be following the British Empire balance of power policy completely. Maybe good for a while. I believe this is what Nixon had in mind regarding Russia when he went to China. I don't think we can depend on this keeping them tied down 'in their own backyards' any longer. The balance done gone.
'Isolation' had been made into a perjorative by those wanting their preferred entanglements. Bush talks about 'going it alone', I like that better. I am all for avoiding the world's endless wars of land, religion, commerce, politics, etc. Let me call it putting the rest of the world in isolation so we don't catch what they have.
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