academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Antony Sammeroff
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
Regan
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressThe United States cannot escape the need to make tough choices when it comes to allocating scarce military aid.
Calling the United States “the indispensable nation,” President Joe Biden used his second Oval Office address to argue that America has the resources and the responsibility to arm Ukraine and Israel “for as long as it takes.” Absent from the speech was Taiwan — the other U.S. partner in desperate need of U.S. weapons — along with any mention of the tradeoffs that will be required to balance Washington’s competing demands.
As our analysis shows, the most significant potential tradeoff isn’t between Ukraine and Israel, which have different armament needs, or between Ukraine and Taiwan, which have more overlap but still have different priorities. Rather, the tradeoff that Washington should be focused on is between Israel and Taiwan. In the best‐case scenario, if the Israel‐Hamas conflict remains limited, Washington may face no tradeoff at all. But if fighting expands to include Hizballah or direct conflict with Iran, the United States will be unable to avoid making hard choices about how to allocate arms transfers and military aid between Ukraine, Israel, and allies in the Indo‐Pacific.
While there are important areas of overlap between the military needs of Taiwan and Ukraine — especially when it comes to air defense and uncrewed aerial systems — their many differences made resourcing both marginally sustainable. Ukraine’s highest‐priority needs include heavy artillery, ammunition, tanks, short‐range missiles, and mobile air defense, while Taiwan has much more need for anti‐ship missiles, naval mines, long‐range missiles, and more advanced, longer‐range air defense systems. Adding aid to Israel changes this calculus. Israel’s needs overlap somewhat with Ukraine’s but more extensively with Taiwan’s and those of other Indo‐Pacific allies. This means that a commitment to fully aiding Israel could leave Taiwan and other U.S. allies and partners in the Indo‐Pacific facing longer delays for systems they require and could leave U.S. forces ill‐equipped to counter China.
To avoid putting Indo‐Pacific allies in this position, Washington should confront the resource constraints and necessary tradeoffs it faces on military aid. The Indo‐Pacific is America’s top defense priority, according to Biden’s National Defense Strategy, and Washington faces greater medium to long‐term escalation risks there if it cannot effectively deter China. Moreover, the military threat posed by China is substantially greater than that of Hizballah or Iran. What’s more, Taiwan’s current military capabilities fall well below Israel’s.
Attack the System
Categories: Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy
