06/05/2026
For decades, the United States has been able to project military power across the Pacific through regional bases, carrier strike groups, long-range aircraft and alliances. That posture helped sustain the regional balance of power and reinforced the assumption that Washington could intervene in a Taiwan crisis if it chose to do so. Today, China’s growing ability to strike the regional infrastructure needed for U.S. operations is making distant power projection costlier, more vulnerable and less reliable.
To overcome the U.S. in a conflict over Taiwan, China does not need to defeat the United States globally or replicate its worldwide military network. It would be operating near its own infrastructure and supply lines, while the United States would depend on a limited number of airfields, ports, fuel depots and access agreements spread across the Pacific. At a time when long-range precision strike is becoming more widespread, distance and mobility are increasingly consequential. Ships and aircraft can move, but the bases, ports, fuel depots and command nodes required to support them are harder to disperse, protect and replace. - Andrew Davidson
