But his proposal to reset with Russia and pivot away from the Middle East ignores how connected these issues are. “That ultimately leads to appeasing [Vladimir] Putin while never actually be willing to fight a war with China,” one former Trump administration national security official told me. In reality, if Vance really wants to prioritize China as the most important threat the United States faces, forsaking U.S. allies and breaking commitments elsewhere is the worst way to compete, or to deter Beijing from attacking Taiwan.
Vance often invokes China to argue for ending U.S. support for Ukraine. At the Munich Security Conference in February, the Ohio senator told European diplomats the United States doesn’t produce enough weapons to support Ukraine while still helping other U.S. partners such as Taiwan. In a June interview with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, Vance said the best way to deter Beijing was to bolster Taiwan’s defenses, but claimed “we’re not doing that because we’re sending all the damn weapons to Ukraine.”
While it is true there are long delays in the delivery of U.S. arms for Taiwan, the war in Ukraine is not to blame. The overlap of weapons systems between the two countries is slim. And if Vance is concerned about U.S. weapons-manufacturing capacity, he undermined that cause by repeatedly voting against the last national security supplemental bill, which contained billions of dollars to address that very issue, as well as additional billions for the Indo-Pacific region.
But where Vance’s vision really falls short is in ignoring that Ukraine’s success in repelling Russian aggression is crucial for deterring China from attacking Taiwan. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask the Taiwanese, who have stated again and again their belief that if the United States abandons Ukraine, it would embolden Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The fact that Taiwan is helping Ukraine, despite its own security needs, should speak for itself. The Japanese government has made clear it believes a Russian victory in Ukraine would be destabilizing for Asia. The South Korean government is also helping Ukraine, albeit in a more discreet way. Does Vance understand Chinese deterrence better than the leaders in Taipei, Tokyo and Seoul? Likely not.
Abandoning Ukraine would likely cause a crisis of confidence in the Western Pacific about U.S. resolve and credibility. Right now, allies such as Japan and South Korea have forgone building their own nuclear weapons programs, despite China’s massive nuclear weapons build up, counting on U.S. security guarantees. If that defense umbrella is no longer trusted, how long before those countries decide they need their own nuclear deterrent?
As though to underscore the risk of U.S. retrenchment, Trump himself gave an interview this week saying that Taiwan “should pay us for defense.” In past interviews, Trump has complained about U.S. military deployments across the Pacific and threatened to withdraw U.S. troops if allies don’t pay up.
To be fair to Vance, who is a former Marine, he is not advocating for the United States’ full retreat from Europe or its withdrawal from NATO. He is calling for more efficiency in defense spending and for Europe to contribute more to its own defense. Matthew Pottinger, a deputy national security adviser under Trump, told me he agrees with Vance on these issues and the overall need to focus more on Taiwan. But the problem, Pottinger said, is that if Russia takes over Ukraine, costs for the United States would likely go up, not down.
“If Ukraine collapses, it becomes a major outpost of the Axis of Chaos armed with the full might of China’s military industrial capacity and Iranian and North Korean weapons,” Pottinger said. “It’s going to cost a hell of a lot more for all NATO members, including the United States, to build and defend that new front line than to keep Ukraine in the fight.”
China, meanwhile, is also active in the Ukraine conflict, supplying Russia with everything except actual weapons. Iran and North Korea are sending Russia a seemingly endless supply of drones, missiles and artillery shells. Chinese troops are now even showing up in Belarus, Russia’s ally, right on NATO’s border. Beijing is also cozying up to Vance’s favorite illiberal European leader, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
For those (like me) who agree our greatest foreign policy threat is from China, Vance’s China-only focus might seem appealing, but it would be reckless and counterproductive in practice. If he makes it to the White House, the only hope is that Trump, who goes back and forth on China but likes to pit his officials against one another, could be swayed by future advisers who understand that the China challenge is a global one.
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