Taiwan Is Not Ukraine

Key Points and Summary – While China may be learning from Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine that protracted invasions can eventually succeed, applying that lesson to Taiwan would be a “catastrophic miscalculation.”

-Taiwan is not Ukraine; it’s an “island fortress” separated by a treacherous strait, making any invasion a logistical nightmare the Chinese military has never attempted.

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched from the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, during Flight Experiment THAAD (FET)-01 on July 30, 2017 (EDT). During the test, the THAAD weapon system successfully intercepted an air-launched, medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) target.

-An attack would immediately pull in the United States and its allies, and holding the island against a mobilized population would be a recipe for a quagmire.

The Brutal Lesson From Ukraine That China Is Ignoring About Taiwan.

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” The brutal wisdom of Mike Tyson could serve as the epitaph for Vladimir Putin’s initial war plan in Ukraine. And it should be engraved on every desk in Zhongnanhai.

The war in Ukraine—bloody, protracted, and still unresolved—has demolished the myth of swift conquest. If Beijing is seriously contemplating the use of armed force to take Taiwan, it would do well to pay close attention to the lessons offered by the Ukraine war: To wit, invasions may not be futile, but they are far messier, costlier, and more unpredictable than war planners tend to imagine.

Ukraine War: Russia Teaches a Brutal Lesson

Victory, of course, is always possible for the aggressor in war. But if Ukraine teaches us anything, it’s that in today’s world, victory doesn’t come cheap or clean. It comes—if it comes at all—through a long, brutal slog that tests more than firepower.

It tests political resolve, the staying power of national legitimacy, and the will to keep bleeding long after the slogans have gone stale. And maybe what Ukraine really drives home is something Clausewitz understood better than most: War isn’t neat. It’s not a formula. It’s a violent, unpredictable human storm—driven as much by fog, friction, and dumb luck as by any set of instructions sketched out in a staff college or command bunker.

Exercise Artemis Strike is a German-led tactical live fire exercise with live Patriot and Stinger missiles at the NATO Missile Firing Installation in Chania, Greece from Oct. 31-Nov. 09. Over 200 U.S. soldiers and approximately 650 German airmen will be participating in the realistic training within a combined construct, exercise the rigors associated with force projection and educate operators on their air missile defense systems. The 10th Army Air Missile Defense Command will deploy, operate and fire live missiles within a tactical scenario, under Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe operational readiness evaluation criteria.

Kyiv didn’t fall when Russia invaded. NATO didn’t fracture. And the Ukrainians didn’t roll over. They fought hard, and the West rallied, at least in the early stages. But now, as a fourth year looms, the momentum is shifting. Russia, drawing on manpower, artillery, and industrial-scale attrition, has clawed its way forward in the Donbas and southern Ukraine. Putin absorbed the early humiliation, adapted, mobilized, and sustained. Russia bleeds slowly, methodically, and is now edging toward a brutal kind of near-Pyrrhic victory. If the war continues to unfold as it has been recently, the Kremlin will likely prevail—not through a blitz, but through sheer endurance. Xi Jinping is watching—and learning.

Eyeing a Taiwan Takeover

At a minimum, Xi will have concluded that Taiwan, like Ukraine, will not collapse at first contact with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Any fantasy of a fast knockout blow bringing Taiwan to its knees is exactly that, a fantasy, and a delusional one at that. But there’s a darker lesson emerging: Beijing may now have taken away from the Russian invasion of Ukraine the lesson that even a flawed invasion can succeed if the invader is prepared to absorb punishment, bleed slowly, and wait for outside support to erode. Russia has shown that autocracies can take a hit—economically, diplomatically, militarily—and keep going. Beijing may have learned that global market shocks, capital flight, and pressure on American treasuries are manageable. That in the end, it’s not about elegance or speed—it’s about who lasts longer. That logic—repugnant, cynical, and utterly real—seems to be one of the lessons Beijing is learning from the war in Ukraine.

But Taiwan is not Ukraine. It’s not a land power with vulnerable frontiers—it’s an island fortress, more than eighty miles from the Chinese mainland, across a treacherous strait that acts as both moat and shield. Geography isn’t just relevant here—it’s decisive. A cross-strait invasion would be the most complex opposed amphibious assault since 1945.

The PLA has never attempted anything remotely close to it, let alone under fire. Amphibious warfare is not an extension of China’s military tradition—it’s a logistical and doctrinal leap into the unknown. Meanwhile, Taiwan is not sitting still. It’s hardened, armed, and networked into a lattice of regional partnerships—from Japan to Australia to the Philippines. Its leadership is sober and hawkish. Its people, increasingly, know what’s at stake. A strike on Taiwan wouldn’t just trigger a regional crisis. It would be a global shock. Unlike Ukraine, the US wouldn’t have the luxury of standing at arm’s length. It would be pulled in immediately and directly.

On May 16th 2025, Montana’s 1-163rd Combined Arms Battalion hosted over a dozen British Army Soldiers of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry (RWxY) at the Limestone Hills Training Facility in a joint training event to help their armored crewmembers transition to the Challenger 3 tank which is currently in production. Training involved British armored crewmembers serving in their assigned roles on the M1A2 Abrams alongside our Montana National Guard Soldiers.

Like Ukraine, Taiwan faces a revanchist power claiming historical rights to its territory. Both are democratic, strategically vital, and symbolic in civilizational terms. But the strategic differences matter more than the surface echoes. Taiwan’s defenses are tighter, its alliances firmer, and its geography more defensible. It is already building what Ukraine had to improvise under fire: a dispersed, resilient, sensor-driven defensive grid built for asymmetric warfare. The comparisons are tempting. But they are shallow. And if war comes, it is those differences—not the analogies—that will define the outcome.

And if that distinction isn’t enough to give Xi pause, the operational nightmare of invading Taiwan should. One of the clearest takeaways from Russia’s campaign is that seizing ground is just the beginning. Holding it—against a dug-in, mobilized, and internationally supported population—is something else entirely. Putin forgot, and Clausewitz reminds us still: war is never a single, isolated act. It is always subject to “the play of chance and probability,” which exerts its own invisible discipline on even the most finely wrought plans. Beijing would need to execute simultaneous missile barrages to blind Taiwan’s defenses, achieve air superiority, and suppress counterstrikes.

Then it would have to land troops, armor, and supplies across a hostile sea and establish a beachhead before the US, Japan, or others could intervene. And even if the opening days went to plan, what then? Holding ground on an island of 23 million people who do not intend to surrender is a recipe for insurgency, sanctions, and global strategic blowback.

Geography buys Taiwan time. And time in this case is lethal—to China.

War Plans Might Fail

And let’s not forget: even the most coherent war plan is not immune to chaos. As Robert Burns put it more honestly than any modern general: “The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry.” What looks clean on the PowerPoint doesn’t survive first contact with enemy fire, shifting weather, logistical snags, or domestic political backlash. Beijing may believe it can script the tempo, shape the narrative, and control the outcome. That belief is not merely dangerous—it’s delusional. And the more tightly they cling to it, the more violently reality will snap them back.

But China is also absorbing more ambiguous signals. Sanctions don’t always cut deep. Propaganda can confuse. And America, though generous with arms and aid, has drawn a sharp line: no boots on the ground in Ukraine. Beijing might wager that the US would flinch again—that it would isolate Taiwan diplomatically and let it twist in the wind.

That, of course,  would be a catastrophic miscalculation. The simple strategic fact of the matter is that Taiwan sits at the very core of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Its fall would shatter the first island chain, open the Pacific to Chinese naval projection, and shake every US alliance from Tokyo to Canberra. This isn’t about democracy or lofty ideals. It’s about hard-nosed geopolitics. If Taiwan goes, American credibility collapses. Maritime access evaporates. Forward basing options shrink. The entire deterrence and balancing structure unravels. That’s why the US won’t walk away—and why Beijing risks walking into a trap of its own making if it bets otherwise.

the USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG-60), an Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate, was hit and sunk by anti-ship missiles.

It must also be noted that, despite being smaller than Ukraine, Taiwan is more prepared. It has adopted a so-called “porcupine” strategy, investing in drones, missiles, mines, and mobile launchers. It is digging in now, not waiting until the shooting starts. And it is doing so alongside the US, Japan, and Australia—partners who understand exactly what is at stake.

Even if Xi is willing to fight a long war, Taiwan won’t be easily subdued. And the domestic political costs to him of failure would be staggering. Putin has weathered disaster through narrative control and repression. Xi’s grip, though tight, rests on a different bargain—order, prosperity, and national resurgence. A failed invasion, a flood of body bags, a crashed economy, and global isolation would tear at that compact. The danger is that Beijing draws the wrong lesson from Ukraine: that persistence alone is enough. It isn’t. Legitimacy still matters. And legitimacy shatters faster than armies retreat.

Then there’s the nuclear question. Both Russia and China rely on the threat of escalation to cage Western response. It’s worked, to a point. But Taiwan is a far more dangerous flashpoint. US forces are already forward-deployed. A treaty binds Japan and the Philippines. A war over Taiwan wouldn’t be a proxy conflict. It would be a direct fight between nuclear-armed powers. The potential for miscalculation, spiraling escalation, and strategic catastrophe is far greater—and the margin for error far smaller.

The Ukraine Lesson for China

In the end, Ukraine doesn’t teach that war is unwinnable. It teaches that victory costs more than most regimes can afford. That friction ruins precision. That morale changes battles. That logistics trumps slogans. And that staying power only works if it doesn’t destroy you first. The real danger for Beijing is not hubris—it’s the illusion that proximity and patience will deliver what Russia failed to achieve. That’s not strategy. It’s fantasy. And fantasy gets you killed.

NRL is currently working with Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Systems Engineering Directorate, Ship Integrity & Performance Engineering (SEA 05P) to transition the new pigment combination into a military specification. The most recent vessel to receive it was USS George Washington (CVN 73).

The real lesson is tragic, but it’s clear: wars of conquest are back. They don’t end quickly or cleanly. They sprawl. They spiral. They drag their makers into places they never planned to go. And they’re shaped—always—by Clausewitz’s third pillar: chance. No war, no matter how rational its aims, ever unfolds in a straight line.

If Xi believes he can escape Putin’s fate by striking faster or holding out longer, he might be right. But suppose he thinks seizing Taiwan will be quick, surgical, and strategically simple. In that case, he has missed the most important truth: that even the best-designed campaigns collapse when exposed to the chaos of war—and the irony of history.

History doesn’t repeat, goes Twain’s aphorism, but it sometimes rhymes. And in both Ukraine and Taiwan, the rhyme is tragic: empires overreach, defenders rise, alliances stir, and modern war shows once again that no plan survives contact with the enemy.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham. He writes a daily column for National Security Journal.

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