Loren Thompson
At the dawn of the 20th century, British geographer Halford MacKinder proposed that there was a “geographical pivot of history” in central Asia from which a nation such as Russia could potentially dominate all of Eurasia.
MacKinder’s idea was a counterpoint to the writings of his contemporary, American historian and naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan, who argued that command of the seas was the surest path a nation might follow to global power.
Mahan’s writings have tended to hold up better over time, although the theories of both men were undercut by the advent of long-range air power and other innovations that diminished the strategic significance of geography.
Nonetheless, the notion of a geographical pivot upon which great historical trends might turn retains its value. There are some places in the world that are of such extraordinary military and economic importance that a change in their status might signal the end of an era, or the beginning of a new global order.
Taiwan is the largest land mass between Japan and the Philippines, and thus anchors a chain of islands that U.S. strategists have identified as crucial to containing the rising military power of China.
The Chinese government too assigns great strategic importance to this “first island chain,” and in particular to Taiwan. There are other island chains further east, but these are more abstractions than real barriers. The first island chain, running roughly from Kamchatka to Borneo, is a genuine strategic obstacle for China’s Navy, a series of chokepoints that Mahan would have had little trouble grasping the military importance of.
Beijing, whose Navy now is bigger than that of the United States, has signaled that it does not intend to be contained and will one day be the dominant Pacific power. Washington has made the prevention of this outcome the overriding objective in its national defense strategy, and each U.S. military service is planning to use the first island chain as a place of leverage for countering China’s expansionist plans.
This is not a partisan impulse unique to the Trump administration. It was President Obama who began the shift of U.S. forces from Europe and the Persian Gulf to the Pacific. As respected analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners put it in a September 20 note, “Taiwan will remain a keen point of contention between the U.S. and China regardless of who wins the 2020 election.”
Taiwan’s centrality to the Pacific power calculus arises from several factors. First, it is by far the biggest island in the archipelago between Japan and Southeast Asia. Okinawa, the next biggest, is only seven miles wide on average; although it hosts half of the U.S. military forces stationed on Japanese soil, its bases could easily be disabled by China at the onset of a war. Taiwan, with 30 times the land area, affords more space for concealment and maneuver.
Taiwan is much bigger than the other nearby land masses in the first island chain. WIKIPEDIA
Second, Taiwan (officially, the Republic of China), is a first-class economic power in its own right. Companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor ON -2.1% lead the world in advanced technology. Third, Taiwan is much closer to mainland China than the other islands, and has been claimed by Beijing since Nationalists were driven there during the Chinese revolution in 1949.
But the most important consideration is simply this: if China were to gain control of the island, its ability to operate east of the first island chain would be assured. Its navy effectively would have broken out into the Pacific, and the ability of U.S. forces and their allies to control other nearby islands would be severely impaired.
So if Taiwan fell under the sway of Beijing, either peacefully or by force, the strategic balance in the Western Pacific would be irreparably changed. Other nations in the region would see it as the end of U.S. military dominance in the region, and their interpretation would be correct.
There would be no going back.
The question is what to do about this danger. Before Washington recognized the Chinese Communist Party as the legitimate government of China, the U.S. routinely stationed 30,000 troops on the island. Those troops are gone now, and their attempted return might well provoke a conflict with Beijing.
Although Taiwan’s defense forces plan on the assumption that America’s military would respond if China attempted an amphibious landing, air assault or naval blockade, in fact there is no assurance Washington would respond in a timely fashion. After all, China has a nuclear arsenal and the danger of escalation would dominate U.S. assessments of the situation.
The U.S. strategy today is to provide Taiwan with sufficient indigenous military capabilities to deter or repulse an attack from the mainland. That is why Washington is selling 66 F-16V Viper multirole fighters to Taipei, to add to the 140 F-16s its air force already has. That is why Washington agreed this summer to help upgrade the island’s Patriot air defenses. And it is the reason why Washington is selling Taiwan everything from M-1 tanks to torpedoes to Apache attack helicopters to tactical rockets.
Obviously, if the People’s Liberation Army launched an assault on the island that failed, it would be a huge embarrassment to Beijing. The combination of new weapons plus uncertainty about America’s response is calculated to dissuade China’s usually cautious government from running that risk.
However, Beijing’s recent actions in Hong Kong, the South China Sea and elsewhere may indicate that its willingness to take risks is increasing. Washington may need to further strengthen Taiwan’s indigenous capacity to deter by considering the sale of stealthy F-35 fighters, advanced missile defenses, and other weapons not currently contemplated.
For instance, the Marine “jumpjet” version of the F-35 would enable Taipei to limit the danger that Chinese attacks shut down air bases and ground its tactical aircraft. The planes would also be invisible to Chinese radar, a critical feature in deterring attack.
How Washington reacts to China’s persistent bellicosity regarding Taiwan will depend on its assessment of the military threat. But it is important to bear in mind that arming Taiwan isn’t just about keeping the island free. If Beijing breaks out of the first island chain, everything changes in the Western Pacific.
No comments:
Post a Comment