>Personally, I think we're at the point where the US would consider the costs of Taiwan's defense well beyond any potential benefits. It's too economically integrated with China, and the sheer number of bodies it would take aren't worth the moral victory.

It's not merely a moral victory. And while I myself would pick up a rifle for 24 million people, it's not even that.

You can't simply let your allies be invaded. It's lethal to all of your other alliances. America failing to defend Taiwan is the end of the Pax Americana, and America knows it.