The United States has invited this grave challenge. Stockpiles of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense munitions have been severely depleted in the war with Iran, as predicted. And while they’ve proven very impressive, some missiles have gotten through. If Iranian missiles can penetrate and deplete U.S. air defense networks, China can sow a devastating whirlwind against the forces these networks defend.

WILL UKRAINE RETALIATE AGAINST NORTH KOREA OUTSIDE OF THE WAR ZONE?

Some say the U.S. can mitigate China’s threat by avoiding it altogether. That is to say, by accepting that Taiwan is essentially Beijing’s business and not ours. But these commentators fail to recognize that China doesn’t want just Taiwan — it wants to own U.S. allies in the Pacific at large. That means Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea.

Moreover, Taiwan’s fall, or Beijing’s enforced seizure of the South China Sea, would be far more damaging to U.S. interests than the survival of the Iranian regime. These outcomes would entail the seizure or destruction of Taiwan’s priceless semiconductor chip manufacturing industry. They would enable Beijing to extract political loyalty in return for nations gaining necessary access to trade routes worth trillions of dollars annually. They would crown China as the ascendant global power, fostering deference to Beijing at the explicit expense of Washington. Indeed, we already see this dynamic with some of America’s closest allies.

Nor is time on America’s side. The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Sam Paparo, warned last year that the Chinese military’s “aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan are not just exercises — they are dress rehearsals for forced unification. [China’s] escalated military pressure against Taiwan by 300% in 2024.” 2025 saw further Chinese escalations against Taiwan compared to 2024. Xi has told his military to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027.

A good starting point to understand the danger of the Chinese military’s extended dagger is China’s YJ-20 hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missile. It effectively triples the range of Chinese sea-launched anti-ship missiles to 700-900 miles. During a Taiwan crisis, this range would enable the Chinese military to target U.S. aircraft carriers in their probable Philippine Sea maneuvering areas.

There’s another problem. As the U.S. Naval Institute noted recently, “With the ability to launch the YJ-20 from the Type 052D [class of warship], and when combined with the existing Type 055 destroyers [class of warship], Beijing can field a hypersonic maritime strike capability from at least 45 warships.” The extraordinary speed and scale of Chinese ship construction mean that more than 70 YJ-20 deployable warships could be operational by 2030. And that’s only the YJ-20 embarked ships.

It gets worse.

China also has the YJ-21, an air-launched companion to the YJ-20. Carried on H-6 bomber aircraft, these weapons threaten the U.S. Navy with simultaneous hypersonic swarm attacks from land, air, and sea. Traveling at more than 4,500 miles per hour and reaching significantly higher speeds in their final movements, these missiles leave very little time for U.S. forces to evade or destroy them. Because of their speed and associated kinetic force, even one missile impact would likely sink a U.S. destroyer or cruiser. It would cause catastrophic damage to an aircraft carrier. As with U.S. THAAD munitions, these weapons require scarce spare parts and time-consuming construction.

But China intends to build hundreds of them, seeing them as a means to break the U.S. Navy’s power projection back in the opening stages of war. Yes, the U.S. has capabilities that could blunt the accuracy of these weapons. But China’s redundant targeting competencies, including its space forces, are advancing apace.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, however.

The Chinese military also has the DF-26D ballistic missile, designed to smash the crucial U.S. bases on Guam. It has the DF-17 and DF-27 hypersonic missiles capable of doing the same on Okinawa and Hawaii. Its J-36 fighter jet represents a true sixth-generation aircraft, enabling stealth operations at long range and allowing China to destroy U.S. radar and refueling aircraft. Supported by new Chinese radar systems, the J-36 might even be able to interdict U.S. B-2 stealth bombers and other critical assets. Put simply, China is building great long-range military power. It is doing so in pursuit of four key objectives: to persuade the U.S. that the costs of war would be too great to even consider engaging in war, to be able to conquer Taiwan and suppress the sovereignty of Pacific nations, to be able to defeat any U.S. military resistance, and to threaten the U.S. credibly with nuclear annihilation.

The Chinese military’s professional skill is also improving.

Russia, for example, has significantly boosted China’s means of blunting America’s key warfighting advantage: its submarine forces. And while Xi’s purges of the military leadership have caused short-term disruption to that force, they ensure his unqualified supremacy. Considering that Xi views Taiwan’s subjugation under the Communist Party as the exigent question of both his personal and China’s political destiny, his supreme authority over the military portends its more hawkish posture.

To borrow from Air Marshal Arthur Harris, the key question, then, is whether the U.S. could make China “reap the whirlwind” it sowed in any war. The affirmative answer will only flow from a defense synergy of urgency, creativity, redundancy, and scale. That means abandoning vanity projects such as the Trump-class battleship in favor of warships that can counter the scale and potency of Chinese military firepower. It means bolstering both the resources available to the U.S. military and the military’s reorientation toward China. NATO remains instrumental to American security and interests, but European allies must advance their efforts to reduce the burden on the U.S. Navy and Air Force. The depletion of U.S. munitions also underlines why a mix of covert action and messy diplomacy toward Iran is preferable to war, though any agreement that allows Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz should be intolerable.

PENTAGON SHOULD INVESTIGATE ADM. BILL OWENS’S CHINA COLLUSION

In addition, while THAAD and other exquisite munitions can’t be produced at scale until 2030, the Pentagon can boost the development and procurement of cheaper, scalable weapons that can fill in the capability gaps. If that means rewarding productive manufacturers such as Anduril, so be it. If that means demanding the resignation of ineffective defense behemoth CEOs such as Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, so be it. Similarly, rather than selecting officers based on their perceived loyalty to his political persona, War Secretary Pete Hegseth should pick general officers based on their ability to lead in the delivery of results.

Today’s Xi and the Chinese military are very different animals from the Xi and the Chinese military of five years ago. And barring a response to their evolution, sooner than five years from now, the U.S. may be forced to choose between devastating appeasement and a catastrophic military defeat.