No Way Out: Xi’s Determination to Retake Taiwan and America’s Predicament
Sunday, September 22nd, 2024, 2:30 pm Central Time
Where: via Zoom
Several years ago, a retiring US Indo-PACOM commander boldly stated that he believed China was increasingly inclined to invade Taiwan, notably in 2027 or earlier. That kind of statement, with that kind of specificity, is rare in Washington circles, so it gained a lot of attention. There has also been much talk about a couple of concepts that always seem to surround discussions about Taiwan and the larger Sino-America competition:
- The two sides are destined for conflict as captured in the term Thucydides Trap, advanced by Graham Allison. As the logic goes, this so-called Thucydides Trap will inevitably ensnare the two powers and global war will ensue, just as was the case with Athens and Sparta long ago. Of course, Allison himself insists that while the historical record is full of instances where similar situations arose and ended in conflict, there is nothing necessarily ‘inevitable’ about war between Beijing and Washington.
- Peak China which asserts China’s economic and military power is, or will soon be, at its apogee. That being the case, the argument is that China, seeing the writing on the wall, will be compelled to act before the correlation of forces begins to swing against it.
But, as former Director of the CIA (1991-1993) and US Secretary of Defense (2006-2011) Robert Gates argues, neither theory is particularly convincing. First, there was nothing inevitable about WWI (the analogy most often invoked when referring to the current clash between the Chinese and Americans). Second, the Chinese military is, according to many in the know, far from ready for a major conflict. Thus, a direct Chinese attack on Taiwan, if it happens at all, is some years in the future, outside the 2027 timeframe. Unless Xi miscalculates—again.
Dr. John H. Modinger served in the USAF for 25.5 years, flying the KC-135 Stratotanker (aerial refueler) and C-130 Hercules (intra-theater airlift) for the first half of his career. The second half was largely spent in academia, more the result of a convenient and beneficial accident than by any design. His last active-duty assignment was as a Permanent Professor at the US Air Force Academy. He currently is an Associate Professor at the US Army’s Command and General Staff College, where he has served for the past eight years.
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