This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog.

The U.S. cannot afford a war with China.  The size of our military has been shrinking, and our resources are stretched way too thin.  Today, the U.S. has military bases in 80 different countries, and we have troops stationed in 178 different countries.  That is insane.

No empire in the entire history of humanity has had forces spread all over the planet like this.  Our ammunition levels are extremely low due to major conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and every war game that our leaders have conducted has shown us losing a war to protect Taiwan.  So we should be trying to avoid sparking a war with China because we are holding a losing hand.

But our politicians seem determined to provoke one anyway.  It is being reported that officials in Taiwan have confirmed that U.S. forces are now permanently stationed “on its islands in the Taiwan Strait”…

Taiwan has officially confirmed the presence of US troops stationed on its islands in the Taiwan Strait permanently, a development that could further escalate mounting tensions with China.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed in 2023 facilitated the deployment of these troops to conduct training programs for Taiwanese frontline forces.

This is going to make Chinese authorities extremely mad.

It would have been bad enough if we had just put troops on Taiwan’s main island.

But we didn’t stop there.

We are being told that U.S. troops have also been stationed on the Penghu islands and the Kinmen islands…

According to reports from Taiwan’s United Daily News (UDN), US Army Green Berets from the 1st Special Forces Group are now permanently stationed at bases of the 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion, a Taiwanese army special operations force, located in outlying island counties of Penghu and Kinmen. Notably, Kinmen lies just over a mile from Chinese shores.

Additionally, reports suggest an American military presence in the northeast city of Taoyuan on Taiwan’s main island, with service members providing specialized training on drone equipment for Taiwan’s elite Airborne Special Service Company.

How would we feel if Chinese troops were one mile from the U.S. border?

Taiwan’s main island is approximately 100 miles from China, but in some places, the Kinmen islands and China are “barely more than a mile apart”…

The island of Taiwan, governed by the Republic of China (ROC), lies about 100 miles (161 kilometers) east of mainland China, across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan also administers a number of smaller islands known as the Kinmen archipelago, or Kinmen County. Great Kinmen Island and its neighbor islets are on the other side of the strait, in a harbor just east of the port city of Xiamen, practically surrounded by the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—in some places barely more than a mile apart.

What are our leaders thinking?

This doesn’t make war less likely.

It makes war more likely.

On Wednesday, China sent 32 warplanes toward Taiwan in a 24 hour period…

Thirty-two Chinese warplanes were detected over Taiwan in just 24 hours, the country’s defense ministry said.

In the 24 hours between Wednesday 6am and Thursday 6am local time, the second highest number of Chinese planes this year buzzed over the island nation accompanied by five naval vessels around Taiwan.

Twenty of the aircraft ‘crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait’, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on Thursday. The aircraft were detected after nightfall and included fighter jets, unmanned drones and medium-range transport aircraft, according to the ministry.

The Chinese do this sort of thing when they are upset.

And right now they are very, very upset.

And China has been feverishly preparing for the coming war…

China is building its military and nuclear arsenal on a scale not seen since World War II and all signs suggest it’s sticking to ambitions to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027, a top US admiral testified.

Despite Beijing’s economic challenges, its official defense budget has increased by 16% over recent years to more than $223 billion, Admiral John Aquilino, the leader of the Indo-Pacific Command, told the US House Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony on Wednesday.

In the three years since he took command, he said the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, has added more than 400 fighter aircraft, along with more than 20 major warships. It’s also doubled its inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles since 2020, he said.

When war with China finally erupts, will we be able to handle it?

Of course not.

Our forces are scattered all over the planet, and so many of our resources have already been poured into the war in Ukraine.

Even though there have been efforts to ramp up ammunition production in the U.S., it is being reported that “Russia is producing nearly three times as many artillery munitions as the United States and Europe combined”…

Russia’s defence minister said on Thursday that artillery shell production had risen by nearly 2.5 times in the past year, while artillery component production had soared by a factor of 22 as Moscow races to rearm faster than the West can supply Ukraine.

Russia’s current dominance in artillery production is a factor that could help decide the course of the Ukraine war – which is largely fought with artillery and drones – at a time when the West fears Russia is set for more battlefield wins.

CNN reported earlier this month that Russia is producing nearly three times as many artillery munitions as the United States and Europe combined, citing unidentified Western intelligence sources.

No matter how you feel about the war, that is just embarrassing.

One of the reasons why we won World War II was because the U.S. could simply outproduce everyone else by a wide margin.

But now we just look pathetic.

French President Emmanuel Macron and other Western leaders have suggested that NATO troops should be sent into Ukraine if that is what is necessary to keep the Russians from winning.

If that actually happens, U.S. boys and girls will inevitably be sent to die in the trenches of eastern Ukraine too.

In anticipation of a wider war, the Russians are conducting another round of mobilization.

In fact, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has just announced “the creation of 2 new ground armies, with 16 new brigades & 14 new divisions”.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials continue to insist that a major ground operation will happen in Rafah no matter what the Biden administration thinks about such a move…

On Thursday Israel issued its most defiant response yet to Washington pressre that it abandon its plans for a ground invasion of Rafah, over fears of another mass civilian casualty humanitarian disaster, given the high number of refugees packed into the southern Gaza city.

A top Israeli official was quoted in Bloomberg as saying the military is going to invade Rafah and defeat Hamas “even if the entire world turns on Israel, including the United States.” Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, issued the words in a podcast interview.

“We are going to go in and finish this job, and anybody who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand that the existential nerve of the Jews was touched” by the Oct. 7 terror attack, he said.

When the IDF goes into Rafah, that could cause the entire region to erupt.

And so U.S. forces may be called on to intervene in the Middle East as well.

Spreading your resources way too thin is a sure way to lose.

Unfortunately, our politicians don’t seem to understand this, and their very foolish decisions will soon lead to absolutely disastrous consequences.

Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s extremely controversial new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written seven other books that are available on Amazon.com including “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream, and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  You can connect with Michael on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and sharing his articles on your own social media accounts is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.