Newest US Navy strategic guidance aims at deterring China from invading Taiwan
US Navy secretary Carlos Del Toro provided a preview of his new strategic guidance earlier this week and revealed that one aim is to deter China from invading Taiwan, reported Defense News.
Del Toro previewed the new strategic guidance during a lecture at the U.S. Naval Academy Tuesday night, October 5.
“The desired goal, quite frankly, is not to fight China. No one wants to enter into a conflict. … It’s our ultimate responsibility to deter them from what they’re trying to accomplish, including taking over Taiwan,” Del Toro said.
The objective is part of an overall plan to maintain maritime dominance globally, and strengthen strategic partnerships around the world, according to the Secretary of the Navy’s statements.
Del Toro, who took up the NAVSEC position two months ago said that the first priority is about how to spend limited defense funds in ways that will deter China.
The strategic guidance incorporates integrated deterrence with an agile and ready force, modernization of the expeditionary posture of the Marine Corps, and expanding fleet capabilities for distributed operations.
Del Toro told reporters after his speech that he is hopeful that lawmakers would pass a spending plan that adds an extra $25 billion to the defense budget which could support additional naval capacity to keep China in line.
The $25 billion “plus-up” to President Joe Biden’s proposed defense budget under the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act was recommended by Republican ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, August 31.
Republicans and some Democrats criticized Biden’s national defense proposal, saying it is inadequate to deter a rising China, Defense News reported August 31.
Del Toro pointed out, Tuesday, that China has proven that it has greater shipbuilding capacity than the US and is making smart investments in space and cyberspace, making smart US investments critical, Defense News reported, October 6.
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After squandering TRILLIONS in Afghanistan alone (and abandoning an arsenal worth BILLIONS to their perceived “enemy of the day,” they now want BILLIONS more to do this and that and maybe something about Commie China, too. JEEZ, man!
Will a war with China over Taiwan signal the end of mankind? If one Chinese missile got through to the US, it would destroy everything in a diameter of 875 miles and then if the US retaliates and only a total of only 300 5 megaton nuclear bombs go off, with the debris getting sucked up into the stratosphere, it could render this planet uninhabitable for 20 years. It would prevent plants from being able to perform photosynthesis, in addition to a nuclear winter. If I recall, Taiwan held China’s seat in the UN until 1972, so it would be hard to say that Taiwan is not a part of China. Yet there is a dilemma: Taiwan does not want to become Communist and I believe that the majority of the Chinese people on the mainland, also want to convert to a democracy. Perhaps the only solution would be a peaceful reunification, allowing territories controlled by Taiwan, to maintain their democracy and internal affairs, as long as they don’t print material critical of the central government on the Chinese mainland. The US should work out a way with China to enforce this, so Taiwan would not end up like Hong Kong. Perhaps such a reunification could eventually lead to the collapse of Communism on the Chinese mainland and then an eventual collapse of North Korea.
Obviously, the best outcome would not be “reunification” with a totalitarian, cruel regime, a nightmare police-state that no independent nation in the world wants to be part of, but instead the formal diplomatic recognition by all Western democratic powers of their fellow democracy, Taiwan, as a fully sovereign and independent nation, which is what Taiwan presently actually is, wants to stay being, and aside from hostile takeovers in the past, has often been in the past. This diplomatic support should be given weight by economic and even military pacts. Moreover, if Communist China wants to be worthy of even arguing a case for joining with Taiwan, it must first prove that the two peoples both genuinely want that as expressed through democratic elections held in each country. That means that the PRC will have to be a real democracy itself that has already proven that it respects freedom of opinion and the rule of law and has preserved democratic institutions for a realistic period of time, at least for a full generation, so those elections can be relied upon to give the voice of the people. China must in short give up its despotic one-party-state and overthrow its pyramidal rule-from-the-top-down and replace it with free political diversity and choice. Then the real people of China can get a voice.
Until then, the best outcome, for Taiwan, China and the world, should therefore be full support of Taiwan by the Western democracies economically, politically, and above all militarily, so that it is given sufficient strength to resist China’s coercion and totalitarian mythic claims. Taiwan’s present success as a democracy just by itself proves that Communism is not the best way for the Chinese people to achieve genuine happiness and enduring prosperity. That is also one reason why the CCP desperately wants the present Taiwan to disappear. Taiwan shows up the CCP for what it is.