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The western world would not be compelled to engage militarily over Taiwan. We'd only need to provide money and weapons to Taiwan (rank #21 military in the world

The western world would not be compelled to engage militarily over Taiwan. We'd only need to provide money and weapons to Taiwan (rank #21 military in the world) to hold off China (#3) indefinitely given the fact that Taiwan is incredibly difficult to invade due to the barrier the mountain ridges form around it and the narrow straight leading to it for a sea attack. It's a natural fortress. Look at the ongoing failure of Russia (#2) in Ukraine (#22) despite not having difficult land to traverse in their invasion and having a greater advantage in military power by comparison.

xyzzyz 4y ago
How do you provide weapons to Taiwan if Chinese Navy blockades Taiwan?
- tuatoru 4y ago
  Ahead of time.
  - SkyMarshal 4y ago
    They'll run out of something necessary eventually - food, fossil fuels, ammo, etc - forcing the US and allies to decide whether to intervene or not.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      I hope the US is ready to go with orbital kinetic energy weapons. Ten thousand or so projectiles, each made of 50 kilograms of tungsten, raining down at multiple kilometers per second, would likely...suppress...any attempted blockade. "Star wars" is feasible with reusable launch to orbit vehicles.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    Just like we did with Ukraine?
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      Ukraine wasn't blockaded. Taiwan does have fairly good stocks of weapons and ammo. It's also great terrain for fighting a defensive guerilla war. It'd be China's roleplay of "Russia in Afghanistan".
      - xyzzyz 4y ago
        You’re missing the point, which is that we very much did not arm Ukraine ahead of time, just like we are not arming Taiwan right now in required volumes. China could literally blockade Taiwan tomorrow, and our arms are simply not there. What you propose depends very much on getting enough intelligence to ship all the arms they need before the blockade actually starts, and China not blockading Taiwan as soon as it learns about shipments leaving our ports.
- skhr0680 4y ago
  Blockading Taiwan would require cooperation from Japan, and that's not going to happen
  - rnk 4y ago
    And also the US. China would have to immediately use the "do what we say or we'll nuke you" to keep the world out of helping Taiwan.
    - xyzzyz 4y ago
      Why nuke? Why assume that China cannot achieve military success using conventional means? Observe that "the world" will not be helping Taiwan. India won't. Russia won't. Brazil won't. Nigeria won't. Pakistan won't. Bangladesh won't. Nigeria won't. You get the drill. US will, and probably Europe too, but why assume that these will 1) be able to defeat China in a conventional war in its own back yard, and 2) will even try to do so?
      - rnk 4y ago
        Good point, it would not be the world. In short, the free countries of the world will come together to protect a democracy from tyranny. Yes, this is imperfect, lots of small countries were not protected, we protect the "good ones" which is unfairly decided. The democratic countries will come together, the same ones that helped Ukraine; delete from that list authoritarian (democratic or not) countries, and democracies that are led by authoritarian dictator wanna-bes (so if Trump comes back he'd be conflicted, because he loves authoritarian power, but indicated his displeasure with China). Probably not Hungry. Russia doesn't matter if they aren't nuking you. India, there is the authoritarian bent the country it is on - non Hindu people aren't feeling so happy about their country. I'd think India will feel torn because they want to fight Pakistan freely but don't want to increase the power of China. Brazil is another partially fallen democratic country, wonder how that vote will turn out at the end of Oct. There are two reasons those countries will help Taiwan - because they don't want authoritarian dictators to take over democracies, and because Ukraine reminded us all of the importance of stopping dictators - we can't wait for them to decide they have enough. It's over 80 years since the last time the world went through it, German and Japan were the original threats (with Italy and a few others), now it's China and Russia. The chip making part of Taiwan will all be decimated in the first few hours of a war (you thought that would be one of my reasons to intervene ;-)). It will be re-created bit after bombing it and damage and just losing power it will be hugely weakened, hurting both sides. Ukraine showed how much more powerful the militaries of the western alliances are. I'm sure China will not be so weak and kleptocratically weakened as Russia was, but they haven't been in battles recently so they will need some ramping up to really organize. I'm sure China will be able to do major damage to navys trying to operate around Taiwan, sink a few us carriers. But the US and the other western countries are about a lot more and they can operate in countries around there. China is a powerful country, they have brilliant engineers and scientists and that economy and a vast population. They are not to be under-estimated. The world must move forward to promote democracy and stop dictators.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  The Chinese navy can't blockade an air force, and we would sell Taiwan an air force. Taiwan between missiles and air force elements would be uninvadable. The only way to control Taiwan is to land a quarter million soldiers or more.
namaria 4y ago
Whoever ends up controlling Taiwan will have a lot of destroyed factories on their hands. Losing 90% of advanced integrated processor output is world changing by itself. Besides the fact that military analysis done by us news spectators is a vain exercise.

xyzzyz 4y ago

How do you provide weapons to Taiwan if Chinese Navy blockades Taiwan?

tuatoru 4y ago
Ahead of time.
- SkyMarshal 4y ago
  They'll run out of something necessary eventually - food, fossil fuels, ammo, etc - forcing the US and allies to decide whether to intervene or not.
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    I hope the US is ready to go with orbital kinetic energy weapons. Ten thousand or so projectiles, each made of 50 kilograms of tungsten, raining down at multiple kilometers per second, would likely...suppress...any attempted blockade. "Star wars" is feasible with reusable launch to orbit vehicles.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  Just like we did with Ukraine?
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    Ukraine wasn't blockaded. Taiwan does have fairly good stocks of weapons and ammo. It's also great terrain for fighting a defensive guerilla war. It'd be China's roleplay of "Russia in Afghanistan".
    - xyzzyz 4y ago
      You’re missing the point, which is that we very much did not arm Ukraine ahead of time, just like we are not arming Taiwan right now in required volumes. China could literally blockade Taiwan tomorrow, and our arms are simply not there. What you propose depends very much on getting enough intelligence to ship all the arms they need before the blockade actually starts, and China not blockading Taiwan as soon as it learns about shipments leaving our ports.
skhr0680 4y ago
Blockading Taiwan would require cooperation from Japan, and that's not going to happen
- rnk 4y ago
  And also the US. China would have to immediately use the "do what we say or we'll nuke you" to keep the world out of helping Taiwan.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    Why nuke? Why assume that China cannot achieve military success using conventional means? Observe that "the world" will not be helping Taiwan. India won't. Russia won't. Brazil won't. Nigeria won't. Pakistan won't. Bangladesh won't. Nigeria won't. You get the drill. US will, and probably Europe too, but why assume that these will 1) be able to defeat China in a conventional war in its own back yard, and 2) will even try to do so?
    - rnk 4y ago
      Good point, it would not be the world. In short, the free countries of the world will come together to protect a democracy from tyranny. Yes, this is imperfect, lots of small countries were not protected, we protect the "good ones" which is unfairly decided. The democratic countries will come together, the same ones that helped Ukraine; delete from that list authoritarian (democratic or not) countries, and democracies that are led by authoritarian dictator wanna-bes (so if Trump comes back he'd be conflicted, because he loves authoritarian power, but indicated his displeasure with China). Probably not Hungry. Russia doesn't matter if they aren't nuking you. India, there is the authoritarian bent the country it is on - non Hindu people aren't feeling so happy about their country. I'd think India will feel torn because they want to fight Pakistan freely but don't want to increase the power of China. Brazil is another partially fallen democratic country, wonder how that vote will turn out at the end of Oct. There are two reasons those countries will help Taiwan - because they don't want authoritarian dictators to take over democracies, and because Ukraine reminded us all of the importance of stopping dictators - we can't wait for them to decide they have enough. It's over 80 years since the last time the world went through it, German and Japan were the original threats (with Italy and a few others), now it's China and Russia. The chip making part of Taiwan will all be decimated in the first few hours of a war (you thought that would be one of my reasons to intervene ;-)). It will be re-created bit after bombing it and damage and just losing power it will be hugely weakened, hurting both sides. Ukraine showed how much more powerful the militaries of the western alliances are. I'm sure China will not be so weak and kleptocratically weakened as Russia was, but they haven't been in battles recently so they will need some ramping up to really organize. I'm sure China will be able to do major damage to navys trying to operate around Taiwan, sink a few us carriers. But the US and the other western countries are about a lot more and they can operate in countries around there. China is a powerful country, they have brilliant engineers and scientists and that economy and a vast population. They are not to be under-estimated. The world must move forward to promote democracy and stop dictators.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
The Chinese navy can't blockade an air force, and we would sell Taiwan an air force. Taiwan between missiles and air force elements would be uninvadable. The only way to control Taiwan is to land a quarter million soldiers or more.

namaria 4y ago

Whoever ends up controlling Taiwan will have a lot of destroyed factories on their hands. Losing 90% of advanced integrated processor output is world changing by itself. Besides the fact that military analysis done by us news spectators is a vain exercise.