Will We Sacrifice DC and New York For Taiwan?
By Francis P. Sempa
August 13, 2023AP
Last month, National Defense University professor Donald Stoker wrote a thought-provoking article for Real Clear Defense that examined China’s actions in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and concluded that it will be “exceedingly difficult to deter China in regard to Taiwan,” and that a successful American strategy of deterrence “requires strength, capability, credibility, and will.” A grand strategy of deterrence affects the mind of the enemy--in this case, the mind of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the minds of Xi’s top advisers. The United States and its allies, Stoker writes, must “produce overwhelming doubt in the minds of China’s leaders” that they can take control of Taiwan “at an acceptable cost.”
China under Mao Zedong in the early 1950s in Korea was not deterred from fighting U.S. forces there even though the United States possessed atomic weapons and China did not, and even though America had a much stronger and technologically advanced military than China did at the time. China, Stoker explains, was willing to “endure the risks of escalation, and pay enormous costs in blood and treasure” to protect what its leaders perceived as threats to their security. China also had the advantage of geographical proximity to the conflict. In short, China was willing to risk atomic attack and to expend countless lives and treasure to ensure that the northern half of the Korean peninsula was ruled by a regime friendly to China’s interests.
Stoker notes that China was much less involved in the fighting in Vietnam than in Korea, but attributes that to the U.S. decision not to invade North Vietnam. Stoker writes that Mao told Hanoi’s leaders that his armies would fight the Americans if they invaded northern territory. If Mao was serious--and we have no reason to doubt that--Chinese forces would have intervened in North Vietnam, just as they did in Korea, had American forces crossed into northern territory with the express purpose (as in Korea) of uniting the country under non-communist, pro-American rule.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/08/13/will_we_sacrifice_dc_and_new_york_for_taiwan_972664.html
