The Pacific Crucible
Written by Jipson Zhang; Edited by Andrew Ma
Published on May 2nd, 2025
As global instability distracts American attention across Europe and the Middle East, a strategic reckoning is long overdue. Washington must recognize the urgency that it faces in the Indo-Pacific. The rise of China as a peer competitor presents not only an economic challenge but a military one. The ideological dogma of the Chinese Communist Party makes reunification with Taiwan a necessity. If the United States is not careful, they may well be walking into a military confrontation that they are wildly unprepared for.
Chinese Naval Buildup
In 2021, Admiral Philip Davidson, then commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned that China might attempt to invade Taiwan “in the next six years.” This six-year period is now known as the “Davidson Window.” Since that testimony, China has accelerated its military modernization. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has more than 370 ships, making it the world’s largest navy. Some may argue that it is not the size of the navy that matters but the tonnage. However, the PLAN should be evaluated through a different lens. The PLAN does not have a strategic objective of patrolling the world’s sea lanes. It does not serve in any meaningful way to patrol the world’s oceans to ensure the freedom of navigation and trade the way the American navy does. PLAN, from the perspective of the poliburo and the general staff, is not a blue-water navy. Its main objective is to facilitate total A2/AD dominance of the seas around Taiwan. Therefore, large ships that could go months on patrol are not necessary to the war plans that the Chinese military have in mind. This is not to say that they do not have blue water ambitions. Satellite images and documents indicate that the Chinese are currently developing a large maritime nuclear power plant. Analysts believe that the only viable reason for its development is placing it on a ship the size of an aircraft carrier. The Chinese defense ministry has denied the claims that China is pursuing a nuclear power aircraft carrier program, stating that the assertions made from the satellite images are “purely speculative.”
If China is only in the developmental stages of a power plant for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier project, there could still be a couple of years until China joins the ranks of the US and France as the only nuclear carrier-armed navies. Some analysts may perceive this fact as an indication that the Chinese navy is not yet ready for a military confrontation with the US; therefore, an invasion of Taiwan would not happen. However, this belief is far from guaranteed. For instance, Plan Z, a German naval building project with the aim of countering the Royal Navy by Eric Raeder, was not supposed to be completed until 1948. Yet, Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, almost a decade before its projected completion. The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLAAR) now has intermediate and medium range ballistic missiles capable of targeting US bases in Guam and Japan. All this military build-up is aimed at preparing for a potential violent reunification with Taiwan. At the same time, China is weaponizing trade, cyber capabilities, and gray-zone tactics around Taiwan to test American resolve in the region. Beijing is challenging the status quo in the South China Sea, threatening Philippine resupply missions to their military bases, and conducting unsafe maneuvers around U.S. and regional allied ships. If deterrence fails in the Pacific, the consequences would be severe.
Prioritizing the Indo-Pacific Theater
This pivot to focus attention on China’s buildup is not about retreating from Europe or abandoning the Middle East. However, it does mean that Washington must prioritize its capabilities more effectively. In Europe, NATO must become more self-reliant. Theorists like Jerzy Giedroyc long envisioned a continent where Eastern European states would be secure and sovereign, free from Russian coercion. That vision depends today on greater European defense spending and strategic ownership, especially during an era of paradigm shift in American priorities globally. Europe not only has to believe in its sovereignty, but fund it effectively. The Middle East still demands an American presence, but not at the scale of past decades. Instead, the United States ought to focus on deterring American adversaries through agile diplomacy and partnership with allies in the region. Permanent entanglement in Middle Eastern conflict risks draining attention from the primary theater of competition in the Indo-Pacific. The last two decades should be a lesson for the next two.
Some geopolitical strategists argue that the United States can effectively manage multiple theaters at once. As a global superpower, the United States could fully support Ukraine in its war against Russia and, at the same time, effectively deter China within the Davidson window. But this assumption overlooks the hard limits of budgetary, military, and political capital. The prolonged two-front wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should serve as sobering reminders of the costs of strategic overextension in the post-unipolar era. If the United States cannot succeed with its strategic objectives with two middling powers in the Middle East, what is to say it could with two great powers in two continents? Every carrier strike group deployed to the Mediterranean is one not sailing through the Taiwan Strait. Every precision-guided munition allocated to Ukraine is one less available for a potential contingency in the Pacific. To ensure the success of this strategic pivot, Washington must rely on capable partners to fill roles the United States can no longer handle alone. Prioritization is not retreat—it is the prerequisite for sustained American global leadership in the 21st century.
Conclusion
The Indo-Pacific is where the 21st-century world order will be decided. It is home to five of the world’s top economies, the center of global trade, fledgling liberal democracies, and indispensable components to our global supply chain. If China is allowed to dominate this region, it will finally have the power and leverage to rewrite the rules-based order to its favor against the interest of the United States. The sooner the United States recognizes China’s true intent and the threat it poses, the better its chances are of defeating not just a regime, but an expansionist entity that hosts an ideology bent on subjugating liberty beneath the boot of authoritarianism. The Chinese Communist Party poses the greatest threat to America today, dwarfing any danger Russia or Iran could hope to pose. The clock is ticking, and history will not forgive hesitation. Either America leads and acts now, or yields the future of the free world.
