Translated by ChatGPT, edited by Sinocism.com.

Source: CCTV | October 9, 2026

Recently, American strategist Jennifer Kavanaugh wrote that the United States should adjust its Taiwan policy and explicitly rule out the possibility of direct US military intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict or sending troops to “defend Taiwan.” Kavanaugh argued that the greatest threat to US interests is not mainland China’s “annexation” of Taiwan, but a war between China and the United States over Taiwan. She put it bluntly: “A US military that cannot defeat Iran certainly cannot defeat mainland China.”

近日，美国战略专家卡瓦娜撰文指出，美国应调整对台政策，明确排除美军直接介入台海冲突、出兵“保卫台湾”的可能性。卡瓦娜认为，对美国利益构成最大威胁的并非中国大陆“并吞”台湾，而是中美因台湾爆发战争。她直言，“一支无法击败伊朗的美军，当然也无法击败中国大陆”。

The same line of thinking had already been presented in full in an earlier think-tank report. In September 2026, the US think tank Defense Priorities Foundation published Kavanaugh’s report, A “Second Island Chain” Strategy for Asia. It advocated shifting the focus of the US military in the Asia-Pacific rearward from the “First Island Chain” to the “Second Island Chain,” anchored by Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Australia, while reassessing forward commitments to allies including Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines.

同一思路在此前的智库报告中已有完整呈现。2026年9月，美国智库“国防优先基金会”发表卡瓦娜执笔的《亚洲“第二岛链”战略》报告，主张把美军亚太重心从“第一岛链”后撤至以关岛、北马里亚纳、帕劳、密克罗尼西亚、马绍尔及澳大利亚为支点的“第二岛链”，同时重新评估对日、韩、澳、菲等盟友的前沿承诺。

The report called on the United States to abandon its longstanding “strategic ambiguity” in favor of an “explicit policy of nonintervention”; to notify the relevant parties of the policy change as soon as possible; to adjust its deployments “in Taiwan”; to withdraw US military instructors “stationed in Taiwan”; and to end its informal security guarantee to Taiwan. The report argued that remaining in the Taiwan region for too long and making overly deep “commitments” amounts to preserving the long-term risk of war with China. In setting priorities, Washington should first address the “commitments” most likely to drag the United States into a great-power conflict, including its Taiwan policy and its security guarantee to the Philippines.

该报告呼吁美国应放弃长期“战略模糊”，转为“明确的不干预政策”；尽快告知相关方面政策变化，调整“驻台”部署，撤走“驻台”美军教官，结束对台非正式安全保证。报告称，若对台湾地区留驻过久、“承诺”过深，等于长期保留对华战争风险；在优先排序上，最应先处理的是最会把美国拖入大国冲突的“承诺”，其中就包括对台政策与对菲安全保证。

In recent years, policy debates within the US strategic community over Taiwan policy and military deployments in the Asia-Pacific have shown a clear tendency toward retrenchment. The so-called “abandon Taiwan” argument has gradually moved from a fringe proposal into public discussion. The core of these proposals is not simply to stop “supporting Taiwan,” but to recalculate the military, economic, and political costs the United States would bear in a major war with mainland China over Taiwan.

近年来，美国战略圈关于对台政策与亚太军事部署的政策讨论出现明显收缩倾向，所谓“弃台论”从边缘设想逐渐进入公开讨论。相关主张的核心，不是简单不再“挺台”，而是重新计算美国因台湾与中国大陆发生大战所要付出的军事、经济和政治代价。

In October 2025, Time magazine published an article by a think-tank scholar that directly labeled Lai Ching-te a “reckless leader,” argued that his radical actions were turning the Taiwan Strait into “the world’s most dangerous flashpoint,” and contended that “the United States should abandon Taiwan” and focus instead on treaty allies such as South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. Such views are not rare. As mainland China’s economic, defense-industrial, long-range-strike, and regional-access-denial capabilities have continued to grow, some American scholars have begun to reassess the so-called Taiwan Relations Act, arms sales to Taiwan, and various informal commitments. Some have even proposed reducing the number of training personnel stationed in Taiwan and no longer providing a military backstop for “Taiwan independence” adventurism. Their underlying assessment is that the United States’ relative capacity for global power projection is declining, while the geography of the Taiwan Strait, the scale of the opponent, and the risk of escalation are in no way comparable to cases such as Iran or Afghanistan.

2025年10月，美国《时代》杂志刊出智库学者的投书，直指赖清德为“鲁莽的领导人”，认为其激进行径把台海推到“全球最危险引爆点”，并主张“美国应该放弃台湾”，把重心放在韩国、日本、菲律宾等条约盟友。此类观点并非罕见。随着中国大陆经济、军工、远程打击与区域拒止能力持续提升，美国部分学者开始重新审视所谓的《与台湾关系法》、对台军售及各类非正式承诺，甚至提出减少驻台训练人员、不再为“台独”冒险提供军事兜底。其底层判断是：美国全球投放能力相对下降，而台海地理、对手体量、战争升级风险均远非伊朗、阿富汗之类可比。

Public opinion on the island has also sensed this change. Taiwan’s China Times previously published an editorial noting that, for a long time, when Taiwanese society discussed the United States it often reduced the question to whether “the United States will come to Taiwan’s defense.” Behind that question was another, unspoken assumption: Taiwan believed that if the United States was willing, it had sufficient strength to suppress mainland China. Yet what may truly be changing now is precisely that assumption. It is not that the United States has “suddenly stopped valuing Taiwan,” but that more and more people are beginning to calculate how much the United States would have to pay in military, economic, and political terms if war really broke out in the Taiwan Strait. As Washington increasingly measures the Taiwan Strait through “costs and benefits” rather than “commitments and credibility,” the narrative that “the US military will definitely come” will continue to weaken.

岛内舆论也感受到这一变化。台湾《中国时报》曾刊发社论指出，长期以来，台湾社会谈及美国，经常把问题简化成“美国会不会来协防”。这个问题背后还有一个没有说出口的假设，就是台湾相信只要美国愿意，美国就有足够的实力压制中国大陆。然而，现在真正发生变化的，可能正是这个假设。美国不是“突然不重视台湾”，而是愈来愈多人开始计算：如果台海真的爆发战争，美国究竟要付出多少军事、经济与政治代价？当华盛顿更多用“成本—收益”而非“承诺—信誉”衡量台海，所谓“美军必来”的叙事就会不断弱化。

A think-tank report is not the same as official US policy, but it reflects the growing strength of restraint-oriented voices. Some analysts have noted that the increasing prominence of the “abandon Taiwan” and “nonintervention” arguments itself shows that US calculations on the Taiwan Strait are shifting from “how to defend Taiwan” to “how to avoid fighting for Taiwan.” For Taiwan, continuing to place its security entirely in the prospect of US military intervention while ignoring changes in the cross-Strait balance of power and in US awareness of strategic costs will only magnify the risks of being marginalized and treated as a bargaining chip.

智库报告并不等于美国官方政策，但反映出克制派声音已经在上升。有分析指出，“弃台论”“不干预论”升温本身说明，台海问题上的美国算盘正在从“如何保台”转向“如何避免为台而战”。对台湾而言，若继续把安全完全寄托于美军介入，忽视两岸实力格局与美国战略成本意识的变化，只会放大被边缘化、被交易化风险。