How does it do little to diversify these fabs? The current situation is that if China invades Taiwan, the entire Western world is compelled to engage militarily over Taiwan's high end chip fabs. It cannot be overstated how much we depend on that, if TSMC operates in other countries, we don't HAVE to engage in WW3.
A fab in Ohio, Oregon, or Arizona 10,000 km from China is safe from threats like cruise missiles that the proposed fab 1000 km from China in Japan or South Korea would not be.
It's not so much that cruise missiles used on civilian targets in South Korea or Japan would not be a reason to start WW3, more that it would be less tempting.
I'm confused by this take. Who is threatening Japan with cruise missiles? Certainly not China or Russia. North Korea, perhaps.
The primary reason that we're concerned about semiconductor fab concentration in Taiwan is that China has consistently stated that it is going to invade Taiwan at some point (and that could be 2049 or in a few years for all we know). This is completely outside of any hypothetical scenarios of who lobs cruise missiles at who during WW3.
You can make the point that relying on semiconductor manufacturing outside of your country/coalition is a bad idea for military self-sufficiency, and I would agree, but that's a much more diffuse risk than the very specific scenario that is driving the CHIPS act and concern about fab concentration in Taiwan.
> Who is threatening Japan with cruise missiles? Certainly not China or Russia. North Korea, perhaps.
China has said that they believe that, in the event of hostilities over Taiwan, they will be obligated to strike US forces everywhere in the region -- and the US Navy still has a strong presence in Japan. Also S. Korea and the Philippines.
This means potentially launching missiles at these countries too, and the Chinese have made it very clear to all involved that they will consider and/all US allies in the region as potential belligerents and act accordingly. AKA military action against Japan and SK, and possibly Australia and NZ. It is just another part of the Taiwan political calculus.
Point is: moving the fabs out of Taiwan doesn't mean shit if they're still in a country that China could strike, and in the case of Japan, would likely strike, in the event of hostilities.
> China has said that they believe that, in the event of hostilities over Taiwan, they will be obligated to strike US forces everywhere in the region
Do you have a source for this? I haven't heard this stated before, but I'm not an expert here.
Even taking this as true, I think it's a big leap to go from striking US military bases in Japan, to striking civilian infrastructure in those countries.
It seems quite clear to me that the opening salvo you are hypothesizing (attacking multiple military bases and civilian targets) would be an act of war against the USA and Japan. This would certainly provoke all-out war with the US, and they have a first-use policy that could entail a nuclear response.
Frankly the whole scenario above seems extremely unlikely to me, and I think Ukraine is the better example to model here. Essentially, China occupies Taiwan, and dares the US to strike in retaliation, knowing that their retaliation would be the thing that triggers armageddon, and betting that the US is not actually willing to escalate militarily over Taiwan. I predict that China would take an effort to avoid attacking any US military personnel stationed in Taiwan (I gather this is just an unofficial presence), because the rational play is to give the US as little excuse as possible to escalate in response.
In other words, China MUST offer the US a path to de-escalation/capitulation in order to take Taiwan without a war with the USA. It's much easier to take Taiwan without a full war with the USA (obviously, IMO).
They're not even remotely capable of doing that before US intervenes. Taiwan is a heavily fortified island with unfriendly geography and a massive high tech army.
Sure, I'm not making any claims on whether they can successfully do that, just that in this widely-studied geopolitical contest, it's the most likely move that they will attempt to achieve their publicly-stated goals. (And not some crazy all-out war on the US and its allies as GP was proposing.)
FWIW on the likelihood of this specific claim, my impression is that the Pentagon considers it likely that they will try to annex Taiwan at some point in the next decade, e.g. see yesterday's headlines from Blinken (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-17/blinken-s...).
I don't have any particular domain knowledge to judge how hard it would be for China to occupy Taiwan (or how much more military power China would need to tip the balance in its favor), but I'm interested in any hard analysis that you can share on the subject. The general reading I've seen has suggested that they would be able to do so in the next 10-20 years if current trends in military growth pan out.
That sounds like saber rattling to me. Trying to scare diplomats with talk of armageddon to secure a better bargaining position. It's a constant of international politics and one shouldn't read too much into it. The same is true of North Korea talking about turning Seoul into a crater whenever they need to ask for food aid.
> China has said that they believe that, in the event of hostilities over Taiwan, they will be obligated to strike US forces everywhere in the region -- and the US Navy still has a strong presence in Japan. Also S. Korea and the Philippines.
This would be starting World War III. It would be akin to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, with the main difference being, we have thousands of nukes and China does not. This course of action is so profoundly stupid that I cannot imagine China taking it.
If China attempts an invasion on Taiwan it is not unrealistic to suggest they’ll also take a swing at Japan and at least try to destroy the fabs there.
The United States has indicated that they would intervene, which means the only way to have a chance at a successful amphibious landing would be to conduct preemptive strikes against US bases in the region. To do so would be a direct declaration of war against the US and NATO, which, at current, China cannot hope to win.
I think China is out of there mind here. They either are A. willing to smash Taiwan to rubble and call it a victory or B. completely overestimate their chance of success.
I think China's real hope is that they can threaten their way to an advantageous position and take Taiwan without firing a bullet, but so far no one is blinking and the west is fed up with autocrats threatening warfare to get their way.
> The United States has indicated that they would intervene,
The US has made multiple unclear statements. What one president may say, another may walk back or reverse. Or the US might simply not do what they said, or adopt some face-saving half-measure.
Killing US troops stationed in Japan, OTOH, would force a very strong response; even if the government wanted to deescalate, the public wouldn't let them.
“Taking” Taiwan with abrupt military force cannot be decoupled from a war with the entire west all at once. At least US, UK, SK, AUS, and others (unsure about EU involvement).
If they agree to stay the fuck out of Japan and focus solely on Taiwan, NATO will stay put to avoid WW3. Plus, South Korea, Japan, have treaties with the US, which will lead the US to intervene if either of these countries gets attacked. China might not want to officially give NATO a reason to start WW3.
What a childish and naive take. I'll be blunt and assert its pretty dumb.
Firstly, completely dismissing Japan as a sovereign state. Complete disrespect.
Secondly, nuclear warfare is the dumbest solution possible. Who ever fires first must accept potentially losing the trust of all nations. No matter who fires for whatever reason. Barring an alien attack or something of that magnitide.
Thirdly, the US power does not come from its military - but diplomacy. Allies in strategic places captured by the flow of capital. The military maintains the status quo but isn't invincible. If it were, Russia would not exist. China would not become a superpower.
You seem to ignore other basics, such as the military alliance agreements currently in place. These agreements are actually enacted in law and backed by the presence of thousands of American troops in Japanese territory, and in billions of dollars of yearly payment from Japan to the USA for this alliance.
Having a critical view of the world is a great thing, and I can only commend you for that. But you need to look into the facts first.
Ah. I would think military alliances based on economic alliances are self-evident.
In the case of Japan and South Korea, those are not sovereign states but protectorates of the US. At least because they were occupied by the US post WWII and limited military autonomy because of US directives.
My point being the US is an imperial state masquarading as a cheerleader of democracy. The only reason no one says anything is because the US has the biggest stick in the room and anyone refusing to bend over to be shafted is public enemy number 1 ie. China, Russia and the levant.
Its surprising how weak Europe is considering how much experience they have in warfare but it is what it is.
China is a nuclear power and neither the US nor China is interested in MAD. Any attacks on Japanese territory would probably lead to a hot war with the US, but almost certainly not nuclear annihilation.
It absolutely does not. Taiwan was never under any sort of agreement, and the USA has always been ambiguous about its policy towards Taiwan.
This is completely different from the mutual defense agreement that Japan has with the USA, where it has been made very clear that the USA will protect Japan.
I understand you want to have a critical opinion, but you need to look at the facts.
In particular, Japan has the economic and technological might to have been able to make nukes decades ago. They didn't because they received a promise from the US that if anyone nuked them, the US would retaliate with its nukes. In exchange, Japan promised it would not make nukes (and probably also promised to consult with the US on Japanese national security matters). This deal came about because both Japan and the US see the value in keeping the number of countries with nukes low.
It's possible for China to attack fabs in Japan but China attacking Japan is a WW3 level escalation without a doubt. Invading Taiwan may or may not be.
Japan is very able to defend itself against China and the Chinese know that. That doesn't mean the Japanese would win a war with China, but who knows? Who would think Ukraine could take on Russia? If China seriously went to war with the US and Japan China could be blockaded.
The history of the last fifty years suggest the Chinese are pretty measured in their use of force. I'm sure they would try to capture Taiwan if they were confident they could with acceptable losses. But they realize time is on their side and they are not crazy gamblers like Putin.
As important as TW is to rejuvenation narrative, it's ultimately the consolation prize versus dismantling US east asian security architecture and securing regional+ hegemony. That's the grand finale battle for the lightcone of future PRC security/prosperity.
>Japan is very able to defend
Japan (and SKR, and TW, and even PH) like most US allies in island chain are are heavily dependant on energy and calorie imports. They can defend themselves against invasion, but they can't defend against PRC turning them into Yemen by wrecking critical infra (cut internet cables, destroy power nodes, mine ports etc). Stuff that make them non viable as a modern economy/society. The flip side of trying to contain PRC during peace is if they try to contain PRC during war, they're stuck in the island chain with a much more autarkic PRC who can spoil region indefinitely. And because US has security commitments, it maybe in PRC interest to draw US to defend allies where PRC forces balance is strongest.
I also think while CCP obviously prefers low cost reuninfication (even if armed), I personally would not be surprised if things escalate much broader because there are larger (and worthwhile) goals / targets. If Australia is going to contribute to even supporting US efforts in TW scenario, then destroying US military infra in AU (Pinegap, Geraldton, Exmouth) will cripple US Indo Pac operation. If anything, there may come a point of favourable future PRC power balance mixed with levels of percieved US antagonism where PRC will be eager for excuses to eliminate US regional/global military infra.
The issue is in such a war China is also cut off. A major point of their south china sea claims is to ensure that there is no peaceful way to block oil (and other products) being delivered to Chinese ports. In an attack on Japan (that doesn't turn into MAD) China also loses this supply chain and becomes reliant on Russia for energy imports and the infratructure for that reliance isn't in place yet and is also a major weakness.
PRC is essentially calorically food secure (with huge waste / room to optimize), has large energy reserves, and unlike island nations, massive domestic raw resource supplies. PRC is NOT Japan during WW2. Hence PRC is much more autarkic and can drag on war economy, perhaps indefinitely. Sure people will eat less meat and depend more on EVs (maybe even cope on bikes) during transition, but when shit hits fan, PRC + RU (is a powerful self sufficient land bloc with much greater long term war making potential than US partners trapped on vunerable islands. It's about asymmetric vunerability.
>The issue is in such a war China is also cut off
The Malacca dilemma was based on assumption that US had unilateral power to blockade PRC imports with impunity due to being domestically energy secure - it was an argument/strategy also based on asymmetric vunerability.
But that's increasingly not true, the TLDR is PRC rocket force likely already has capability or will in short term to _conventionally_ strike major US energy infra... US is existentially dependant on ~150 refineries - they are as dependant on these refineries as PRC is on maritime energy shipping. People conflate resource security as having more resources in your soil but it's really about the ability to protect the critical extraction/delivery infra. Otherwise Saudi wouldn't bribe US for security. Obviously conventional CONUS strikes is also a prelude to MAD, but it is also an equation for PRC establishing mutual vunerability with US, which greatly constrains US actions. Not to mention such capability also functionally dismantles US naval supremacy via port strikes (both capital and support assets) that underpins US global power projection.
My feeling is that the chance of US blockading PRC when she becomes as (conventionally) vunerable as PRC is increasingly remote. It's hard to understate how much geostrategic calculations must change once a relatively autarkic industrial power as massive as PRC is able credibly bring actual war to US homefront. It will be first time in modern history where conventional fires can penetrate CONUS to meaningfully degrade US society. US will have to assess whether it wants to fight a possibly existential war (possibly at best a pyrrhic one where she might not uphold her hegemony after) or abandon East Asia where PRC preponderance is increasingly difficult to match or deter, especially with respect to TW.
It is very unlikely, if not impossible: China has repeatedly stated Taiwan is in China, Taiwan has repeatedly stated they, in fact, are the legitimate China, both prepare day and night for an invasion they never dismiss, and both are a direct threat to each other politically, geographically and culturally.
Japan ? They're as threatened by China as India, and nobody in China is planning for administrative take over of 130 millions Japanese anytime soon. And Japan has so many problems to solve already, they're not looking at bothering China enough to risk missiles.
> I'm confused by this take. Who is threatening Japan with cruise missiles? Certainly not China or Russia. North Korea, perhaps.
Countries that have actively threatened Japan with nuclear bombs: China, Russia, North Korea, and the US (which literally dropped a bomb but have yet to make threats since).
> because you know damn well WWII is irrelevant to the question of current threats.
Well that was a sarcastic joke at the end. The US has not made any threats to Japan since after the bombing. The other countries listed are a different story though.
Russia: I think you have forgotten that the Kuril Islands are still contested territory between Japan and Russia. Russia's same policy is there that they will retaliate if their territories are "attacked." The exact same line with Ukraine. Putin has suggested he would take out Japan and (South) Korea quickly as they are the US's main launching points of an attack. Getting them out of the war quickly gives Russia a serious advantage and the US a serious disadvantage. This is ongoing and has been in discussion since the Cold War. Policies have not shifted on this. Russia has actively been violating international nuclear armament treaties and this has been big news since 2014. So, current.
China: Has been much more explicit and aggressive, stating that they will nuke Japan until they unconditionally surrender if they even send a single troop to defend Taiwan[1]. This video is 2021. They have also made similar threats to Australia after a deal with the US for nuclear powered subs (which would not have nuclear weapons) saying that any nuclear nation is not immune from nuclear attack.
North Korea: idk, last week when they launched their test missile directly over Japan?
I get that searching with respect to Russia might be difficult right now because everything is focused on Ukraine and Google overfits search results. But this has been in military discussion for decades. Maybe it is just saber rattling, but these are still things that have been said.
All this talk of China invading Taiwan and attacking other countries in SE Asia is bonkers. Their economy would be cut off from the rest of the world in an instant. Their commercial fishing fleets would probably be driven back to port.
It would take a matter of days until they had massive internal protests. Hungry people topple governments in hours.
> Their economy would be cut off from the rest of the world in an instant.
I think you misunderstand deeply the current equilibrium in the world.
Most of Africa, a significant part of South East Asia, some countries in Eastern Europe would definitely align with China. A significant part of South America would be neutral.
The USA is losing allies nearly as fast as China is making them.
Yet, it is EXACTLY what Xi repeatedly said in his new-term-inauguration speech
The dictator of China has effectively declared, as publicly as possible, and very specifically, that he intends to invade Taiwan if it does not willingly abandon it's democracy and come under China's rule
He obviously thinks he can get away with doing so without consequences, including those you suggest.
Yet, leaders make such mistakes all the time. Putin just made one on 24-Feb-2022.
It is up to the western world to ensure that Xi sees that such an action would result in bad consequences for him, and deter him from his stated course.
But the fact that it is bonkers is no assurance whatsoever that it won't happen.
Except, PRC "Final Warnings" has preluded actual war or near actual war with every NPT nuclear state, a few times when PRC wasn't (or not meaningfully) a nuclear power herself, on issues much less important than TW, when PRC was much more militarily weak than it is now. This includes USSR skirmishes (hence why the Soviet meme is stupid), US+UN in Korea, threatening UK over HK handover, secretly shelling French in Vietnam, multiple TW strait crisis. To add insult to injury, with respect to source of this meme, PRC "final warnings" throughout this period shot down 5 U2s, that's 3 more than USSR. So not only was PRC following up with warnings, but they managed to do so more successfully than USSR.
That's great — China issued over 900 "Final Warnings" about US military presence in the Taiwan Straits, and zero of them had any follow-through.
That gives us good reason to hope that China will keep behaving that way. We can keep up the deterrence, China can keep on blustering, and nothing bad actually happens. That would indeed be a great result.
The same was said about the impact of sanctions on Russia -- the people would revolt. Well, it's been almost a year and they haven't, at least not at levels that the state can't easily suppress.
China can get much further than Russia can in that amount of time.
If China and the United States are in a full-on shooting war, the last thing I'm going to be worried about is what country 5nm chip fabs are based in. It's a complete and utter failure state of civilization, and is one hot-headed decision away from going nuclear.
If chip fabs are at the top list of your worries, your perspective of war is probably overly informed by being on the side that undertakes imperial adventures against people who can't shoot back. Direct war against an actual superpower is horrific.
The western world would not be compelled to engage militarily over Taiwan. We'd only need to provide money and weapons to Taiwan (rank #21 military in the world) to hold off China (#3) indefinitely given the fact that Taiwan is incredibly difficult to invade due to the barrier the mountain ridges form around it and the narrow straight leading to it for a sea attack. It's a natural fortress. Look at the ongoing failure of Russia (#2) in Ukraine (#22) despite not having difficult land to traverse in their invasion and having a greater advantage in military power by comparison.
Whoever ends up controlling Taiwan will have a lot of destroyed factories on their hands. Losing 90% of advanced integrated processor output is world changing by itself. Besides the fact that military analysis done by us news spectators is a vain exercise.
Why? PRC will be operating in TW EEZ which it considers Chinese waters anyway. What is Japan going to do except watch helplessly from Yonaguni.
Practically, PRC can simply mine TW ports, crater run ways, via glide mines and MLRS all within PRC borders (that can hit anywhere in TW + adjacent). US + co doesn't remotely have the demining, sealift or airlift capacity to logistically support TW off PRC waters. Nor will they convince any commercial fleet/insurers to go on suicide mission of... invading One China territory. It's like how Operation Starvation crippled JP during WW2. Except TW is much smaller than JP and PRC is a much larger industrial power than US during wartime. PRC can unilaterally and trivially render TW inaccessible - it can blockade TW with basically zero sustained naval or air effort.
And really if US/JP try to run the blockade they're legally invading Chinese sovereign territory and it's WW3 anyway. TW may have chance to survive a PLA invasion, but IMO no chance of breaking a PRC blockade. Folks are grossly underestimating the proponderous of advantages PRC has near her coast.
Why nuke? Why assume that China cannot achieve military success using conventional means?
Observe that "the world" will not be helping Taiwan. India won't. Russia won't. Brazil won't. Nigeria won't. Pakistan won't. Bangladesh won't. Nigeria won't. You get the drill. US will, and probably Europe too, but why assume that these will 1) be able to defeat China in a conventional war in its own back yard, and 2) will even try to do so?
Good point, it would not be the world. In short, the free countries of the world will come together to protect a democracy from tyranny. Yes, this is imperfect, lots of small countries were not protected, we protect the "good ones" which is unfairly decided.
The democratic countries will come together, the same ones that helped Ukraine; delete from that list authoritarian (democratic or not) countries, and democracies that are led by authoritarian dictator wanna-bes (so if Trump comes back he'd be conflicted, because he loves authoritarian power, but indicated his displeasure with China). Probably not Hungry. Russia doesn't matter if they aren't nuking you. India, there is the authoritarian bent the country it is on - non Hindu people aren't feeling so happy about their country. I'd think India will feel torn because they want to fight Pakistan freely but don't want to increase the power of China. Brazil is another partially fallen democratic country, wonder how that vote will turn out at the end of Oct.
There are two reasons those countries will help Taiwan - because they don't want authoritarian dictators to take over democracies, and because Ukraine reminded us all of the importance of stopping dictators - we can't wait for them to decide they have enough. It's over 80 years since the last time the world went through it, German and Japan were the original threats (with Italy and a few others), now it's China and Russia. The chip making part of Taiwan will all be decimated in the first few hours of a war (you thought that would be one of my reasons to intervene ;-)). It will be re-created bit after bombing it and damage and just losing power it will be hugely weakened, hurting both sides.
Ukraine showed how much more powerful the militaries of the western alliances are. I'm sure China will not be so weak and kleptocratically weakened as Russia was, but they haven't been in battles recently so they will need some ramping up to really organize. I'm sure China will be able to do major damage to navys trying to operate around Taiwan, sink a few us carriers. But the US and the other western countries are about a lot more and they can operate in countries around there.
China is a powerful country, they have brilliant engineers and scientists and that economy and a vast population. They are not to be under-estimated. The world must move forward to promote democracy and stop dictators.
So you agree that China at least has a good chance of winning this war conventionally, and will not have to “immediately use the "do what we say or we'll nuke you"” nuclear threat? That’s my point here, I am not really interested in discussing moralistic platitudes as to how “free” and “democratic” just happen to exactly coincide with the countries of the western alliance.
Sure, there's always a chance, and China's chance is better than Russia's. There's a chance the other great power authoritarian country with a lack of freedom, Russia, could beat Ukraine, even without using nukes.
When people don't like to discuss what they call platitudes is because they will not benefit. The US has endless problems, with 400+ years of racism, slavery, denial of institutional racism, then our destruction and the big lie about Iraq, and finally Afghanistan had a different situation but still managed to screw that up. My friend who recently moved back to Taiwan to retire will probably also have an interesting viewpoint on such things. "Please don't kill me, China" might describe his views. He thinks (hopes?) there won't be a war because the west will help protect Taiwan.
Edit - the us has a lot more years than 200 of racism, updated that comment.
I hope the US is ready to go with orbital kinetic energy weapons. Ten thousand or so projectiles, each made of 50 kilograms of tungsten, raining down at multiple kilometers per second, would likely...suppress...any attempted blockade.
"Star wars" is feasible with reusable launch to orbit vehicles.
Taiwan does have fairly good stocks of weapons and ammo. It's also great terrain for fighting a defensive guerilla war. It'd be China's roleplay of "Russia in Afghanistan".
You’re missing the point, which is that we very much did not arm Ukraine ahead of time, just like we are not arming Taiwan right now in required volumes. China could literally blockade Taiwan tomorrow, and our arms are simply not there. What you propose depends very much on getting enough intelligence to ship all the arms they need before the blockade actually starts, and China not blockading Taiwan as soon as it learns about shipments leaving our ports.
The company that makes the machines that TSMC use to make chips is Dutch if I remember correctly. So if Taiwan gets invaded it is a disaster but not an absolute disaster as presumably USA/other countries could order some machines from said company and start afresh. Supply would be constrained for a long period of time and there would be a massive economic hit but it wouldn’t necessarily have to lead to WW3. If Russia is anything to go by, presumably there will be indicators in the months before as to when an attack is going to happen which means TSMC staff could be evacuated to other countries to get things up and running. I think I also read somewhere that USA was already in the process of setting up more chip fabrication on US soil in conjunction with TSMC, I think maybe in Texas if I remember right?
I think I also read that the entire foundry would be rigged to blow in the case of invasion. Between controlled demolitions such as these by Taiwan and whatever China has to fire at them to successfully win, there would be very little of value left standing on the island by the end of it. It would take them decades to redevelop it. Very hollow victory for China.
I think you underestimate the dependency of all modern economy on semiconductor industry.
I honestly think there is 100% chance that if China invaded Taiwan today, the US would declare war and send troops to defend Taiwan. In contrast, I think there is >0% chance that the US would not declare war on Russia if they did a (tactical) nuclear attack in Ukraine.
I wish I could remember the origin of this. But a quip on this idea I had read was along the lines of "If China invaded Taiwan and Kansas, the US would send troops to Taiwan first". Whether you want to call Taiwan an ally, a protectorate, vassal or whatever your political standpoint would dictate, the US is very protective of Taiwan.
But you underestimate our ability to downsize, turn around and build them locally on a 5-year horizon, and our ability to backtrack tensions anyway if we re reaching a nuclear point.
We will give Ukraine to Russia if we can save Paris.
> We will give Ukraine to Russia if we can save Paris.
Only that you just taught the already aggressive ruling elite of a huge country with an abundance of resources who don't care about anyone including their own except that they need them for work and for the fighting that threatening use of nukes gets them anything they want. Moldova next - it's not EU or NATO, already very low risk for Russia, if they can get there. Which was (is) a stated goal for the current war, to get the entire south of Ukraine to take away their sea ports and to get to Moldova.
They'll try the Baltic states next. Not a full invasion, just lots of little aggressive actions. Even previously they did murders in the EU, financing of radical parties out to undermine current EU country governments, supported by propaganda. I don't know how much it actually influenced US elections, but I think it's save to say they at least tried.
Giving them Ukraine will be massive. They will also have lots more of the oil and gas reserves under Ukraine and around the Krim. They will also get tens of millions of new citizens, lessening the problems of a shrinking number of people available inside Russia significantly. There also are significant parts of former USSR production in Ukraine, which will all go to Russia. They will also own even more of the prime agricultural lands of Eastern Europe, which at least so far seems to suffer less than Western Europe (look at the heat maps of this summer) under climate change so it may become even more valuable than it already is. The land is some prime real estate - unlike Siberia, Ukraine is much better, you can't look at the map and think "it does not add all that much to Russia" because the value of Ukraine lands is much higher.
I have no idea how you get this idea. Giving up Ukraine is really, really massive in its long term consequences, greatly strengthening Russia directly as well as showing them that the means they use actually work. This would be a gigantic loss for the West.
This is a good comment, but rather than tens of millions of new citizens, they would get tens of millions of new insurgents. Nearly the whole population of Ukraine is involved in the war effort in some way, and it would be impossible to break this completely. The only thing that could be given to Russia with the conquest of Ukraine is the option to turn into Afghanistan instead of North Korea.
> they would get tens of millions of new insurgents.
I doubt it. Most people will be passive and will just live their lives. They will get a few for sure, but they won't be able to do all that much. It's not like the ruling elite cares if there's an occasional killing, after all, they already use that method themselves, see the list of Russian businessmen and manager deaths.
Not everyone would be involved in directly fighting, but there are intelligence networks, supply networks, opportunities for discreet sabotage and falsifying critical data, and many other ways that people can support a resistance movement that would continue even in a fully occupied Ukraine.
In 1922 Russians have won the war against Ukrainian People's Republic.
After 20 years, vast majority of Ukrainians who opposed the occupation were dead, scared to death, refugees in other countries, or in forced labor camps in Siberia and other remote places of USSR.
This is a terrible truth, but the situation has changed in this war because everyone is contributing in organized volunteer centers. The amount of coordination is orders of magnitude greater than was possible a hundred years ago. I don’t think such a large society has ever been so fully engaged in a single purpose in history. Because the strategy is so new, it would be a mistake to assume that old tactics will work against it in the same way they have in the past. Nothing is guaranteed, but I wouldn’t bet against the Ukrainian people even in the worst circumstances.
I think there is little chance Russia could successfully occupy and hold Ukraine. Look at the US's utter failure to do the same in Afghanistan, despite vastly more resources and some significant popular support.
No you massively overestimate the importance of economics or semiconductor industry. Whatever will happen to Taiwan has nothing to do with Chips.
For China it's about nationalism, for US it's about protecting allies/upholding treaties and protecting democracy from the strongest authoritarian regime. Chips are not important. After all chances are high they might be destroyed even in a successful defense of Taiwan.
As a Ukranian American I wish we had and were doing more for Ukraine but it's not about chips or economics. Ukraine had only recently grown closer to the US. The US has promised to defend Taiwan for a long time (well sort of, arguably the US does keep some strategic ambiguity about this which might let it wiggle out)
I don't know where you got the idea that the US will not go to war to protect the US economy, national security, or military capacity, but you are severely misunderstanding the situation. That is why the military exists. We spend the amount we do on the military to support American economic dominance and define the rules on how world trade happens. The reason we are not doing more for Ukraine is because they are not very important to the US, outside of being a buffer against Russia.
Ideas like "protecting democracy" are used to sell citizens on wars they don't care about. The full destruction of TSMC is likely preferred over a Chinese dictated world technological economy. The truth is, if one side has TSMC chips and the other doesn't, what we're talking about may necessitate a total war.
You're overestimating the value of semiconductor industry in this hypothetical.
TSMC chips aren't critical, considering that ASML can also deliver the same equipment to US... and cut off China from their equipment. (or sabotage in critical cases)
There's a myriad reasons, why US would probably would send in military to protect Taiwan. But it's not going to be "just because TSMC"
The US is really not _that_ interested in protecting democracy from authoritarian regimes. If we were, we’d have boots on the ground in many African states.
While upholding treaties is vitally important, I think you’re underestimating the importance of chips(a rare occurrence on HN!).
Wars are generally fought over resources rather than ideas, and pretending that US is defending Taiwan to defend democracy instead of defending its strategic interests (access to vital resources — chips) is misguided.
> For China it's about nationalism, for US it's about protecting allies/upholding treaties and protecting democracy from the strongest authoritarian regime.
I doubt this is true for China (I very much suspect economic concerns trump any other concerns for them as well), but I am quite convinced you are wrong about the USA - one of the biggest supporters of non-democratic regimes in the world. There is little in US history to suggest they have any preference for a democratic regime over a subservient autocratic one. They are also extremely clearly uncaring of international treaties.
And make no mistake: the USA is coordinating Ukraine's defense because it sees it as a good chance to weaken Russia, not out of some deep care for the people of Ukraine.
It is not just about semiconductors. It is about pride. Taiwan shows another way for China that is not the PRC just as Hong Kong did. Taiwan is not just a separatist state, it is a successful separatist state. The better Taiwan does the worse the PRC looks. Semiconductors are just another gut punch. Why can't mainland China do what tiny Taiwan has done?
If Taiwan is taken off the board for semiconductors, or if all semiconductors have to go through China, that means the entire US military (and all western militaries) are dependent on a geopolitical rival. To allow that would be nothing short of giving away the game.
This is what I don't get. I thought military and aerospace used decades old cpu designs on decades old fab technology for the radiation hardness? Not saying they couldn't benefit from an upgrade, but it's not like Lockheed is putting Nvidia GPUs in fighter jets, right? It doesn't seem like a deal breaker to use a 14nm node compared to a '5nm' node (or whatever is the latest TSMC process). Seems like a weird line to draw in the sand to me. Frankly, seems like the only applications which are make or break on EUV lithography are all gaming related. Am I that off base here? Certainly prices would rise, and critical supply chains would have to be remade, and there would be no more iPhones, but seems like we'd get by just fine for a few years before catching back up and then likely surpassing Taiwan. And it's not like the real brains behind TSMC would willingly help a Chinese controlled takeover, and add on a new layer of corruption and bureaucracy, and in a few years TSMC is irrelevant anyways. And don't forget, TSMC is reliant on ASML, who certainly wouldn't be shipping any more EUV lithography equipment to a Chinese controlled Taiwan.
I think that's true for some key components of the military, but for example, anything involving AI systems necessitate cutting edge chips. You can probably look to the effect chip shortages had on car manufacturers to see how much of this likely works. Cars manufacturing wasn't entirely halted in most cases, instead they had downgraded functionality. Less automatic windows, more window cranks. The totality of every military system isn't based off high end chips, but some of it certainly is.
There are advanced Fabs in Israel, Intel and TSMC are both building next gen Fabs in Arizona. It's not like Twain is the only place with advanced chip fabs(though yes the vast majority of the capacity is there and IIRC thats where their latest process nodes are but I don't think the military is dependent on those absolute cutting edge process nodes)
Taiwan is also the center of a lot of specialist equipment (not the big swiss-watch ASML machines, but stuff like wafer transports, cleanroom gear, etc.) and consumables (chemicals, bunny suits, etc.). I don't know how extensive and fragile that ecosystem is but I live in eastern Michigan and it seems like every small to midsize town has some tiny automotive supplier that is somehow still in business even while the big plants have moved on. I suspect this is largely because they have no competitors and it is specialist work that doesn't really scale (meaning there is only so much of this work to go around, even if global auto sales 10x) so no one is really motivated to compete either. The result is that the GM and Ford plants leave the country, but still rely on a relatively small set of expertise and tooling that only exist in the rust belt. Presumably, a thorough nuking of the Midwest would (in addition to lots of other unpleasant effects, like the death and famine millions, perhaps billions) at least require the pause of the majority of auto manufacturing around the globe. Assuming people still wanted cars after such an event, it could be recovered, but it would take time.
I got a little carried away with the Michigan analogy, but IMO it doesn't go far enough: Taiwan is far more integral to the global semiconductor industry than Detroit is to the global auto industry.
I agree that this isn't an indefinite problem, but the current state of affairs is that TSMC is irreplaceable on the world's fabrication scene. The military definitely has some need for cutting edge process nodes, though I can't say how much. This is intentionally vague, but it seems safe to say there are a number of high end missile guidance systems, a variety of AI implementations, and drone systems that likely all have some dependence on high end chips. Not to mention the economic reliance on TSMC, Apple alone is ~7% of the S&P500.
I think if we fast forward 5-10 years, Taiwan will not be this much of an absolute, but it will take years for these new fabs to come online. Until there are viable alternatives, Taiwan is a massive risk.
Semiconductors alone aren't even remotely enough. We have enough supply to wait out and build out other semiconductor fabs, to go to WW3 just over TSMC.
Our dedication to protect our ally Taiwan has nothing to do with Silicone and neither does China's nationalist obsession over it. If it comes to war, chips will play no role
While we can likely all agree "Silicone" is not the issue, silicon chips is undoubtedly an important variable. The Taiwanese government agrees too, and does think chips will play a role:
"Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, told one group that she saw the island’s tech prowess as a means of shoring up support for its democracy. Calling economic security a “pillar” of national security, she said Taiwan was willing to work with partners to build sustainable supply chains for what she called “democracy chips.”
The latest electronic gadget is NOT what it is about
It is whether the democracies of the world will abandon democracy and allow dictators to take over their societies by threat of force or force.
If we are not both better armed, better prepared, and willing to fight, we might as well hand over the key to Putin, Xi, and Un, and live under their dictatorships.
If we want freedom, we must risk war, and if the threat is nuclear war, then that most of all must be faced down. There is a reason we don't negotiate with terrorists or blackmailers — because if we negotiate and let them gain from terrorism or blackmail, we get a short period of peace before they try it again, along with every other wannabe dictator who can get their hands on some weapons. This all applies even more strongly with nukes.
