The Case for Defending the Little Guy

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Then there are the so-called gray zone conflicts that bedevil the United States and its allies—unconventional attacks, cyber meddling, and the like. Difficult to combat, most of these actions fall well short of war as conventionally defined but are clearly over the line of acceptable international interaction. Sure, Washington can sanction bad actors, reinforce internet security, harden weak points in infrastructure, and call out election interference. But will those measures deter a power intent on fomenting civil war, as Russia is doing at this very moment in the Balkans ? Or stem a crisis like the one Russia recently brewed at the Polish-Belarusian border ?

In many ways, the Taiwan question mirrors myriad others over the decades. Washington agonized over how to address Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. There was substantially less agonizing over Russia’s incursion into Georgia and the “ frozen conflict ” it imposed over Abkhazia and Ossetia. NATO’s expansion has been beset by worries over provoking Russia. Indeed, in July 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump infamously slammed Montenegro’s accession to NATO, telling Fox News host Tucker Carlson it “is a tiny country with very strong people. … They’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War III.”

The question of Taiwan is preoccupying Washington. On the one hand, there is the issue of Washington’s “strategic ambiguity”—the uncertainty of whether a Chinese attack on the small island it claims would be met by a U.S. military response. On the other, there is a debate around whether Taiwan would be “worth” a military confrontation that could escalate into a major conflict between the United States and China.

In many ways, the Taiwan question mirrors myriad others over the decades. Washington agonized over how to address Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. There was substantially less agonizing over Russia’s incursion into Georgia and the “frozen conflict” it imposed over Abkhazia and Ossetia. NATO’s expansion has been beset by worries over provoking Russia. Indeed, in July 2018, then-U.S. President Donald Trump infamously slammed Montenegro’s accession to NATO, telling Fox News host Tucker Carlson it “is a tiny country with very strong people. … They’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War III.”

Then there are the so-called gray zone conflicts that bedevil the United States and its allies—unconventional attacks, cyber meddling, and the like. Difficult to combat, most of these actions fall well short of war as conventionally defined but are clearly over the line of acceptable international interaction. Sure, Washington can sanction bad actors, reinforce internet security, harden weak points in infrastructure, and call out election interference. But will those measures deter a power intent on fomenting civil war, as Russia is doing at this very moment in the Balkans? Or stem a crisis like the one Russia recently brewed at the Polish-Belarusian border?

The cost-benefit calculus of such geostrategic challenges is difficult. Partisans of intervention and deterrence argue that allowing a rapacious power to snack on small fry without consequence will only encourage larger adventures. Certainly, Europe and the United States’ near indifference to Russia’s predations in Georgia may have encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to believe there would be little consequence to his invasion of Ukraine. Partisans of restraint, however, argue that reacting too harshly to lesser challenges to the international order can quickly lead to a spiral of conflict and war.

Who is right? In general, proponents of restraint have a harder time pointing to teapot tempests that have boiled over into overt conflict. The proxy battle between the United States and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan didn’t spill over into a world war. Yes, the United States and Soviet Union stepped up to the line (with the United States escalating its threat level to DEFCON 3, the same level that followed the 9/11 attacks) during the 1973 war between Egypt and Israel, but they quickly stepped back. Ditto for the Berlin airlift, which naysayers believed would spark World War III but instead reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to hold the line against the Soviets and reassure allies in Western Europe it had their backs. Even the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, one of the most controversial foreign-policy decisions in recent memory, did not spill over into regional conflict as some predicted—let alone a great-power war.

Then there are others who point to a triggering event when tempers are high, suggesting that absent a crisis, all may have been resolved amicably. Call this the “Archduke Franz Ferdinand school,” in honor of those who believe World War I was precipitated by the assassination of the presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Ferdinandians point to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as such events—cataclysmic attacks on the U.S. homeland that drew the United States into war.

Proponents of this accident-of-history argument against escalation also inveigh against the dangerous entanglements of military alliances—hence their affection for “strategic ambiguity” in U.S. foreign policy. Much as Trump decried the possibility of being drawn into a war for Montenegro, former U.S. President Barack Obama lamented the NATO fetters that drew him into conflict with Libya. Years earlier, politicians with similar leanings fingered the hapless Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) for drawing the United States into the Vietnam War.

History cannot be rewritten, but the analysis that underpins warnings against NATO expansion, defending Taiwan, or opposing the annexation of Crimea—not dissimilar to the arguments against Lend-Lease in the 1940s or the Reagan Doctrine in the 1980s—harps on escalation’s risks. But that analysis’s main weakness is that it denies the enemy’s agency, embracing an incremental or accidental theory of geostrategic chess that bears little scrutiny.

Germany had been planning for war long before Ferdinand’s assassination and was looking for an advantageous juncture to challenge a modernizing and threatening Russia. Similarly, Pearl Harbor was far from a “mistake” that dragged the United States into a war Japan would ultimately lose; rather, U.S. domination of the Pacific and its chokehold on Japanese supply lines was intolerable to Tokyo. Even 9/11 was far from the lucky fluke some describe; al Qaeda had planned a similar attack as early as 1995.

Nor do alliances necessarily entangle the United States in conflicts it otherwise would have avoided. Indeed, far from SEATO being an inescapable contract compelling Americans to defend South Vietnam against communist North Vietnam, deliberations at the time make clear it was South Vietnam’s fall to communist domination that itself was intolerable to the United States during the Cold War. Ditto NATO and Libya: Nothing in the NATO charter compelled Obama to join France and the United Kingdom in taking on former Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Far from being an inexorable glide path to conflict, the defense of smaller powers and Westphalian principles—like the existence of alliances—serves more to deter rapacious revisionists’ ambitions. Perhaps emperors and dictators’ designs cannot be blocked, and any such risk demands a hardheaded analysis about costs and benefits, but it is hard to argue persuasively that simply allowing expansionists to chew slowly on their neighbors until they are ready for a larger war is a wise policy.

China has spread, unchecked, into the South China Sea and Hong Kong. And while the United States, Japan, and Australia begin to up their game in the region, ambiguous rumblings from Washington regarding the defense of Taiwan are unlikely to shut the door on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Asia. There is little reason to believe Xi’s acquisition of Taiwan will sate his appetites.

The better choice is to unambiguously draw a line for Beijing and make it clear that the United States will defend Taiwanese democracy and oppose its subjugation to communist China. Far from an incentive to war or a provocation, a clear sense of Washington’s priorities will force China to weigh the costs and benefits of its expansionism. It is too late to nip those plans in the bud, but there is still time to ensure a rapacious power intent on domination recognizes the limits to its ambitions. If history teaches us nothing, it is that without a clear delineation of such limits, conflict becomes inevitable.

Former Japan PM tells China, ‘a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency’

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Taipei, Taiwan (Reuters) Japan and the United States could not stand by if China attacked Taiwan, and Beijing needs to understand this, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday.

Speaking virtually to a forum organized by Taiwanese think tank the Institute for National Policy Research, Abe noted the Senkaku islands – which China calls the Diaoyu Islands – Sakishima islands and Yonaguni island are a mere 100 kilometers (62 miles) or so away from Taiwan.

An armed invasion of Taiwan would be a grave danger to Japan, he added.

Japan’s defense minister on threat that keeps him up at night

Japan’s defense minister on threat that keeps him up at night 04:10

Japan’s defense minister on threat that keeps him up at night

“A Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency, and therefore an emergency for the Japan-U.S. alliance. People in Beijing, President Xi Jinping in particular, should never have a misunderstanding in recognizing this,” Abe said.

Japan is host to major US military bases, including on the southern island of Okinawa, a short flight from Taiwan, which would be crucial for any US support during a Chinese attack.

The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though there is ambiguity about whether it would send forces to help Taiwan in a war with China.

The United States and its allies would take unspecified “action” if China were to use force to alter the status quo over Taiwan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in August 2020.

Abe, who stepped down as prime minister last year, is head of the largest faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and remains influential within the party.

On Sino-Japanese relations going forward, Abe said Japan should advance its ties with China while firmly saying to its giant neighbor what needs to be said, echoing incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

“Japan, Taiwan and all the people who believe in democracy need to keep urging President Xi Jinping and other Chinese Communist Party leaders repeatedly not to step onto a wrong path,” Abe said.

Japan and Taiwan must work together to protect freedom and democracy, added Abe, speaking to an audience that included Cheng Wen-tsan, mayor of the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan, tipped as a possible future presidential candidate.

“A stronger Taiwan, a thriving Taiwan, and a Taiwan that guarantees freedom and human rights are also in Japan’s interests. Of course, this is also in the interests of the whole world,” Abe said.

Taiwan scrambles fighters to see off Chinese warplanes as Xi meets top brass

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Taipei (Reuters) Taiwan’s air force scrambled again on Sunday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defense zone, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said, the latest increase in tensions across the Taiwan Strait as China’s President met his top generals.

Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China’s air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.

Taiwan calls China’s repeated nearby military activities “gray zone” warfare, designed to both wear out Taiwan’s forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test Taiwan’s responses.

27 PLA aircraft (KJ-500 AEW&C2, Y-9 EW, H-65, Y-20 Aerial Refueling , J-106, J-114 and J-16*8) entered #Taiwan’s southwest ADIZ on November 28, 2021. Please check our official website for more information: https://t.co/5dD6TBSyh7 pic.twitter.com/AeNKLdRaXG — 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) November 28, 2021

Over a four-day period beginning on October 1, when China marked its national day, Taiwan said that nearly 150 PLA military aircraft entered its ADIZ , not territorial air space but a broader area Taiwan monitors and patrols that acts to give it more time to respond to any threats.

The latest Chinese mission included 18 fighters jets plus five nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, as well as, unusually, a Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft, the Taiwan ministry said.