Hacker News Reader

Comment by autosharp | Hacker News Reader

> know that we'd get our shit absolutely rocked in a war with China over Taiwan

Then we should make haste to station more military in Taiwan. A significant, sustained increase of presence on the island itself, instead of only aircraft carriers.

Once that has been accomplished, recognize Taiwan's independence. 2 months later, hold a referendum in Taiwan on becoming a US state with a few special rights. This is done with half the fleet there, plus the very heavy presence on bases on the island.

Taiwan free, China contained. Plus the US have a good base to project power in the future.

View on HN

I've listened to a few US military strategists talk about it, and they generally say that forward deployment is a good way to lose all your forward deployed forces in the early hours of an engagement. So deploying loads of troops would probably not be a good tactic.

The other side of this is the Chinese would view it as intolerably provocative, just as the US would if China started deploying a ton of troops in Cuba, if Cuba was a good deal closer. So you'd massively increase the likelyhood of a war.

I think realistically speaking, China won't ever invade Taiwan unless they are forced to do so by domestic political forces. That is way more likely to happen if they feel already in a cold-war situation. The best protection for Taiwan would be therefore if all the aforementioned US military strategists that go on panels and talk up war just went on holiday for a few months or years or honestly, decades.

None of this will ever happen. CCP leadership has been very clear that any US troops in Taiwan will instantly trigger an invasion.

> CCP leadership has been very clear that any US troops in Taiwan will instantly trigger an invasion.

The CCP has a lot of "red lines" that gets crossed all the time, and they don't do anything about it.

Until they actually follow through on any of their burning, do not cross, red lines, I am not going to take such threats seriously.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com