Commentary
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the Americans will be deploying as many as 200 troops to Taiwan to serve in training and advisory roles to Taiwan’s military.
This is a good development. If properly deployed, a hundred or two hundred troops can have a positive, even outsized, effect. Among other things, the Americans can train more of Taiwan’s military or, better said, train Taiwan’s trainers, who will in turn share new concepts more broadly within the Taiwan armed forces.
Why This Is So Important
For starters, Taiwan’s military has had very little meaningful engagement with the U.S. military—or with anyone—for the last four decades. “Combined” training with U.S. forces appears to have consisted of two platoon-sized events between Taiwan Marines and U.S. Marines: one in 2017 and another in 2021….