Throughout the cold warthere were points on the map whose real value was not measured by their size, but by what could be triggered if someone tried to force the situation. Today, one of those places once again concentrates gazes, calculations and uncomfortable silences among the great powers.
and it is not in Greenlandbut on a smaller island.
The global risk enclave. The tension between United States and China is concentrating increasingly evident in Taiwan, a territory small in size but enormous in strategic consequences. While Washington allows itself dramatize scenarios secondary in the Arctic, Chinese military maneuvers around the island they have been become routineincreasingly aggressive and similar to real blocking or maximum pressure tests.
The absence of clear and quick responses from the White House projects a dangerous sign in a context where deterrence depends less on formal declarations than on immediate political reflections.
The deterrence that is called into question. The contrast between Trump’s political lukewarmness and the warnings of the US military apparatus itself has opened a visible crack. The Telegraph said that Pentagon commanders have been warning for some time that China is preparing to be able to fight and win a conflict over Taiwan before the end of the decade, although that diagnosis does not always translate into credible public messages.
This dissonance reduces the perceived cost of a Chinese action and leaves open the possibility of a calculation error on Xi Jinping’s part, especially if he interprets American caution as a lack of will.
Taiwan as a key piece. Taiwan’s importance to the United States is not symbolic, but rather structural. We are talking about an advanced democracy in a region dominated by authoritarian regimes, one that houses the core of world production advanced semiconductor and is part of the first island chain that limits military projection China in the Pacific.
From that perspective, the fall would be a direct blow to the global economy, Western technological superiority and Washington’s strategic credibility in Asia.
Taiwan Navy
It’s not 1996 anymore. Unlike previous crises, when American naval and air superiority was overwhelming, today the balance is much tighter. China has built a navy larger than the American in number of ships, an air force with hundreds of fifth generation fighters and, above all, a massive arsenal conventional missiles capable of hitting bases, ports and fleets at great distances.
Although the United States continues to spend more on defense, lower Chinese industrial costs and its geographic proximity to the theater of operations significantly erode that advantage.
The “logistics” weapon. The New York Times recalled in a column that one of the factors that moderated Beijing’s behavior for years was its dependence on critical raw materials from countries aligned with the West, especially Australian iron ore.
That brake is weakening as China secure supplies alternatives from Africa, reducing their vulnerability to sanctions or blockades in the event of conflict. The result: an environment in which the economic costs of a war over Taiwan, while enormous, are already They are not so deterrent for Beijing as they were in the past.
No clear winner. The open simulations and internal leaks From Washington they agree on a most uncomfortable diagnosis: if necessary, a war over Taiwan it would be devastating even for those who managed to impose their immediate objective.
China could fail in invasion, but the United States and its allies would pay a military price not seen since World War II, with massive losses of aircraft, ships and personnel. Taiwan, even if it managed to resist, would be deeply damaged as a country and as a global economic engine, dragging the world into a prolonged crisis.
The island that weighs the most. All this explains why Taiwan is, by far, the increased geopolitical risk of the planet at this time and a strategic priority, surely far above scenarios like greenland.
It is not about territory, or not only, but about credibility, balance of power and stability of the international system between two superpowers. And, on that board, every gesture of ambiguity counts, and every sign of weakness can bring closer a conflict that no one would win on paperbut whose consequences would affect everyone.
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