Erik Bethel

I suspect that a full-on invasion would be very difficult.

If you go back to World War II, we had something called Operation Causeway, which was an invasion of Taiwan, and our military leader said, you know what, this is way too hard, so let's go to the Philippines instead.

Taiwan is a hard nut to crack.

Could it happen with a combination of

cyber influence operations.

Eric mentioned very briefly United Front and Thousand Talents.

You may want to explain what those are, but these are basically spies.

But the Thousand Talents and United Front work doesn't just leave the United States.

You also have United Front spies in Taiwan.

What I'm seeing is that these exercises are getting, they're slowly tightening the noose to the point where it's becoming demoralizing for the Taiwanese.

And what I would hate is for them to see this, to resign themselves to say, well,

to the inevitability of it.

It's inevitable anyway.

We may as well just give up.

And so they become despondent.

And I 100% agree with taking 3% of the Taiwanese population, arming them to the gills, and creating a real insurgency that gives China pause.

As to our response, I don't know.

And that's a really tough one, because if there's a blockade,

The international community is going to want attribution.

Well, who started this, right?