LordsFire
Internet Wizard
The difference between Taiwan and Ukraine seems obvious to me but maybe I'm missing something. Taiwan manufactures some pretty critical microchips. Like... there's basically 3 CPU, 2GPU, and maybe 4 RAM manufacturers of any consequence. They ALL buy from Samsung and TSMC. (Global Foundaries is a joke.)If Taiwan goes, we are super mega ultra FUCKED because all China needs to do to cripple us is start fucking with TSMC.
If China invades Taiwan, the odds of them getting the foundries intact are very low. The odds of them also getting the skilled workforce that runs them is even lower. This is probably part of why they're hesitant to actually go for it.
If Taiwan is invaded, the almost-certain result, is that microchip manufacture relocates back to the USA, because there is simply no safer place in the world for doing such. Odds are also good that new foundries would be set up near some small city, where entrenched corrupt city and state politics would have a harder time messing with them.
It'd actually probably benefit the US in the long run if that happened, but for 3-5 years, all cutting-edge chip manufacturing would be completely borked.