Chip-less???
Coming soon to a computer near you -- and until Iranian War -- defending you.
The Iranian fallout no one is talking about concerns computer chips.
With his war, Donald Trump has likely made China’s desire to attack Taiwan mouth watering. Now that both the U.S.A. and Russia are bogged down in “forever wars” – and the U.S. is expending high-tech weapons at an unprecedented rate – China has an open invitation to attack the Pacific island, long claimed as part of its homeland.
Today, much of the U.S. Navy is spread across the Caribbean and Mediterranean after military chiefs told Trump that Uncle Sam had a limited number of precision weapons just days before Trump and Pete Hegseth began destroying Iran with weapons augmented by the best semiconductors in the world.
Cutting-edge semiconductors are made in Taiwan. Almost all; at least 90 percent with Trump’s treasury secretary saying 97 percent last month.
Those chips not only have military applications, they also drive American cars, heat our houses, direct most of our businesses and, of course, run the computers and cell phones Americans can no longer live without.
Without cutting-edge computer chips, AI – the industry holding up today’s U.S. stock market -- is dead in the water.
China knows this, certainly better than Trump and Hegseth, and now there can only be a limited American response should China desire to implement its long-term plan for capturing (or recapturing, from their perspective) Taiwan, an island which has almost zero allies on this planet beyond the United States.
Only days after communicating the limited numbers of high-tech weapons (before Trump’s Iranian attack) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine says the U.S. has “sufficient munitions” to defeat Iran today.
But neither General Caine, nor Secretary of Defense Hegseth, are mentioning the Taiwan Straits in their war briefings.
Along with “boots on the ground,” America is presently moving high-tech defense systems out of the Pacific to the Middle East.
Missile expert Mark Cascian told the BBC recently that while U.S. military supplies will “outlast” Iranian weapons, “it will come at a cost of risk in a potential Pacific conflict.”
Even before Trump’s attack on Iran, U.S. military chiefs projected that China would attack Taiwan by 2027, long before any potential growth in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.
Furthermore, some U.S. missiles take as long as two years to produce. And can’t be produced at all without cutting-edge semiconductors.
The Looming Taiwan Chip Disaster That Silicon Valley Has Long Ignored - The New York Times
How depleted weapons stockpiles could affect the Iran conflict
U.S. allies in Asia dread protracted Iran war will shift focus from China - The Washington Post
Very worrisome scenario. I haven't seen any media outlets talking about this.