U.S. assesses China not planning to invade Taiwan in 2027

Alf pogs! He’s back, in pog form!

Not belly to belly? Well. I mean.... yes please, gift wrapped would be gorgeous.

Usually half of the carriers are in maintenance or refurbishment. Currently there are 5 active carrier groups, 2 of them are in Iran and a third is moving there to replace the Ford that needs a port visit to repair the toilet vacuum system and laundry rooms (some idiot set fire to it causing surrounding bunk rooms to be burned down).

Literally this. Ppl (mainly Americans, i think) are too obsessed w/ this "invade Taiwan" narrative.

I think you have got all parts pretty much right, but the importance of oil for millitary gear ain't going away any time soon.

China previously was buying oil from three different regions of the world. They're now limited to one. Previous invasion plans would have accounted for a greater supply of oil than they have now. So either, they need to limit the scope of their plan to move quickly, or they need to wait for a greater stock pile or better access to oil. To your second point, if they can rely solely on Russia for oil, why does losing access to South American and Middle Eastern oil speed up their timeline? Either Russia is enough, or losing access to South America and the Middle East has created a logistics problem China didn't have before. One or the other, it can't be both. For China to rush an invasion now that there are questions about their ability to sustain it would actually be better for Taiwan because it gives them a clear victory condition to work to. They wouldn't need to repel an invasion indefinitely, they would just need to wait for the oil supply to get low and put China in a position where they need to decide if they're willing to take the Russian approach we're seeing in Ukraine. I don't think China wants to do that. People keep saying the US military has been depleted by the campaign in Iran, but that hasn't been substantiated by any sources outside of speculation. There are also important facts being ignored to allow that narrative to hold any water. For example, you need to assume that the US Pacific fleet is being depleted by attacking Iran, but the Pacific fleet largely remains in the Pacific and maintains its own stockpile of weapons. Furthermore, you're assuming that the US would use the same weapons they're using in Iran to defend Taiwan. That's extremely unlikely. The US is more likely to use land based attack ballistic missiles from islands in the Pacific and the bulk of the fighting is expected to be done by our submarine force. So far the only officially announced attack that we've seen from that submarine force was a Mark 48 torpedo. We have air superiority over Iran and can attack from strategic bombers. Our strategic bombers have plenty of munitions to continue bombing Iran and there's almost 0 chance we'll use those weapons or even that tactic in the defense of Taiwan. They're just completely different weapons systems for completely different battlefield situations. Defending Taiwan and bombing Iran are completely different situations.

Don't see how China gets away with invading/annexing parts of a nuclear armed country

I completely agree with you. I'm also of the mind that Taiwan represents a tremendous risk for China domestically. Even if the US made an extremely half assed attempt to help Taiwan by just harassing China's ability to land troops and support an invasion by sea the US, Taiwan, and our allies could make even a successful invasion of Taiwan incredibly costly for China to the point where it creates substantial problems domestically while trying to annex the island.