All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I'm the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scotthorton.org.
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All right, you guys, on the line, I have got the hero from the Afghan war, and by that, of course, I mean the great truth-telling whistleblower, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L.
Davis, Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities, and as I say, Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army.
He did, he was in the big tank battle of Iraq War One.
He also was in Iraq War Two and Afghanistan, and he wrote the book The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good, Scott.
Always a pleasure to be here.
Great.
Great to have you here.about.
Like, for example, this piece published on October the 21st at 1945.
That's the digits, one nine, and then 45 spelled out.
I don't know what the hell's going on with that.
They got to figure that out.
How difficult does that make it to say their URL to people, you know?
Anyway, why should American soldiers die for Taiwan?
For all I know, 1945, four words to it.
What do I know?
Why should American soldiers die for Taiwan?
Why indeed should they?
Lieutenant Colonel Davis.
What do you think?
Well, I mean, the obvious answer is they shouldn't.
There is no need for the United States to go to war with China over the situation of Taiwan.
And frankly, our government is helping making that difficult by continuing to act as though we might and giving cause to, you know, some of the leaders on Taiwan to think that we might, giving fear to some of the leaders of China that we might.
And then you also have members of Congress wanting to outright spell it out, as well as other pundits that want to say, yes, we should give explicit security guarantees to Taiwan, which is insane.
Because I'm just flat out telling you from a military perspective, take all the emotions out of it, take all the what should or shouldn't happen out of it, and just you look at a cold hard comparison of of combat force, power and motivation behind the various parties and the three parties in this, and you come away with the there's virtually no chance that the United States could could win a war against China over Taiwan and a great probability that we would lose, that we would suffer possibly tens of thousands of casualties, have an aircraft carrier or other ships drop to the bottom of the South and East China Seas, airplanes get shot out of the sky and still lose.
So that's why I'm saying that we should absolutely not fight a war over Taiwan that we can't win.
All right.
Now, there's so many questions begged here.
And I mean that in the proper sense of it, such as what is the true threat that China will invade Taiwan in the first place?
And maybe another question would be, does it matter if there's a discussion among former military personnel as yourself and regular old civilians like myself about what the policy should be here?
Because I saw this presentation, I guess it was the interview as a presentation by John Mearsheimer for this think tank in Australia.
And he made it clear and in the plainest of language, Mearsheimer, by the way, everyone is the dean of the realist School of Foreign Policy from the University of Chicago and wrote the great book on the Israel lobby with Stephen Walt, et cetera, like that.
And he says, listen, the deep state has already decided that we will defend Taiwan.
It doesn't matter what the discussion is in Washington, D.C. or among the general public in the United States of America.
And he apparently seemed to agree with, you know, that this was important, that we should, you know, be obligated to defend Taiwan.
I'm fairly certain of that.
But he was saying the decision's already been taken.
It's made by the admirals.
That's the British phrase, isn't it, taken?
It's been made.
It's the admirals and whoever, the CIA and the lords of Wall Street, the skull and bones or whoever it is, they've decided, not us.
Well, let's take your questions in order.
The first one is, is there any realistic probability that China would attack Taiwan?
And the answer is yes.
That's a tough question.
China has been absolutely very vocal from day one, from 1949 forward, that they are willing to use force to retake Taiwan.
In fact, in doing some research for a piece that I'm working on right now, it turns out that actually China had a plan to invade Taiwan in late 1949, early 1950, that was interrupted by the Korean War.
And instead of sending their troops across the strait to take Taiwan, they had to divert them to, perversely, fight the United States.
When they sent 300,000 troops into the northern part of North Korea to fight us, otherwise they would have done it then.
But they had been trying at various levels after that, they recovered from all the losses they suffered during that war.
And in recent years, from about 1980 on, apparently, not apparently, there was a good period where they were actually trying to cooperate and have a peaceful unification of, you know, something like the Hong Kong model in the period, and there was some interest on both sides of the strait.
But that started changing in the 80s.
And then Taiwan started becoming more independent-minded, they're saying they were de facto already a country.
China started saying, no, no, no, no, no, it's not going to go that way.
They started getting more and more bellicose.
You get into the big 1995, 1996 Taiwan Straits issue, where missiles were flying all over the place in the sea, very close to Taiwan shores, the U.S. was sending two aircraft carrier battle groups through the straits, etc.
And we almost came to blows at that time.
But things cooled down.
In the intermediate time, really China realized that they didn't have any answer to our aircraft carriers at that time.
So they set on what has turned out to be about a 25-year period to build up their military in every capacity that will allow them to successfully attack and take Taiwan, even with all of our combat power.
And that's what the gist of several pieces I've been writing here of late that just look at the cold hard calculations that if China attacks Taiwan to retake them, and they have made it a very important plank of their national identity, I mean, it's that big to them.
There's nothing we can do to stop it.
And here's the reason why.
When you look at the global comparison of forces between the United States and China, without question, we're overwhelmingly the superior force.
We have more modern and large Navy ships, more submarines.
We don't have more fighter aircraft, even globally, I don't think.
But nuclear power, we're still like 10 to 1, and more in some cases than China.
So they're not going to do anything, they're not going to attack us, they actually can't, because they can't project power much beyond what's called the first island chain, which is the Taiwan area.
They can't project power hardly beyond that at all, much less to the United States.
But our power is not combined, our power, the force comparison doesn't take place on a global scale, it takes place in the waters around Taiwan.
And all of China's maritime forces and the majority of their missile and air forces are all concentrated right there in that area, whereas ours are scattered to the four winds and the seven seas of the ocean.
So we're all over the place.
Our force in that area, first of all, are very small in comparison to what's in China.
But second of all, and this is maybe the most important aspect, China has been building up and preparing for conflict for a long time.
So they've got all the ammunition stocks stored up, they've got all the fuel stocks, wartime stocks that are ready to go, that will allow them to launch and maintain a campaign for some time.
And it's all right there on their shore.
I mean, it's literally with, you know, 100 miles across the water.
We're 6,000 miles from the U.S. shore and we haven't stockpiled other than just, you know, enough to fight for maybe two weeks in any unexpected contingencies.
But to fight a war you would have to sustain for possibly months.
We just don't have it.
We don't have the fuel.
We don't have the manpower.
And we don't have the ammunition.
We don't have the rockets and the missiles and the other things that we would need to be able to sustain combat.
So if we started fighting, we would lose a lot of ships because they would use saturated bombing.
They would use saturation launches with missiles.
We just don't have enough to defend against what they would have.
And then we're going to lose lots of ships.
They're going to still take Taiwan.
So here's the point that I've really kind of come down to.
If China does do what they claim that they're looking to do and they take Taiwan, our choice will be either let's remain fully in control of our forces and not suffer any losses and then use our full military diplomatic power to, you know, impose a real price on China for using force to solve this problem that shouldn't be done, because I don't agree with it in the least.
Or we can try to fight a war that we won't win.
And at the end of the day, we'll have our power severely degraded.
And now all of a sudden, our power, our ability to defend our country is significantly weakened across the globe.
Well, there's another option, too, right, which is no option to win.
Isn't there an option to just sell the Taiwanese out and tell them, look, man, this is the 800 ton dragon and you're not and we're not going to fight for your independence because you're not a state in our union or even a nation North America like we might fight for Canadian independence from the rising, I don't know, Atlantean juggernaut or whoever's coming for it.
But Taiwan, you know, we don't have to just tell them the truth that like, sorry, we're not going to do anything about it at all.
You guys should negotiate your reentry into the Chinese Union as soon as possible.
What's wrong with that?
Well, that is a version that I say that's exactly I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean to sell them out.
We can we can impose a price on China in several non-military ways if they do that, because resorting to force is, you know, that's not good for anybody.
But you can't do something because you just want to if you're not able to succeed in the cost, even if you succeeded.
I mean, I don't think we could.
But even if you wanted to say maybe we would, what would we have, quote, one other than the loss of ships, planes, thousands of troops?
Now, then we're sitting a hundred miles off the Chinese shore and they will never under any circumstances allow that, which leads to the biggest risk, nuclear escalation.
And that is not an empty threat.
I'm telling you.
Yeah.
Hold on just one second.
Be right back.
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Well, OK, so let me get back to nukes in just one second, but what have we got to lose?
I'll tell you this.
I saw I think in the comments on your piece and I've seen this over and over again that what we have to lose is semiconductors.
Nobody can make semiconductors except this one company in Taiwan, which is funny because in Austin we have advanced micro devices and at least they used to make all their own semiconductors right here in the town where I'm talking to you from.
I don't know why they couldn't just.
And I know it's all American blueprints for, you know, every bit of that stuff in the first place.
So I don't know what is so difficult about them, you know, kicking some new factories up in Texas.
Right now there's an opportunity cost, obviously, that makes it cheaper to do it in Taiwan.
You know what?
In fact, I think I read this may have been the comment in your piece.
The guy said it would take a trillion dollars in a decade to rebuild our semiconductor capacity.
Could that possibly be right?
I mean, is anybody serious telling you that?
Yeah, we would die without Taiwan.
Well, it would take a long time.
That's a fact.
And this is part of the consequence of our just doing things on the cheap instead of having at least an element of strategic observation going on while we do this, because we have become absolutely indispensably dependent on the semiconductor issues for virtually everything in the modern world that we make.
And we have chosen to allow it to all reside 100 miles off the Chinese coast within range of their missiles.
We should have been building things in Austin and several other places.
We should immediately right now start to diversify ourselves so that we don't have a single point of failure in that right now.
And it would take a long time.
I don't know that it would take a decade, but it would certainly take a number of years.
And the problem is, this is what gives China a lot of leverage should they make this move, because if they're smart, and they usually are, they will put a big, huge no fires zone like about a mile around that factory so that not a bullet touches it, because they want to control Taiwan and the ability to make those semiconductors so that they have extraordinary leverage over the rest of the world, that will mitigate anyone's ability to punish them economically after because they can still sell the semiconductors, they'll have control of it.
That's the real, that's the ultimate threat that I see is that that would give them leverage over everybody.
Yeah, well, like you say, they could start diversifying out of that right now, I still don't know.
Yeah, I mean, cheap is cheap, but I don't know why it should be that the whole world has outsourced the fabrication of this one type of microchip to this one island.
Is that really right?
It was easy.
Yeah.
It's astounding to think that that is what happened.
But that's a fact.
And it was because it was easy.
The Taiwanese were very, very good at what they are doing.
Why do we believe that it would be so difficult to get started again?
I mean, in Austin right now, and for 20 years, 30, well, 50 years, IBM has been here.
Advanced Micro Devices has been here for what, 30, 35 years, something like that.
Michael Dell's company is based here still, of course.
These are massive firms, never mind all these new, you know, Google moving to town.
I mean, these are real computer firms that are, you know, long established.
I think Raytheon even fabricates, you know, some kind of microchips and whatever in town.
So I don't know why it would take them more than a couple of months to kick their ass into gear.
Yeah.
What's the problem?
Do they need a hand?
Well, no, they don't.
But they do need very, very specialized equipment and expertise.
It's not just like making other components because, you know, other things that we do, we already have.
You know, we could ramp up a lot of things.
But that particular skill set requires, you know, machining of the micro level that just doesn't exist anywhere else.
And it takes time to ramp that stuff up.
All right.
Now, I'm sorry to go back to the first question here.
And I know we're going to I did set you up to talk about whether, you know, the admirals decide not the public anyway or even the Congress or the president.
But we'll get back to that.
But on the you know, you talked about how prepared China is to do this.
But I wonder if you know how you think that translates to timescale here, whether they just have the capability to do this at any time or, for example, trying to seize control of those factories is their highest priority in the shortest order.
Maybe they want to call our bluff sooner, not later or not.
Yeah.
What do you think they have?
They have the ability right now.
I will dispute with some people who say that they're not quite there.
They are there.
It might be right now, because one of the big problems is when you look at a lot of the analysis that is done in the West as to why they can and what they need, etc.
They're literally looking through this like it's still 1944, June 1944, Normandy or 1950 at the Inchon landings.
And they're just basically saying we'll do the same thing in the future.
And we won't.
China is not going to just follow the same old playbook that requires the same kind of things we had for 1944.
They're going to use much different tactics, different capabilities, etc., that make it a lot easier, a lot easier to do than it was then.
Also, you can't ignore this part of the equation.
The Taiwanese defense is woefully inadequate.
I mean, the fact that they barely spend two percent of GDP on their forces, the fact that their frontline units, their active duty units are in some cases as low as 60 percent man, that just tells you they aren't really worried about China.
They don't really want to fight China.
But on the other side of the aisle, the straight China is overwhelmingly emotionally connected to this.
And they are really, really pressing on this issue here.
So if it comes to fighting, they can do it.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, you talked about nukes there for a minute.
It seems like this would be.
And this is, of course, the point of view of the Hawks here, that if America just says essentially, OK, you might sink some of our battleships, but man, are we going to impose some costs on you up to and including the threat of nuclear war, that that will be a sufficient deterrent to keep them from trying it.
And that that is the best case scenario is we'll just hold the status quo from now on instead of, you know, essentially announcing that, no, we won't do that, which is, of course, the height of dishonor and betrayal and horribleness and that kind of thing.
Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, the status quo is is is OK because no one's getting killed.
So I'm all right with the status quo where no one invades, no one has to die.
But that's a horrible way to look at it, because it's also the ignorant way to look at it, because China has one point four billion people.
We've got point three billion people.
So they could absorb a lot of nuclear strikes.
We can't.
I mean, but I wouldn't trade a single American city, not one, not even a single one for anything in China.
I don't care how much they got harmed.
If we get if we suffer a nuclear strike, it's catastrophic and there's nothing that could ever be good come out of it at all.
And we just can't go down that path.
Our nuclear force is to deter someone from attacking us so that if we're struck, we can then impose a catastrophic loss on the other side that will deter them from ever launching the first missile in the first place.
We should never even think about thinking that we can succeed at launching a nuclear strike against someone and somehow survive it.
That's insane.
OK, but if I'm at a think tank in D.C., I'm saying, yeah, but no nuclear deterrence works so well that, you know, we extend our nuclear umbrella.
We're not going to let anybody attack Canada.
So, you know what?
We should also extend our nuclear umbrella to South Korea and Japan and of course to England and France and Spain and Portugal and Greece and Germany.
And of course, we need and Italy.
And of course, you know, yeah, whatever.
The sky's the limit.
Estonia, whatever you got.
And wherever we tell people, you better not mess with anybody or else we'll nuke you.
Those are all places where nothing bad ever happens.
So why not extend our nuclear umbrella to every nation in the entire world except Russia and China?
And then they'll never do anything and no one else will ever do anything and everything will be world peace forever.
Daniel.
Yeah.
And let's start with, I don't know, Georgia, Ukraine.
Why not?
Let's start right there.
Right.
Because there's models of stability, which is insane.
I mean, I'm saying that tongue in cheek, obviously.
But people are wanting to do that.
And that is frightening.
It's terrifying that people think that that's a good idea, because, look, you're playing with fire that on some point some of these other owners of nuclear weapons, especially if there is a conventional conflict and it starts going bad for their side, they will be they could potentially panic and say, OK, well, we'll just launch one nuclear missile over here as a warning not to do anything else.
Yeah.
I mean, you can see where someone might have that that irrational mindset in a crisis.
And the last thing we need to do is extend this nuclear umbrella to other unstable people who think who don't have nuclear weapons that do have long standing conflicts with nuclear powers.
That is insane.
And we should not do it.
Yeah.
And hey, look, I mean, for people in the audience, you know, Danny's not making that up.
I mean, that's the thing.
I mean, I remember the way they talked about this.
We think that the new Russian doctrine is escalate to deescalate, that they will set off one small nuke to prove that they will set off a bigger nuke.
So that means we have to also adopt that same posture and prove to them that that'll never work and that if they use a nuke, then we'll use one back.
And then we might even use a bigger one than that in order to prove to them that they better deescalate now.
Exactly.
Who in the hell?
You know, you just because you like have a job at the University of Chicago or at Harvard Kennedy School of whatever, or some shiny stars on your chest that they gave you in the Navy that you get to sit around and you can come up with plans for exterminating all of mankind on the barest of pretexts like this.
It's crazy, man.
Yeah, it truly is.
And it's terrifying because those conversations are happening and people are calculating.
I mean, just numbers, and that's all they are to many of these people.
They're just numbers.
They're like, OK, well, I think we can survive this.
Not thinking every single one of those digits is a life that matters a great deal.
And it just boggles my mind that people are OK with playing with these quote numbers.
Yeah.
Well, anyway, man, I'm sorry we're out of time because, you know, I really want to talk about alternatives to all of this because it seems like mutually assured destruction, it only works so well and especially when, as we're talking about, people abuse it so badly and extending its, you know, its border of what's to be defended under its doctrine so recklessly and so far.
But now we're out of time, so we'll just have to talk about that next time, which is really important.
Yeah, we'll get it next time.
And I'm really sorry because I called you late and then we got a little delayed there.
But I also wanted to at least mention and make sure that people go and look at this at 1945.
America needs to stop demanding North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.
And again, I'm so sorry we don't have time to talk about this, but this is such an important piece.
And of course, it's exactly right.
And there's more great stuff like that at 1945.com.
Daniel L. Davis, senior fellow at Defense Priorities.
And the book is The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America.
Thank you so much, Daniel.
Thanks for having me.
The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A., APSradio.com, AntiWar.com, ScottHorton.org, and LibertarianInstitute.org.
