Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1688164231-scaled

'Strategic clarity' could spell War with China over Taiwan

This approach would be needless provocation and reckless overcommitment, and it's important that Biden reject it.

Analysis | Asia-Pacific

The U.S. is not obliged to fight for Taiwan, but a growing number of people in Congress and the foreign policy establishment nonetheless want to abandon the sensible policy of strategic ambiguity that has helped to secure the peace in East Asia for the last two generations. 

The opening salvo in this debate came last year in a Foreign Affairs article by Richard Haass and David Sacks, who argued that the U.S. should make an explicit security guarantee to Taiwan: “The time has come for the United States to introduce a policy of strategic clarity: one that makes explicit that the United States would respond to any Chinese use of force against Taiwan.” The proposed policy of “strategic clarity” is a solution in search of a problem, and it reflects the increasingly reckless hawkish consensus against China in Washington. 

Since that article was first published, proponents of “strategic clarity” have only become louder and more insistent that Washington commit itself to fight a war that America can’t afford and would likely lose. A more accurate label for the “strategic clarity” option would be needless provocation or reckless overcommitment, and it is important that the Biden administration flatly rejects this idea before U.S.-Chinese relations get any worse.

The New York Times reported last week on the increasing support for making an explicit guarantee to Taiwan in Washington:

Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, has introduced a bill that would authorize the president to take military action to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack — making America’s intentions ambiguous no more. When Mr. Haass testified last month before a House Foreign Relations Committee panel on Asia, he was peppered with questions about how to deter the Chinese threat to Taiwan.

In remarks in February at an event hosted by The Washington Post, Robert M. Gates, a former defense secretary and CIA director who served under presidents of both parties, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, called Taiwan the facet of U.S.-China relations that concerned him the most.

Mr. Gates said that it might be “time to abandon our longtime strategy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan.”

The chief reason why the U.S. shouldn’t make an explicit commitment to defend Taiwan is that fighting to defend Taiwan is not vital to the security of the United States. On the contrary, making such a commitment puts the United States at risk of fighting a major war on China’s doorstep, and the costs of that war are practically guaranteed to exceed the benefits. The last time that the U.S. directly engaged Chinese forces in their own backyard in the 1950s, it did not go very well for the U.S. and its allies, and Chinese capabilities have only improved since then. The risks are even greater now that both the U.S. and China are nuclear-armed states. 

The other main reason not to do this is that making a defense commitment explicit is a good way to trigger the invasion that it is supposed to deter. Because the U.S. has far less at stake in Taiwan than China does, the Chinese government might see the U.S. promise to respond to an attack as an empty one. It would probably also view a public commitment to defend Taiwan as tantamount to recognition of the island’s independence or as a signal that the U.S. would support an independence declaration by Taipei. “Strategic clarity” would likely goad China into striking instead of giving them an additional incentive to hold back. 

To be a credible deterrent, a U.S. commitment to defend against Chinese attack requires Beijing to believe that the U.S. has both the means and the will to honor that commitment, but the truth is that the U.S. may not have the capabilities to fulfill this promise and it lacks the political will to do so. In other words, an explicit commitment to defend Taiwan would expose Taiwan and the U.S. to greater risk than both currently face without providing any added deterrence. So-called “strategic clarity” would be an invitation to war with China, which would be a catastrophe for Taiwan, the stability of East Asia, and the U.S. all at once. 

It is no wonder that there is little public support for going to war for Taiwan. A 2019 Chicago Council of Global Affairs survey found that only 35 percent of Americans would support military action in the event that Taiwan was attacked. A war for Taiwan would be much more dangerous and costly than our other wars of choice over the last 30 years, and it would have scant public support from the start. U.S. intervention in the conflict would be half-hearted at best, and the public would quickly sour on the war as the costs began to mount. The U.S. shouldn’t make promises to defend another country if it can’t guarantee that it will honor those promises, and it shouldn’t make those promises when it has no compelling reason to do so. In the case of Taiwan, the U.S. would either end up reneging on its commitment or it would quickly come to regret honoring it. 

The Biden administration has been talking up the potential Chinese threat to Taiwan in recent weeks, and Admiral Philip Davidson, the head of Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), has gone so far as to say that he believes China might attack within the next six years. The admiral has also been rather imaginative in his assessments of China’s nuclear buildup. In addition to misjudging the extent of the danger from China, exaggerating the Chinese threat to Taiwan is not helpful, and according to some experts it is playing into the Chinese government’s hands

Bonnie Glaser and Richard Bush made this point earlier this month when they wrote, “Hyping the threat that China poses to Taiwan does Beijing's work for it.” Far from reassuring the people of Taiwan, this rhetoric is a discouraging reminder of the disparity of power between them and the mainland.

China has its own reasons not to make a huge gamble by invading, and the U.S. should do nothing that gives Beijing reason to think that it needs to take military action in the near future. An explicit American defense commitment would likely be perceived as an infringement of Chinese sovereignty and Beijing’s reaction would be accordingly severe. The status quo has maintained peace in the region for four decades and should not be lightly cast aside because of the sudden trendiness of being hard-line on China. 

Strategic ambiguity with respect to Taiwan has helped to keep the peace in East Asia for more than 40 years. There is no reason to fix something that continues to work and shows no signs of breaking down. Making such a drastic change in policy would destabilize the region at a time when U.S.-Chinese relations are already extremely poor. The U.S. can and should continue to provide Taiwan with the appropriate means to defend itself, but otherwise it should be seeking to de-escalate tensions with Beijing rather than provoking them with ill-considered declarations that our government likely cannot back up. 

Loose talk from foreign policy pundits that a Chinese invasion might take place at any moment is not only wrong as a matter of fact, but it also serves to stoke irrational fears that could make conflict more likely.


(fotogrin/shutterstock)
Analysis | Asia-Pacific
House seeks to expand secretive arms stockpile used in Gaza war
Israeli soldiers prepare shells near a mobile artillery unit, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Israel, January 2, 2024. (REUTERS/Amir Cohen)

House seeks to expand secretive arms stockpile used in Gaza war

Washington Politics

The House is poised to expand the use of a secretive mechanism for funneling weapons to Israel.

Hidden deep in a must-pass State Department funding bill is a provision that would allow for unlimited transfers of U.S. weapons to a special Israel-based stockpile in the next fiscal year, strengthening a pathway for giving American weapons to Israel with reduced public scrutiny. The House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to discuss the bill Wednesday morning.

keep readingShow less
Trump Rubio
Top image credit: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) is seen in the Oval Office with US President Donald Trump (left) during a meeting with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II Ibn Al-Hussein in the Oval Office the White House in Washington DC on Tuesday, February 11, 2025. Credit: Aaron Schwartz / Pool/Sipa USA via REUTERS
The US-Colombia drug war alliance is at a breaking point

Trump poised to decertify Colombia

Latin America

It appears increasingly likely that the Trump administration will move to "decertify" Colombia as a partner in its fight against global drug trafficking for the first time in 30 years.

The upcoming determination, due September 15, could trigger cuts to hundreds of millions of dollars in bilateral assistance, visa restrictions on Colombian officials, and sanctions on the country's financial system under current U.S. law. Decertification would strike a major blow to what has been Washington’s top security partner in the region as it struggles with surging coca production and expanding criminal and insurgent violence.

keep readingShow less
Trump Vance Rubio
Top image credit: President Donald Trump meets with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance before a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Monday, August 18, 2025, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

The roots of Trump's wars on terror trace back to 9/11

Global Crises

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an "invasion" at the border.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.