The best the US could hope to do when it comes to defending Taiwan would be to modify existing warplanes for the reinforcement of South Korea. This war plan, known as OPLAN-5027, has a subsection known as a Time-Phased Deployment List, or TPFDL, which has identified the forces and equipment necessary to reinforce South Korea in time of war. At one time, the TPFDL had earmarked 690,000 troops, 160 Navy ships, and 1,600 aircraft for deployment from the US to South Korea within 90 days of a war breaking out on the Korean peninsula.
Two things come to mind by the time the US cavalry was ready to arrive in Taiwan, they would be about 83 days too late. And, more importantly, China would have consolidated its hold on Taiwan making any US effort to retake it suicidal. OPLAN-5027 envisions US forces flowing into South Korean ports that are controlled by the South Korean government. It is not an amphibious assault plan, and any effort to transform it into one would fail.
This is the reality-based state of play today when it comes to the defense of Taiwan by the US. The only alteration that could be made would be for the US to use nuclear weapons in defense of Taiwan. This, of course, would trigger a general nuclear war with China, and the US is not prepared to commit national suicide for a nation it doesn't even have a formal defensive pact with.
Ned Price might want to keep all of this in mind the next time he approaches the microphone to speak about defending Taiwan. He and the rest of the US government are writing checks with their mouths neither Taiwan nor the US military can cash. A better course of action would be to work with China and Taiwan toward the goal of peaceful unification which preserves intact the democratic system of government that exists in Taiwan.
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