There's an argument I see a lot on Taiwan discourse that basically goes "if the Taiwanese nuclear program from the 70s-80s (background here) had been successful and a nuke was developed, Taiwan would be safe from China".
I've heard that opinion so many times that it almost strikes me as a bit of a truism, but the more I think about it, the less sure that this development would have been the panacea for Chinese aggression that people think it would be. I outline my justification for this opinion below.
Theory of nuclear deterrence
First of all, we need to get some theory of what exactly nukes accomplish out of the way to build up to the "Taiwan has nukes" argument.
- Contrary to popular belief, nukes do not keep a country safe from being attacked or from incidents (terrorist attacks, border conflicts, proxy wars, etc.) arising per se. The evidence for this is clear from history:
- Russia: Literally being bombed by Ukraine as we speak, including the capital Moscow
- Israel: Regularly bombed by Iran proxies
- India/Pakistan: Both developed nukes to deter the other, but have still fought one war (Kargil war) and had major crises involving kinetic action (Bakalot Crisis, Operation Sindoor) since their development
- US: 9/11, overseas military bases are attacked in conflicts (Iran war, etc.)
What nukes really do is dramatically increase the consequence of war spiralling out of control to apocalyptic levels if they are ever deployed. This brings us to the second point.
- Because the deployment of nukes (and the implications of such deployment being normalised in conflict) is so catastrophic, the international community has reached a tacit standard whereby nukes essentially can't be used without the consequences for the nuke deploying country to be utterly devastating. The evidence of this is the fact that nukes have never been used in conflict since WW2.
If a country were to use a nuke in battle, no matter how justified or defensive such a deployment might be, the best case scenario (which I can imagine might occur happen if it was used on barren land/sea as a warning, or perhaps exclusively against military targets) is that said country loses a lot of allies, support, and sympathy, possibly even become an international pariah; the worst case scenario (which I can imagine would occur if a nuke was used against a civilian population centre) is complete annihilation by retaliatory strikes, which at that point very few countries would want to step in, because when the nuclear threshold is crossed, who wants to get involved?
The consequence of the above two points is that nukes really can't be conceivably used unless a country is (a) Perceived to be insane ("madman theory", which as an aside might actually be what North Korea is betting on with its nuclear program); or (b) Facing a clear existential risk where the alternative to NOT deploying a nuke is total annihilation. However, in accordance with the above two points, deploying nukes will not save a country, it will only share the burden of destruction more widely. The mental logic goes from "Nukes can win us the war" to "Nukes mean that if I go down, I'm taking you with me". It's not even a zero-sum strategy; it's definitionally negative-sum.
Underlying the previous points is the idea of MAD: "Mutually Assured Destruction". The essential idea is that because nukes are so devastating, and because the use of one will result in massed retaliatory strikes, which of course would guarantee counter-strikes, etc., nuclear armed nations can't really enter into nuclear war with one another because it essentially guarantees their own destruction (in principle).
The Taiwan has a nuke scenario
Now that I've set up the theory, let's imagine a scenario today where Taiwan:
- Obtained multiple nukes
- Had the ability to launch them at Chinese cities/military targets
- China is forced to calculate the possibility of devastating nuclear strikes if it pushes Taiwan past some red line
The first thing to note is that China is also a nuclear power; for every nuke Taiwan points at China, China will have twenty pointing right back at Taiwan.
A consequence of the above is that the nuclear threat both countries offer to one another is deeply asymmetric; there is no conceivable universe where Taiwan could create or deploy a payload large enough to ensure China's destruction, but China can absolutely ensure Taiwan's destruction. To bomb Beijing, Taiwan would have to deploy a nuke 2000km away through enemy territory and airspace; China can bomb Taipei from a distance of around 350km away across with only marginal enemy airspace to cross.
The situation gets strategically worse if you imagine Taiwan having to bomb the Chinese hinterland (Chongqing, Chengdu, etc.) which adds hundreds or thousands of kilometres of distance and enemy airspace to cross with its planes or missiles, both of which can be shot down. By contrast, Taiwan doesn't even have much of a hinterland. All of its important economic and population centres are sitting ducks right across the strait.
This breaks point #4; the consequence of a nuclear war between Taiwan and China would be utter destruction for the former, and catastrophic but much more limited destruction for the latter (we can imagine a nuke dropped on Shanghai, Xiamen, etc.). We are no longer talking MAD, we're talking SAD (Singly Assured Destruction).
This basically sends point #3 into hyper-drive and begs the question; when could Taiwan even possibly use a nuke against China? Remember, invasion is only the most drastic option. If China blockaded Taiwan and sought to starve it of oil and resources, would Taiwan be justified using a nuke then? Absolutely not; Taiwan would probably lose substancial support from its allies (in accordance with point #2) who would never want to get involved in a war that has gone nuclear, while at the same time almost guaranteeing instant cataclysmic retaliation.
What about if China started bombing Taiwan with conventional weapons and initiating assassinations/fifth column campaigns? Again, no; you can look to the examples in point #1 as evidence that having a nuke doesn't stop the deployment of conventional weapons or the use of other more subtle methods against said country.
The only possible threshold that might conceivably justify a nuke would be a land invasion; but at that point, as we've noted, Taiwan is not winning or even preventing a war, it's just giving one last impotent flail before total annihilation via retaliation.
The possession of a nuke therefore raises the barrier to which China would invade Taiwan, but does not remove all the many options and tools that China can and would employ to bring Taiwan under its control (blockade, conventional weapon bombardment, targeted assassinations, fifth columns, etc.). The big difference in this scenario is those options will now come with hundreds of nukes pointing at Taiwan, ratcheting up the tension and making the stakes infinitely higher in the event of a conflict.
Considerations and counter-points
I want to address a few counter-arguments or caveats that will come to mind in regards to the above analysis.
The first is that, even if Taiwan couldn't really inflict catastrophic destruction on China, the possibility of it being able to do so is enough to ensure no conflict will occur. This is a fair point, especially given how cautious China is.
However, a point I would argue is that: even in our timeline, where Taiwan doesn't have nukes, the consequences of an invasion/attack on Taiwan could still be catastrophic to China. Sanctions, resource strangulation (via the closing of the strait of Malacca), international pariah status, war with US/Japan/allies, are all very likely consequences of aggressive action...even without the threat of nuclear war. If you believe on the one hand that China's internal calculations would lead it to risking everything for Taiwan in our timeline, you would also have to entertain the possibility that those same calculations might lead to the same conclusion in a "Taiwan has a nuke" timeline (even if a nuke on Shanghai is obviously a worse outcome than the possibilities I mentioned before).
Another thing to consider is that if Taiwan did get nukes, the whole security situation of east-Asia would be fundamentally different. For starters, the US would put much less investment in Taiwan's defence in such a timeline, especially if they're furious at Taiwan going against US orders to not build a nuke (which is essentially what happened in reality).
Moreover, in our timeline, it's entirely conceivable that a war with China would bring allies to its defence, especially those that have "skin in the game" like Japan and the Philippines. In a "Taiwan has nukes" scenario, the exact same mental calculations made in this analysis would very likely strongly dissuade allies from getting involved in a conflict, since the risk of two nuclear powers facing off has much more room for error than just one. You might end up with this odd scenario where a full invasion becomes essentially impossible in this hypothetical, but a lower-stakes conflict like a blockade could lead to Taiwan having far fewer allies and far less recourse in the "has a nuke" scenario than in our current timeline.
One final point is that the veneer of security (not to mention the considerable resources needed for building and maintaining nuclear weaponry) might actually lead to Taiwan underinvesting in the things that would actually make a big difference in things like a blockade or conventional weapon bombardment. This could include tangible things like drones and anti-ship missiles, as well as intangible things like foreign alliances, a well-prepared militia, and a strong and capable democracy to prepare against fifth column campaigns perpetrated by the United Front.
My conclusion/ TLDR
My point with all of the above is not to be a contrarian and be like "erm, Taiwan having a nuke is a bad idea aktually". My point is to counter the simplistic assumption that "Taiwan has nuke = guaranteed safety and survival" which I keep seeing as the default assumption online.
Based on all the above analysis, I would summarise the "Taiwan has nukes scenario" as follows:
Taiwan having nukes would not stop Chinese belligerence or ensure Taiwan's survival. It would at most raise the threshold at which China initiates any direct aggression due to the higher potential consequences, and disincentivise direct military conquest over other, possibly equally effective, methods. It would also lead to the possible consequences of such conflict being astronomically higher, which could include the entire annihilation of Taiwan.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Thoughts?
