Attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran have become increasingly worrying for the world because of the risks of further escalation and the impact on energy markets. In Taiwan, however, the focus has shifted in a different direction.
Rather than treating the war as geographically distant, Taiwanese political leaders and analysts are seeing it as a real time indicator how the US acts under strategic pressure.
The key question is less whether the US would act if a conflict with China erupted in the Indo-Pacific region, and more about HOW would manage competing pressures if multiple crises unfold at the same time.
A test of limits, not goals
There is a growing recognition in Taiwan that US resources are not unlimited.
The war in the Middle East has caused energy prices to fluctuate and raised fears of rising inflation in the United States, demonstrating the domestic costs of military operations.
of US President Donald Trump approval ratings have also taken a hit, with some in his party now questioning his reasoning to go to war.
Some reports have TOLD US supplies of interceptor missiles are running out. The US military, for example, has had to move some THAAD missile interceptors from South Korea to the Middle East. The US has too fought to protect against Iran’s use of asymmetric warfare tactics.
This has direct implications for the deterrence that Washington has long maintained in the Indo-Pacific. This deterrence depends not only on US combat capability, but on the expectation that that capability will remain intact under strain.
Conflicts elsewhere may not weaken US resolve to intervene if China were to invade or pressure Taiwan in some way. But they can drain US resources and affect where these items are prioritized.
Shifting thresholds for the use of force
The US has also described its attacks on Iran as a “preventive” action. aimed at mitigating a future threat rather than responding to an imminent attack. This raises broader questions about the changing threshold for the use of force in the Indo-Pacific.
For Taiwan, this is not an abstract notion. If the threshold for military action is lowered from immediate threat to potential danger, the strategic environment becomes less predictable in the Indo-Pacific.
This expands the range of circumstances in which force by the United States can be justified.
The speed with which the Trump administration has acted on Iran has also raised uncertainty for regional partners such as Japan and South Korea in assessing when and how the United States would act against China.
The US’s NATO partners were not told about Iran’s attacks before they happened. This could make Japan and South Korea similarly concerned about the lack of communication over possible US action on Taiwan.
Wars rarely follow predictable paths
The Iran war has also raised broader questions about how the United States adapts as crises evolve.
Most of it discussion around Taiwan has traditionally focused on the possibility of a large-scale Chinese invasion. However, recent developments suggest that the escalation may be less linear than that.
Rather than following a single, predictable path, conflicts can develop through a sequence of smaller decisions, uncertainty over signals sent by an adversary, or rapidly changing political conditions.
This has contributed to a change in the strategic discussion in Taiwan. The last one defense policy debates and security forums have increasingly examined scenarios in which China pressured Taiwan with gray-zone tactics, blockades, and escalating moves, rather than focusing solely on full-scale invasion.
As a result, attention is shifting to how such pressure can build up over time—through cyber operations, naval restraints, or limited military action—and perhaps spiral out of control.
The current crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has been closely watched in Taiwan as an example of how disrupting a strategic choke point can quickly affect the world. This raises questions about whether similar dynamics could play out in the Taiwan Strait and how prepared external actors – including the US – would be to respond.
The United States has also been unable to prevent the spread of Iran’s war to the Persian Gulf states. This raises questions about whether a war over Taiwan could be contained or produce wider regional effects.
Risk of misinterpretation
For Taiwan, the most immediate challenge comes from how China interprets US actions in Iran. If Beijing concludes that reduced military resources or domestic pressures would limit the US’s ability to wage a sustained conflict in the Indo-Pacific, it may reassess the risks of exerting coercive pressure on Taiwan.
This does not imply that immediate conflict is likely for Taiwan. However, it does raise the likelihood that China will try to pressure or coerce Taiwan just below the threshold of full-scale war.
History suggests that escalation is often shaped by how situations are interpreted by opponents, rather than clear shifts in power. When states believe that conditions are more favorable than they actually are, the risk of misjudgment increases.
Therefore, for Taiwan, the challenge is not only to assess developments in the Middle East, but to ensure that its position is not misunderstood. This includes:
- maintaining reliable defensive capabilities
- strengthening internal cohesion against potential threats
- clearly signaling that any attempt at coercion would be met with stiff resistance.
Deterrence depends not only on what a country can do, but on what others believe it will do—and whether those beliefs discourage risk-taking.
Bonnie Yushih Liao is an assistant professor of diplomacy and international relations, Tamkang University
This article was reprinted from Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read on original article.
