>That assumes that China just keeps firing an infinite number of missiles. In reality, there is some ratio where the tradeoff no longer makes sense. If one chea

>That assumes that China just keeps firing an infinite number of missiles. In reality, there is some ratio where the tradeoff no longer makes sense. If one cheap missile can sink a multibillion dollar aircraft carrier, that's a good deal. If it takes hundreds of these missiles, that's significantly less useful. Countering anti-ship missiles requires multiple interceptors, which are also very expensive. Tradeoff typically advantages offense, especially closer to land based assets. US carrier group will have limited magazine depth, and any missile dedicated to anti-AShM will take away missile cells for offense. Even hundreds of missiles per carrier group = a few thousands missiles to destroy USNavy capital assets / global hegemony. That's cheap. >There is no logical reason for America to back down first in a game of geopolitical chicken, and everyone knows it. The only winning move for China is not to play. The opposite, caveat being China can't afford not to play with respect to domestic politics especially if initiated by US/TW. That said, general trend of force balance has shifted so much within 1st island chain that US is no longer able to defend TW without pyrric costs. US has every reason to abandon Taiwan, because the prospect of trying to defend TW but failing is much deadlier to US hegemony than abandoning TW (for the 2nd time). US abandoning non security commitment partners is not new, modern US losing a peer war even at theatre level will is. The last thing US article 5 partners want exposed is US security commitment being insufficient for domestic politics. Or the scenario where US succeeds but loses so much assets that they don't have enough to honor security commitments. Which circles back to Chinese AShMs and relevant work on hypersonics. We're approaching the day where PRC will aquire conventional prompt global strike capabilites to strike carriers / capital ships in port, i.e. US naval assets is one deployment away from becoming scrap. Folks are preoccupied with PRC now, but the danger is proliferation of cheap, mature ICBM / AShMs to mid tier countries that eventually, even Iran and North Korea can stalemate USN, across the globe, with very little consideration for kill chains.