This is a bad take…
I see this kind of talk a lot these days. And it’s dangerously flawed.
What is “America’s backyard?” Here’s a little test. Take a moment to imagine what the geographic center of the United States is.
What did you guess? Something like South Dakota? It’s actually Hawaii. Because what this kind of analysis always forgets is all the US territories in Guam, CNMI, American Samoa. America’s backyard is the Pacific.
This isn’t even to mention American allies like the Philippines, which is under constant CCP threat. Do we just abandon the entire region to the CCP? Do you really think that wouldn’t have devastating consequences for the US? $5 trillion of shipping goes through the South China Sea. Do we let the CCP control that? Do we abandon our security promises to Taiwan (and the semiconductors that are the lifeblood of all our tech).
I think if the US did that, very quickly we’d find that the world isn’t divided between the US, Russia, and China with their own spheres of influence. It would be a CCP dominate world and we’d all be vassals. No disrespect to @WarClandestine, I’ve seen this take many places, and I just don’t think it operates on a full picture.
Comments (5)
This assumes we can continue to afford to maintain the status quo, we can’t . We are almost $40 trillion in debt . Our minimum payments on the debt is higher than the defense budget . We add an additional $1 trillion to the budget every 100 days . We also can’t significantly cut government spending because it affects 25% of the economy . We need to set our allies up for success because we won’t be able to help them in 10 years .
TSMC's US 'GigaFab' plant may seem big but would barely keep the US defense industry supplied with vital microchips in the event of a full-scale war where we are not able to access the chips manufactured in their Taiwan plants. We still need Taiwan.
As you said, Taiwan is the front-line defense of the whole Pacific; that point alone is all Taiwan needs to remain under the protection of the U.S.
All of these concerns are valid but predicated on the notion that the CCP will survive or thrive. All indicators point to the imminent collapse of the CCP which will have a global impact and redrawing of borders / spheres of influence exponentially greater than when the USSR balkanized.
I think if the US was able to re-home chips/PC production for higher end equipment , this would be less risky. The fallacy in this take is based on a poor understanding of American point of view. The CCP takes a very long view of political power and control, as many know. Russia is similar in this regard. America- maybe thinks 20 years or so ahead, the others, 100 years ahead or more.