Is the U.S. Drifting Toward a Taiwan War with China?

Ramon Marks

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Taiwan is finally getting more serious about its defense, extending the draft to a year and increasing its defense budget to purchase new military capabilities, including drones and anti-ship missiles. It is shifting from a long-time emphasis on heavy weapons and conventional warfare approaches to more asymmetric, porcupine defense strategies.

Whether all this comes in time remains to be seen. Military analysts fear that China could invade Taiwan as early as 2027. If war comes, Taiwan’s hope and expectation is that the United States will enter the fray. Wargames point to costly fighting and losses if that happens, including the specter of potential escalation to nuclear war.

The big question is whether the United States will defend Taiwan or not. Foreign policy experts call for the United States to defend Taiwan, a contingency for which INDOPACOM trains, complying with the requirements of the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires such contingency planning.

President Biden publicly stated several times that the United States would defend the island if attacked by China. Under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the president does possess the authority as commander-in-chief to order the use of military force, particularly in response to an attack. That executive power is insufficient, however, to confer upon the president the unilateral power to declare a Taiwan defense alliance without further congressional participation as required not only by the Constitution but also by the War Powers Act.

The United States has no military treaty with Taiwan. Neither the Taiwan Relations Act nor any other federal statute commits the United States to its defense. The Taiwan Relations Act goes only as far as binding the United States to “maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan.”

Congress has never passed a resolution calling for the defense of the country. Polls repeatedly show that an American majority does not support fighting for Taiwan, preferring instead the current ambiguous status quo. Still, Washington and Beijing remain locked in a dangerous drift toward war.