Taiwan is not Ukraine: Stop linking their fates

https://warontherocks.com/2022/01/taiwan-is-not-ukraine-stop-linking-their-fates-together/

by ilamont • 4 years ago

42 57 4 years ago

warontherocks.com

hackerlytest• 4 years ago

No two countries are alike.

temp• 4 years ago

American security support for Ukraine is recent

Um, it's not _that_ recent, it dates to at least 1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit... which is almost the length of its independence

ipnon• 4 years ago

Russian security support is also not recent! The primary condition of Ukraine's denuclearization was that Russia, along with the United States, France, and UK, would defend Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial claims perpetually. It seems one of these parties signed with disappearing ink.

nekcihc8• 4 years ago

Exactly - there is no such reputation for Russia and it has proven once again, that words of Russians are not even worth what paper is worth, but for everybody else - it is a trap. It was really naive to give such guarantees - they could be more realistic and demand, that Russia at least remove military bases from territory of Ukraine. Even the current events were because of fears to lose Sevastopol - pride of USSR military(which did nothing in WW2).

US and other signing power reputations is worth more(than Russians) and rest of the world is watching. US has already lost a lot of soft power and this entrapment is another dent in reputation for vaning superpower.

nickff• 4 years ago

It seems like none of the other parties are defending Ukraine's sovereignty, and one is violating it (Russia). None of them seem willing to keep their defense commitments.

sharikous• 4 years ago

To be fair, given the 2014 events, all the parties signed with disappearing ink. Russia invaded, but the US, France and UK failed their obligation too.

baybal2• 4 years ago

That's a very lazy analysis.

The critical point is "a failure to respond to military action against Ukraine would weaken American credibility and invite an attack on Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China."

The author says it's not the case, then goes completely sideways with comparison who Taiwan, and Ukraine are.

What's relevant here is a test of US military might, end of the story.

If US military force falters somewhere, it falters everywhere.

USA is the only country in the world with a global power projection, and capable of seriously hurting anybody it wants, one sidedly.

A failure means every unsavoury power in the world will go, and exploit this opportunity to do something nasty, while the US is incapable of getting them.

mgh2• 4 years ago

If US military force falters somewhere, it falters everywhere

Not exactly, but close - ex: Vietnam, Iraq, etc.

Both Russian and China know this, helps explain the "show of force"- show me your arsenal, so I can analyze your strength and probability of winning

genmud• 4 years ago

One could argue that those weren't US military force failures, so much as policy failures. Peacekeeping and warfighting are very different things.

alfalfasprout2• 4 years ago

Those are fairly different though. With Taiwan Ukraine-- the involvement would be clear: Country A invades Country B. US intervenes to fight away country A. Losing here would be a HUGE crediblity blow.

It's very different from "nation building" (which has been proven time and time again to be a waste of time, money, and lives). Losing here is more of a factor of fighting ideologies vs. a distinct adversary.

In terms of training and military hardware the US is pretty much unrivaled even by China. But that knowledge suddenly becomes less relevant if it becomes clear we won't use it when it matters.

burneracc2• 4 years ago

Yup. Unfortunately the people of taiwan are going to get an unwelcome wake up call. If powerful armed nations of europe and north america cant stop russia they will certainly not be able to stop china. I am curious if post taiwan india will become a testing ground as it appears fertile land for destabilisation. We shall see how things unravel.

pydry9• 4 years ago

He seems to be saying that Ukraine is not strategically important enough to bother with (they dont even make chips!), which mirrors Biden's weird comment about how a small incursion would be ok.

burneracc2• 4 years ago

See the problem is that ukraine doesnt need to make chips to be important. Since the second world war the world has been split in half. West europe and america on one side and east europe and the soviets on the other side.

Africa, asia, the middle east, and latin america have been split between these two enormous social, economic and cultural blocks. Dictatorships and democracies in countries of these continents have one way or another been dismantled or assembled by one side or the other.

A weak response from nato to russia in ukraine means a weak west and a weak west means a strong china. The people of taiwan and pretty much anywhere outside europe and north america should pay attention to whats happening because the actions here will define their future. Just like in Georgia and Syria and now Ukraine Russia has proven that where it enters it can never be kicked out regardless of sanctions or military might.

China probably understands this and as such it took swift and decisive action in HK. Barely any response from the west.

If China is entering taiwan there will be zero reaponse as it has been proven that there is simply nothing short than total annihilation to stop Russia and China.

nekcihc8• 4 years ago

Some of the issues, that are not in article:

1. Taiwan was not part of neither communist China or Chinese Republic, so neither of them have claim on this territory.

2. Up till 1945 Formosa was was territory of Japan. It can be compared to Prussia, that from 1945 is currently occupied by Russia. After 1945 US still has all the rights to decide status of Formosa.

3. It could have been independet Formosa, but apparently for political reasons US 75 years ago decided to let Chinese take over this territory and oppress natives of this island and deny dream of native Formosians to be free and independent and erase history of these people by both Japanese and also Chinese and US has taken part in another deadly sin of theirs - once again in erasing natives.

Both Russia and Ukraine are new countries, that arised from USSR.

US(along with Russia) has signed agreement about guaranteeing territorial integrity of Ukraine. It apparently meant nothing for Russia, but with this agreement US has signed a trap, because apparently that also means, that US signed treaties are not worth anything...

* There has been talks, that Ukraine is corrupt country, but apparently it is ok for US goverment officials(and relatives) to deal with corrupt countries for financial gains, because from ancient Roman times "money does not stink". This involvement in corruptions is nothing new - Hillary Clinton in similar fashion(when dealing with Western Sahara) destroyed mining industry in US, so these things are coming full cycle and affects US, too.

* For the same reasons it is ok for Western companies to invest in corruptive countries for profit, that is shared with local thieves, that are robbing their own people.

There are no similarities between Taiwan and Ukraine, however war in Ukraine is linked to Taiwan and China will be watching how the things are going to progress there. So, this is a test trial for US - what it is going to do about this? Russia has become dog of China and China is not commanding Russia(yet), but Russia acts as a dog, that likes to impress owner, when rattling chain and barking on neighbour.

China might attack Taiwan, while Russia is attacking Ukraine. Despite what author is writing, attack of Russia on Ukraine is a dire warning to all of Eastern Europe and stirs up 100 years old memories, that behaviour of Russia is unpredictable and who knows who will be next. Russia is still pushing borders of what is acceptable to them and so far Europe and US has not stopped them. Btw, some of Scandinavian countries are not in NATO, so essentially they are a free snack for next aggression after Ukraine, before final real escalation with NATO.

The issue with China attacking Taiwan is quite opposite - China might be forced to attack Taiwan, to try to end supremacy of US, just like Japan was forced to attack US. Talk about economic reasons is from previous century. Changes in economy are happening all the time - it is not constant state- if for whatever reasons US economy becomes weak, US does not allow China access to it, most of US owned factories are relocated outside of China - does it really makes sense to claim, that China still won't risk breaking economic contacts with US, because uh - oh... they have economic ties, if suddenly there are none anymore?

Russian patriotism nowadays is about war - it seems, that Chinese have similar mindset. And this is a very big question - why chinese also have this mindset, that Russians have? Whom are they going to attack?(China also have claims on Russian territories). No idea, why Chinese lost cool and started to argue with US and started to use military talk, as it was too early, unless we know nothing about Chinese. There are political talks and then there is a street talk and it knows more, than any analytical mind.

It does not matter - those people are ready for war - it all depends if leaders of China decides if it is time to attack. Collective Putin thinks, that attacking Ukraine is their right and in their minds they are already prepared to invade Ukraine and the only question is if it is total invasion of Ukraine(just like finalized integration of Belarus into Russia), or only biggest part of it(just like USSR initially did not had western Ukraine). So, it all depends on how successfully Ukraine will defend itself and what US gonna do. Because, frankly - US has been sh!t so far and it does not help, that European powers are even worse and they have made Russia as it is, because they were so stupid, that they thought that criminals can become business men and become civilized.

vanusa5• 4 years ago

Just like Japan was forced to attack US.

I'd go with "seduced itself into attacking".

But "forced to"? That seems to be an unfalsifiable assertion.

bllguo• 4 years ago

it's very likely a reference to the US oil embargo.

wbsss44126• 4 years ago

This is poor history. Prior to Japanese occupation, Taiwan was a part of Chinese territory under the Qing for several hundred years.

mytailorisrich2• 4 years ago

And rightly given back to the Republic of China in 1945 (hence why the Chinese government retreated there in 1949...)

Those claims related to changing regimes are of course disingenuous and only aimed at creating a false narrative. It is fake history for political purposes.

nekcihc8• 4 years ago

This is poor understanding about internationally recognized rights on owning territories, that has nothing to do with history and who owned them centuries ago.

Today Qing are as relevant, as Russian historical claims on California.

s1artibartfast3• 4 years ago

US(along with Russia) has signed agreement about guaranteeing territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Source?

T-A3• 4 years ago

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ukraine._Memorandum_on_Securi...

alfalfasprout2• 4 years ago

This analysis is simplistic in a few ways:

1) It looks at Ukraine's importance economically and concludes it's not worth it. The reality though is that it's really more about stability with our EU trading partners. If Ukraine falls to Russia suddenly we have to start worrying about supply chains and the economy of Poland, etc. Ripping away the buffer between western and eastern europe will have economic implications. 2) The US' involvement in both cases won't necessarily be similar. It's highly unlikely IMO that we will end up fighting russia directly with US troops. It's pretty clear now that the US approach to Ukraine will be at best arming ukranians and providing indirect support. It's far more effective in Ukraine to make invasion expensive and not worth it than trying to outright push back the Russians out of Crimea too. Between a combination of costly conflict, sanctions taking a toll on the Russian economy and enough resistance, it soon becomes untenable for the Russians to continue. Or at least that's the hope. 3) With Taiwan, the problem is that the PROC is basically increasing risk in the region to the point that with enough time people will start diversifying away from taiwan. We already see this with TSMC starting to build US fabs and Intel now investing heavily again in the domestic US. This doesn't change things in the next 3-5 years but on a longer horizon it does mean Taiwan's economic relevance does become more questionable. The PROC can wait as long as it needs for this to happen.

Nasreddin_Hodja• 4 years ago

US approach to Ukraine will be at best arming ukranians and providing indirect support.

Yeah, hybrid war.

a0-prw• 4 years ago

Russia is not interested in invading Ukraine.However, if the Ukraine nationalists severely escalate the civil war against the Donbass, Russia would almost certainly step in.

There is almost no risk of a major, nationwide war. I would wish that this faux "crisis" could teach more people to be highly critical of anything coming from any of the 5 eyes states (And thus anything in the Western MSM.)

Taiwan is not Ukraine: Stop linking their fates

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