I’ve been in Taiwan for a good while now, and I think I love this country, but I’m very doubtful about the desirability of my country’s risking getting itself involved in a fourthwar in the Western Pacific, especially since the next one may involve nuclear weapons.
China has nowhere near the necessary force projection capability to play that role. Obviously, it has enough military might to cause huge problems for some of its neighbors, namely Taiwan.
That’s a nice theory but there are plenty of signs that we’re already living in a multipolar world and that influential members of the US power structure either support or accept that.
Have you not looked at official US policy vis-a-vis Russia and its consequences in the last decade (Crimea, Syria, etc.)? Did you forget the US policies vis-a-vis China and their consequences prior to Trump? Have you read Kissinger’s latest China comments?
A lot of powerful people in the US have for years backed policies that have eroded America’s military and economic superiority. And many of them have cashed in on it.
I vaguely remember “hiding-under-the-desk” drills in the early 1960s. My dad stored a bunch of canned goods, toilet paper, etc., in the little utility room in our house.
Later, we kids got word through some kind of grapevine that Baton Rouge would be one of the first to get hit, because of the refinery and plants.
At that time, America put it’s foot down and forbade it, on the unspoken promise that the US would have Taiwan’s back if it came to a nuclear threat from China. Whether you believe that promise still holds is another matter.