Ukraine. Thanks for coming see you…
Oh, you want the long answer, huh? Okay, here it is: Ukraine has actually been invaded, Taiwan hasn’t.
Happy now? No? Man, you’re a tough crowd.
Taiwan produces semiconductors. Ukraine produces food. Semiconductor shortages result in a lot of complaining on social media; food shortages result in riots and starvation. Just because America doesn’t need Ukrainian grain doesn’t mean that countless millions don’t. Massive uprisings abroad do nasty things to supply chains so Taiwan won’t be able to get that semiconductor to you after all.
Okay, I’m being pretty terse with my answers. That’s because the question annoys the heck out of me. First off, people being murdered is always more important than people being threatened. And because we can walk and chew gum at the same time, we don’t have to help one to the exclusion of the other.
Most commentators are talking about the economic importance to the United States directly – that’s short sighted at best and just a smoke screen at worse. We’re the largest economy on Earth by a country mile. China only comes in number two because we buy their stuff and provide naval security for trade. And at that, China is still a good six percentage points behind us. Every other economy trails much further behind. The long and short of it is Taiwan isn’t critical to American economic interests.
Yes, it would hurt us if China invaded Taiwan. No, it’s not even close to a fatal blow. Taiwan manufactures the chips WE design. Wanna guess which is easier to replace, manufacturing or design? I’ll give you a hint, it ain’t design.
Ukraine is the fourth largest producer of wheat in the world. Remember the Arab Spring? Food shortages set that off. If we don’t help Ukraine, the Arab Spring will look like a kindergarten class pouting about the Kool-Aid flavor of the day.
Forcing Ukraine into a ceasefire or worse, a surrender, won’t help. It would make things much, much worse. Russia is not going to play nice with their resources after the sanctions – and even if they wanted to, Russia is hurting badly. Odds are they have done considerable damage to their own production capacity, especially in the fertilizer sector. So, back stabbing Ukraine gets us an Eastern Europe very wary of trusting Western Europe or the US – this does not go well – and we still have massive food shortages long term.
Short term, the US can fill a big part of the gap – assuming the administration gets off its collective butt and makes the regulatory changes necessary to encourage higher production of something other than feed corn. Long term, we need Ukraine back in business and willing to do business with our allies. Otherwise all that food ends up wasted in China – rotting in piles instead of feeding their people. No, I’m not kidding.
Foreign policy is a tough field. It’s like a chess game where checkers are allowed, pieces are hidden, pieces can disguise themselves and no one is real clear on the rules. Lots of fun to watch – not so much fun to play. You get one corner of the board straightened out only to have to start all over with another corner and then find out that the two are related in ways you didn’t know about.
Little wonder the media barely covers international news. Large tracts of incomprehensible with streaks of boredom broken by mad violence and terror. Who wants to hear all that every night?
But if you want to have a shot of understanding what is really going on and figuring out what’s the best thing for the US to do, then you have to know a bit about that mess. Politics is messy by nature because it is all about people and people only come in size messy. It can be a hopeless seeming muddle – but it’s not really. It’s just people.
China bought up massive food stores to prepare for any eventuality. Good thinking, right? Well, here’s the thing – an authoritarian system has a fatal flaw: one guy can’t think of everything. When the guy is too scary or the right people just don’t have access, you end up with millions of tons of grain as he ordered, and nowhere to store it because no one told him they needed to build new silos. So yes, China literally let millions of tons of grain rot by roadsides.
Russia started a war it can’t back down from and likely can’t win. They failed to take the capitol and had to withdraw from the north of Ukraine. They launched a new and objectively better offensive in the east that has failed to take any significant territory after two months of effort. Severodonansk (my best guess at spelling it – listen to the audio version if you want to hear me butcher it) has yet to fall and it’s mostly symbolic anyway.
Now, if we define ‘military expert’ as ‘not in the military and not an expert’, I’m your gal. Otherwise, I’m relying on a variety of experts from analysts (Michael Kofman and Perun are both excellent), retired generals (——–), and former servicemen (Task and Purpose, Speak the Truth and _____) among many. The consensus is Russia ain’t doing great. That’s not ‘Ukraine will win’ but it’s also a really, really bad sign considering how powerful Russia’s military was supposed to be.
And that gets us back to why Ukraine is the more important of the two countries to US foreign policy for the moment. As long as the war stays in Ukraine and the West doesn’t stop supporting them, Eastern Europe remains stable. A destabilized Eastern Europe is an existential threat to all of Europe and a royal pain for the US.
We export technical expertise as well as goods. Europe is the other major market for goods exported from developing countries. Unless we wanna buy all the stuff -and we don’t because that would be bad – we NEED Europe to be developed, stable and economically sound, at least as much as nations ever manage.
So no, we can’t just take our ball and go home. We’re stuck rescuing Europe’s Robin to our Batman. And it gets much, much worse if Eastern Europe destabilizes. Y’all did notice 11 million people displaced in roughly three weeks in Ukraine, right? Ukraine has been at war for eight years – what were all those folks running from back in February? Russia.
Eastern Europe doesn’t want to be behind the Iron Curtain again, thankyouverymuch. Just like the Ukrainians, Eastern Europeans are likely to flee en masse if they think there’s even a remote chance that the West won’t help them against Russia. Forget 11 million – it will be upwards of 100 million., all heading west – and with no border controls, at least not initially.
Even the US couldn’t handle that influx economically. Western Europe will be inundated and will need a solution fast. So, the US can sit back and watch as France and the UK literally start a nuclear war with Russia – and no, I’m not kidding – or we can send in the troops. Guess which one wins?
Yes, really. France and the UK are both nuclear powers. If there’s no meaningful US intervention (we would at least send a nice card) they will be faced with the choice of allowing their countries to be swamped economically, socially, militarily and every other ly you can think of or making the bleeding stop by turning Moscow into a large pool of glass.
Obviously, it’s my opinion that this is the most likely scenario to an actual nuclear conflict. Ukraine isn’t an existential threat to Russia and they know it. Slugging it out with the US is just suicide and they know that too. But if people want to abandon their countries in terror, well, sure, Russia will move right on in – and suddenly pose a genuine existential threat to two small but close nuclear powers. Either the US steps in or this ends VERY BADLY.
Better plan, let’s just send all the goodies Ukraine wants shy of nuclear weapons and let Russia defeat itself doing something this stupid. If China then wants to play the same game, fine. They are a lot easier to deal with being much too depenent on the US economically and militarily.
Besides, it will be hysterical watching them try to do an amphibious assault on an island that is bristling with defenses both natural and US made. FYI, the US decided against trying to invade Taiwan (then Formosa) in WWII.
Good luck with that, China.
