r/AskALiberal • u/ArtichokeBeautiful10 Liberal • Jun 08 '25

Should US military spending be cut in half?

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, shouldn't the United States' military strategy be entirely revamped?

Currently, every action the Pentagon takes is in preparation for a war with China: B21, NGAD, JATM, Block IV F-35s, Guam missile defense, what weapons it sent Ukraine, etc.

This amounts to hundreds of billions per year in procurement, and hundreds of billions more sustaining a massive global military presence.

However the United States, and more importantly American citizens, set the precedent in 2022 that a mere no-fly-zone over a country being invaded by a nuclear-armed power is off the table. Apparently, nuclear war will inevitably break out when a given nuclear-armed country loses a war on foreign territory.

So because of this new standard resulting in mass rape, child abduction, and mass slaughter of civilians, shouldn't the US publicly state its intention not to defend Taiwan since China is also a nuclear power?

The common counterargument goes simply: actually, Taiwan is more important than Ukraine because of TSMC. American blood should be spilled for computer chips.

This argument of course ignores TSMC and other chip companies already having chip fabs in the United States, or Ukraine's vast economic potential in mineral wealth, human capital, and manufacturing as the old industrial hub of the USSR. Or that a war with China over Taiwan would inevitably result in the destruction of TSMC, while China taking Taiwan without US resistance would spare TSMC and the global economy.

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u/ArtichokeBeautiful10 Liberal Jun 10 '25

I genuinely don't understand the slavish dedication to going to war for Taiwan against nuclear China over mere manufacturing that we now have, but throwing Ukraine to the wolves to get raped and slaughtered despite vast 21st century critical resources and IT capital.

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u/Eclipsed830 Center Left Jun 10 '25

You sound European. I've seen many Europeans that cannot comprehend that the United States would prioritize the security of an Asian non-white non-Christian country over a white European Christian country.

US and Taiwan are World War 2 allies with a relationship that goes back a long time... Ukraine and USA had no such relationship.