Taiwan is reading the writing on the wall

If you had said a couple of years ago that the Americans couldn’t care less about Taiwan in and of itself, that its value to the U.S. is purely and simply as an expendable proxy whose purpose is to fulfill cynical American military interests, you’d have been accused of parroting Chinese propaganda.

I’d know because I did say so back then, and was accused of just that 😂

Well, the Pentagon just vindicated me. Their 2026 National Defense Strategy describes Taiwan exactly as I said: as nothing more than a section of their “First Island Chain”, a mere military fortification.

I’m not exaggerating, the word “Taiwan” doesn't even appear once: literally the only purpose they serve in it is that of “denial defense along the First Island Chain (FIC)”, that’s the whole extent of Taiwan's existence in American strategic thinking now - a purely geographic line of defense to be held or lost. Gone are the beautiful - and highly hypocritical - assertions around the need to “defend democracy,” now it’s just about their usefulness as U.S. first-line defense.

This is the triumph of Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy of Denial” thinking. Colby, now Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and as such the main author of the 2026 National Defense Strategy, has long argued that Taiwan matters only because of where it sits on a map.

In fact Colby created a huge controversy in Taiwan back in 2023 by saying that, if war were to break out, the U.S. should bomb Taiwan (!) and destroy its industry, including TSMC, to prevent it from falling into PRC hands. When asked if Taiwan shouldn’t have a say in the matter, he replied that they shouldn’t because it’s “far too important for the rest of us.” This prompted Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense to issue an incredible statement where he said that “Taiwan will defend itself from US bombing in the event of a China war.”

Well, Colby is the guy in charge of Pentagon policy now, and it shows.