Geography affords Taiwan and its defenders an advantage that precludes the need to match the People’s Liberation Army ship for ship, warplane for warplane, and rocket for rocket. Taiwan’s relative lack of suitable landing beaches, its mountainous coastline, and the hundred-mile-wide Taiwan Strait (something Ukrainians can only envy) are favorable ingredients for cooking up another Cold War–style “offset.” Provided that Taiwan and the United States—together with its allies—have the means to turn the Taiwan Strait into a “boiling moat,” deterrence can prevail.
