They've completely dropped any pretense of caring about Taiwan as anything other than a useful geographic feature for U.S. military objectives.

Arnaud Bertrand

@RnaudBertrand

For years I've faced considerable pushback when I said that, to the U.S., Taiwan was but a mere expendable proxy, only useful to the extent it was located on the "first-island chain" and helped cage China behind a wall of American military assets. And for years I was told this was "CCP propaganda", that Taiwan was all about defending "democracy" and "self-determination." Well, guess who just proved me right? The Pentagon in their latest National Defense Strategy, released just yesterday (https://media.defense.gov/2026/Jan/23/2003864773/-1/-1/0/2026-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY.PDF) They've completely dropped any pretense of caring about Taiwan as anything other than a useful geographic feature for U.S. military objectives. Heck, the word "Taiwan" doesn't even appear in the document. Not once. Just their role as "denial defense along the First Island Chain." That's it. 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” (https://x.com/ElbridgeColby/status/1654868358012051459?s=20). 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” (https://tomshardware.com/news/taiwan-will-defend-tsmc-from-us-bombing-in-the-event-of-a-china-war). Well, Colby is the guy in charge of Pentagon policy now, and it shows: he doesn't even pretend to care about Taiwan beyond the role it fulfills for U.S. interests. As I argue in my latest article, this will likely backfire big time - and in fact it already does. Read it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbertrand/p/taiwan-is-reading-the-writing-on?r=4r0pw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

8:55 PM · Jan 25, 2026

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https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2015362869538496957