The "analysis" contains this little gem:
But the real question is whether Taiwan is strategic militarily to the United States. The small island nation is not, and the United States shouldn’t risk escalation with a nuclear-armed China to defend it.I don't even know where to start hammering at it -- the target is too big! That's not even getting to a later bumblingly ludicrous argument that because China is "emotional" about the Taiwan issue, the US should simply concede it.
A brief blurb from DR:
Ivan Eland thinks we should abandon the defense of Taiwan because it isn't important to us and is important to China. Taiwan is only useful as a base to attack China, Eland says. (So would Eland say we have the right to own Cuba given their position astride our Gulf Coast sea lines of communication?)I do believe the ignoring of morality in foreign policy is often conveniently called "realism" by its practitioners. Naturally, it leads to some appalling "decisions" and "analyses" that are in themselves heavily, even blindly ideological (here's a pithy reminder -- penned by a thoughtful voice from the reasonable center-left-ish).
This assertion ignores the role Taiwan would play as a springboard for Chinese power projection should China hold the island. So already Eland's analysis is bad.
And he ignores the morality of abandoning free people to China's communist rulers.
Well, what a cheerful chaser to the 30-year anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, the recent release of the annual Pentagon report of China's military, and the latest KMT shenanigans.
Is anything so pathetically evil as free people being willing to abandon other free people -- to autocrats -- in the name of being "nice" to those autocrats? There's nothing so craven as kissing up to potentially hostile groups while being treacherous to one's actual friends, allies, and dependents.
UPDATE: Here is a piece arguing for the defense of Taiwan, via blogfriend View from Taiwan.
1 comment:
What an idiot. A very useful one, no doubt, but an idiot none-the-less.
Here, Ivan, Mr. Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty, let me help you rewrite this sentence: Even though China has far fewer nuclear weapons than the United States, the Chinese are emotional about the Taiwan issue; thus, any nuclear showdown over the island would be fraught with risk.Because China has far fewer nuclear weapons than the US, and the US is BIGTIME emotional about preserving and spreading democracy in the world in order to promote peace and liberty, any nuclear showdown over the island would be fraught with risk for China.
There, that's better.
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