"The Taiwan Readiness Trap" Topic

"This month, Taiwan's Cabinet approved a record defense budget proposal for 2027. At NT$1.1225 trillion, about $35 USD billion, it is the first to cross the trillion-NT-dollar mark and runs roughly 18 percent above this year's spending. Yet in Washington a familiar question is already circulating: has Taiwan done enough?

Let me concede something at the outset: Washington is right to demand more from Taiwan. But there is a difference between telling Taipei it must do more and allowing Beijing to hear, however unintentionally, that American support depends on Taiwan having done enough. The first strengthens deterrence. The second quietly undermines it.

Taiwan cannot treat American support as an entitlement, and spending figures alone do not equal readiness. Reserve training remains uneven. Munitions stockpiles are thinner than a protracted conflict would demand. Procurement execution has been slow, and civil defense is only beginning to be taken seriously as a whole-of-society task. When American officials press on asymmetric capabilities over prestige platforms, they are pressing on real weaknesses, and Taiwanese who care about their country's survival should welcome the scrutiny rather than resent it.

Pressure is necessary. Conditionality is something else…"

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Armand