No, that for instance China is free to take Taiwan and that we won't do a thing about it.
The world's police has abdicated a while ago. This is the kind of thing that happens in the vacuum left behind.
The world's police has abdicated a while ago. This is the kind of thing that happens in the vacuum left behind.
"Asked twice during CNN's town hall whether the US would protect Taiwan if China attacked, Biden said it would." [1]
Contrast that to the stance on Ukraine:
"We have no intention of fighting Russia."[2]
From other statements, it seems clear the administration thinks Taiwan is a critical national interest while Ukraine is not.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/taiwan-china-biden-t...
[2] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/23/biden-troops-russia...
This is true. And it is the main driver behind the United States' renewed interest in domestic fab capability:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7178
Taiwan isn't explicitly mentioned but it plays a large role in the reasoning behind this.
Semi is the most globalised industry spanning 28 countries, with USA, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, SK, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands being able to singlehandedly stop the whole of it.
It's a naive thinking "once TSMC will complete Arizona megafab, we can abandon Taiwan." There, are as I said, hundreds of critical single supplier globally pieces of equipment, services, and materials that most of the world had zero idea about. How about nanoneedle probes capable of testing M0 the entire industry depends on, for which there is 1 small company for the entire world.
US semiconductor equipment from LAM, and Applied Materials are more than half imported parts. US semi industry never used OSATs, until it had to ship their chips to Asia for that, and thus missed out on most of new packaging, and test tech which evolved outside of the US. Similarly for almost everything else.
Replacing Asian material suppliers for the US will be as hard as for China to develop a domestic photolithography stepper.
Ok, then we'll stop talking.
"We will betray our allies, and they will leave us alone" is a form of defeatism, and entertaining others into this way of thinking is not what a citizen of NATO country should do, let alone a public figure.
The DoD has identified the loss of manufacturing capability as a national security risk. Maybe lower labor costs were the impetus of off-shoring manufacturing, but nearly 40 years since globalization took hold there's also a lot of manufacturing that has to go overseas simply because America is no longer able or willing to do it. Could the US bring back that capability? As you said, even if there was the will it wouldn't happen overnight.
For their pro-Putler colleagues, one of those phrases is "Ukrainian coup of 2014".
This was already the case though this does make it clear to me that Taiwan will likely fall in short order.
There have been unsubstantiated rumors for years that the Taiwanese military has outfitted TSMC fabs with explosives that can be rigged to go off in the event of a mainland invasion in order to deny China access to TSMC capabilities. Even physical destruction may be unnecessary. Due to the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain, many say that an embargo of materials and the removal of experts are enough to paralyze the fabs for many years.
Never mind various economic measures from all parts of the West. The developed world is already doing things about China's Taiwan ambitions, and have motivations far stronger than altruism to continue doing so. Ukraine by contrast is not as well integrated as Taiwan, and it's their desire to be integrated that set Putin off in the first place. If said integration meant nothing, Putin wouldn't be invading.
> Taiwan has semiconductors western industry depends on.
For once it isn't about oil.
> And the primary reason for AUKUS and giving the Aussies nuclear sub tech is precisely so their subs will have the range to help counter China.
I'm sure the Chinese are most impressed. But Australia too will stand by when the Chinese invade Taiwan.
> China just "sanctioned" (largely performative) Lockheed and Boeing over a $100 million arms sale to Taiwan.
You need to separate out the economic incentives from the political ones there to get a clearer picture of what is happening.
> Never mind various economic measures from all parts of the West. The developed world is already doing things about China's Taiwan ambitions, and have motivations far stronger than altruism to continue doing so.
China doesn't care about any of that: they care about the United States and them alone because that is the only country that can credibly put up enough force projected into that region to put a stop to it if they decide to move.
> Ukraine by contrast is not as well integrated as Taiwan, and it's their desire to be integrated that set Putin off in the first place.
You could Swap Ukraine and Taiwan and substitute Xi and you have a winner at some point in the future, provided Taiwan would express a desire to join NATO.
> If said integration meant nothing, Putin wouldn't be invading.
Put would invade regardless, and this is the mistake that everybody is making: the NATO approach is a figleaf, that only happened after things had already started to slide inside Ukraine. But I'm pretty sure that only a very small fraction of HN is aware of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych
Was placed to serve as a Russian puppet to keep Ukraine out of the influence of the West, which the country overwhelmingly wanted. After being tossed out (he's since moved to Russia) the whole separatism affair started fueled by Russia. Ukraine had every right to do so, and the occupation and subsequent invasion are proof positive that Ukraine was right about Russia's intentions, not the other way around.
You will find a lively corresponding sentiment in lots of other former USSR states.
Regardless, when I say "western integration" I don't mean hard NATO membership. Taiwan is a greater economic player than Ukraine, and a very defensible island, with a very different set of political entanglements. The situations may look similar in the abstract, but it's comparing oranges to lemons.
I'm also not sure why you think the Aussies would stand by. They're already in their own economic war with China and by joining AUKUS have made their position abundantly clear. New Zealand would probably stand by, but honestly they don't matter that much militarily.
China is making enemy after enemy on the assumption that their enemies are fundamentally weak/corrupt and can be rolled over, while uniting under an ethno-nationalist/cult of personality leadership. They aren't the first in history to make that mistake. And if they continue down that road it ends in bloody defeat.
Could some trouble have been avoided if Yanukovych had left office via election rather than via coup? How many Ukrainians really considered his negotiation tactics with EU so unbecoming that he should have been summarily removed via "extralegal" means?
I'm not really sure what you are trying to argue here, this is pretty much settled history.
You mean 'under the Russian boot'. They already know what that is like, hence their resistance to a repeat performance.
The rest of the alternative reality stuff I'll not respond to, feel free to take that any way you want.
One guess how I'm inclined to take that...
The vast majority of Ukrainians are not responsible for their misfortunes over the last decade. Certainly they have my sympathy. Violent coups usually harm the societies in which they occur, so the tiny minority of Ukrainians who took part in that coup have harmed their nation and their fellow Ukrainians. That harm has taken the form of a Russian invasion, but if it had happened somewhere else at some other time (e.g. Iran, in 1953) the harm would have come anyway.
Eventually, if we survive long enough, humans will learn to organize (and re-organize!) ourselves without large-scale violence. Some had imagined that democracy might be a part of that, but few today seem to agree.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHH10jIRJmQ
Ukrainians (and Georgians, and elderly Hungarians) are already well aware...
Either way, the reason it can't have a simple answer is that it's an invalid question, since it presupposes something which isn't true. (As further explained in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30539775 .)
And IMO it's a bit suspicious that so many of the "simple questions" on this subject just happen to be couched in Putlin propaganda terms.
USA has gone on record saying it will fall on the sword for Taiwan. [0]
USA never said any such thing for Ukraine. The closest commitment is Biden saying "we will defend every inch of NATO territory." [1]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59005300
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/biden-warns-russia-us-defend-21054732...
I'll believe that when I see it, under Biden, maybe. But that may also just be posturing and probably won't last longer than the moment that the USA can become independent of Taiwanese manufacturing capabilities at which point it would actually be in the US' interest if Taiwan would no longer be able to produce.
The US made their commitments when their opponents were at their nadir neglecting that they'd be challenged when the opponents were at their strongest. Walking back those commitments to what the US is willing and able to defend will continue to be the challenge of the 21st century. There needs to be a strategic re-evaluation of what the US should defend and what they can defend.
IMHO, ultimately the either should not or can not defend Eastern Europe bordering Russia, The Caucasus, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan. How to wiggle out of those commitments without giving Russia, China, & Iran ideas is the tough part.
The possible what-if scenarios arising from unchecked expansion of superpowers is disturbing.