Something has changed in modern warfare. If war media was once monopolized by a limited number of journalists, photographers, and government officials, it is no longer. Nearly every soldier and civilian on today’s battlefield has a smartphone, and with only the aid of an internet connection, these amateur journalists can publish their own videos and photos of the fighting to social media in an instant. The effects have been dramatic, giving the public a new insight into just what a war looks like.
Governments and journalists have always used media to shape the public perception of warfare. In 1991, during the Gulf War, when the American military released videos of new laser-guided bombs — so-called “smart bombs” — destroying Iraqi tanks with never-before-seen precision, such a look into warfare was considered revolutionary. But these videos were propaganda, carefully curated to create the impression of a “clean” war and to show the world the prowess of the US military. Journalists on the ground, to their great consternation, found that their access to the charred bodies of Iraqi soldiers caught climbing from those burned-out vehicles was heavily curtailed.
Throughout history, brave journalists, to their everlasting credit, have always tried to find ways of showing the public the shocking brutality of war. Because of their efforts, we know what it looks like when teenage soldiers bleed out in trenches or when napalm burns an innocent Vietnamese child. Yet, their access to war simply cannot compare to those forced to wage it. Indeed, in face of the inevitable wave of propaganda that follows all wars, journalists have always relied on the soldiers and civilians caught in the middle to give a more candid account of the war.
But the wars of the past few years have been different. Never before has every soldier and civilian on the battlefield had their own pocket-sized movie camera, ready to film at any moment. Never before have combatants had such ready access to the outside world through the internet. Never before has it been so easy for soldiers to show the public the true nature of that horrible monster we call war. In the war in Ukraine, the world has seen the impact of this revolution.
Like so many others, I’ve found myself transfixed by the videos coming out of Ukraine. The unvarnished, unfiltered realities of war shown in these videos have been unlike anything I’ve ever seen before: drones dropping grenades on soldiers huddling in foxholes, machine gun fire mowing down waves of conscripts, Javelin missiles setting tank columns ablaze, artillery barrages raining hellfire down on families, commandos spraying bullets through trenches of soldiers. Such a glimpse into war is unprecedented. Maybe the makers of these videos intended them as propaganda, but to me, they have been nothing but terrifying.
Too often, we fail to fully comprehend just what it is to go to war. It is too easy to think of war in vague and distant terms, to estrange our hearts from the pain and suffering, to think only in terms of strategy and statistics, and to forget the true human toll that underlies the machinations of policy wonks. Oh, how I have been guilty of these mistakes in the past! Of course I knew that war was bad, but I did not truly understand. The war in Ukraine, with its unprecedented media coverage, has forced me to reexamine my beliefs about war, to confront my misconceptions, even fantasies, with the jagged, bloody reality presented in these videos.
At this point, a reader might rightly wonder why I’ve yet to bring up Taiwan, the supposed subject of this piece. Back in February of 2022, when Russia first began its invasion of Ukraine, I wrote an article addressing the question of whether an invasion of Taiwan by China might soon follow. I argued that, for the moment, it was far more advantageous for China to continue seeking peaceful reunification, with the cost of an invasion remaining too high. More recently, however, as tensions have continued to rise between the US and China, and the possibility of a war over Taiwan grows more likely, a different question has become salient in my mind; if China invades Taiwan, what will the US do?
This is a question being asked and debated throughout the halls of American power. I’ve read voraciously on the issue, weighing the pros and cons of American intervention as a sort of enjoyable intellectual exercise, and I had remained somewhat ambivalent on the whole. More recently, however, I’ve come to think of the issue in a very different way. It began with a realization: if the US went to war with China to defend Taiwan, I might well be conscripted to fight. I might well die in such a fight. And then I realized, I don’t want to die for Taiwan. And if I don’t want to sacrifice my life for Taiwan, what right have I to make anyone else?
How exactly the connection between the videos coming out of Ukraine and the potentiality of a military intervention in Taiwan escaped me for so long, I cannot say, but the result has been clear: a complete revolution in my thinking around not only Taiwan, but war itself.
It is one thing to watch the horrors of war on a computer screen; it is another entirely to imagine yourself in the same situation. This is what the war in Ukraine has done to me. To witness mere kids, just barely older than myself, kids who just months ago graduated from high school, kids who, like me, never expected themselves to go to war, dying in a muddy field, hundreds of miles away from a home where cruise missiles could cremate a loved one at any moment — and then to consider a possible future where I could end up in the same situation, that being in a war over Taiwan — has been nothing less than transformational.
From the moment that I put myself in the shoes of those Ukrainian soldiers, in a way that traditional media never could, war became real to me and my stance on the Taiwan issue entirely changed. I don’t want anyone, much less myself, to suffer and die in the senseless, brutal ways that a war is wont to dictate. With horror close to my heart, I now hold that the United States must not go to war with China to defend Taiwan. It is no war worth dying for.
To explain my position on Taiwan, the issue itself must first be fully considered. In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeated the nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War. The CCP established the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, while the remnants of the KMT fled to Taiwan, a large island off the coast of mainland China, to establish the capitalist Republic of China (ROC). Both governments claimed to be the rightful rulers of China, and initially, international support mostly fell along Cold War ideological lines. Initially, the United States supported the ROC as part of a broader strategy to contain communism, but in the 1970s, President Nixon began to open up relations with the PRC to undermine the Soviet Union, which broke off relations with the PRC in 1961.
By 1979, the United States officially recognized the PRC as the lawful government of China, and under the Taiwan Relations Act, adopted a policy known as “strategic ambiguity”. In short, the US is deliberately ambiguous about whether or not it would defend Taiwan from a PRC invasion. The goal of the policy is to allow for closer relations with the PRC, while also avoiding an abandonment of Taiwan. The Taiwan issue is extremely sensitive in the PRC — both for government officials and the Chinese people — as the PRC regards Taiwan as a “renegade province”, the independence of which is a direct attack on the sovereignty of the PRC.
Reunification with Taiwan has long been an integral part of the CCP’s nationalistic vision for the future, a future where China returns to its rightful place as the world’s most powerful nation to rectify a series of historical humiliations. For decades, the PRC’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), lacked the strength to invade Taiwan, as there was always the implicit threat of US intervention. But things have changed since the 20th century, and the PLA has developed into not only the world’s largest army but also one of the most powerful and technologically advanced.
Armed with a large and modern navy, an arsenal of hypersonic missiles, advanced fighter jets, and a growing nuclear stockpile, the PLA has closed the technological gap with the US military. The PLA has made little secret of developing its amphibious capabilities, which would be necessary for taking Taiwan. The PLA can also draw on a reserve of soldiers that is millions deep, not to mention likely more motivated when it comes to Taiwan than any US soldier would be. Furthermore, the PLA has a home-field advantage; while the US is thousands of miles away from Taiwan, China is less than a hundred. It is now far from certain that the US would prevail in a war over Taiwan.
To be clear, the PRC doesn’t necessarily want to go to war over Taiwan; peaceful reunification with Taiwan would certainly be preferable. But as sentiment in Taiwan continues to turn against reunification, and pressure grows on the CCP to achieve their long-promised goal, a peaceful solution seems more improbable with every passing day. Furthermore, as the Chinese economy has seemed to stagger in recent months, with youth unemployment on the rise and persistently sluggish growth rates, an invasion of Taiwan, the success of which would almost certainly buoy the internal popularity of the CCP, may seem more and more attractive to the PRC’s leaders.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that even if the United States doesn’t intervene, invading Taiwan is a dangerous and expensive proposition for the PRC. Although the PLA would probably overwhelm the heavily outnumbered Taiwanese, with the adoption of a so-called “porcupine” strategy (which is exactly what it sounds like), the Taiwanese could potentially inflict severe casualties on the PLA. Amphibious landings, after all, are not only a logistical nightmare for the invader but the perfect target for the defender. Just as the Russians got bogged down in Ukraine, so might the PLA in Taiwan. However much motivation to take Taiwan the soldiers of the PLA might have, the Taiwanese would probably have even more, not to mention a true home-field advantage.
Even if China successfully invaded Taiwan, occupying PLA troops could face a yearslong insurgency, sapping the resources of the PRC. Beyond the material cost of the war (wars aren’t known for being cheap), the diplomatic and economic consequences would be severe, and as China seeks to become a leader on the world stage, the blowback of an invasion would pose a major obstacle to those aspirations. Given the world’s reliance on the Chinese economy, it is unlikely they would face sanctions in the same way that Russia did after invading Ukraine, but if Western companies are wary of investing in the PRC now, an invasion would make it a virtual nonstarter. The PRC would also lose a good deal of the diplomatic goodwill they have so carefully worked at cultivating with investment projects like the Belt and Road Initiative.
I admit that there remains a compelling case in favor of explicit military support of Taiwan. Taiwan produces over 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors, which are essential to the functioning of all modern electronics. If Taiwan were invaded, the global computing industry would effectively grind to a halt. American leaders have realized this vulnerability and are attempting to cultivate a domestic semiconductor industry, alongside other efforts to reduce economic reliance on the PRC. However, the equipment and know-how to produce semiconductors are extremely specialized, making American efforts to diversify the semiconductor supply chain slow going. Even if the US achieved semiconductor independence, taking control of Taiwan’s semiconductor plants would grant the PRC immense power.
Many also argue that the US has an obligation to act as a “protector of democracy” by defending liberal democracies like Taiwan and Ukraine from encroaching authoritarian powers. Invading Taiwan would also constitute a flagrant violation of the international order, the integrity of which very much benefits the United States. Allowing the PRC to invade China, such thinkers argue, would embolden the PRC and make the US look weak, opening the door to other, perhaps worse, violations of international law. If the PRC were allowed to commit such a crime against the Taiwanese people, what else might they do? Owing to the PRC’s essential role in the international economy (the PRC is the second largest economy in the world, and accounts for about 25% of global manufacturing output), there are significant limitations on what sanctions and punishments could be imposed on the PRC.
As far as US defense is concerned, the fall of Taiwan would mean the failure of the American “Island Chain Strategy.” The Island Chain Strategy was developed at the beginning of the Cold War as a way to project American power and contain the USSR and the PRC in the western Pacific. The strategy involves naval bases along a chain of islands that begin in Borneo in the south, stretch through the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, and terminate at the northern Kuril islands. These so-called “unsinkable aircraft carriers,” even without a major American naval presence, constitute friendly bases of operation for the US military in the event of war. In the eyes of the PRC, the Island Chain Strategy threatens to encircle an energy-import-dependent PRC, hence the PRC’s own focus in the last decade on militarizing the South China Sea. In short, Taiwan is an important part of the broader American strategy to contain an ascendent PRC.
But to my ears, all of these arguments ring hollow on a fundamental basis: they misunderstand what makes a war worth fighting. Going to war is a serious decision with serious consequences. When nations go to war, real people die, often in horrible and painful ways. There are many things that I would risk dying for. If the United States were under attack by another country, I feel confident that I would be willing to die to protect the American people. If another Hitler was rampaging across Europe, butchering civilians and flattening cities, I would be willing to die to save those innocent lives. But this is not the situation in Taiwan. It is not right to sacrifice American lives for Taiwan, for it would not only undoubtedly harm the US, but make the war in Taiwan even more bloody.
Let’s play this out, shall we? Let’s say that the PRC did invade Taiwan and that they believed the US would try to stop them: how exactly does that not escalate into a full-scale war? What, exactly, is the endgame? Assuming an impending US intervention, they would probably try to cripple US forward operating bases in the Pacific. Then what? Do we send our carrier strike groups and nuclear subs to attack the PLA landing forces? Does anyone really think that Chinese leaders would just pack up and go home, admitting to the Chinese people that they haven’t the will to take Taiwan back? No, the PRC, after launching such a massive invasion, could not afford to back out.
Who, exactly, in the US, is willing to take the risk of a full-scale conventional war, never mind nuclear war, with China to protect an island thousands of miles away from home? Make no mistake: if a conflict over Taiwan escalates into a full-scale conventional war with the PRC, many thousands, perhaps millions, of people will die. The videos and images of the fighting in Ukraine offer just a glimpse of what that could look like. Whatever death toll might ensue from an unopposed PLA invasion of Taiwan would pale in comparison. How is this a better outcome? Is it not better for Taiwan to live under an authoritarian regime than to sacrifice countless American lives — and many more Taiwanese and Chinese than would otherwise die — for the sake of democracy and semiconductors? Surely the suffering in such a massive war would eclipse a PRC regime in Taiwan?
The fall of Taiwan would not constitute a greater threat to US security than the risk of a massive conventional war. Taiwan is a special case; the PRC doesn’t have nearly the same support, nor even desire, to invade any other country. Support is widespread in the PRC for taking Taiwan; not so for any other Asian country. It is not as if the PRC will invade the US if it successfully takes Taiwan. The job of the US military, first and foremost, is to protect the interests of the United States, chief among them being the safety of the American people; I fail to see how spending countless lives in Taiwan accomplishes that goal. It is not that I do not care about democracy or Taiwan, but that I find the cost of defending Taiwan to be far, far too great, and the possibility of success vanishingly small.
Some might argue that my position is cowardly. They might refer back to the other times in history when the United States crawled from its isolationist shell to fight for democracy across the world. I, however, can’t think of very many times when we’ve looked back on a foreign intervention as “worth it”. Was protecting South Vietnam “worth it”? The domino effect, after all, turned out to be just a theory. Was it worth it to sacrifice all of those American and Vietnamese lives to try and prevent a government not dissimilar from the PRC from taking control of South Vietnam? What about Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Korea? Does anyone think those wars were “worth it”? WWII is perhaps the most common example raised by supporters of foreign intervention. Wasn’t it worth it to lay down American lives to fight the Nazis? The PRC may commit a multitude of human rights abuses, but they are certainly not the Nazis.
We cannot seriously expect other Americans to lay down their lives for Taiwan when there is not a credible threat to our country. In the case of Taiwan, the PRC can only hurt itself by invading Taiwan. If the CCP government chooses to invade Taiwan, it is because internal pressure, under the influence of misguided patriotism and a lack of understanding about the true consequences of war, has grown too great for power-hungry leaders to resist. They may succeed in taking Taiwan, but only at great cost; as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown, invading another country is a nasty undertaking, especially when it doesn’t go to plan, as wars are wont to do.
The war in Ukraine has taught the world many lessons. It has shown that, given the proper equipment, a small military can resist even the largest of invaders. The PRC, too, has watched as the Ukranians have time and time again frustrated Russian efforts. If the Russians had known how difficult and costly the invasion of Ukraine would be, they likely may have decided against it. If the US acts now, it can change the internal calculus of the PRC. By arming the Taiwanese to the teeth, giving them the weapons necessary to resist a potential PLA invasion, and doubling down on the “porcupine” strategy, the prospect of war will be made less and less appealing to the PRC. The PRC doesn’t want to end up in the same situation as Russia.
The war in Ukraine has also shown that economic dependence on authoritarian regimes can make dishing out economic punishment extremely difficult. In the case of Ukraine, Europe was dependent on Russian natural gas, and even as Russian tanks rolled across the border, Europe was forced to continue sending money into Russian coffers. The US (and the broader liberal democratic order) must become less economically dependent on the PRC to allow sanctions to be a credible deterrent to an invasion of Taiwan. Rather than like Russia, which seeks to destroy the international order, the PRC seeks to helm the international order, making it more subject to the views of foreign powers.
We can increase the cost of a PRC invasion of Taiwan — possibly to the point of total deterrence — without risking countless American lives. Strategic ambiguity is an unsustainable strategy that risks untold death and destruction. We must make it clear to the PRC what the economic and diplomatic cost of invasion would be, while also making clear that we will not send our own forces to intervene; this is critical to preventing a rash preemptive PLA strike that might risk escalation into full-scale war. At the same time, we must make the cost of invasion as high as possible by arming and training the Taiwanese military.
War is not just an intellectual exercise. In considering whether to go to war, we must be certain that the likely outcome is less suffering, not more, less destruction, not more, and less death, not more. If the PRC should really invade Taiwan, the best course of action to minimize suffering is to avoid military intervention at all costs. People’s lives and how much they are suffering are surely more important than by which nation they are ruled. When it comes to a war with the PRC over Taiwan, to quote the great 1983 film, Wargames, “The only winning move is not to play.”
