There is a debate in Washington on whether or not the US can "defend" Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. No matter what your expertise is in military operations, my view is that the debate misses the main point. The issue is not whether the United States can defend Taiwan --that is, strictly speaking a military question based on the balance of forces and their deployment, but instead the issue is about the political character of deterring a Chinese military operation against Taiwan.
The actual situation is not so much military as it is political, and the political impacts the strategic game. China's strategy has been clear for many years and it has not markedly changed. China seeks to isolate Taiwan and to discourage Taiwan's defenders, the United States most of all, from considering coming to Taiwan's defense.
The context is, of course, that while there is Congressional support for Taiwan in the United States, that support has been lacking from the Executive Branch of government. Even under more Taiwan-friendly governments, Donald Trump's for example, the overall calculus has remained about the same. (The fact that Taiwan’s President, Tsai Ing-wen, in her trip to the United States cannot meet with any Executive Branch officials, is illustrative. It has been that way for decades.)
That's because Washington needs to maintain good relations with China, protect the American economy which is, today, increasingly shaky, and keep enough freedom of action to not be tied down solely in the Pacific. Keep in mind that most US military assets are in Europe, not in Japan or Okinawa, or even in Australia. Complicating things further is the tremendous amount of equipment and operational support that has been poured into Ukraine, weakening the defense of Europe and stiffing Taiwan, which is not getting vital arms deliveries because US industrial capacity is being soaked up by the Ukraine war.
There are also systemic structural problems on the US military side which anyone with common sense in the Pentagon has to understand. The US Navy, with the possible exception of nuclear submarines, is in serious decline, with out of date ships and poorly trained crews. The US Air Force, which is primarily dependent on the unproven F-35, has a lot of old, worn out jet fighters, old F-16's and F-15s. Even the US bomber fleet is made up of ancient B-52s and B1 bombers. The B1 bombers keep experiencing serious technical and aging problems. The B2s are still good, but how any of them, even stealth bombers, would fare on really long range missions against modern air defense systems remains open to question. Meanwhile America, which usually used the US Marines as the point of the sword, has voluntarily destroyed that service: the latest obscenity was to take away the Marine's main battle tanks and change the Marine's mission to something approximating helping the Navy to load its obsolete guns.
There is a lot more that is discouraging, such as wasting money on the worthless Littoral Combat Ship, which can do things but not combat, or retiring Ticonderoga class cruisers to save money. Ticonderoga’s, as worn and clunky as they are, enhance US air defenses at sea, mainly Arleigh Burke class destroyers, the sort of air cover needed if a war really did break out in the Pacific. Both Ticonderoga cruisers and Arleigh Burke class cruisers have AEGIS air defense systems. But never mind.
Thus from the purely military side, the US is not in tip top shape against a growing threat from China. But even that is not the critical issue.
What we need to focus on is how to prevent Taiwan's isolation, and how we can do that realistically given the political diseases that affect US policy makers when it comes to China. Dumping weapons into Taiwan, even if we had them to dump, doesn't fix the isolation problem. The isolation problem is key, because it is precisely China's strategic objective to isolate Taiwan.
China is emphasizing Taiwan's isolation politically and militarily. Flying fighter jets, bombers and surveillance aircraft around Taiwan, forcing constant air defense response drills, is an effective measure that wears out Taiwan's old F-16s and CK1 fighter jets. Adding more and more aircraft to the mix, and running aggressive naval drills around the island, add to the pressure felt by Taiwan's military. At the same time, running well publicized invasion exercises makes it clear to Taiwan's decision makers that, on any day, China can shift from drills, to the real thing.
China's military operations beyond Taiwan, for example in the South China sea, is meant to extend the pressure on the United States. Chasing US carriers and warships and aircraft away from China's South China sea islands and reefs, almost all militarized, is an example of how messages can be sent to Washington. China also gets a free propaganda victory even when not supported by the facts, as the message about stopping US so-called "freedom of navigation" exercises is a warning to Japan and other littoral states in the region.
The US will continue to be victimized this way by China so long as it is an uncommitted actor. While the US has tried to compensate by carrying out military exercises with allies and friends in the region (not including Taiwan), such measures don't solve the Taiwan isolation problem, which is acute.
The basic problem is that the US, since the Joint Communiqué of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, also known as the Shanghai Communiqué (1972), does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan and has no military bases or military agreements with Taiwan. While Taiwan gets arms, largely thanks to the Taiwan Relations Act (1979-1980) passed by the US Congress, even that act did not actually change Taiwan's isolation. While the US has mutual defense and security agreements with Japan and with South Korea, there are no security agreements of any kind with Taiwan.
If there is no willingness to ameliorate Taiwan's isolation, the result will be a steady erosion of Taiwan's operational independence and, at the end of the day, the takeover of Taiwan by China. Taiwan's leaders, who have a lot of fortitude, can be expected to skate on increasingly thin ice for only so long.
Washington could find a way to improve the situation by setting up a common defense system in the region, without officially recognizing Taiwan. The means to do this would be a Common Command Structure between the US, Japan, Korea and Taiwan which would include mutual defense commitments. A Common Command Structure would be between military organizations, and while China may say that Taiwan's participation in a Common Command Structure would signal US support for Taiwan's independence and violate the terms of the Shanghai Communiqué, the US could say that it still backs the Communiqué and seeks a peaceful resolution of the dispute between China and Taiwan. In effect, if we can support Taiwan with armaments, we can demand that those armaments be part of a Common Command Structure in the region.
Obviously Taiwan would be a beneficiary of a Common Command Structure because it would be a collective defense agreement at the military level, something Taiwan needs for its survival. But it would have two other effects. First it would send a message to China that their attempts to isolate Taiwan will not work and that other acceptable political solutions could, if China was willing to shift away from its all or nothing approach towards Taiwan. China has to be convinced to change its political approach, and to shift away from military pressure tactics or dangerously forcing a confrontation with the United States. A Common Command Structure might be just the ticket to bring about such change.
A Common Command Structure also benefits the United States in tangible ways. By organizing defenses with our regional allies we take a critical step in offsetting the defense burden by sharing it. The time has come, as even Japan is grasping, that either we are all in this together or we all will lose. It also sends a clear message to China that picking apart our alliances is off the agenda.
US policy makers, of course, prefer to kick the can down the road, as they have been doing for over forty years. But the world has changed. China has now buttressed its power with a strategic deal with Russia. We don't know what mutual commitments were made by the pair, but it can't be good. The US has overcommitted to Ukraine, weakened the defense of Europe, and is having trouble shoring up its Pacific military capabilities. The latest decision to pull front line fighters from the Middle East and replace them with old A-10s, is illustrative of the shortage of equipment. Similarly, non-deliveries of ordered munitions and weapons for Taiwan is another. Washington is increasingly out of sorts. It is high time for Washington to get its act together and sensibly strengthen deterrence globally.
(For those interested, I suggest having a look at “Stopping a Taiwan Invasion” written by myself and retired Marine General Earl Hailston. You can get it exclusively on Amazon.)
Stephen, trying to find a way to connect to interview you again (after a gap of several decades!) about the US/USSR technology/security tangle in the mid 1980s. This 1986 Tech Review story: https://www.slideshare.net/Revkin/supercomputers-science-and-spies-a-revkin-in-tech-review-886?from_search=0 and my investigation of the disappearance of Soviet climate scientist Vladimir Alexandrov: https://revkin.substack.com/p/new-heat-rises-around-the-unsolved-22-04-18 Can you email me ar667 AT columbia DOT edu? Thanks.