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US pulls last aircraft carrier in Asia as Trump focuses on Iran and the Western Hemisphere (apnews.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/world@lemmy.world
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The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.

“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.

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[–] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think everyone underestimates Taiwan. It's not a defenseless country.

Yes PRC has a massive army, but Taiwan is an island. The PRC military force on the island would be limited to how many they could send across the strait and maintain supply lines to. A large part of the island has cliffs for coastline, so there's a limited number of locations they could land. The landing operation would be a bigger operation than D-Day. The Germans didn't have much for radar and there was no satellite intel back then, and there were a lot more potential landing spots for D-Day. The Germans didn't know where the allies would make their landing. Taiwan on the other hand will be tracking those ships all the way across the strait, and they will know exactly where they'll be coming ashore.

And of course there's drones. Russia was supposed to take over Ukraine in a week (two weeks tops!) in their special operation. The US is supposed to be able to completely dominate Iran. But those damn drones are a real problem, aren't they? Where do you suppose Ukraine gets the chips from to control those drones? Taiwan likely has the designs Ukraine is using and they have drone production going completely on their island. Even if China were to completely blockade Taiwan, they could continue to produce drones endlessly. And those Ukrainian sea babies effectively neutralized the Russian Navy. Will the Chinese Navy fare better?

We can reasonably assume China is sharing tech with Russia to test on the battlefield against drone technology that Ukraine is likely sharing with Taiwan. Russia has to keep their navy far away from Ukraine to keep their ships safe from the drones. The US navy is keeping it's distance from Iran for similar reasons. If China has to keep its navy far from Taiwan to keep their ships safe from drones, an invasion of Taiwan just isn't going to work, is it?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Look at a a map of Taiwan in relation to China. Taiwan is tiny, and it's right off the coast. If China wants it, there is no stopping them. We're certainly not going to stop them with our 6000 mile supply line, and the dumbest people to ever operate a country since Caligula.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago

    I know you've been conditioned to think that everything that happens in the world (both good and bad) is because of the USA. But read my post again. I'm actually talking about Taiwan's capabilities on it's own.

    You need to look at a map. Note that Taiwan is an island. Kinda like how Britain is an island. There was a time when some authoritarian asshole controlled most of Europe and since you love looking at maps, note that the English Channel is far narrower than the Taiwan Strait. So what does your map based analysis say about Britain's chances against the Nazis? What about their chances against Napoleon?

    It might be harder to take over an island than you think. It all depends on how hard the people on that island are willing to fight.

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