This article was republished with permission from dermotcole.com.
The bellicose claims of Sen. Dan Sullivan about the future of Taiwan must be treated with skepticism because he speaks in an oversimplified manner that overlooks a complicating factor—the danger of a World War.
According to Sullivan, if China attacks Taiwan, the U.S. should promise to repel China.
“The second level of deterrence is whether or not, and I think we should, if there is an invasion of Taiwan or an attempt from the Chinese Communist Party and the PLA, if the U.S. and our allies would get there on time to stop that,” Sullivan told CBS in March.
Getting “there on time to stop that” is a glib way to describe a threat to the future of humanity.
There is reason to worry about the future of Taiwan, but I don’t know enough to say what the United States should do. It is an intractable problem, fraught with danger. The “non-strategic form of ambiguity” that marks U.S. policy, which has long been a muddled mess, stems from this.
What we need are leaders who question everything they think they know before repeating the same phrases and talking points time after time. We need something other than cheerleading for an everlasting arms race and mutually assured destruction.
The junior senator from Alaska does not have this all figured out, his cocksure claims to the contrary. More and more he volunteers to go on TV to promote his military opinions. Much of what he says is never reported on by Alaska news organizations.
He wants more weapons for Taiwan, more weapons for the U.S. military, a preplanned set of economic sanctions against China and a bigger military budget. He doesn’t say how he would pay for any of this.
Sullivan undermines his credibility by routinely ducking far less difficult political questions in Alaska, ranging from the Pebble mine to his refusal to mention Sen. Lisa Murkowski during the last campaign and his failure to challenge Donald Trump’s lies. He has a habit of pandering to his audiences, which makes it impossible to trust bold declarations he makes on matters affecting the fate of the world.
Sullivan has again introduced a bill that won’t pass Congress that he calls the STAND with Taiwan act. He says deterrence means informing China of exactly what it would lose in case it invades Taiwan.
“If you attack, if you invade, here is the massive sanctions we’re gonna crush you with,” is how he describes the message the bill would send to China.
The sanctions need to be crushing, crippling, devastating, he says.
To bring this closer to home, Sullivan needs to explain what his plan would mean to U.S. companies and consumers, who continue to buy hundreds of billions worth of Chinese goods. And Sullivan needs to explain what the sanctions would cost the Alaska fishing industry, which remains heavily invested in China.
The sanctions, to be crushing and crippling, will have to include a ban on selling Alaska products to China. Or does Sullivan think that China should remain a prime customer of Alaska products despite crippling economic sanctions?
Only after such details are explained by Sullivan will we have a better idea of what his bill would really mean.
But I suspect we will sooner see Sullivan explain the tax increases or increased deficit spending he supports to fund tens of billions in higher military spending before we will ever see a full picture of the consequences of his Taiwan deterrence plan.
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Dermot Cole has worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and author in Alaska for more than 40 years. Support his work here.
