IF YOU WANT PEACE, PREPARE FOR WAR: The U.S. Is Losing the Ability to Deter War With China.

This month, my colleagues and I led members of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party in a simulation of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The goal was to understand how the U.S. defense industrial base would perform in a protracted war with China and to assess the implications for deterrence. The results weren’t reassuring.

The simulation began with a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan in 2026. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the U.S. defense industrial base was severely stressed. The U.S. military spent its entire inventory of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles by the end of the first week and ran out of Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range missiles after a month. Taiwan used up its entire inventory of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles after a week. It would be very difficult to sustain a fight without these weapons.

We also found that the U.S. faces significant supply-chain, workforce and contracting challenges. It has too few solid rocket motors, processor assemblies, castings, ball bearings and forgings. These shortages would drastically limit replacement of weapons systems used or destroyed in a conflict. The U.S. also relies on China for advanced battery parts and key raw materials, which could be cut off in a war.

A shortage of engineers, electricians, pipefitters, shipfitters and metalworkers at U.S. factories and shipyards would also cripple the country’s ability to win a protracted war. These challenges are already delaying the construction of frigates, submarines, destroyers and other ships.

Reversing these trends will take time.

Communist China has developed a bit of manufacturing expertise of its own and certainly has a good idea of how much time.