in a war over Taiwan” is the title of an Atlantic Council paper produced last September. They mean nuclear weapons use. These are serious people; Undersecretary Bonnie Jenkins addressed them last year about AUKUS.
The Atlantic Council paper’s conclusion is specific:
The United States might also find itself in a situation where it could not defeat a Chinese invasion force from reaching Taiwan with conventional forces, but could do so with nuclear weapons. In this case, the United States should be prepared to consider first use as well.
Given that virtually every war-game pitting China against the United States and its “allies and partners” in a war over Taiwan concludes that the US team are defeated, this proposition has to be taken seriously. The Atlantic Council report has a submarine on the cover. Given that the UKUS partners have nuclear weapons available and that China is the AUKUS target, fears that this project is nuclearising the Pacific are legitimate and real.
Pillar 2 is no protection from this. Ambassador Jenkins commemorated International Women’s Day by having a girlie chat about AUKUS with Defence Minister Judith Collins on Thursday. I’ll bet they didn’t mention nuclear weapons there.
We should not have a bar of Pillar 2. Its price is too high, and too hidden.
As I noted in a previous post, Ambassador Jenkins was due to have a “conversation” with Wellingtonians at a Victoria University event yesterday. Due to a variety of challenges and objections expressed by audience members over American actions in Gaza supplying weapons to Israel, this did not happen.
So I was not able to ask Ambassador Jenkins for her comment about the Atlantic Council report advocating first use of nuclear weapons in the event of the US losing a war with China over Taiwan, but did share it and its recommendation with the remaining members of the audience.
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