America’s Pivot, Taiwan and Anti-Access

Strong allies help weak allies who help themselves. That’s the message the Naval Diplomat will be conveying next Tuesday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

America’s Pivot, Taiwan and Anti-Access

By James R. Holmes

Strong allies help weak allies who help themselves. That’s the message the Naval Diplomat will be conveying next Tuesday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, down in Washington, DC. The organizers asked me to comment on whether the U.S. pivot to Asia will enhance Taiwan’s security, degrade it, or somewhere in between. My bottom line: it will bolster security if the islanders rededicate themselves to their own defense while helping U.S. forces pierce Chinese anti-access defenses. Beijing is trying to deter Washington from intervening on Taiwan’s behalf; Taipei must mount a reciprocal effort to bias American decisionmaking toward coming to the island’s rescue.

As recently as the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, a U.S. president could order naval forces to the area with little fear for the safety of those forces. The PLA had little capacity to detect, let alone target, U.S. Pacific Fleet carrier groups operating off Asian coasts. No longer……

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Source: The Diplomat.

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