I don’t see the point in conquering a completely destroyed pile of rubble with 25 million suddenly stateless refugees?
Also this ignores the fact that Taiwan has subsonic and hypersonic missiles pointed directly at Beijing and important military installations. And this isn’t even considering Uncle Sam, or any of Taiwan’s other anti-aerial and advanced anti-naval equipment.
Do correct me if I’m wrong, but modern missile defense systems aren’t going to intercept a hypersonic, low-altitude cruise missile coming at you even from 1000 nautical miles away. No, if there’s a war, it will be hot, fast, and both sides will have a lot more to lose than to gain. I don’t think the saturation attack is worth worrying about. Final point, you’d be dead anyway, what are you preparing for?
edit: not picking on you in particular @RBE, just looking for a place to jump in
Yea I heard of Taiwan doing a bunch of missile tests lately without saying what… like a recent one where it’s clear it’s a long range missile. The US isn’t doing a whole lot of development with hypersonic missiles but it’s something the US is concerned about because they’re extremely hard to stop, and it does threaten carriers.
But recently Taiwan just finished some missile boat that is supposed to carry a bunch of those school bus sized hypersonic missiles. I should say what makes hypersonic missiles so dangerous is the fact that they’re FREAKING FAST, as in it will cover 100 miles in a couple of seconds. So even if R2D2 shoot one down, the inertia alone on them would still cause significant damage. Not to mention they have 2 seconds to respond when the missile is 100 miles out. Not even the advanced computer/radar on the R2D2 could respond that fast (well it can but you get like 1 chance to stop it and you pray that the missile isn’t on course to hit you even if you killed the missile). A school bus going at supersonic velocity will still do significant damage without its explosive payloads going off.
Nobody is saying that China would come out of a conflict unscathed, or that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan is easy, but Taiwan is vastly outgunned and its fate today would basically be determined by the US response or lack thereof.
Finally, I’d suggest that there are a number of less conventional scenarios that China might consider for achieving its aims without initiating a full-on amphibious invasion.
Well, this is basically my point. Most of the invasion plans foreigners have imagined are pointless. The bottom line is that if you’re not comfortable with the risks of being in Taiwan (and the risks are non-zero), you should leave sooner than later because under many scenarios, you wouldn’t be able to once it became clear the shit is hitting the fan.
It would be foolish to assume this is strategically putting Taiwan at any kind of advantage, and I’m not implying you’re saying this at all. I agree, a handful of seconds isn’t much. You’re talking 30 seconds maximum from Eastern Taiwan to a rocket exploding over Beijing. No, the daily ADIZ incursion war of attrition is the CCP’s bread and butter and there isn’t anything to do about it really. Plus you have future war (which is actually now here, clear and present) where you hack into the water system and power infrastructure like what’s happening with Israel.
I agree because private companies like SpaceX are doing it for them. I pity the fools who bought that SpaceX was all about going to “colonize mars” or whatever.
I was gonna mention this exactly, haha. Yeah, I agree. Like I said, not attacking you directly.
Agreed, I mentioned this in my response to TL.
This is just the very icing too, without getting deep into politics. When we look back at wars we look at leaders, strategists, traitors, heroes, alliances, etc. and their actions. Also, most importantly, where’s the money? Taiwan doesn’t have a massive supply of fresh water, or oil or anything else China will need in the future and not be able to get elsewhere. It’s a fight not worth picking, with the only way of “winning” being to convince (bribe) or dupe the US and its allies out of participating. False flag / defense response was a good one I saw brought up.
Agreed, it was a concern of mine before moving here. But honestly, the world is unstable. Taiwan is a possible flashpoint, but nowhere is entirely safe, and a life lived in fear isn’t worth living imho. f*ck it.
This isn’t really true. The Russians and Chinese are creating weapons that make for good press, but the publicly-visible US strategy is arguably much smarter.
In terms of what the public doesn’t know, look at military spending by country over the past 50 years. The US has been spending annually for decades what the Chinese are just starting to spend now. And today the US is spending 3x+ times more than China. You’d better believe there’s stuff in the US arsenal that blows minds.
There are numerous scenarios under which China can stop short of a full-scale amphibious invasion and still advance its strategic interests, and for at least the next decade, there’s every reason to believe that Taiwan’s fate in a conflict of any sort ultimately boils down to whether or not the US defends it.
According to the CSIS survey, most Americans are willing to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. So there shouldn’t be too much of a political cost to make such a move.
The willingness is even stronger among opinion leaders.
On the other hand, the U.S. has made moves as if China was going to take over Taiwan, like having TSMC move chip production to Arizona, and refusing to sell Taiwan F-35s.
One should be careful about reading too much into an online survey of 1,000 people. Most Americans probably can’t even point Taiwan out on a map, and I know from personal experience that some confuse it with Thailand.
In 2019, Glaser said, a survey by a Chicago think tank found that only 35 percent of U.S. citizens would be in favor of U.S. military action in support of Taiwan if China were to attack.
In the CSIS survey, however, “we found very significantly high scores showing the willingness of Americans to come to the defense of Taiwan,” which represents a major shift in attitude, Glaser said.
Or it shows that these surveys aren’t very reliable. Note the apparently huge difference in results when you ask directly if the US military should be used to defend Taiwan in an attack versus a much more ambiguous, “On a scale of ‘1’ to ‘10’, how important is it to defend U.S. allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific if they come under threat from China?”
Even if for argument’s sake one accepts that the sample is valid, what you ask has a huge impact on what responses you get.
Asking Americans if they would support US military action if China attacked Taiwan is not the same thing as asking an ambiguous question about how important it is for the US to defend its allies if they come under threat from China. That doesn’t speak to direct conflict and US military involvement in it, and different people are likely to have different ideas of what “threat from China” constitutes.
It’s not surprising that the direct, less ambiguous question found low support for US military involvement in defending Taiwan against China. After nearly 2 decades of military adventures in Afghanistan and the Mideast, costing trillions of dollars and thousands of US lives, lots (perhaps most) of Americans have limited appetite for moar war.
They asked specific allies: Japan, Korea, Australia, and Taiwan. And the question was more specific then you’re letting on. It asks if they should take “considerable risk” in doing so.
And what does “considerable risk” mean? It’s ambiguous.
In any case, you can always find a survey that confirms what you want to believe. That’s clearly the case here.
Personally, I’d like to believe that the US would stand up militarily to an increasingly imperialist China because I think it’s the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t bet my left nut on it doing so.
Although I have a bit of an issue with Qualtrics factoring population size into it. Population size isn’t supposed to matter. Their formula even acknowledges that.
