Suppose you are the CCP, trying to decide whether to invade Taiwan soon. The normal-brain reaction to the fiasco in Ukraine is to see the obvious parallels and update downwards on “we should invade Taiwan soon.”
But (I will argue) the big-brain reaction is to update upwards, i.e. to become more inclined to invade Taiwan than before. (Not sure what my all-things considered view is, I’m a bit leery of big-brain arguments) Here’s why:
Consider this list of variables:
How much of a fight the Taiwanese military will put up
How competent the Chinese military is
Whether the USA will respond with military force or mere sanctions-and-arms-deliveries
These variables influence who would win and how long it would take / how costly it would be, which is the main variable influencing the decision of whether to invade.
Now consider how the fiasco in Ukraine gives evidence about those variables. In Ukraine, 1. The Russians were surprisingly incompetent 2. The Ukrainians put up a surprisingly fierce resistance 3. The USA responded with surprisingly harsh sanctions, but stopped well short of actually getting involved militarily.
This should update us towards expecting the Chinese military to be more incompetent, the Taiwanese to put up more of a fight, and the USA to be more likely to respond merely with sanctions and arms deliveries than with military force.
However, the incompetence of the Russian military is only weak evidence about the incompetence of the Chinese military.
The strength of Ukrainian resistance is stronger evidence about the strength of Taiwanese resistance, because there is a causal link: Ukrainian resistance was successful and thus will likely inspire the Taiwanese to fight harder. (If not for this causal link, the evidential connection would be pretty weak.)
But the update re: predicted reaction of USA should be stronger still, because we aren’t trying to infer the behavior of one actor from the behavior of another completely different actor. It’s the same actor in both cases, in a relevantly similar situation. And given how well the current policy of sanctions-and-arms-deliveries is working for the USA, it’s eminently plausible that they’d choose the same policy over Taiwan. Generals always fight the last war, as the saying goes.
So, the big-brain argument concludes, our estimates of variable 1 should basically stay the same, our estimate of variable 2 should change to make invasion somewhat less appealing, and our estimate of variable 3 should change to make invasion significantly more appealing.
Moreover, variable 3 is way more important than variable 2 anyway. Militarily Taiwan has less of a chance against China than Ukraine had against Russia, much less. (Fun fact: In terms of numbers, even on Day 1 of the invasion the Russians didn’t really outnumber the Ukrainians, and very quickly they were outnumbered as a million Ukrainian conscripts and volunteers joined the fight.) China, by contrast, can drop about as many paratroopers on Taiwan in a single day as there are Taiwanese soldiers.) By far the more relevant variable in whether or not to invade is what the USA’s response will be. And if the USA responds in the same way that it did in Ukraine recently, that’s great news for China, because economic sanctions and arms deliveries take months to have a significant effect, and Taiwan won’t last that long.
So, all things considered, the events in Ukraine should update the CCP to be more inclined to invade Taiwan soon, not less.
I think it’s tricky to do anything with this, without knowing the priors. It’s quite possible that there’s no new information in the Russia-Ukraine war, only a confirmation of the models that the CCP is using. I also think it probably doesn’t shift the probability by all that much—I suspect it will be a relevant political/public crisis (something that makes Taiwan need/want Chinese support visibly enough that China uses it as a reason for takeover) that triggers such a change, not just information about other reactions to vaguely-similar aggression.
Suppose you are the CCP, trying to decide whether to invade Taiwan soon. The normal-brain reaction to the fiasco in Ukraine is to see the obvious parallels and update downwards on “we should invade Taiwan soon.”
But (I will argue) the big-brain reaction is to update upwards, i.e. to become more inclined to invade Taiwan than before. (Not sure what my all-things considered view is, I’m a bit leery of big-brain arguments) Here’s why:
Consider this list of variables:
How much of a fight the Taiwanese military will put up
How competent the Chinese military is
Whether the USA will respond with military force or mere sanctions-and-arms-deliveries
These variables influence who would win and how long it would take / how costly it would be, which is the main variable influencing the decision of whether to invade.
Now consider how the fiasco in Ukraine gives evidence about those variables. In Ukraine,
1. The Russians were surprisingly incompetent
2. The Ukrainians put up a surprisingly fierce resistance
3. The USA responded with surprisingly harsh sanctions, but stopped well short of actually getting involved militarily.
This should update us towards expecting the Chinese military to be more incompetent, the Taiwanese to put up more of a fight, and the USA to be more likely to respond merely with sanctions and arms deliveries than with military force.
However, the incompetence of the Russian military is only weak evidence about the incompetence of the Chinese military.
The strength of Ukrainian resistance is stronger evidence about the strength of Taiwanese resistance, because there is a causal link: Ukrainian resistance was successful and thus will likely inspire the Taiwanese to fight harder. (If not for this causal link, the evidential connection would be pretty weak.)
But the update re: predicted reaction of USA should be stronger still, because we aren’t trying to infer the behavior of one actor from the behavior of another completely different actor. It’s the same actor in both cases, in a relevantly similar situation. And given how well the current policy of sanctions-and-arms-deliveries is working for the USA, it’s eminently plausible that they’d choose the same policy over Taiwan. Generals always fight the last war, as the saying goes.
So, the big-brain argument concludes, our estimates of variable 1 should basically stay the same, our estimate of variable 2 should change to make invasion somewhat less appealing, and our estimate of variable 3 should change to make invasion significantly more appealing.
Moreover, variable 3 is way more important than variable 2 anyway. Militarily Taiwan has less of a chance against China than Ukraine had against Russia, much less. (Fun fact: In terms of numbers, even on Day 1 of the invasion the Russians didn’t really outnumber the Ukrainians, and very quickly they were outnumbered as a million Ukrainian conscripts and volunteers joined the fight.) China, by contrast, can drop about as many paratroopers on Taiwan in a single day as there are Taiwanese soldiers.) By far the more relevant variable in whether or not to invade is what the USA’s response will be. And if the USA responds in the same way that it did in Ukraine recently, that’s great news for China, because economic sanctions and arms deliveries take months to have a significant effect, and Taiwan won’t last that long.
So, all things considered, the events in Ukraine should update the CCP to be more inclined to invade Taiwan soon, not less.
Thoughts?
I think it’s tricky to do anything with this, without knowing the priors. It’s quite possible that there’s no new information in the Russia-Ukraine war, only a confirmation of the models that the CCP is using. I also think it probably doesn’t shift the probability by all that much—I suspect it will be a relevant political/public crisis (something that makes Taiwan need/want Chinese support visibly enough that China uses it as a reason for takeover) that triggers such a change, not just information about other reactions to vaguely-similar aggression.