However, I'm old enough to recall when America was convinced by Rumsfeld et. al. to send US soldiers in harms way -- over 4000 of them died in Iraq -- for some obscenely lucrative oil contracts.
That qualifies as "die en masse", and it was over some really flimsy pretext, which was later proved to be completely false.
Also 4K is a drop in the bucket compared to what it would take to defend Taiwan.
a) Invade Taiwan in the next 1-2 years
b) Extort by threat of invasion
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/01/china-suddenly-...
https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/built...
Which will be pointless and fail, especially against a country like China.
This is such a funny comment because it’s both right and oh so wrong.
Yes, the U.S. was likely never gonna send troops to fight in Taiwan (although it has sent troops to fight in Korea, so it’s not as much of a stretch as you claim).
But the bluff worked because the U.S.’s promises held value. To the point that the U.S. didn’t explicitly say they would defend Taiwan against China, but China was avoiding confrontation with Taiwan simply to prevent the U.S. from saying they would do that.
Of course, Donald Trump damaged that significantly in his first term and has torn that to shreds in his second term.
With Trump’s nakedly transparent and quod pro quo based foreign affairs, it’s hard to remember how much soft power value the U.S. had built up over decades where it could achieve what it wanted without even saying anything, which has basically been destroyed over about a decade.
Now Trump is burning alliances and soft power and threatening to burn the dollar.
It seems like imploding the postwar order and the US position therein is a right wing goal.
Like tankie communists they care more about the ideology than the real outcome. They are in love with a fantasy of how the world ought to look and if it doesn’t look that way it must burn.
This is why I have a low opinion of all ideologues, those on the left as well. They will all kill and impoverish us if the square peg does not fit in the round hole.
There are also white nationalists for whom white birth rates and ethnic cleansing are the only things that matter. Same deal there.
Is it important enough to start WWIII. That’s another question.
OP is saying that Taiwan is "some small random island" from the point of view of most Americans, its merits notwithstanding. And given everything the current Trump administration has done so far (which suggests that they view alliances, promises, and treaties in extremely transactional terms), it doesn't seem unfair or unreasonable to assume that they share this view too.