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Comment by Animatronio | Hacker News Reader

Now please explain why would the US send troops to defend TW if there's nothing actually valuable there anymore? Ukraine was hugely important for it's position next to Russia, and so is TW. And still, no US troops on the ground in Ukraine, and there won't be any in TW. This is a smart way of giving up on TW without actually admitting it, and there's nothing to be ashamed of, really.

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Far beyond the value of TSMC, Taiwan is the lynchpin of the first island chain [1]. Taiwan remaining friendly to US interests is crucial to the integrity of the first island chain and thus the US island chain strategy[2]. In the event of conflict with China, control of the first island chain would allow the US to effectively interdict all maritime trade to China by denying access through the chokepoints created by the first island chain. This is frankly much more valuable to the US from a strategic perspective than TSMC (though TSMC is obviously very important).

You can also note the importance that Chinese planners place on this as well by looking at the Belt and Road Initiative, in particular the land-based projects that aim to connect China to European markets via rail [3][4].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_island_chain

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Eurasian_Land_Bridge

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Central_Asia%E2%...

You seem to be asserting a few contradictory things:

1. Taiwan can only be defended with US troops on the ground

2. Ukraine has no US troops on the ground and is being successfully defended

3. The US would only put troops on the ground to protect valuable things like TSMC fabs

4. (by implication) if China attacks Taiwan and destroys TSMC fabs tomorrow, the US would have no incentive to defend Taiwan because the fabs are gone

I don't see it. Ukraine looks likely to survive as a country without US troops on the ground. Ukraine, as you note, has no fabs or similarly valuable assets. Why can't those exact same conditions play out in Taiwan, which is also much much much harder to invade with ground troops than Ukraine was?

1. The topic was US defense of TW. How exactly would it be defended by the US without troops? 2. Ukraine is defended by the Ukr army - with copious amounts of ammo and weaponry yes from NATO but no troops. At the same time the US never said they would send the army into conflict to defend it; when it comes to TW, despite the strategic ambiguity or whatever it's called, the general belief is there would be US boots on the ground. 3. The US would send its soldiers if there was something valuable obviously - be it fabs or oil or whatever, but not just to fight China for a random island in the Pacific. Otherwise they would have done it already on the countless atolls that are being fortified. 4. Yes, pretty much that. Just that it would not be obvious, but rather a long war of words would precede it... Again, nothing wrong with it. As long as no lives are lost I guess it is for the better.

They might do it because of the value in denying China access to Taiwan. Even assuming that Taiwan blows their semiconductor fabs to prevent China from getting them, there's still all the know-how and all the other stuff that the US wouldn't want China potentially getting its hands on, like American weapons. There would also be the consideration of the risk to Japan (and other friendly nations in the region) created by allowing China to just take Taiwan without at least Ukraine levels of backlash.

The US isn’t giving up Taiwan- it’s the perfect opportunity to humiliate the CCP. China is in way over their heads if they actually believe they can achieve a naval landing on a fortified island without air superiority. It would be an absolute massacre.

Additionally, the US could simply embargo Chinese supply lines and dare them to engage.

I volunteer you to go fight in Taiwan to "humiliate the CCP".

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