Deterrence through Asymmetry: Preparing for Conflict in the Taiwan Strait

Be sure to visit the Irregular Warfare Initiative's new website, www.irregularwarfare.org, to see all of the new articles, podcast episodes, and other content the IWI team is producing! What are the origins of America’s longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan? How effective has that strategy been and, more urgently, how effective is it likely to remain? How has the military balance of power in the Taiwan Strait shifted, and what coercive methods does Beijing have at its disposal to subjugate Taipei? In this episode, our guests explore these questions and more in a discussion that considers the prospect of a cross-strait conflict between China and Taiwan and the asymmetric defensive capabilities that Taipei needs to stave off an invasion by the People’s Liberation Army. Michael Brown is a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and previously served as the director of the Defense Innovation Unit. And Professor Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he cochairs the programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa Outro music: "Launch" by Ketsa CC BY-NC-ND 4.0