Ukraine and Taiwan: Why Learning the Right Lessons Matter

Zenel Garcia and John Nagl 

Source Link

As the world watches the war in Ukraine reshape the global order, the United States and its allies are seizing the moment to extract hard-earned lessons on the art of managing great power rivalry, crisis, and conflict. Arguably, the United States has adeptly employed its diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of national power to keep its population safe and out of the conflict, while helping Ukraine impose severe costs on Russia. Diplomatically, it has built a coalition of partners to simultaneously seek a peaceful solution and cast opprobrium on Russian actions through international institutions like the United Nations. Informationally, it took the unprecedented step of releasing intelligence on Russian activities to deprive Moscow the element of surprise or the means to conduct false flag operations. It has also promoted an effective discourse portraying Russia’s action as threatening to the international order. Militarily, it has delivered one of the few recent successes in training and equipping a foreign military. Finally, economically, it has led the organization and implementation of severely damaging sanctions on Russia.

The apparent success of these efforts has generated much discussion about lessons to be learned. However, overly optimistic analyses risk obscuring the applicability of these policies to future conflicts. This is particularly important as the foreign policy community draws parallels between Ukraine and a potential conflict over Taiwan. It will be difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to apply its instruments of power in a similar fashion in a Taiwan contingency, specifically because China is not Russia, and Taiwan is not Ukraine. Nevertheless, the war in Ukraine offers lessons across the elements of national power for the prospects and likely consequences of a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan. For both military and economic reasons, China is unlikely to follow Russia’s example of an overt invasion; instead, it will likely rely on diplomatic and informational power to accomplish its objectives.

Amphibious Invasion Complexities: Military Challenges for China

The principal lesson that President Xi Jinping is likely to have learned from watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the past three years is disarmingly simple: Invasions are hard.