Did the Commandant of the Marine Corps just write off Taiwan?

 via USNI News

Berger said that should China choose to seize control of Taiwan, then the U.S. should be ready for the possibility that the conflict would expand across all domains and outside the Indo-Pacific region. (SNAFU! This bubba just stated that should China take Taiwan we should be ready for the fight to expand? Did he just write off Taiwan and state that we need to be ready for action in the greater Pacific?)

“The old style of how do you contain, how do you prevent a seizure of Taiwan will probably not [be] applicable going forward because there are capabilities in other domains that weren’t there before,” Berger said. (SNAFU! Ok, this is getting interesting!  Is he stating clearly that we no longer have the ability to prevent the seizure of Taiwan!!!)

“And things that are frankly to be determined in some like space, how far any nation will go because the rules are not yet written for sort of the international sort of rule of how things will work in that domain,” he continued. “I think we have to – we are – adjust in the way that we look at any potential conflict over Taiwan. And that I would agree with you a hundred percent has to go into all, much beyond the military and much beyond U.S. versus [People’s Liberation Army Navy]. [It] has to be a wider conversation than that.”

Berger said he sees two potential scenarios for China’s actions in the region.

“One is the inch-by-inch, yard-by-yard, movement forward that we see in the areas like the South China Sea and in other areas where if – in I’m just going to use sort of a martial arts metaphor, where if you lean back, they lean forward,” Berger said. “That works in their favor because there’s no fight there. They just move, move, move forward a little bit at a time.”

“But the other part is a more dynamic, a more kinetic scenario like Taiwan, where it’s clearly in their interest and they have stated so overtly that they want to bring Taiwan underneath the umbrella. And that’s going to be counter to – so far to our U.S. policy,” he added. “I think you look at them through different lenses – the every day, every week competition versus what are the set of circumstances by which the [People’s Republic of China] might move towards Taiwan and what might that look like.”

Here 

I've looked at the map.

I've said it here.

This is the first time I've heard a high ranking US official state it.

Taiwan is a lost cause.

When China decides to take it, there isn't a thing we can do to stop it short of nuclear war.

So the question becomes.  How long before the Chinese make the move? I'm betting rather soon.  A couple of years.  The sad fact (and I hate going here) but the US isn't in a position to stop it and our current President clearly doesn't have the stomach for a fight nor does he have the fortitude to suffer drastic economic pain to the Chinese (which would rebound to our own economy) to make such a move a loser for them.

Taiwan is dead man walking.  They just don't know it yet.