Some key excerpts.
⬛️ “Lawmakers and experts have claimed an invasion of Taiwan simply won’t happen—or if it does, that we can prevail…They prefer to tell a familiar and comforting story…They want us to believe that our military might is infinite, that American power faces no real constraints.”
⬛️ “They want us to believe we can fight an endless proxy war in Ukraine. And somehow, this won’t impact our ability to deter China from invading Taiwan…This story is told both by neoconservatives on the right, and liberal globalists on the left.”
⬛️ “But today, I want to tell you something else. I want to tell the truth. And the truth is that…our current foreign policy isn’t working.”
⬛️ “None of that is enough. Because we’re simply overcommitted, caught in the grip of an ideology of liberal empire…We have a lot of military power on our side. But it isn’t deployed where it should be, and the world is about to face the consequences.”
⬛️ “So let me share another truth: As things stand right now, if China invades Taiwan in the next few years, they will likely prevail.
I will say it again.
We stand at an inflection point today. And it is time for a real change.”
⬛️ Comment: I honestly don’t know whether China would win or not in the coming years. I don’t have the information and analysis available to me to be confident on that judgment.
But it’s definitely possible.
⬛️ “In the real world we have limited military resources. The CCP sees that if we’re tied up in Ukraine, we can’t use [our resources] on a Taiwan invasion. Napoleon said, If you want to take Vienna take Vienna. China wants control of the Indo-Pacific and we must stop them there.”
⬛️ “That’s not the core problem, though. The core problem is that our actions in Ukraine are directly affecting our ability to project force elsewhere. Specifically, to deter China in the Pacific.”
⬛️ “For starters, the more U.S. resources we devote to Europe, the fewer we have available in the Pacific. For some things, like heavy armor units, that may not matter much. But it matters a lot for the capabilities we need to deter China from invading Taiwan.”
⬛️ “Both Ukraine and Taiwan require many of the same weapons, including things like Javelin and Stinger missiles. And our industrial base is strapped for capacity. That’s because we need to draw on many of the same suppliers for the defense of both Ukraine and Taiwan.”
⬛️ “We’re doing our best to increase production, but that will take years. All of this means that when we pour our military power into Ukraine, that decision comes at a cost.”
⬛️ “As a result, we cannot meet Ukrainian, Taiwanese, and our own military requirements all at the same time, for the foreseeable future.
In other words, we can’t do everything.”
⬛️ “China is now positioned to strike with overwhelming force and seize Taiwan…So what happens, if we wake up tomorrow and an invasion has begun? What can America do about it?
Once again, let’s assess our strategic position—this time in the Pacific.”
⬛️ “Well, we’ve got plenty of aircraft. But they’re concentrated at a small number of air bases, which makes them easy targets. And China has invested in weapons and sensors that we haven’t fielded, undercutting our air power advantage.”
And half of the people on Taiwan want to unite with the mainland. Including the mayor of Taipei. The other half want to remain as they are. Aligned with Japan and South Korea and the US. Could be messy.
Ukriane is draining US and Nato ammo stocks down to nothing. Reports now are that we are starting to reallocate prepositioned ammo in Israel that was for US use and/or Israeli use in an emergency, and give that to Ukraine. Israel approved, which goes to show you how much they are pulling for the Z man in Kiev, and how desperate the ammo shortage is getting too be. I would bet that the Russians just keep up the slow strangle and wait for High Spring before committing to much of an offensive. The ukies will burn through all the stocks they have and lose the last of their manpower reserves in the process. It is possible that the Ukrainian Donetz front will evaporate nearly completely through attrition and desertion before the Russians even push on it very hard.
I don’t know if Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and other US allies have been stockpiling US compatible ammo or not, but if there is a war in Korea or Taiwan, or the Persian Gulf, we have already lost on the basis of having used everything defending the Donbas.
Defending the Donbas? Is that what U.S./Kiev were doing from 2014 to 2022? Defending it?
Don’t read to much into how every friggen sentence is constructed. My whole point is that Western ammo stocks are now about exhausted. I am opposed to sending anything to Ukraine. If it makes you feel better, put some quotation marks around the word defending.
like the 2022 southern “wargames” cancelled for lack of ammunition, the serious lack of 155mm rounds and the missiles that take 18 months from order to delivery to our ground forces…..
Our military is nothing but a paper tiger at this point, if we go to war with China and I think we will, they do not fear the fallen Republic, woke milley will give them all the details in advance to his CCP superiors. We would have to call a cease fire and beg the CCP for chips and software for our fighter jets and tanks, maybe they would allow woke milley to pick them up in person, who is really in charge, I think woke milley knows.
Taiwan is critical to our economy, Ukraine is critical to congressional corruption!
U.S. Foreign Policy since WWII in two words:
“Endless War”
We have the “Space Force” on land, the Chinese have the “Stratospheric Force” with thousands of balloon platforms. Cheap and easy to deploy, while it’s took $800,000.00 along with airframe component time to kill the balloon over Huron. Anyone thing this is an unequable exchange of resources? So, if the Hainan base releases say 250 of these things, which are steerable and controllable of the US, what do you think will happen if a few are EMP devices? As is the final point, they are fielding cheap weapons we are even equipped to efficiently deal with. Add one other, we have plenty of aircraft, they have tens of thousands of little drones, (drone walls) to be the first defense against fighter aircraft.