Taiwan might be indefensible at any rate of production the United States could conceivably spin up within a practical time horizon.

The volume of fire that can be generated inside the 100km line by PLAN/PLAAF/PLAARF forces is nothing less than breathtaking. Even if you parked three Ford class carriers inside optimal mission radius, and their entire complement could take off and land in near-training conditions, and they don't need DCAP or electronic warfare coverage, *AND* if every single bomb and aircraft has a glassy-perfect mission right weapon to right target - EVEN WITH all these impossible conditions satisfied . . you're still not generating enough weapon effect to suppress even half of the PRC fire generation complex vis a vis a Taiwan situation. And they don't need half.

And that is not going to be the operational situation for USN. No, not by a long shot. If we're particularly unlucky, we might not ever know for sure what happened to the USS Whoever - just that it sailed into an electronic fog past Zamami and was gone. Rescued sailors could add little more.

The powers-that-be know this, the elected politicians know this (but don't care because they often have pockets stuffed from Chinese interests), but still we have chest beaters of the unstoppable American juggernaut. Yes, we do have a very big military - it's true! - but it's a military that the largest economy in the world has spent a good deal of its resources working to counter. For twenty years.

My greatest fear is that the chest beaters do assert direct control, court disaster, and have the worst possible reaction. I'm not confident in a sane response to a major surface asset being sunk; these are not people mentally geared to handle humiliation.

We're flirting this line already with Iran - with goddamn Iran of all people - where many People Who Should Know Better have already been flapping their mouths about breaking the taboo on First Use. For Iran.