Senate Bill For Pacific Defense and Tiawanese Protection Act

[The Duke]

I'll make the same recommendations, more or less, that I gave the President when he asked me about this bill.

Section one must go.  As was suggested, carriers are not grouped by division.  I have qualms about mandating by law that one carrier be near Taiwan at all times (That's not specifically what it says, but it can't mean anything short term only since I already sent a carrier group and more to the area and I can't imagine someone wants to legally mandate soemthing that already happenned.)  Nor should the exact location of carriers be fixed by law.  I need flexibility on positioning these ships anywhere in WestPac where they will be most effective at any given time.  mandating their presence in the stait itself makes them provocative, vulnerable, and adds no deterrent effect above what is done by the existence of a regular carrier presence in WestPac.  As I said, this section simply must go.

$600 million a month somes to $7.2 billion per year, and would make Taiwan the #1 recipient of US aid in the world.  Make sure you want to spend that money here in this quantity before you sign off on it.

Section 3 is fine, though it carries an obvious diplomatic risk.

Section 4 is fine if limited to ABM technology.

It should read Therefore, Taiwan will be defended by the preceding measures (not "following measures") at the end.

[The Duke]

BTW, the main reason the Chinese problem got so big was lack of action by the government, and....misguided actions afterwards, from a Chinese viewpoint. They're hardly going to like a bill in the Atlasian senate allowing rebels in their own nation.

And we don't like Chinese policy allowing oppression in their nation.