Donald Trump was right to warn at the Republican National Convention in July that China was “surrounding Taiwan” and that “the specter of a growing conflict” hovered over the island. But his so-called concern did not stop him from signaling to Beijing that he would not intervene militarily if China launched an invasion. “Taiwan should pay us for defense” in question In June, he looked more like a mafia running a protection racket than a potential leader of the free world.

Trump’s rhetoric shows how his reelection could undo the central promise that sustained the post-World War II order: that the United States would act as an international cavalry, coming to the rescue of its allies or at least trying to deter autocratic aggressors. This explicit or implicit guarantee led the countries within the American alliance network to tie their national security to the commitments of the United States. In Asia, for example, Japan has not developed a nuclear arsenal even as Chinese leaders have expanded its own nuclear arsenal because the country is already under the American nuclear umbrella. But if the United States loses the will to keep its promise under a Trump second presidency, or if other governments perceive that it is doing so, the entire international security system could unravel, potentially encouraging regional arms races, nuclear proliferation, and armed conflict—in particular. on Taiwan.

Michael Schuman: Trump signaled weakness to Xi Jinping

Taiwan’s foreign minister said: “We must be confident in national defense” in question In response to Trump’s comments this summer because “we stood alone against the threat of China,” he noted that has been true for decades. However, Taiwan would most likely not be able to defend itself against a large-scale invasion on its own. The country, which Beijing still considers part of China, is not only outnumbered and outgunned. Worse still, its armed forces are plagued by poor planning and training, inadequate stocks, a sclerotic command system, and weapons unsuited to defend against an invasion.

Michael Hunzeker, a professor at George Mason University who specializes in military reform, said Taiwan’s forces “are not capable of doing any of the things we would typically associate with a military as determined, capable and taking an imminent threat seriously as China.” he told me. Kitsch Liao, deputy director of the Atlantic Council, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., put it more succinctly: “Taiwan’s military is simply incompetent.”

The need for reform is more urgent than ever. While China has significantly strengthened its military over the past decade, Taiwan’s defense budget is essentially rectilinear An overhaul of its forces will at least help Taiwan survive long enough for the United States to take action; This is a process that could take weeks, if not months, and will put international pressure on China. Better yet, it could deter Beijing from invading.

Without reform, Taiwan’s military shortcomings would force the United States to intervene during a conflict if it wanted to maintain American power in Asia, given the vital strategic link Taiwan provides to the region. This would require engaging in a war on a scale not seen since World War II, at a time when much of the American public no longer supports U.S. engagements abroad, even in much smaller incursions.

Washington has long pursued a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan and has avoided making any firm commitments to defend Taiwan, in the belief that the mere possibility of American intervention would be sufficient to deter Chinese military action to seize the island. However, increasing tensions between China and Taiwan have shaken this belief. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has taken a more hostile stance towards the government in Taipei since his Democratic Progressive Party won the presidency in 2016. Worried that Taiwanese officials were preparing to declare formal independence, Beijing tried to scare them by sending jets near them. We are conducting military exercises in the airspace and, as recently as this month, off the coast of Taiwan. China’s aggression has raised concerns in Washington that Xi is preparing to take Taiwan by force.

In response, President Joe Biden tried this: Strengthening America’s deterrent Stating that the USA will defend the island. Trump now argues the opposite. In an interview with Wall StreetJournal Trump last week in question He won’t need to use force to defend Taiwan from a Chinese blockade because Xi “respects me,” he claimed. Instead, Beijing would impose high tariffs on China if it tried to attack Taiwan, which it appears to believe would be a sufficient deterrent.

Michael Schuman: No more ‘strategic uncertainty’ on Taiwan

Taiwan’s apparent inability to defend itself is a conundrum. Small states have a long history of military superiority. Ukraine has managed to hold its own against a much larger invading Russian army for almost three years, despite massive amounts of Western aid. Israel has combined advanced technology with a motivated citizen army to gain an advantage against many enemies simultaneously.

But Taiwan’s military has a troubled history. After the Kuomintang, the political party that ruled Taiwan for decades, arrived on the island from mainland China in 1949, its military served as an extension of its leadership. After decades of martial law, democracy came in the 1990s. Many Taiwanese perceived the military as an instrument of oppression and feared that its officers would interfere in politics, so the newly elected leadership scaled back the armed forces. “But the cuts have gone too far,” Ian Easton, a professor at the U.S. Naval Academy’s China Maritime Research Institute, told me. He added that some key units, such as marines, logistics support and combat engineers, “appear to be well below the levels that would be ideal for defeating an invasion.”

Taiwan’s political and military leaders may also suffer from a sense of fatalism, perhaps unintentionally fostered by American policy. George Mason’s Hunzeker argued that Taiwan’s military “has existed for 70 years in a security bubble largely guaranteed by the United States, creating all kinds of moral hazard.” The leadership views a potential war as “a clash of giants or we lose quickly,” creating the belief that if an invasion comes, “it’s either America or nothing.”

Such defeatism may be misplaced. China will likely have enough difficulty seizing Taiwan by force that the West and its allies will have time to complicate the attack. As Atlantic Council director Liao told me, China’s invasion of the Taiwan Strait would be “the largest amphibious operation in human history.” There are few places on Taiwan’s coastline for Chinese troops to land, and if they manage to gain a beachhead they will face fierce resistance. Such a bloody, protracted and costly struggle could be unpopular in China and politically risky for its leaders. As a result, military analysts believe that Beijing would not attempt an invasion without first trying to undermine Taiwan’s morale and resources by launching cyber attacks, imposing blockades, and seeding domestic political opposition.

Still, critics argue that Taiwan would not have the appropriate weapons systems to defend itself in the event of an invasion. The military relies heavily on advanced and expensive surface ships, fighter jets and other conventional hardware. However, China will likely be able to target and destroy these weapons quickly. Some military experts therefore advocate for Taiwan to overhaul its armed forces and invest in what Hunzeker calls “a multitude of cheap, mobile and lethal” resources, including unmanned aerial vehicles, short-range missiles and small boats; This will be more difficult for China. will locate and destroy it and cause great harm to the Chinese invaders. Taiwan could also develop a regional defense force; citizen militias to fight against Chinese troops in every town and street. The aim behind these reforms is to turn Taiwan into a military “hedgehog” that can deter aggressors by promising to inflict great pain if they attack.

However, this strategy is controversial in Taiwan. Alexander Huang, a professor of strategic studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan, argues that the island’s armed forces need conventional weapons to counter Chinese jet attacks and protect vital shipping in the event of a blockade. “A hedgehog might be hard to chew, but it could starve to death,” he told me. Moreover, Huang believes that establishing a regional defense force in Taiwan would be “almost impossible.” “City warfare, town to town, and jump into the meat grinder; it’s very Hollywood, very Ukrainian,” he said. But he added that Taiwanese society was not “psychologically ready” for such a conflict.

The Taiwanese government is making some changes, such as increasing conscription, increasing military spending, and investing in unmanned aerial vehicles and mobile missiles. But critics fear such measures fall far short of the comprehensive reform Taiwan’s military needs to stand a chance against China. More optimistically, Huang argues that Taiwan is “on the right track” but “needs at least five to 10 years of peace and stability before we can transform our military.”

Whether Beijing will allow Taiwan this period is an open question. Taiwan’s military’s shortcomings lend some validity to Trump’s complaint that America’s allies are not paying enough for their own defense and are placing most of the responsibility on the United States; This is a burden that a second Trump administration cannot shoulder.

If the United States does not support the global security system, it cannot expect its partners to do so on their own. The international order will weaken and Xi will be ready to benefit from this development. Perhaps America’s best hope is that Trump finds the decision to attack Taiwan as painful as he finds the thought of defending it.