I do sometimes send out my blog posts for comment to people I know. They are not always hastily written while I am downing my first cup of coffee. The blog post What is more important: Ukraine or Taiwan ? – The Dupuy Institute was one such blog post. Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill of Concordia University in Quebec sent the following response. He is Canadian. I thought it was worth posting:
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An effects based analysis would suggest that Taiwan is more important for the US specifically.
A war with China to get Taiwan will be conventionally larger, strategically (nuclear) smaller, a medium likelihood of a resulting tactical nuclear use, provide an unsupervised Pacific SSBN bastion which is currently driving Chinese caution, and provide projection for China as a global maritime power, a precondition for great power status as it is free to interfere in counter-balancing major powers on other continents with a blue water navy, and China is probably a generation (10-20 years) away from democratization, two or three generations from liberal democratization, given greater liberalism in the under 40 age cohort than Russia.
A war with Russia in Ukraine is conventionally small, is linked to a much larger nuclear arsenal that is escalatorily associated with a higher likelihood of tactical nuclear use, it does not provide Russia any critical advantages in the accumulation of resources or people, has little effect on changing Russia’s relative power status, and is a generation away from liberal-democratization because of its culture of defensive nationalism that is compatible with the liberalism of the under 40 age cohort, but which will require decentralization of collapse of Russia’s ethnic regions.
But why not confront both ?
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It’s a tough call, but I think Ukraine could be dealt with by a unified European response with US support while the US at least for now remains the single nation capable of responding to a Chinese attack on Taiwan. I’m increasingly questioning though whether China/Xi’s real intention is less to actually attack Taiwan but instead convince Taiwan that China has the needed capabilities and will to achieve its goal while the United States is too far away and unwilling/incapable of effectively preventing China from gaining control of Taiwan.
I don’t think there’s a need for a full-out war there. China can just send several small commando-raids & capture key places – Government buildings, communication centers & mainly – Industrial sites such as the famous TSMC building.
A threat to blow up those buildings & destroy the very expansive machinery there, will be just as effective. A Taiwanese government may be compelled to give up assets & even territories, in return.
If I were a Taiwanese General, I would put heavy security (and AA weapons) around those sites…
The US is certainly dominant in its capability to respond, yes, but is it the single nation with capability? I would argue that Japan also has some limited capability to respond, and it is geographical position is unrivaled. Perhaps other nations also have a token response capability.
China’s interest in Taiwan from a strategic standpoint should not be underestimated, as Dr. Spencer-Churchill mentioned. Direct access to deep Pacific waters provides improved security for SSN and SSBN forces. Without this access, Chinese force movements must always go through chokepoints of the Miyako Strait, and the Bashi Channel, where they are at least vulnerable to detection if not attack. Thus, denying that access should be considered valuable for the US.
Now, perhaps the US has become disinterested the maintenance of its positions of strategic power, in which case neither Taiwan nor Ukraine is of much interest. Perhaps the isolationist camp will not have permanent sway in Washington, however.
Taiwan can be viewed as the first in a series of dominoes in the Pacific region. China, as a great power with strategic interests in the region, could test the will of other smaller countries to resist long term Chinese imperialism by invading Taiwan. For example, recently China sent a small flotilla to circumnavigate Australia and conduct a live firing exercise nearly that disrupted airline flights as the Chinese flotilla give little warning of the exercise.
A number of observers saw this as the small start of a much larger exercise to intimidate Australia and other countries in the same way the regular Chinese military exercise around Taiwan is intended to intimidate Taiwan with a view to Chins occupying Taiwan.
The point is that defending Taiwan may be important if Chinese regional domination is to be resisted.
Chinese domination of region where China exists is bad. American domination of region where China exists is good.