John Culver is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub.

He is a former senior CIA analyst, 35 years of experience.

On East Asia, with a large focus on the Chinese military,

John joins us today to talk about the military issues surrounding Taiwan's future

and the recent balloon incidents.

Well, I think I'm probably a pessimist on this, so you might want to discount a bit.

But I think the balloon incidents sort of showed us where we are collectively.

I think there would be a big appetite in the United States for confrontation if not war with China.

Well, we're right back after a break. I'm Michael Moral, and this is Intelligence Matters.

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John, welcome back to Intelligence Matters. It's great to have you on the show again.

That's great to be on here, and I suspect I know what you're going to ask me.

So, John, as you know, we wanted to spend the entire time talking about China Taiwan,

and I do want to get to that since there's so much discussion about it.

But obviously, there's great focus last week and this week on the Chinese reconnaissance balloon.

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