Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
...
Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
...
His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
...
Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.
That is interesting. I had thought that very few people would care about Taiwan. This polling says that is not the case.
I am actually a little mystified by the polling to. I suspect the results leaves out lots of “beats the hell out of me” and “what is Taiwan?” responses. Probably need to dig into the details of how it was taken.
Regarding the significance of Taiwan; there has been a recent outbreak of civil unrest in the Solomon Islands over the issue of whether to recognise Taiwan or China.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-26/solomon-islands-pm-blames-foreign-powers-for-civil-unrest/100652048
According to Is due to the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare “”the divide over whether to recognise China or Taiwan was the sole source of conflict.”
I had not realised that relations with Taiwan were so important to so many people in the South Pacific.
A further update here.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/solomon-islands-riots-honiara/100654100
The issue of recognition of Taiwan is again raised as the main cause of the violence.
This article and other articles referenced in are saying that there is a lot of concern in the Solomons about being caught in a ‘Debt Trap’ due to Chinese loans offered as a part of the Belt and Roads initiative.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/three-killed-solomon-islands-unrest/100655960
The Solomons would not be the only country caught in that trap. Perhaps this is the start of a backlash against the Belt and Roads programme.
The link to this article is worth reading: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-25/solomon-islands-protests-explainer-china-taiwan/100648086
15 Countries still have official embassies in Taiwan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diplomatic_missions_of_Taiwan
They are:
Belize
Eswatini (Swaziland)
Guatemala
Haiti
Holy See
Honduras
Marshall Islands
Nauru
Nicaragua
Palau
Paraguay
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Tuvalu
Not a lot of heavy hitters on that list.
This article is worth looking at: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/26/asia/taiwan-hong-kong-china-opposition-intl-hnk-dst/index.html