Plan Now for a No-Fly Zone Over Taiwan
Thwarting a Chinese invasion depends on air defense, and that starts with these four steps.
SETH CROPSEY | APRIL 24, 2022 08:00 AM ET
Taiwan is not Ukraine. It is, rather, in a far more vulnerable position. No matter what other idea guides the defense of the island republic, air superiority will be critical. Washington and Taipei must prepare now to ensure this air superiority. And while discussion of a Ukrainian no-fly zone has given a wide berth to military reality, planning for Taiwan’s air defense must be grounded in hard truth.
Proportionally, Taiwanese airspace is much more difficult to defend than that of Ukraine. While Russia must deploy combat power across a 1,400-mile border, China could concentrate tactical air forces in a much smaller area in assaulting Taiwan.
One could not, by the way, defend just half of Taiwan from Chinese aerial attack. The country is too small, and the Taiwanese population lives on the island’s western side. There is no “humanitarian corridor” one could create over eastern Taiwan. A Taiwanese no-fly zone is, in effect, an air exclusion zone over Taiwan – that is, a combat action, whether or not the U.S. declares it as such.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/04/plan-now-no-fly-zone-over-taiwan/366022/
