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Evan Medeiros has a great summary of the factors destroying the US-China relationship in the latest @TWQgw. A possible + heretical implication (mine, not his!) of intensifying competition: The US will have to rethink the nature of its commitment to Taiwan https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0163660X.2019.1666355
2/10 A US-China relationship going south across the board will create huge demands for investment across many elements of national power--domestic industries, economic and security assistance, information contests + info security, intelligence, technological competitions ...
3/10 … which will arrive at the same moment as parallel needs for national investments in climate tech + remediation, economic justice, infrastructure, and more. On top of a need to at least gradually wind down from $1T deficit. I.e.: We can't do everything.
4/10 The US defense budget is driven by the demands of military contingencies, and the Taiwan scenario is surely one of the most costly. Trends in the local military balance have been running against the US + will continue to do so
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR392.html via @RANDCorporation
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR392.html via @RANDCorporation
5/10 Let's suppose--wild guess--that deleting the Taiwan contingency would allow a $50B cut to defense. In a competition of widening scope, the question is whether the US would do better spending that $50B on other things: tech R&D, info ops + resilience, econ aid, etc.
6/10 This is NOT an argument for "abandoning Taiwan" or "making a deal to give it to China." The US would keep its current policy + relations w/Taiwan, demand peaceful resolution. It would just drop its plan to fight the war and seek to punish aggression via non-military means
7/10 Many will scoff at such a threat. But the day China becomes so desperate about Taiwan that it considers invasion, it will have become undeterrable (a la Japan in 1941). If Beijing truly decides it must act, no amount of US military power will deter it anyway
8/10 So we can either pour endless resources down the sink-hole of a bottomless requirements pit--only to fight against geography + create a deterrent capability that probably will fail in its intended function when the crucial moment arrives. Or, we can ...
9/10 … develop potent non-military deterrence strategies (cyber, info, econ); help Taiwan make itself hard to digest; and shift tens of billions into areas of the competition with more direct effects on US security & competitive standing
10/10 Bottom line: Investments aimed at defending Taiwan may not make the US as secure, resilient, or successful in a deepening US-China contest as other competing priorities. And a rapidly intensifying rivalry will make this opportunity cost more, not less, pressing
