BING WEST
In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of support for Taiwan from the U.S. House of Representatives, typified by the visit of the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Representative Michael McCaul. If China invaded Taiwan, he said, sending U.S. forces into the fight “would be discussed by Congress and with the American people.” McCaul was hewing to the congressional Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, which designates Taiwan a “Major Non-NATO Ally” but leaves ambiguous whether the U.S. would fight alongside it or instead treat it as it does Ukraine, sending arms but not entering the fight.
Chairman Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan. Obviously, his preference is to achieve Taiwan’s capitulation through political maneuvers and threats. But his pledge to employ force during this decade must be taken as firm. A day after McCaul made his unremarkable remarks, China dispatched 80 military aircraft and ships into Taiwan’s littoral space and threatened to board and “inspect” commercial vessels. The Chinese general in command said this was intended as a “serious warning against the joint provocations of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and external forces.” The White House issued an infelicitous response, saying there was no reason for China to “overreact.”
Let’s have no illusions about what is at stake. Taiwan is both the linchpin and the weakest link in the security agreements and trade and military resources that make America the superpower in the vast Pacific. China already has imposed dominance in the 3.5 million square miles of the South China Sea, through which an estimated $5 trillion in goods passes each year. If China next controls Taiwan by force, then South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines will adhere to China’s rules. With China ascendant, the U.S. would retrench back to Guam and Pearl Harbor, while clinging to seaborne ties with a tepid Europe.
No longer a global superpower, America would morph into the Brazil of North America. There is no avoiding the consequences of appeasement as Taiwan is swallowed up. History may write that China was more determined than America. That is nonsense. There is no person named “History” — it is human beings who make decisions.
Who are the human beings currently making America’s history? President Biden as commander in chief has proposed a defense budget that grows 2 percentage points less than the 5 percent rate of inflation. He also supports decreasing the Navy’s warships from 297 to 280. The current secretary of defense is a platitude without conviction, while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is overstuffed with self-importance. Not one of the top three makes a vigorous case for increasing our military capabilities to stand up to China.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has said, “We’ve got three or four years to get Taiwan in a position where they will create the perception in the minds of the Chinese decision-makers that the cost exceeds the gains.” It’s preposterous to believe that tiny Taiwan (population of 24 million) by itself can deter mighty China (population of 1.4 billion). Note that Milley did not say, “We’ve got four years to get the U.S. and Taiwan into a strong position.” Yet war games and pundits suggest that, if we were to fight for Taiwan, there’s a good chance we would lose. War games can’t predict outcomes. But they do indicate that the national-security community writ large is highly uneasy about our military capabilities, while our defense budget decreases. With eyes wide open, we are lurching toward failure.
Why? We are paralyzed because our nation lacks a shared sense of will and determination. Congress should pass a mutual-defense pact with Taiwan, as we have with the Philippines. That would be the strongest measure to dissuade Xi. But as is equally true of reining in our debt, no politician can gather a consensus for such a resolution. Opponents in Congress would claim it’s a vote for World War III and quash it. For example, congressional leaders have universally condemned the Chinese app TikTok. They are proposing, as a solution, an anodyne bill authorizing the Commerce Department to apply sanctions, if necessary, against China, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. The secretary of Commerce then observed that a ban would cause Democrats to “literally lose every voter under 35, forever.” So the odds are that TikTok is not banned. Congress talks tough, and does nothing.
As the years pass with falling defense budgets, our military may counsel to avoid conflict of any size with China. When Hitler moved to remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936, his military said they were not ready. Hitler reassured them that he would pull out the occupying force if the British initiated a countermove. The British military, however, told Whitehall that they were too weak to stand up to the Nazis. If Xi posed a challenge in, say, 2026, our military might respond as did the British command in 1936: Sorry, we don’t have the capabilities to prevail.
We are neither increasing our martial might nor enhancing deterrence by resolving to fight alongside Taiwan. A Founding Father, James Madison, warned that Americans could not take for granted that elected officials would overcome such domestic divisions: “It is in vain to say, that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”
Where does our divisiveness lead? If Taiwan does not bow to political pressure and accede, then Xi has two broad options. The first is blockade, crippling Taiwan’s trade and altering the passage of all commercial shipping in the western Pacific. Through intimidation, Xi can accomplish this without a mighty fleet. But here’s the rub: Blockades require months to succeed. This gives the president and Congress time for debate and resolution, to include enlisting Australia, Japan, and South Korea. In 1949, Russia blockaded Berlin. It eventually had to desist because America airlifted food daily into the city. Under escorts from several nations, Taiwan can be similarly provided indefinitely. The burden would be on Xi to fire the first salvoes against the escorts. He would initiate the war by attacking U.S. and allied warships. That would lead to a reverse blockade. It would be China that could no longer export or import. As Pearl Harbor was not a sensible war option for Japan, so too a blockade is not sensible for Xi.
The second option is a full assault against Taiwan. Here again, Xi has a problem. He must mobilize and preposition thousands of aircraft and ships, a task taking more than a month. With that much warning, our military would have ample time to deploy. The critical variable becomes the interaction between the president and Congress, with our military as the principal external adviser. In the case of Ukraine, the president, knowing that Russia was going to invade, withdrew our warships from the Black Sea and withheld arms delivery to Ukraine. In the Taiwan case, regardless of the predilections of who is the president, the decision to go to war would rest with a Congress that would fully debate the issue with the White House. But even then, Congress might duck a vote on any measure that had teeth.
Either we declare we will fight with Taiwan, and so increase the odds that Xi does not attack. Or we do nothing until Xi assembles his invasion force, and then we decide in haste. That leaves the incremental approach. The White House could gradually deploy U.S. troops ashore in Taiwan. Special Forces training teams already shuttle in and out. This fall, a Marine battalion of 800 troops could practice landing on the Pacific side of the island, far from the Taiwan Straits. In winter, an Army battalion of 1,000 soldiers could conduct an exercise, leaving behind a support element for the next exercise. Such incremental steps would avoid anything dramatic. There would be no flamboyant gesture akin to President Kennedy’s 1963 declaration — “Ich bin ein Berliner” — when the Soviet Union controlled half of that divided city. But the message is the same: America is here with you. That would put Xi on the spot. If he attacked, he would know that he must engage American forces. There is, however, no public evidence to suggest that either our military or the White House is contemplating such an approach.
In sum, there’s no way out of Taiwan. Our elected leaders are procrastinating. They are content to drift downstream, knowing there are falls ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment