How does she interpret the Third Gulf War? As a strong indication that under high pressure conditions their “umbrella of protection” is not sufficient? Or as a living study of how, with targeted strategy, a defending country can manage the aggression of another, theoretically powerful one? With an eye always on Beijing’s intentions, the answer seems twofold.
Questions and doubts
The first question concerns Washington’s ability to meet its obligations to its allies. During the war they have launched jointly with Israel, the US transferred THAAD missile air defense systems from South Korea and 2,200 soldiers from the Okinawa military base in , for the military needs of the front. It’s a development that raises legitimate concerns in Seoul, Tokyo and, of course, Taipei about whether the Indo-Pacific region is indeed a priority for the White House.
“There is now a well-established belief that the capabilities of the US are not unlimited,” Bonnie Wuxin Liao, professor of International Relations at Tamkang University in Taipei, writes on the Asia Times website, referring to the conclusions drawn from Taiwan’s side. He adds: “The strategy of deterring Chinese influence in the Pacific depends not only on US warfighting capability, but also on the expectation that that capability will remain intact under pressure.”
Concern that is intensified by the admittedly unpredictable behavior of the American president towards his traditional allies, to whom Donald Trump sometimes appeals to provide facilities and sometimes attacks verbally, asking them to take their responsibilities. Moreover, the resilience shown by the Iranian regime is strengthening isolationist voices within the US Republican Party, making any future discussion of US aid problematic.
The statement of presenter Tucker Carlson, a leading figure of the MAGA movement, who was identified with Trump’s rise to power, is indicative: “The US cannot defend Taiwan”, he said a few days ago in an interview with the Economist, meaningfully adding that “the US no longer has the exclusive right to dictate the rules”.
Like Iran?
There is also an alternative narrative. US Naval War College Strategy Professor James Holmes sees the ongoing conflict as a learning experience for Taiwan. “Taiwan has a lot to learn from the US attack on Iran. Paradoxically, such a thought experiment requires us to place Taiwan in the role of Iran, the defender, while China plays the role of the US, the aggressor,” he writes on the website of the American magazine The National Interest.
He lists four lessons that Taiwan could usefully take from the Middle East showdown. The first concerns the exploitation of the rocky geography of the island, in the standards of the fortification of Iran’s nuclear program. The second concerns the permanent advantage of the less militarily powerful side to shift the time stress to the stronger side, emphasizing the time extension and cost of a conflict. The third concerns the ability to disperse power, with Holmes noting that in the case of democratic Taiwan, this doctrine applies to military rather than political power. The latter concerns the need to invest in a large number of capable weapons systems, rather than buying a few, top-quality ones, a conclusion linked to the highly effective experience of low-cost Iranian drones.
In other good news for Taiwan, the war in Iran confirms the assessment that the Chinese war machine – especially in the area of air defense – is still far behind its American counterpart, of which the island nation is a favored customer. Analysts believe that the ease with which US and Israeli aircraft conduct air operations in Iranian airspace demonstrates that the Chinese-sourced HQ-9B surface-to-air anti-aircraft/missile system is not that effective after all. A fact that allows plans such as the recently publicized “Hellscape concept”, which envisages three different operational zones, within which different defense means of protection (small cruisers, kamikaze boats, mines, drones) succeed one another, to be constantly reconfigured and in correspondence with the current capabilities of the adversary.
