The US military is making plans for deployments in Okinawa and the Philippines in the event of a “Taiwan emergency,” Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday last week. Those deployments would largely involve the dispatch of marines and missile systems on islands, with logistics provided by the Japanese military.
It has long been speculated that the US would become involved in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, but there has been no official confirmation of such by the US military.
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo in June told the Washington Post that the US planned to deploy thousands of drones around Taiwan in the event of an attack.
If Paparo’s comments reflect official planning, then drones could be deployed alongside missile systems on the Philippines’ Batanes islands and on Japan’s Yonaguni Island. Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) has said that Chinese drills suggest China would position an aircraft carrier off the east coast of Taiwan in the event of Chinese aggression toward Taiwan.
It seems likely that China would do so whether it enacted a maritime quarantine or embargo on Taiwan, or attempted a landing on Taiwan proper, since such acts would require surrounding the island. In any such event, the US would likely take control of the Bashi Channel and the narrow strait between Yonaguni and Taiwan to choke off China’s supplies to its carrier.
Drones would facilitate anti-access area denial and would render a Chinese embargo ineffective. Operation of a swarm of drones would also not be an act of war in itself, so using drones would allow the US to employ gray zone tactics in response to China’s gray zone tactics. China would not dare attempt to disable the drones or interfere with US and Japanese supply missions to Taiwan, as doing so would put China directly at risk of war with the US.
Another benefit of the US deploying missile systems and drones to the Batanes and Yonaguni is that such systems could be employed in the aerial defense of Taiwan. Ukraine has intercepted as much as 80 percent of Russian missiles fired at it, with the assistance of the US-made Patriot air-defense system, the BBC reported on Friday last week. Therefore, deployment of the Patriot and other systems on Taiwan, as well as to US, Philippine and Japanese bases near Taiwan, could be very effective in protecting Taiwan’s airspace from Chinese missiles.
Russia has reportedly begun attacking Ukraine with its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), against which the Patriot might not be effective, but NATO forces would undoubtedly develop effective measures for defending against IRBMs. Those measures could then be used in Taiwan’s defense.
US involvement in a Taiwan-China conflict would depend on whether Tokyo granted the US access to bases in Japan for “combat beyond the defense of Japan,” Vox said in a report on Jan. 30.
Japanese might be resistant to involvement in a war that puts their own lives at risk, especially if China promised not to attack Japan if it stays out of the conflict, the report said. However, if Japan did not grant such access, it “could unravel the US-Japan alliance, leaving [Japan] itself vulnerable by cutting off its only security guarantor,” it said.
It is likely that Japan would commit to supporting the US in a Taiwan conflict, since Japan increasingly sees China as a threat — underscored in September when a “Chinese aircraft carrier for the first time passed through a narrow waterway between Yonaguni and Iriomote islands in Okinawa Prefecture,” the Japan Times reported. Japan also welcomed the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to Yokosuka Naval Base on Friday last week after a nine-year absence.
US plans to deploy assets to defend Taiwan are very much welcomed in Taiwan, and the government and military should do all they can to facilitate the US deployment and cooperate with US forces.
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