Taiwan and the Cult of Resolve

If the U.S. chooses to end one commitment in one corner of the world, that doesn’t mean that it is giving up on others.

Michael Poznansky considers the tradeoff between U.S. resolve and capabilities and comes to the wrong conclusion:

The first step in wrestling with potential tradeoffs between bolstering resolve and bolstering capabilities is to identify them. In a world of finite resources, policymakers will have to make tough choices about what to allocate, where, and for how long. These decisions will only grow more salient as the White House and Congress continue to debate funding to Ukraine and how to deal with China and Taiwan. Ultimately, however, policymakers should prioritize resolve. They should privilege the priceless asset of reputation [bold mine-DL] while spending what they can to improve capabilities, maintaining the flow of aid to Ukraine despite the downsides.

Continued military assistance to Ukraine may make sense, but this isn’t why the U.S. should do it. If the U.S. supplies Ukraine with weapons and materiel for years to come, that does not signal resolve to fight somewhere else. For one thing, it is easier and cheaper to supply weapons and ammunition to a belligerent than it is to send your own forces to fight, so doing one tells other states nothing about Washington’s resolve to do the other. If the U.S. were to cut Ukraine off, that would also not send a message about what the U.S. would or wouldn’t do in response to an attack on Taiwan.

Credibility isn’t undifferentiated. A state’s willingness to support a government and/or fight in one place tells adversaries nothing important about its willingness to do the same in another place. Capabilities and interests are what matter.