4 ms·
Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so. A few nukes is going to be more of a det
by __turbobrew__ 2y ago
Im kind of surprised that Taiwan has never pursued a nuclear arsenal. They have the resources and technology to do so.
A few nukes is going to be more of a deterrent than any number of reservists.
The past few decades has shown that the greater powers of the world have no problem squashing you — unless you possess nuclear weapons.
- godelmachine 2y agoGood point. Probably the Americans have dissuaded them from building a nuclear warhead in exchange for guaranteed protection?
- Waterluvian 2y agoWhich makes it critically important to see through to the end that Ukraine wins. Otherwise South Korea, Taiwan, and others would be right in recognizing that a nuclear arsenal is the better option.
- zarzavat 2y agoThis has always been true though. Consider, if the US is a friend worth depending on why do its closest allies UK, Israel and France still maintain nuclear weapons at great expense? In Europe the fact that the US dragged its feet entering WWII is still within living memory. Asian countries perhaps are still to learn this lesson.
- hartator 2y agoEurope dragged their feet in both ww as well. No one wants war.
- kkfx 2y agoActually UK (where a civil war seems just started) ruling class desperate need a war to remain in power, USA are in a far better position, but their ruling class still need a war to avoid a civil one. Israel ruling class desperately need to keep the war up or they'll go to jail so... At least three powers desperately look for war. Of course, the people do not want wars, but so far most people in the world have forgot the old way of unite to makes rulers obey so they obey instead.
- stogot 2y agoWhich UK civil war?
- gedy 2y agoLikely talking about Southport riots: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_riots
- kkfx 2y agoExactly, so far the press say that's are just a bunch of fascist, and I've no doubt those are the organizers and some most thugs in action, but most of the participating mass I bet are just impoverished people, like https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/30/my-students-never-knew-the-lecturer-who-lived-in-a-tent https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/30/my-student... or https://news.sky.com/story/food-bank-users-refusing-potatoes-due-to-rising-cooking-costs-iceland-chief-says-12573336 https://news.sky.com/story/food-bank-users-refusing-potatoes... and also https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4165370/national-scandal-uk-deaths-caused-cold-homes-last-winter-charities-claim https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4165370/national-scandal-... etc. UK economy failed due to excess cleptocracy from very few, UK people start to be tired enough to riot. Perhaps they stop, perhaps they grow to the point of a full scale action against the government, I do not know, but that's to me an evident start/harbinger of a civil war.
- zarzavat 2y agoThe vast majority of impoverished people manage to get through their day without attacking a mosque. These people aren’t rioting because they’re poor, they’re rioting because they are racists. If there’s a correlation between being a racist thug and being impoverished, the causation is likely low intelligence.
- nashashmi 2y agoThere is no end to the war in which Ukraine wins. If Ukraine is winning and Russia gives up, America will be worried and find a way to keep the war going. If Russia wins while Ukrainians are still alive, America will be filled with regret that they did not support Ukraine well enough. Ukraine is like Afghanistan 2.0 ; the imminent fall/break of Russia.
- antognini 2y agoThe US has pointedly never guaranteed protection for Taiwan. Its policy has been "strategic ambiguity."
- nashashmi 2y ago“Guarantee” has always meant ambiguity. The other word is promise. Or commitment. Ukraine gave up its nukes to the russians after the fall of the soviets in exchange for such “guarantee”.
- EasyMark 2y agoThat’s what they say to the public. My suspicion is they have an ironclad diplomatic agreement behind the scenes
- mensetmanusman 2y agoBudapest memorandum-esque?
- majorchord 2y agoI feel like the only country that has guaranteed protection by the US would be Japan. Past that, rest of the top 5 would probably be South Korea, Philippines, Canada and Israel.
- dmix 2y agoIf anyone should get one it's SK given NK is basically a lost cause but that's probably an even more volatile gambit than Taiwan
- teractiveodular 2y agoNK is not stupid enough to launch a land war on SK, they know they'd get their asses handed to them. This is unfortunately not necessarily true for PRC vs Taiwan.
- bobthepanda 2y agoNorth Korea also probably wouldn’t nuke Seoul because it is 40km from the border and so they’d also probably not be doing themselves any favors. They’d probably nuke Tokyo or Okinawa though. I don’t think that PRC would nuke Taiwan mostly because nuking does not mean they’ve actually secured it, and now they have to deal with the pain of a beach invasion into irradiated territory.
- whoevercares 2y agoWould Taiwan have time to “pursue”? CCP will see this as deal breaker and with the level of spy infiltration Taiwan can’t keep this a secret. Edit: USA will see this as a huge red flag as well. Remember USA only want to deter but not a real war
- ethbr1 2y agoThe US could also secretly transport tactical nuclear weapons to Taiwanese airbases, then announce that Taiwan was now protected under a similar nuclear guarantee to Europe. Any invasion triggers release of the devices into Taiwanese operational control.
- littlecosmic 2y agoThis plan worked out so well last time it was tried in Cuba :)
- ethbr1 2y agoUS nuclear MRBMs were withdrawn from Italy and Turkey, and the US publicly committed to not invading Cuba. That's a decent deal.
- wahern 2y agoTaiwan did have secret nuclear weapons program in the 70s or 80s, with cover from their nascent nuclear power facilities. When the US caught wind they forced Taiwan to shut the program down. I'm not sure if China knew about it at the time, but I imagine these days it would be impossible to keep it secret from China--too many spies.
- maxglute 2y agoYes PRC knew, hence TW nuclearizing is non starter. TW/ROC was/is still thoroughly infiltrated by PRC intelligence, if there's credible hint they're moving from nuclear latency/threshold to actual nuclearization (PRC redline), the relevant facilities would be destroyed - no need for PLA boots on ground or telescoped build up, every inch of TW is within 10 minute strike of mainland based ordnances. TW nuclear turnkey potential isn't as fast as PLA rockets/bunker busters. Unmentioned aspect of US axing TW nuclear program in late 80s, was CSIST / INER (Taiwan nuclear program) was already monitored by PRC intelligence and post Nixon normalization US intel cooperated with PRC intel to shut the program down. Unwritten between the line is PRC, having closely monitored TW program would have probably nuked TW first if US didn't compel TW to end the program. US Inspection / IAEA went in the dismantle the program, no doubt verified by PRC intelligence, it's unlikely TW can rebuild to nuclear turnkey faster than PRC can mount an invasion. And realistically TW can't fend off a PRC invasion without US involvement, and if US involves to assist TW nuclearizing then TW going to get nuked, and US + PRC will stare down MAD. Also note PRC fought as in actually shed blood with USSR, India (both borderm skirmishes), US+NATO in Korea, armed Viet against FR, threatened UK over HK... aka every NPT nuclear state over sovereignty/security issues much less important than TW. A few of them when PRC had no/barely any nukes herself. Nuclear simply has never been a credible threat against PRC soverignty issues.
- __turbobrew__ 2y agoI don’t believe PRC would drop a nuke on TW if they pursued a nuclear weapon. They want to unify with TW, not make a crater of it. Invasion maybe. I think if I was in charge of strategic policy at TW I would get as close to a nuke as I could without raising suspicions in the PRC and then once the PRC gets involved in a war or domestic turmoil I would rush to nukes as fast as possible.
- keepamovin 2y ago[flagged]
- paulddraper 2y ago> simply a foil for China You say that like it's a bad thing... --- EDIT: And while I'm under no illusions about the realpolitik, it's also true that China is a communist dictatorship; Taiwan is not.
- skhunted 2y agoWe have thousands of years of examples of two “blood kin” groups attacking each other. In addition to this is the fact that not all peoples with roots in present day PRC are Chinese. Tibet is a region of PRC that is not Chinese, for example.
- SllX 2y agoParty leadership is Han Chinese and everyone else is a subject of the Party-owned and operated State within PRC jurisdiction.
- skhunted 2y agoYes. I was referring to the comment about “blood kin”. Not all peoples native to present day PRC borders are “blood kin” and certainly not all people from Taiwan are Han.
- defrost 2y ago> They are never going to nuke their blood kin. How do you explain the brother against brother kill kill kill nature of the US Civil War then? Later, in the Atomic Age, the US military had no real issue with fallout drifting across US citizens during above ground weapons testing, they covered up dropping a live, armed nuke on US soil that only barely failed to detonate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash (There's robust debate about the safety mechanism that either "worked as intended" or "failed in failing", the wikipedia page might link further)