January 27, 2003
AXIS OF GOOD UPDATE:
Taiwan Military Overhaul To Enable Preemptive Strike On China>Taiwan military overhaul to enable preemptive strike on China: report (AFP, Jan 26, 2003)Taiwan's ambitious overhaul of its armed forces could enable the independence-minded island to launch preemptive strikes against rival China, local media reported Sunday.A 10-year plan to shift the military into a "joint forces" command was described as "the most dramatic reform since the former Kuomintang government retreated to Taiwan" in 1949 by an authoritative military source quoted by the China Times.
Based on a US model, the reform plan would reduce the size of Taiwan's military to 300,000 troops by 2011, resulting in a leaner force armed with more sophisticated weaponry. The leaner and meaner force would be equipped with a missile command to orchestrate any planned "long-distance missile" launches, the daily said.
Under the new military strategy, Taiwanese forces would be authorized to attack China's military commands, ballistic missile bases, airports and harbours -- a deviation from the island's long-standing defensive strategy.
Considering the fecklessness of our presidents during the time, the U.S. was extraordinarily lucky that Cuba, the Soviet sword pointed at our underbelly, was backwards and, thanks to communism, destined to stay that way--so it never posed a significant threat us (as witness the Missle Crisis, when, rather than using it as the much needed pretext to dispose of Castro, the Kennedy brothers just told the Russians to move the missiles and they had no other choice). But China's aspirations to rivalry with the U.S. must always be limited by the fact that it has a technologically-advanced, military peer, or superior, just offshore. Moreover, that enemy is allied with the greatest military powers on Earth--the US, Israel, etc.. Conservatives have taken heat over their support of Taiwan for fifty years, but today it may be our most important ally. That, unfortunately, seems to be about the timeframe required before folks accept that the Right was right. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 27, 2003 9:11 AM
50 years - enough time for the liberals who fought conservatives to die.
Posted by: pj at January 27, 2003 10:42 AMThe colossal error you pointed out, that of Kennedy failing to act upon the reality that neither the Russians nor the Cubans had a strategic or military leg to stand on in the Cuban Missle Crisis (never was a "crisis" at all, in fact, unless you are talking about the thinking abilities of the Kennedy foreign policy team) -- this, then, is the defining legacy of the Kennedy Administration. Thank Socrates that these heady days of American geopolitical blundering (almost exclusively at the hands of Democratic presidents) are behind us. Having spent many years living and working in Taiwan (as well as other countries in East and Northeast Asia), I can testify that the democracy that the Taiwanese have built is the most vibrant and real in Asia (yes, it is more democratic than Japan or South Korea combined) and that their society, of all the cultures in the world (including their cultural mother, China), most resembles the United States
in terms of how they think, act, and what they value (i.e., the shape and manifestation of their value system.) Besides expressing gratitude and praising the wisdom of Republican policy on Taiwan (versus the Clinton policy of selling a democratic ally of 22 million people down the river without a diesel submarine for a Tiananmen photo op and some extra Ren Min Bi for the 1996 campaign), we need to now re-double
our dedication to Taiwan, both militarily and politically, so that China will never again doubt our allegiance to this amazing island and her beautiful people. I think Bush is there, 'there' being defined as "an attack on Taiwan will be treated as an attack on the United States."
Are you willing to sacrifice a Los Angeles or a Seattle for Taiwan?
(this is paraphrasing of an infamous question uttered by a swaggering Chinese general still living in a Clintonian September 10th kind-o-wow-kind-o-world.) It should be replied to with, "No. Are you
willing to sacrifice a Beijing, a Shanghai, a Guangzhou, a Chongqing, a Cheng Du, a Tientsin, a Shenyang, a Wuhan, a Guilin, and an Anshan, and -- what the hell -- the Great Wall! ad nauseum, for a Taiwan?"
If one just thinks of the economic benefits to the US from the existence of Taiwan, that alone
justifies our alliance. The Taiwanese economy and human capital is a key strategic asset for the US. We could far more afford the loss of South Korea than Taiwan.
Of course, if one considers Mr. Yang's comments about how Taiwan is the most like the US in Asia, the above becomes less surprising.