Why the US needs to go to war over the South China Sea to defend Taiwan

\-------------<br><br>**The US Navy is an island defending Navy**<br><br>The Navy has no problem defending Taiwan against invasion. The US has been defending island nations and chains for its entire history. The US Navy has island defended its way across the Pacific in WWII, defended Taiwan against invasion in the 1950s, and has been preparing for war with China over Taiwan for decades. If China targets Taiwan with a naval invasion, the US Navy is well-equipped to defend Taiwan. After all, Taiwan is surrounded by oceans on almost all sides, and China has no way to invade Taiwan without going through the US Navy.<br><br>**The real problem is defending Taiwan against China's First Island Chain naval blockade**<br><br>Defending Taiwan against invasion is easy. The problem is defending Taiwan against a naval blockade. After the war in Ukraine demonstrated that China could completely annihilate Taiwan's economy by simply blockading Taiwan's sea-based trade and blockading Taiwan out of global trade, the US now needs to defend Taiwan against a naval blockade.<br><br>The US Navy is well-equipped to defend Taiwan against a naval invasion. But the US Navy has never defended a nation against a naval blockade. The US Navy is not designed to supply an island nation through a submarine and surface warship blockade.<br><br>If China declares war on Taiwan and declares Taiwan's waters a war zone, shipping companies are legally prohibited from approaching Taiwan. As Ukraine has just demonstrated, declaring a war zone can devastate an economy overnight, without firing a single bullet. The war in Ukraine demonstrates that the mere threat of war is enough to completely annihilate Taiwan. Once China puts Taiwan under a naval blockade, Taiwan's economy goes into free fall, and Taiwan is cut off from access to food (Taiwan is 70% dependent on food imports).<br><br>If the US wants to defend Taiwan against a Chinese naval blockade, the US would need to declare war against China and drive the Chinese Navy out of the Taiwan Strait.<br><br>**How the South China Sea creates a churn zone that traps the US Navy**<br><br>Another problem is that the US Navy now faces a churn zone in the South China Sea that traps the US Navy. China has constructed artificial reefs with high-tech air defense and radar stations. This means the US Navy has no way to steam past these reefs to Taiwan without first neutralizing the defenses on these reefs.<br><br>But China has also deployed 2,000 anti-ship missiles along the Chinese coast under cover of civilian infrastructure, including skyscraper grain silos, fake islands, and highway bridges that are secretly built on top of concealed missile TELs. Once the US Navy tries to neutralize the defenses on the reefs, China's 2,000 missiles are in range of the US Navy.<br><br>The result is that the South China Sea now acts as a churn zone that traps the US Navy. The US Navy is trapped because it has no way to fight its way past China's missiles and reefs to supply Taiwan, and it has no way to steam around China's defenses without being hit by hypersonic missiles.<br><br>**Why the US has no alternative except to destroy China's missiles and defenses before it can sail through the South China Sea to defend Taiwan**<br><br>The US has tried and failed to find an alternative to defending Taiwan through the South China Sea. The US Navy tried to see if it could sail around China's defenses by sailing through the straits between the Philippines and Indonesia. But China deployed bombers and hypersonic missiles to the Paracel Islands, which puts the US Navy within range of attack even if it tries to sail south of the South China Sea.<br><br>The US Navy tried to see if it could sail through the South China Sea without being detected, by deploying submarines and CONOPS warships that are not detectable by radar. But China deployed OTHR radar and high-tech passive sonar that can detect and track US subs and stealth warships.<br><br>The US Navy even tried to see if it could sail through the South China Sea without fighting China's defenses, by deploying hypersonic missiles and hypervelocity projectiles to neutralize China's defenses. But China has 2,000 surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missile TELs deployed under cover of civilian infrastructure, and no way to kill them all before the US Navy can sail through the South China Sea.<br><br>Right now, the US Navy has no way to defend Taiwan from a Chinese naval blockade. The only alternative is to destroy China's defenses before the US Navy can sail through the South China Sea to defend Taiwan. This means the US has no alternative to war with China if it wants to defend Taiwan.<br><br>**This is why China sees Taiwan the way the US sees Pearl Harbor**<br><br>To China, Taiwan is the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, a naval base that is used to defend against a potential naval invasion by a foreign power. China will invade Taiwan the moment it detects the US trying to deploy to Taiwan. And China will blockade Taiwan the moment it detects the US trying to resupply Taiwan.<br><br>Just as the US sees Hawaii as part of the US and not part of Japan or China, China sees Taiwan as part of China and not part of the US or Japan or Korea. The moment the US tries to defend Taiwan, China will immediately see this as an act of war against China.<br><br>This is why we are headed to war over Taiwan. China sees Taiwan the way the US sees Hawaii. This is why China will never back down. China will do anything to keep Taiwan away from the US, including nuclear war.<br><br>**This is why Japan is willing to go nuclear over Taiwan**<br><br>That's why Japan is willing to go nuclear over Taiwan. If China defeats the US and annexes Taiwan, China will be free to focus its entire military and economy against Japan. Japan has no way to defend Okinawa and the Home Islands against China if Taiwan falls. That is why Japan is willing to go nuclear over Taiwan.<br><br>\----<br><br>**TLDR** The US Navy is an island defending Navy and has no problem defending Taiwan against a naval invasion. But the problem with defending Taiwan is not Taiwan itself. The problem is defending Taiwan against a Chinese naval blockade through the South China Sea.<br><br>That's why the US has no alternative except to go to war with China to defend Taiwan, and it's why Japan is willing to go nuclear over Taiwan.