Michael Brown
It is every president’s nightmare. The Chinese military is massing troops in Fujian Province and an armada offshore, just across the strait from Taiwan. According to U.S. intelligence, this buildup is no mere feint—Beijing is really preparing for war. Global stock markets are crashing, as the world faces what economists estimate could be a $10 trillion shock. The White House must suddenly answer a question it has long put off: Will it use military force to defend Taiwan?
This is not an outlandish hypothetical. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made clear that retaking Taiwan is essential to what his government calls “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and Beijing is rapidly expanding its military. It is also just one of many scenarios that would result in a war involving Washington. China is threatening the United States’ treaty allies. Russia is menacing eastern Europe’s NATO members. Iran has accelerated its nuclear program. The odds that the United States might have to fight in a great-power war are higher today than at any point this century.
The U.S. military is arguably the most powerful in the world. But it is not ready for such a conflict. Its weapons are sophisticated. Its soldiers are second to none. Yet the United States has low stockpiles of munitions, its ships and planes are older than China’s, and its industrial base lacks the capacity to regenerate these assets. The U.S. supply of precision-strike missiles, for example, would last no more than a few weeks in a high-intensity conflict and would take years to replace. In war games that simulate a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, Washington runs out of key munitions within weeks.
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