The Case Against 'Strategic Clarity' Gets Stronger
The most effective way to get another government to do more for its own security is to convince it that it must.
Dexter Filkins reported from Taiwan a couple weeks ago, and what he found doesn’t come as a surprise:
I’d expected an embattled nation girding for a fight, but Taiwan seemed too caught up in the stresses and entertainments of prosperous modern life to think much about the enemy next door. In everyday conversation, the China question rarely came up. There were few signs of national preparation: military conscription is mandatory for adult men but lasts only four months. The government is considering adopting a policy that would allow it to mobilize its civilian population, but so far has done nothing. According to American and former Taiwanese officials, Taiwan’s defense posture is guided by a strategy that was devised in the nineteen-eighties, when the Chinese military was weak.
It is not news that the Taiwanese government hasn’t been making most of the changes that China hawks want them to make. In a separate interview, Filkins admitted that he expected to “see a bit of Israel there” and was surprised that he didn’t. It is strange that Filkins would have expected to find a “nation girding for a fight” when there has been no evidence of that in recent years.