In an important and timely essay in Foreign Affairs, the Naval War College’s Andrew Erickson, Gabriel Collins of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, and Matt Pottinger, who served as President Trump’s Deputy National Security Adviser, invoke General Douglas MacArthur to warn of the catastrophic consequences that would result from Communist China’s takeover of Taiwan. In 1950, the authors note, in a top-secret memo written when MacArthur was overseeing the recovery and transformation of Japan from a militaristic imperial power to a democratic ally of the United States, MacArthur said that the fall of Taiwan (which was then commonly called “Formosa”) “would be a disaster of utmost importance to the United States.” “More than 70 years later,” the authors write, “MacArthur’s words ring truer than ever.”
“From this island chain,” he said, “we can dominate with sea and air power every Asiatic port from Vladivostok to Singapore.
Erickson, Collins, and Pottinger believe that Taiwan is even more important to U.S. national security now than it was at the time MacArthur wrote the memo. Today, unlike in the 1950s, Taiwan is a flourishing democracy whose independence puts the lie to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) claim that China’s prosperity depends on the party’s totalitarian rule. Taiwan, like West Berlin was during the Cold War, is an “island” of freedom that attracts freedom-loving peoples (in Taiwan’s case, their Chinese cousins on the mainland) suffering from communist oppression, and thereby threatens the CCP’s legitimacy. Also, unlike the 1950s, Taiwan “is economically crucial to the rest of the world” due to its production of most of the world’s advanced microchips. Furthermore, the authors note, unlike in MacArthur’s time, the Indo-Pacific region hosts a “wide network of U.S. allies … that rely on U.S. support for their security.” The loss of Taiwan would erode U.S. credibility to the point where our regional allies might release the nuclear weapons genie with incalculable consequences for East Asia and the rest of the world. And Communist China is today a much more formidable challenger to American security interests than it was in the 1950s. (READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Ranking Presidents, Miseducating Our Children)
MacArthur, the authors recall, compared Taiwan to an “unsinkable aircraft carrier and submarine tender” that could threaten U.S. forces in Japan and the Philippines. The Communists could, MacArthur said, use Taiwan as a “springboard for military aggression” in East Asia and the Pacific. The United States, on the other hand, can use Taiwan to help contain Chinese ambitions in the western Pacific.
What else not mentioned by Erickson, Collins, and Pottinger did MacArthur say about the importance of Taiwan? In his famous “Old Soldiers Never Die” address to Congress after being relieved of command in Korea by President Truman, MacArthur noted that the United States controls the Pacific Ocean to the shores of Asia “by a chain of islands extending in an arc from the Aleutians to the Marianas.” “From this island chain,” he said, “we can dominate with sea and air power every Asiatic port from Vladivostok to Singapore … and prevent any hostile movement into the Pacific.” The island chain — what MacArthur called a “littoral defense line in the western Pacific” — was anchored by Taiwan. “[U]nder no circumstances,” MacArthur said, “must Formosa fall under Communist control. Such an eventuality would at once threaten the freedom of the Philippines and the loss of Japan and might well force our western frontier back to the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington.” MacArthur noted that the people of Taiwan under the government of Chiang Kai-shek “appear to be advancing along sound and constructive lines” politically, economically, and socially. That is even more true of Taiwan’s people today. (READ MORE: Joseph Nye Claims Trump Supporters Are a Greater Threat Than China)
Thanks to Erickson, Collins, and Pottinger Douglas MacArthur’s voice from more than 70 years ago echoes today in the waves of the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, and throughout the western Pacific. We ignore that voice at our peril.
