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.
Ben Thompson ( https://stratechery.com/ ) , an American industry analyst currently living in Taiwan has a bunch of analyses on this on his blog. In nutshell, the US has a critical infra dependency on Taiwan in high-performance chip manufacturing; specifically, TSMC has a 90% share of 7nm, and 5nm chips. This is critical infra, for which the US does not have good (or even close-enough) substitues. Based on both these economic incentives, and Biden’s own statements, the US is extremely likely to reply to Chineese aggression against Taiwan with military force.
Or are you saying that the probability is so high that it isn’t a relevant variable in CCP planning; they’ll basically just assume a kinetic US response and then plan around that? If so, then yeah that’s a good counterargument.
The communication about what happens when Ukraine gets attacked and the communication about what happens when Taiwan gets attacked by the US are different.
Biden didn’t say anything about defending Ukraine with US troops. Biden did say that Taiwan would be defended with US troops. Taiwan is much more important to US interests than Ukraine is.
I agree with that. But that’s separate from what I’m discussing here. I’m not saying an invasion of Taiwan is overall likely, or wise for the CCP to do; I’m saying that the invasion of Ukraine should update the CCP towards invading Taiwan. Biden’s statements should obviously update them away.
Updates come from reality playing out differently than you expected. Without knowing the models that someone has it’s hard to say how they should update based on events happening.
The Chinese are going to have a bunch of scenarios mapped out in which the US would or wouldn’t respond militarily and those rest on assumptions about how the US makes decisions. I don’t think that the US response to Ukraine invalidates any of the assumptions that CCP models of the world in which the US retaliates militarily.
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?
Ben Thompson ( https://stratechery.com/ ) , an American industry analyst currently living in Taiwan has a bunch of analyses on this on his blog. In nutshell, the US has a critical infra dependency on Taiwan in high-performance chip manufacturing; specifically, TSMC has a 90% share of 7nm, and 5nm chips. This is critical infra, for which the US does not have good (or even close-enough) substitues. Based on both these economic incentives, and Biden’s own statements, the US is extremely likely to reply to Chineese aggression against Taiwan with military force.
See my reply to ChristianKI above.
Or are you saying that the probability is so high that it isn’t a relevant variable in CCP planning; they’ll basically just assume a kinetic US response and then plan around that? If so, then yeah that’s a good counterargument.
Metaculus disagrees, fwiw:
The communication about what happens when Ukraine gets attacked and the communication about what happens when Taiwan gets attacked by the US are different.
Biden didn’t say anything about defending Ukraine with US troops. Biden did say that Taiwan would be defended with US troops. Taiwan is much more important to US interests than Ukraine is.
I agree with that. But that’s separate from what I’m discussing here. I’m not saying an invasion of Taiwan is overall likely, or wise for the CCP to do; I’m saying that the invasion of Ukraine should update the CCP towards invading Taiwan. Biden’s statements should obviously update them away.
Updates come from reality playing out differently than you expected. Without knowing the models that someone has it’s hard to say how they should update based on events happening.
The Chinese are going to have a bunch of scenarios mapped out in which the US would or wouldn’t respond militarily and those rest on assumptions about how the US makes decisions. I don’t think that the US response to Ukraine invalidates any of the assumptions that CCP models of the world in which the US retaliates militarily.