I've spent substantial time in the Pacific throughout my naval career and I can tell with near certainty that we won't fire a shot to defend Taiwan. Here's what that means for America's role in the world.
Hint: It's gonna change. A lot.
We have troops and ships stationed around the world, but our strategic focus is directed overwhelmingly toward China. As for the Navy, nearly everything we do in training, acquisition, and tactics revolves around the PRC.
We've built a force designed almost exclusively for a single fight precipitated by a single event: China's invasion of Taiwan. But when that day comes - and it's coming - we won't fight the war we're built to fight. There simply is no looming conflict with China.
Three days ago, President Biden said, "I cannot and I will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another — in another country’s civil war, taking casualties, suffering life-shattering injuries, leaving families broken by grief and loss."
That language in his justification of what's playing out in Afghanistan is important. Why? Because that's how nearly every American will perceive the PRC/Taiwan conflict: "another country's civil war."
China took notice. Within hours they'd started using our abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban to taunt Taiwan, assuring them that the US can't be relied upon to defend them when China makes its move.
And they're right. We simply do not have the moral or political will to fight in what most will view as a domestic dispute on the other side of the world. They're especially right because China is, shall we say, not the Taliban.
Over 20 years we spent $2 trillion and lost 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. We'll lose twice that number when China sinks our first aircraft carrier before it gets within 500 miles of Taiwan. And the casualties won't stop there. That's not a price Americans are willing to pay.
Sure, it'll be Taiwan's 9/11 (and far worse), but the crisis will lack a single galvanizing trauma for Americans to muster the courage and willingness to sacrifice required to even attempt a defense of Taiwan.
And for all their grit and endurance, the Taliban never had the cyber warfare capabilities to potentially shut down our power grid, disrupt our communications, and halt or compromise our food, water, and fuel supplies that China possesses.
China is a legitimate peer adversary. They've craftily stolen the best of our technologies - civilian and military - for decades and invested enormously in domestic production. They have everything we have.
We'd also be fighting them on their turf. Taiwan lies only a hundred miles from the Chinese coast, well within range of innumerable missiles on par with ours. They also have 2.8 million troops (a force 10x the size of ours) ready to be brought across the Strait.
As for motivation, what we'll see as a distant spat among cousins they view as the only scratch to their biggest itch. They consider Taiwan's independence a constant slap in the face, an old wound that can only be healed by recovering the "breakaway province."
Long story short: "Free Taiwan" only makes sense if you mean "Taiwan is free for the taking." China can have it whenever it wants and they have a golden opportunity while we're domestically fractured, internationally reviled, and entirely preoccupied elsewhere.
So why does it matter? It matters because we've made promises of defense not just to Taiwan but to Korea, Japan, and other vulnerable Asian partners and allies. When the bill comes due and we refuse to pay, don't expect the status quo to hold up.
The only reason the Army is in Korea and the Navy is in Japan is to defend them against Chinese aggression. These countries already begrudgingly tolerate our presence and all the disruption it brings because we've promised to defend them.
When we prove that our promises in Asia won't be kept, there's no reason to keep us around. Soon our promises in Europe will be questioned, too, particularly considering the Obama administration simply watched Russia seize parts of Crimea.
Taiwan will likely be the final act in the era of America's global dominance. I don't here make a value judgement on that new reality, but we need to start thinking about it now. The US will no longer be able to set and enforce global policy.
Oh, and here's the funniest part: we won't even be able to muster condemnation from the UN Security Council. China is a permanent member and has veto power, so the sternly worded letter will have to come from elsewhere.
The world is about to change into something we haven't seen since WWII. The century of relative peace and stability America's strength brought the world is ending, and it ends the moment China moves on Taiwan. No one is stopping them. Welcome to the new world.