Review: Nightmare Taiwan Scenario and Boiling Moat Strategy
Review: Nightmare Taiwan Scenario and Boiling Moat Strategy
New strategy attempts to chart a realizable path towards managing a nightmare scenario of concern in parts of Southeast Asia and some key Indo-Pacific capitals.
A new book advances a fresh strategy to avoid the nightmare scenario of a Taiwan conflict of concern in parts of Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific capitals.
WonkCount: 1,946 words (~9 minutes)
Review: Nightmare Taiwan Scenario and Boiling Moat Strategy
Context
“If interrupted, [this] could cause a global great depression,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell warned in a recent closely-watched speech referencing future supply chain interruptions including to Taiwan’s semiconductors1. Campbell’s comments are the latest in a series of dire warnings about stakes in a Taiwan scenario, including for Southeast Asia. Economically, one estimate forecasts war would tank regional GDP by over 20 percent and cost the globe $10 trillion2. This does not include full impacts across an array of other domains, including: safety of hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian migrant workers in Taiwan; involvement of U.S. allies and partners like the Philippines or Singapore in military operations; pressure on diplomatic responses including via ASEAN; and connections to flashpoints like the South China Sea through features possessed by Taiwan (see ASEAN Wonk graphic below on select recent developments between Taiwan and ASEAN states).
Select Recent Developments in Ties Between Taiwan and Southeast Asian States
A new book The Boiling Moat, edited by former U.S. deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger, outlines a series of recommendations to ensure that the United States and its allies are able to successfully deter China from triggering a future Taiwan conflict that could supercharge U.S.-China competition and lead to the “dawn of a new empire” bid across economic, ideological, technological and security realms not seen since Japan’s attempted World War II-era Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere3. In doing so, it builds upon other existing literature as well as recent publicized war games that seek to spotlight how to tackle the challenge4. The book’s findings are also unsurprisingly being scrutinized by close observers of U.S. defense strategy in key Indo-Pacific capitals given the upcoming U.S. election and some of the co-authors’ roles in the former administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, including Pottinger himself. Boiling Moat has 247 pages and 13 main chapters.
Analysis
The book diagnoses the challenges the United States and its allies and partners face in a Taiwan scenario and how to overcome them. Given the stakes outlined in the first three chapters of the book, Pottinger and his co-authors argue that the United States and key allies should embrace a “boiling moat” strategy that capitalizes on Taiwan’s asymmetric advantages — including a 100-mile strait separating it from Beijing, mountainous coastline and poor landing beaches — and marshals mostly existing technologies and systems such as boosted munitions capacity and proper training and coordination5. This, Pottinger notes, builds off of a Han dynasty statesman’s advice that even a powerful army should refrain from attacking well-defended border cities protected by “metal ramparts and boiling moats” from which the book derives its name6. This targeted “boiling moat strategy,” if implemented over the next 24 months, is seen as having the potential to reverse the erosion of deterrence and deter war through the 2020s initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is far from “a reckless gambler” who would carelessly roll the “iron dice of war” despite Beijing’s public rhetoric and assertive actions seen in other flashpoints7.
Boiling Moat also devotes no less than 10 of its 13 chapters to dozens of granular recommendations for the United States and its allies (see table below for a summary of key future recommendations for actors across areas. Paying subscribers can also read the rest of the “Analysis” section and an “Implications” section looking at how these dynamics may play out in the future).
Future Taiwan Deterrence Strategy and Proposed Recommendations for Key Actors
