On the menu today: First, we’re going to talk about President Biden and the U.S. response to the Iranian drone strike that killed three American servicemembers. And then we’re going to talk about the likelihood of deterring a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. And then we’ll wrap it up by talking about Taylor Swift and the 2024 presidential election. Let’s see which topic gets discussed the most in the comments section!
Joe Biden Will Talk to His Donors about Iran, but Not You
Today, one of those other morning newsletters, Politico’s Playbook, makes a point that is appalling, and it’s not clear if the writers recognize it as so:
After being out of sight all of Monday while huddling at the White House with his national security team, President JOE BIDEN is scheduled to travel to South Florida today for fundraisers in Jupiter and Miami.
Biden is famously loquacious and candid when he’s talking to donors and often uses the occasions to free-associate about what’s on his mind back at work.
So it may be those Democratic bundlers in Palm Beach and Dade counties who hear the president’s first extensive remarks about the question that has dominated Washington for the last 36 hours: How will Biden respond to the drone attack on Tower 22 that killed three Americans in Jordan?
Should Democratic bundlers in Palm Beach get to hear the president’s first extensive remarks about the U.S. response to an Iranian drone attack that killed three Americans in Jordan? Isn’t that the sort of thing that every American deserves to hear? Isn’t that the sort of thing that the world deserves to hear?
I regularly mention that Biden rarely if ever does sit-down interviews or formal press conferences anymore, and I am sure that my words fall on deaf ears or are dismissed as the rambling of some naive fuddy-duddy who thinks presidents should address the country on matters as important as this.
But here we are, in a de facto state of war with Iran, with roughly 150 attacks against Americans committed by Iranian proxies since mid-autumn, including attacks against U.S. Navy ships in the Red Sea, with three flag-draped caskets on their way to Dover Air Force Base, and the president is going to talk to donors about it?
Note that U.S. airstrikes against the Houthis earlier this month were announced via a written statement, not a live address to the nation from the White House.
We already have our answer on whether Biden will be able to handle the duties of the presidency over the next five years. Right now, he cannot handle the duties of the presidency as they have traditionally been performed.
Also note that when Biden speaks to donors, sometimes he just blurts out really scary stuff without any elaboration; there’s no opportunity for follow-up questions or clarification.
Back in October 2022, at a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of the Murdochs, President Biden, out of the blue, warned that the world “faced the prospect of Armageddon” because of the potential Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Biden blindsided the rest of the U.S. government with his remarks; no one else in the government seemed to know what stirred Biden’s concern that particular day. The morning after the president’s remarks, Defense Department spokesman J. Todd Breasseale said to Politico, “To be clear: We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor do we have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons.” His statement was echoed, verbatim, by State Department spokesman Vedant Patel the same day.
And then, for the next eleven days, he barely mentioned Russia and Ukraine. The following Sunday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had to do cleanup: “His comments were not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons and, quite frankly, we don’t have indication that he has made that kind of decision.”
At these fundraisers, Biden rambles about whatever is on his mind, blurting out his anxieties about the crises on his watch.
Sure, Joe Biden is the president, but he’s not really the president. You catch my drift?
Why Taiwan Wouldn’t Be a Pushover
I was pleased to see this big, multimedia presentation of David Sacks of the Council on Foreign Relations, contending, “China would struggle to invade Taiwan,” and laying out the supporting evidence:
To invade Taiwan, China would have to conduct an extraordinarily complex military operation, synchronizing air, land, and sea power as well as electronic and cyberwarfare. . . . The Taiwan Strait, over ninety miles wide, is incredibly choppy, and due to two monsoon seasons and other extreme weather events, a seaborne invasion is only viable a few months out of the year. . . . Transporting hundreds of thousands of soldiers across the Taiwan Strait would take weeks and require thousands of ships. Each crossing would take hours, allowing Taiwan to target the ships, mass troops on potential landing sites, and erect barriers. . . . A Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan would likely have to dwarf D-Day in scale.
You may recall that during my trip to Taiwan last year, I noted hearing similar arguments — and I’m wondering if Sacks and I talked to the same experts. The fact that China would face enormous difficulties in an invasion of Taiwan is not a guarantee that an invasion won’t happen, nor is it an argument that we can skimp on our military sales to Taiwan. Nor does it excuse the ludicrous delays in the U.S. delivering promised arms to Taiwan, arms that the Taiwanese government already paid for. It’s just a recognition that Mr. Murphy shows up at every major military operation, and it’s worth keeping in mind when discussing this particular ominous scenario.
A more detailed assessment, from one of my briefings over in Taipei last autumn:
“Taiwan is one of the most difficult battlefields in the world,” says Kuo Yu-Jen, professor at the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University. ‘It is a nightmare for every single military professional.”
Start with the air war, where Taiwan would be outnumbered three-to-one. However, the Taiwanese Air Force process of outfitting their fighter jets with an advanced U.S-made air-defense system called IRST pods, short for Infrared Search and Track, which can effectively detect stealth aircraft, small drones, and other targets without switching on the radar and avoid detection. This is likely to be an effective countermove to China’s new stealth fighter, the Chengdu J-20.
Below the skies, the Taiwan Strait has notoriously bad weather and choppy waters for much of the year, less than ideal for any military that plans to have large numbers of ships going back and forth and smaller landing vessels navigating shallow waters near a rocky coast. The shallowness of the strait — averaging just 60 meters deep — makes it difficult for Chinese submarines to maneuver and hide. All the while, Taiwanese forces would be firing at Chinese naval ships and bases with its missile arsenal, including newly-shipped Harpoon antiship missiles and perhaps Reaper drones to target the Chinese Navy and landing craft.
Kuo says Taiwan only has “15 spots ideal for amphibious assault. We know that, and China knows that, too.” About 70 percent of Taiwan’s territory is mountainous. The Chinese military would face a gauntlet of landing on the shore or attempting to parachute in, fighting in jungles and mountains. PLA forces that made it to shore would be greeted with Taiwanese forces using American-made M1A1 Abrams tanks, M182 HIMARS mobile artillery, and mine-laying vehicles.
PLA forces would then face the cities and enduring another gauntlet of urban warfare with seemingly endless sniper nests, blind alleys, and sharp corners. The greater Taipei area is 948 square miles — about two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island — and is home to about 7 million people; if the greater Taipei area were a U.S. state, it would be the 16th most populous.
“[The war in Ukraine] is a real war, people could see the footage live or almost live on television, that is telling the Taiwanese people that is what the war is going to be like,” Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu told me. “We saw the very brave Ukrainians defending themselves; it is an inspiration to the Taiwanese people. . . . The asymmetric strategy, highly decentralized, small units or individual soldiers, nimble on the battlefield, we saw it is very capable of keeping one of the largest militaries at bay,” that is an important lesson for us. Our military has been trying to learn that lesson we have been speaking with United States how we can reform our military strategy.”
Presumably, China would be attempting to execute this invasion without inflicting any serious damage to TSMC and semiconductor production plants, or all the workers who need to operate those plants. The whole process requires state-of-the-art technology and a small army of highly trained mechanical engineers, not exactly easily replaced by an invading army.
The attempted occupation of Taiwan by Chinese forces would probably make the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a tea party.
All of this is separate from what the United States and its Asian allies — most notably Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines — would bring to the table. While the U.S. is not treaty-bound to defend Taiwan, President Biden has blurted out four times that the U.S. would defend Taiwan, prompting his staffers to scramble and insist that nothing has changed regarding U.S. defense policies.
Kuo points out that in eighteen months of war in Ukraine, all battles have occurred in the territory of Ukraine. (This is generally true, with occasional cases of missiles, shrapnel or debris landing in Poland, Moldova, Romania, and Ukrainian drones hitting some targets in Russia.)
“Any kind of air and sea assault on Taiwan will naturally spill over into Okinawa, whether China likes it or not, and it will naturally will spill over into Philippine Islands,” Kuo contends. “This will make China’s war planning and strategic calculations very difficult if not impossible. You will Naturally involve Japan and U.S. and Philippines to the war. China knows this very well, and this is one of the reasons they don’t dare to take bold action.”
Swift Vets for Truth
Do you want to talk about Taylor Swift and the 2024 election? Our Jeff Blehar has it covered. Jeff treats the are-they-serious? contention that the pop singer is part of some sort of “psychological operation” to shape public opinion and help Joe Biden win reelection with all the solemnity and deep thought that it deserves.
I concur with Jeff’s conclusion, and will add that the claim that Taylor Swift and the NFL and the 2024 presidential election are a “psychological operation” is itself a “psychological operation” designed to get you to pay attention to the likes of Vivek Ramaswamy.
On a related note, this morning, the headline from the good folks over at the Daily Mail boldly declares, “Taylor Swift could sway 2024 election outcome, new poll finds with a FIFTH of voters ‘likely’ to back candidate endorsed by singer. Eighteen percent of voters say they’re ‘more likely’ or ‘significantly more likely’ to vote for a candidate endorsed by Taylor Swift.”
But when you read down to the sixth paragraph: “However, 17 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift — which could bode badly for Democrat Joe Biden.”
So, if 18 percent say they’re more likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift, and 17 percent say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift . . . how, exactly, is she going to sway the 2024 presidential-election outcome? That 1 percent difference in one poll is supposed to be persuasive evidence that “Taylor Swift could sway [the] 2024 election”? The word “could” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
I went back and checked my coverage of the 2018 Tennessee U.S. Senate race — that year, Swift endorsed Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen and Republican Marsha Blackburn beat him, 55 percent to 44 percent — and previous discussion of celebrity endorsements, and found this related tweet: “With Taylor Swift having no real impact on the Tennessee Senate race, could we have a bit less breathless coverage of celebrities and their alleged ability to move votes in the next election cycle?”
Apparently not. Evidently, that tweet is asking the impossible.
If Joe Biden wins reelection, it’s not going to be because Taylor Swift saved him with an endorsement. And as one of our NRPlus Facebook group members observed, “If the Right is concerned about losing the young women’s vote to Biden, nominating anyone other than Trump would be more helpful than conspiracy theories linking Swift, Biden, and George Soros.”
ADDENDUM: In an insane world, Fox News’ Dana Perino is a hot cup of coffee of common sense; she and I chatted about the 2024 election on her podcast yesterday.