Bret Devereaux

Option (2) has been unacceptable for a long time, and I don't think Ashford or anyone else is arguing at this point to just hand everyone nukes and see where the chips (and fallout) falls. 13/18

But here is where I want the disengagement doves to be more honest about their position: disengagement almost certainly means selling Taiwan into the same oppression as Hong Kong. It probably means other E. Asian states becoming PRC satellites. 14/18

The same policy, applied in Europe, would be similarly bad news for the Baltic states. And there is an argument there, a sort of every-democracy-for-itself why-should-we-have-to-pay-for-it argument. 15/18

But I want the people making that argument to be *honest* about it, that it means throwing many of the world's small democracies to the wolves because no % of GDP spending is going to let Taiwan beat the PRC alone (or Lithuania beat Russia). 16/18

It seems that the great majority of foreign policy experts, of politicians, and of American voters find that unacceptable though. And *that* is why we're pivoting to great power competition, which is why, as @mattyglesias puts it, we're building more boats. 17/18