The Return of Great Powers: Russia, China, and the Next World War

by Jim Sciutto

What does such help look like? Many in Taiwan and among its allies have settled on the “porcupine” strategy. Republican US senator Roger Wicker, ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, laid out the strategy in stark terms on the Senate floor in February 2023. “We need to turn Taiwan into a porcupine so that Xi Jinping wakes up every day and concludes that an invasion is not worth the costs,” Senator Wicker told his colleagues. “Now, why do you say a porcupine? Any wolf has the ability to kill a gentle porcupine. And yet such an attack rarely occurs in nature. The defense of the porcupine’s quills, which can rip through the predator’s mouth and throat, is the deterrent that protects it from attack by the wolves. That should be our approach for Taiwan’s defense.” “Rip through the predator’s mouth and throat”—stark words from a US senator, and ones Beijing certainly heard. But they capture the intention: to make an attack on Taiwan as devastating for China as it would be for Taiwan.