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Military Policy Expert Explains US Options Should China Invade Taiwan · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Five minutes after the hour. It is the third hour of three here on
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  the Morning Show with Preston Skyck of Morning wherever however you are listening. Thanks
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  a lot. We greatly appreciate sharing time with you each and every morning,
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  as we have for twenty one plus years. Grant Allen over there running the
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  radio program in Studio one A. I am here in Studio one B,
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  and I am joined by Dakota Wood. I warned him, I told him
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  he did such a good job the last time he was on the show.
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  I threatened that I was going to have him back, and here we are
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  making good on it. How are you you know? I think doing great.
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  I think this test phase of yours twenty one years, just stick with
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  it. It might be a career track for you. Just speculation of my
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  third brother. I don't know if you know much about the community of Tallahassee,
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  but I will. I will simply tell you that a conservative Christian for
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  twenty one years holding down Morning Drive is evidence there is a god. Amen.
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  Dakota served the United States for two decades in the US Marine corpsies the
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  Senior Research Fellow for Defense Programs. First, as always, I thank you
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  so much for your service to our country. Dakota, how are you,
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  Todank you doing well? It's a beautiful day. I mean I'm in DC,
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  so I can't get too good, but I think we're doing good work
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  here. And you know, I love it shows like yours and your audience
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  that are really plugged into the issues of the day. And it's just it's
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  heartening to be able to engage in these kind of conversations when they're really needed.
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  Here's what I need you to first help us wade through. And I'm
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  not going to promise that this is going to be easy for you to do,
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  but I'm going to challenge you to do it. We have more and
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  more people that are growing concern that with our current commander in chief, the
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  current makeup of our military. Though I think we'd all admit there are great
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  men and women serving, the fact of the matter is we are, I
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  think a rudderless ship with our leadership lacking explain the potential of us going to
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  war over Taiwan. Is that something we could potentially have to do? Is
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  that a must? Well, I think yes to both of those. It's
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  potential. I mean, it's not determinant, it's not inevitable, but there
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  is certainly the potential. And if China tried to take Taiwan by force,
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  then yes, I think we would have to respond in defense of Taiwan because
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  the consequences would be monumental. I mean, it would tell the rest of
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  the world that China is certainly willing to use military force, just like we're
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  seeing Russia used in Ukraine and the damage it's causing to Europe. In a
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  much larger way Iran. If you could imagine some kind of a strike and
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  nuclear strike from Iran into Israel, or Israel having to use nuclear weapons to
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  prevent itself from being destroyed by Iran. You know, this is the enormity
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  of the magnitude we're talking about. So you know, it's an island,
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  Taiwan, not too far off the coast of mainland China, but it represents
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  a huge economic part of that world. It would extend China's reach further out
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  into the ocean spaces, posting a direct threat to Japan and the Philippines and
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  Indonesian, Malaysia and just all these other areas. So it's something that could
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  not go without being answered. And to the point that you made up front,
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  Are we rudderless? Are we adrift, you know, militarily speaking,
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  Are we in a position to respond with forests? And I think all of
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  those are very much in doubt. We've been tracking the decline of the size,
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  readiness, and aging or modernity of our forces for a decade now,
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  and our index of US military strength, and we think that if you globally
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  sourced American military power being pulling it from all the different places of the world,
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  you might have enough to win one major fight like something like Taiwan.
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  But it would take everything we've got, which leads all of our other interests
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  in other parts of the world, and all of our treaty obligations uncovered and
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  given to distances, you know, from the US to Taiwan, You're talking
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  let's say six thousand miles, where China is operating one hundred miles from home.
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  So how do you logistically sustain that? How do you replace combat losses?
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  The time? The distance involved very few basing options for US forces in
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  that part of the world where China has its entire homeland. So those are
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  the stakes that are involved, and yet the priorities have been placed for the
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  Pentagon are diversity, the equity and inclusion, identity politics, critical race theory,
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  drag shows which were just canceled a couple of days ago. You d
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  duy, but set a combating climate change, electrifying the US military fleet of
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  equipment. I mean that those are the priorities of the White House, not
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  expanding the military, ensuring that flight hours and ship driving time is up,
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  or even replenishing munitions that we've been giving to Ukraine for very good reasons.
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  So I think we're in a very risky period of time and it will take
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  years to build out, which isn't going to happen because of this debt ceiling
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  bill that's just been agreed to that keeps the defense spending from increasing in any
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  meaningful way. The new Mayor of Realville dispensing information at the speed of sound.
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  It's The Morning Show with Preston Scott. Served our country in the US
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  Marine Corps a couple of decades, that's all, and now as senior research
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  fellow for the Defense Programs at a Heritage Foundation, and our guests here this
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  morning, as we talk about China, Taiwan, and the United States,
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  the recent encounters with our navy a few hundred yards between our destroyer and there's
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  airplane brushbacks with their jets. Is this saber rattling or is this testing?
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  It's both. I mean, I apologize to the extended answer I gave to
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  your just profoundly important question, But it all relates to this. In the
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  Cold War, the Soviet Union and US NATO had all kinds of encounters like
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  these ship things and you know, cutting each other's planes off, the interdictions
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  and those sorts of things. But we've seen a real uptick because of China's
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  aggressiveness. So crossing the path of a jet with another jet turbulence, you
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  know, you can create some instability and potentially down an aircraft. The ships
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  when you're dealing with the forty or fifty thousand ton ship, even if you're
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  moving twenty miles an hour, you know, fifteen knots or so through the
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  water, crossing within a football field something like that, there is real danger
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  in people being injured, certainly equipment being damaged, and then creating an international
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  incident. So it shows you how aggressive China is behaving in international waters and
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  international airspace. And it tells you then the importance that they place on having
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  control of Taiwan and being the dominant power in the Indo Pacific region. What
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  about our allies in the area Dakota. I see Australia trying to make nice
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  with China, suddenly engaging in pretty high level talks and almost playing footsie with
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  them. That seems to say to me that we might not have the support
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  that we would need should should some kind of war breakout. The Australians are
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  great, they are very wrong allies to the US, but they're also on
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  the other side of the planet. Yep. So every country has to figure
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  out how to best survive to you know, have a viable economy. Big
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  trading partners of theirs is China. And we're talking, I mean from Australia
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  to the US. It takes like seven days to fly there. I mean,
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  it's just you know, it's eight thousand and nine thousand miles away.
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  And so they're out there and they have to deal with China as a neighbor.
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  But you know, we don't have that many people with credible military power.
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  You know, Japan denuded itself ever since World War Two. They only
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  spend about one percent of GDP, although they're changing that. The Russian Australian
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  military is very very small, very capable professionally, but it's very small.
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  And the Philippines doesn't have anything, Malaysia, Vietnam, there just isn't much
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  capability and capacity in that part of the world to stand up against China.
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  So if you're going to do anything, it's got a fall to the US.
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  When I hear you talk about our ability to maybe fight one front at
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  a time, this goes back to the Obama administration's decision to basically state just
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  that that we're going to be a small, agile military power that can fight
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  one front. But they intentionally broke the ability of our country to fight on
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  multiple fronts at once as a matter of policy, didn't they They absolutely did.
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  I mean, you're absolutely right. We had a holiday than the nineteen
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  nineties, and the new Obama administration disworshened everything we say that we want from
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  rely on our allies to step into the breach. But they've made even worse
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  decisions. I mean a Great Britain has the smallest army has had since seventeen
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  fourteen. Okay, it only has seventeen surface ships in its navy. Germany
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  of the vaunted tanksill epport twos. We talked about they have maybe three hundred
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  of it ventry, and only a hundred of those are actually available for use.
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  A lot of equipment that they've been giving Ukraine just does not work.
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  So when we look around the globe, nobody except our enemies has any level
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  of meaningful, credible combat power. Our pilots used to fly two hundred hours
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  a year. Today they're averaging something like eighty. You know, you can't
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  fly less than half of what you did previously and be competence performing your task
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  right, So we could go through all kinds of numbers that the picture is
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  fairly dire, and as I said, this budget deal is going to keep
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  spending next year to three percent growth on a six percent inflationary growth, So
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  you're actually going to be able to pass for the money that you spend a
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  few minutes left with Dakota Wood from the Heritage Foundation. And we're talking about
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  China, the saber rattling, the testing, where we are with our diminished
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  military capabilities, not just hardware and not funding the mechanism, but personnel.
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  They're not hitting recruiting goals. You might argue that there are some great men
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  and women that are still willing to serve this country. But the type of
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  people that are willing to put up with the political correct woke nonsense, they're
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  not showing up to the recruiting calls, and so Dakota with money not being
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  spent at the levels that it needs to be spent. With our limited ability
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  to engage beyond one front, and even if that we're talking thousands and thousands
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  of miles away, how would the United States engage with Taiwan and defending that
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  that island. Well, we've got terrific naval power and when we talked about
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  a little bit about how limited it is, but our submarine fleet is world
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  class awesome, So that would be one thing. Pushing forward as many missile
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  shooters as we could, and you'd be very selective in your targeting. You
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  know, if there are any cross straight movements of troop ships from China to
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  Taiwan, could those be taken out with an air launched anti ship cruise missile
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  or a ship launched cruise missile or by a submarine. You could play in
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  the cyber realm, you know, can you make it more difficult for China
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  to coordinate their activities and to do the things that they wanted to do.
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  But they're going to be doing that to us as well, right, So
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  our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan were against enemies that had no real capabilities,
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  you know, no air power, no navy, no cyber stuff, and
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  so we've gotten used to doing whatever we wanted to do with very little interdiction
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  or frustration. You know, roadside bomb is bad for the vehicle that it
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  hits, but it doesn't stop the war. It's just going to be a
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  different a different game if you go up against some place like China. Is
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  North Korea a player in this in any way, shape or form, I
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  don't think so. I mean, they're fixated Kim Jones six saded on the
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  Korean peninsula. They don't have any power projection capabilities other than their missiles.
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  We don't want to dismiss them, but the nature of those missiles really aren't
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  tactical. So I think that they are constrained to the Korean peninsula. If
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  the US is engaged in the war with China, he might see an opportunity
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  to push into South Korea, and then the US would have two problems on
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  its hands of just one. If you're President g is this a fight,
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  you really can afford. You've got an aging population, your population controls it
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  backfired. Your economy is not really swimming along because you are a production economy,
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  you are not a consumption economy. Can they really afford to do this
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  or is this going to be let's just talk big and let's just keep live
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  and let live type thing. Well, you look at windows of opportunity,
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  and for the very reasons you said, if a population is aging, if
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  my workforce is declining relative to the older people, you need to support environmental
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  concerns, arable land is decreasing, etc. The statistics don't get better over
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  time, so it's almost like you have to move sooner because if you don't
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  act soon, then you lose the ability to act later on. And this
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  reclaiming control of Taiwan is probably the most important issue other than the Communist Party
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  regimes survival that faces the political powerbrokers in Beijing today. So they're just not
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  going to give up on that and think that they have a better opportunity of
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  fifteen years from now. So I think that there is a window of danger
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  here in the next several years where they have to move before they can't and
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  they'll be looking at the US political situation. You know who is going to
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  be the president after the next election cycle, and are always go involved in
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  Europe, in the Middle East and those sorts of things. But we're in
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  a risky period of time. Fifteen second answer on this when you add it
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  all up, is this a potential conflict that we can afford to get involved
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  in even if it means losing it. I think you have to because if
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  you don't, then you have seeded that part of the world to China.
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  Not a good day for the US to access to markets and stuff. You
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  have to do something with Ukraine because we can't afford a win for Russia in
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  Europe. And you have to do something to continue to support Israel because a
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  war between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be disastrous for a global energy which affects
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  everything else. Or just some things you just have to do. Dakota,
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  I always appreciate your time. We'll have you back. Thanks again. It's
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  great, God blessing. Thank you. Sarah Dakota Wood with us this morning
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  from the Heritage Foundation. Our guests on the Morning Show with Preston Scott