THE FUTURE IS SMALL AND FAST: ASSESSING TAIWAN’S 2021 QUADRENNIAL DEFENSE REVIEW AND U.S. DEFENSE POSTURE IN THE INDO-PACIFIC
2021.07.01
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By Thomas J. Shattuck
Every four years, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) is required by law to conduct a defense review to provide overarching guidance for the Republic of China’s Armed Forces and to set priorities for acquisition, research & development, and force posturing. In 2021, the Tsai Ing-wen administration released its second Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). Given the current state of U.S.-China relations, increasing bipartisan support for Taiwan in Washington and the growing assertiveness of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) against Taiwan since President Tsai took office in 2016, the 2021 QDR is perhaps the most important Taiwanese defense document produced since the end of the Cold War. In the first few months of 2021, U.S. President Joseph Biden and administration officials expressed strong support for Taiwan, concern for Chinese aggression, and willingness to increase partnership with regional allies over security issues in the Taiwan Strait. Certainly, the chances of greater and consistent U.S.-Taiwan defense cooperation have not been higher in the 21st century.
However, words must be backed up by actions, and doctrinal planning comes before action. Militarily, the most important way for two countries to work more closely is for some alignment in defense posture and hardware compatibility. If one country has completely different defense priorities and is planning for a different sort of conflict than another country, then cross-defense collaboration and integration would be more difficult to achieve. Such priorities are expressed in key defense-planning documents, such as the QDR for Taiwan. The United States has a plethora of defense-planning documents across the armed services and even within geographic regions. Regardless of the number of documents, the U.S. Department of Defense is planning for a contingency against a near-peer or peer-level adversary, specifically against the Russian Federation or People’s Republic of China. The U.S. armed forces are changing their emphasis from countering violence extremism in the Middle East to countering revisionist powers and their tailored anti-access capabilities that seek to deny U.S. power projection forces.
Given the threat that Taiwan faces against China—principally preparing to repel and stop an attempted invasion—the doctrinal changes announced by the U.S. Army and Marines in 2020 and 2021 are useful to compare against the QDR. The type of defense that Taiwan is preparing for matches the existing remit and portfolios of the U.S. Army and Marines: stopping an amphibious assault and potentially a land war. In the event of a PLA invasion of Taiwan and American involvement in the defense of Taiwan, the U.S. Army and Marines would play a key role in such a conflict.
This article seeks to analyze the procurement and posture priorities of the 2021 QDR, Marines’ Force Design 2030, and Army Multi-Domain Transformation[1] and what their changes mean for a contingency against China. All three documents emphasize the need for larger numbers of small, fast, and cheap weapons and hardware.[2] They accept Chinese military strength and are seeking to adapt to the circumstances, which means an emphasis on agility and the use of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Gone are the days of large contingents since they’d make for easy targets as the Chinese military works to ensure the success of its anti-access aerial denial strategy. Is Taiwan—and are the U.S. Army and Marines—preparing for the same type of war that many predict is inevitable?
ACHIEVING A VIABLE DEFENSE IN TAIWAN
Similar to the 2017 QDR, the theme of the 2021 QDR is to achieve “resolute defense and multi-domain deterrence.” Achieving this goal requires Taiwan’s armed forces to “resist the enemy on the opposite shore, attack it at sea, destroy it in the littoral area, and annihilate it on the beachhead.”[3] The document also emphasizes the strength of having the Taiwan Strait as a natural barrier to help in Taiwan’s defense. PLA naval forces are forced to make a perilous journey across the Strait before landing on Taiwan proper. Multi-domain deterrence is achieved through attacking PLA forces in assembly areas on Chinese territory in order to slow the invading forces. As the invading forces begin their journey across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s armed forces again attacks them during the journey. Whatever forces get within Taiwan’s coastal area—presumably fewer troops getting this far—are targeted, and then in the event that PLA forces reach Taiwan’s shores, they would face a barrage from ROC and (likely) allied forces to keep them from moving off of the beachhead. This strategy makes sense for any country to defend itself from a coastal invasion. However, the question is what Taiwan’s armed forces need to accomplish this goal.
The way to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is to develop asymmetric capabilities because the PLA has such a sizeable manpower and resource advantage. They may also have a qualitative advantage in critical advanced warfare capabilities. The QDR acknowledges that the PLA “is capable of undermining [Taiwan’s] air defense and sea control C2 systems.”[4] It also can initiate “a local blockade over [Taiwan’s] vital ports and transportation routes” and strike any part of Taiwan with its missile. The PLA is also working on its ability to “quickly occupy [Taiwan’s] vital ports and airports”[5] to facilitate a full-scale invasion of Taiwan. In 2015, the PLA released a video in which it practiced raiding Taiwan’s Presidential Office Building.[6] In March 2021, the MND announced that Taiwan’s armed forces would stop sending aircraft to respond to every PLA incursion into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) due to the immense cost; it would begin to track the PLA aircraft using ground-based missiles.[7] As a result of the PLA comparative advantages and preparation, the QDR emphasizes Taiwan’s procurement and development of long-range strike capabilities. It explicitly admits that “conventional warfare of attrition or arms race is not viable options for [Taiwan].”[8] Having long-range missiles will extend Taiwan’s defenses deeper into Chinese territory and perhaps deter or degrade a PRC attack. Striking PLA troops not only in Chinese territory and in the Taiwan Strait, but also being able to avoid PLA strikes and attacks is key to Taiwan’s asymmetric capabilities. With this in mind, the QDR emphasizes acquiring “asymmetric capabilities that are small, numerous, smart, stealthy, mobile, and hard to be detected and countered.”[9] It is key for Taiwan’s armed forces to be able to strike PLA forces on Chinese territory, in the Taiwan Strait, in Taiwan’s coastal area, and on the beaches and then quickly change locations to avoid getting hit by a Chinese strike.
In 2021, Taiwan has begun to build and acquire military hardware that the QDR calls for. Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng has announced that Taiwan is developing long-range missiles domestically, as well as three other types of missiles. The goal of the new missile is for it to be “long-range, accurate and mobile.”[10] Developing such a missile domestically would reduce Taiwanese reliance on American arms sales. However, Taiwan cannot meet all its defense needs through domestic production and relies on arms sales from the United States to bridge that gap. In March 2021, Taiwan’s Air Force announced that it decided to upgrade its Patriot missile system. In 2025, it will start to receive Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles.[11] Many of the arms purchases announced during the Trump administration included a variety of missiles, launchers, and spare parts, as well as naval hardware. It is likely that such arms sales will continue under the leadership of President Joseph Biden, who has set his sights on countering China in the Indo-Pacific region.
While the United States has sold Taiwan billions of dollars of “defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” as called for in the Taiwan Relations Act,[12] the greatest problem with arms sales is the time delay from the purchase to delivery and implementation. In the recent case of the Patriot system upgrade, Taiwan must wait four years before it begins to receive it. Making such purchases would improve Taiwan’s defense and impose costs on PLA forces in a crisis, but there is a possibility that China could invade before these purchases ever make it to Taiwanese soil. Taiwan needs to upgrade its military capabilities today, not in 2025. The QDR’s admission of China’s advantages is clear-eyed and demonstrates that Taiwan’s best hope is to instill doubt in Chinese decision-makers’ minds about the quick success of an invasion: “The purpose is to make the PRC to face unacceptable consequences if it were to initiative a military conflict and thus deter its intention to wage a war.”[13] Slowing or preventing a quick fait accompli would create a deadly conflict for the PRC, and the slower an invasion occurs, the greater likelihood that help from another country, such as the United States or Japan, could arrive.
According to the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2020 Annual Report, the PRC currently lacks the capabilities to launch a “large-scale amphibious operation”[14] due to a shortage of certain equipment as well as the complexity of an invasion. Even if the PLA improves its amphibious operations capabilities, Taiwan’s armed forces can still create doubt by fully embracing its asymmetric capabilities—hardware that is small, mobile, cheap, and numerous—to ensure a full-scale invasion is too costly to initiate.
MODERNIZING THE U.S. MARINES AND ARMY
Taiwan’s 2021 QDR has emphasized continuing to develop the country’s asymmetric capabilities to achieve “resolute defense and multi-domain deterrence,” and changes announced by the U.S. Army and Marines appear to envision a similar conflict. The multi-domain operations for which the U.S. armed services are preparing will determine the types of weapons and hardware that they acquire, and they emphasize countering a near-peer or peer-level adversary between 2025 and 2050.[15] This type of warfare shifts from the past 20 years’ focus on countering extremism in the Middle East. Army Multi-Domain Transformation seeks to modernize Army doctrine by preparing it to “maneuver and prevail from competition through conflict with a calibrated force posture of multi-domain capabilities that provide overmatch through speed and range at the point of need.”[16] Similarly, the U.S. Marines are changing its force posture to “possess littoral capabilities to include high-speed, long-range, low-signature craft capable of maneuvering Marines for a variety of missions.”[17] These two high-level directives in the Army and Marines documents could be easily mistaken for having come from Taiwan’s 2021 QDR. They all emphasize the same capabilities of having a long attack range and mobility.
Reading the Army’s future plans, it is quite clear that the branch is planning to fight a similar war as Taiwan. Like Taiwan’s plan to fight Chinese forces from Chinese territory through the sea and coast to Taiwanese beaches, the U.S. Army “will sustain, enable, extend, and expand the reach of both defensive and offensive actions.”[18] And much of the envisioned future battlefield almost sounds like how a conflict over Taiwan would be. The Army seeks to prevent an enemy from achieving a fait accompli, and specifically in the Indo-Pacific region with “light multi-domain forces, capable of engaging in all domains . . . [that] will be prepositioned in parts of the first island chain and act as the linchpin of effective joint and combined defenses. Join and combined capabilities in the first island chain will mix anti-ship, anti-anticraft, and surface-to-surface missiles to threat early damage to adversary forces.”[19] The United States—if decides to come to Taiwan’s defense—must have highly capable and modernized forces within the first island chain ready to move at a moment’s notice.
Preventing a PLA invasion of Taiwan would require quick decision-making to prevent the fait accompli that the Chinese would seek to achieve. This type of planning mirrors that of Taiwan’s QDR: slow down the invading force and inflict a high cost. The type of military hardware used in this type of envisioned battlefield also complements that of Taiwan’s military: long-range missiles, missile defense, and quick combat vehicles. Slower and static legacy systems would be easy targets for Chinese missiles seeking to prevent the United States from coming to Taiwan’s assistance. The U.S. Army is seeking to move beyond the days of large-signature forces that could be easily identified and targeted by an enemy force. The U.S. Army clearly thinks that the future of warfare in the Indo-Pacific will be won through speed and with low-signature forces that have a long reach.
Under the leadership of Commandant David Berger, the U.S. Marines are undergoing a fundamental shift in their operations and posture. The transformation of the Marines will require perhaps the starkest change of the U.S. armed services since it is shifting from being the nation’s naval expeditionary force-in-readiness fighting terrorists on the ground in the Middle East to countering a near-peer or peer-level adversary on the ground and in the sea in the Indo-Pacific.[20] Such a shift will require changes in weapons and hardware priorities.[21] Like the U.S. Army, the Marines are seeking to become a small force that uses long-range missiles and mobile, low-signature vehicles. The battlefield that the Marines are preparing to fight on sounds like how the United States would fight to defend Taiwan: “The Marine Corps must be able to fight at sea, from the sea, and from the land to the sea; operate and persist within range of adversary long-range fire; maneuver across the seaward and landward portions of complex littorals; and sense, shoot and sustain while combining the physical and information domains to achieve desired outcomes.”[22] A conflict over Taiwan would be within China’s missile range, so the Marines new force design would emphasize operating within the “weapons engagement zone” to attain a competitive advantage.[23] And combatting a Chinese invasion—or landing on Taiwan after its beaches and ports fell to PLA forces—would require the Marines to “fight at sea, from the sea, and from the land to the sea.”
As a result, the Marines—in order to achieve agility—are eliminating or reducing slower and more robust systems, such as tanks and cannon artillery batteries in favor of more mobile rocket artillery and UAVs. Tanks artillery batteries have higher signatures and could easily be targeted by PLA UAVs. As the Marines continue to study the effects of the proposed changes, one of its guiding principles will be to “focus on capabilities that create a competitive, asymmetric advantage in maritime gray zone operations globally.”[24] When it comes to preparing for gray zones operations in Asia, the U.S. Marines have much to learn from the Taiwanese, who are at the forefront of confronting Chinese gray zone tactics in the military, society, and government. While Force Design 2030 is part of an ongoing reform of the Marines, the basic tenets and changes expressed throughout the document show that Commandant Berger envisions fighting a similar war as Chief of Staff McConville. Both the U.S. Army and Marines are responding to the same strategic direction called for the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS).[25] As the NDS names China a “strategic competitor” that “will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future,”[26] McConville and Berger are consistent when they both name China as a threat to global security and as an adversary that can and will challenge U.S. power around the globe. However, what goes unsaid is where a potential conflict with China would actually occur. The most likely places are the South China Sea or Taiwan, which are both well within China’s range of attack.
READY FOR A CONFLICT WITH CHINA?
Reviewing the key defense-planning documents of Taiwan and the U.S. Army and Marines is instructive because they all show how different countries and armed services view the future of warfare. Taiwan continues to prepare to deter a Chinese invasion or incur costs to a military escalation. The U.S. Army and Marines are both planning for a future conflict with a near-peer adversary, most likely in the Indo-Pacific. What all three documents agree on is that the future of warfare will require mobile, small, and long-range capabilities to enhance asymmetric advantages. The Marines’ proposed elimination of the tank shows how bulky hardware may not have a future in a fast-paced conflict in the Indo-Pacific. The way in which the Army and Marines discuss the envisioned battlefield points to Taiwan as being a likely theater of war. They are preparing to fight within an adversary’s missile range, forcing them to reduce their footprint and invest in faster vehicles to avoid detection and counterattack.
More broadly, the U.S. military is working towards reprioritizing and investing more substantially in the Indo-Pacific theater. Through the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), Washington hopes to reinvigorate the American military presence in the region to increase its ability to deter an adversary from escalating tensions to conflict. The PDI is meant to “to carry out prioritized activities to enhance the United States deterrence and defense posture in the Indo-Pacific region, assure allies and partners, and increase capability and readiness in the Indo-Pacific region.”[27] The obvious purpose for PDI is to deter China.[28] And one cannot have a conversation about deterring Chinese aggression without bringing up Taiwan. The existing PDI documents do not explicitly discuss enhancing support for Taiwan, but by working to deter China, the PDI is fulfilling that objective without ever mentioning it. The PDI, like the U.S. Army and Marines doctrinal changes, says certain things without explicitly saying them. However, as the PDI obtains additional funding, it would behoove Congress to include earmarks and goals for working to enhance Taiwan’s defense. After all, if Taiwan is ever “lost,” then the PDI’s main goal will be much harder to achieve as China would be able to easily push beyond the first island chain from Taiwan’s east coast, destroying any potential for successful deterrence.
Outside of the PDI, the U.S. Army, Marines, and other service branches should work towards enhancing cooperation and collaboration with their Taiwanese counterparts. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) calls for “conducting practical training and military exercises with Taiwan that enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” and “increasing exchanges between senior defense officials and general officers of the United States and Taiwan at the strategic, policy, and functional levels . . . especially for the purposes of enhancing cooperation on defense planning; [and] improving the interoperability of the military forces of the United States and Taiwan.”[29] Considering that the QDR matches the defense posture changes of the U.S. Army and Marines, it would be helpful for high-level officials and general officers to more frequently meet to discuss how they envision the role of their respective service in a Chinese contingency. Inviting Taiwan’s armed forces to participate in the 2022 Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) would receive immense bipartisan support in Washington and would follow the “sense of Congress” in the 2021 NDAA. The two country’s militaries cannot improve “interoperability” without the two conducting bilateral and multilateral exercises.
Now, it is unclear whether the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion. While the Biden administration seems to be continuing the decades-old policy of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to the defense of Taiwan, there is an ongoing debate within the United States about whether or not remove the “ambiguity” in favor of “strategic clarity.”[30] In this sense, “strategic clarity” means a definitive statement by President Biden that the United States would, in fact, come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion. The belief is that such a statement would put Beijing on notice and perhaps reduce the military threat that Taiwan faces. Fighting the United States over Taiwan would risk escalating what could be a quick invasion into a massive war that if Beijing loses would destroy the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. Before “strategic clarity” is achieved, an intermediary step would be to achieve “strategic cooperation or collaboration” by increasing contact between American and Taiwanese military officers and working towards achieving better interoperability. This could include the Green Berets or Navy SEALS conducting regular trainings in Taiwan or an annual bilateral military exercise simulating an invasion scenario or post-invasion tactics. Practicing such an operation would send a clear message about the U.S. intent without the president formally changing U.S. policy. The one thing that will not change or stop is the continuation of arms sales. The Biden administration might consider enhancing the menu of options that the Taiwanese military can purchase. However unlikely, Washington should consider the possibility for Taipei to join the F-35 fighter program. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) manufactures critical chips for the F-35, so if the U.S. military relies on Taiwanese expertise to make the jet, then it stands to reason that Taipei should be able to purchase them if it so desires. Opening up the arms sales menu would give Taiwan more cutting-edge weapons and hardware to more capably defense itself. After all, one must ask what purpose interoperability achieves if not for the two countries’ military to work together—to stop a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan.
Reviewing the U.S. Army and Marines’ vision of the future is one way to determine if the United States would assist Taiwan. The two reviewed U.S. documents describe planning for a Taiwan-like conflict. Such a decision would need to be made quickly in order for the Marines and Army to respond effectively. A commonality between the two services’ planning is acting quickly and decisively to prevent a fait accompli. There are very few “fait accompli” discussions in Asia that do not include Taiwan. To stop such a scenario in Taiwan, the President of the United States would need to already know how he or she would respond when the day comes that the PRC attacks Taiwan. President Biden and his administration have expressed that Taiwan is a critical U.S. partner and that Taiwan’s security is critical for regional and American security.[31] However, no official has yet to move beyond the historical statements about helping Taiwan have the means to defense itself. What is clear is that Taiwan and the U.S. Army and Marines are planning for a China contingency. They’re now developing additional tactics to address the challenge and acquiring the weapons and hardware that they think will be useful in such a conflict. Those seeking “strategic clarity” over Taiwan should review these doctrinal changes and initiatives and read between the lines.
Thomas J. Shattuck is a Research Fellow in the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also a member of Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen Foreign Policy Initiative. The author is indebted to Frank G. Hoffman for his astute review and comments on an earlier draft of the piece.
[1] See, Quadrennial Defense Review, Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China, March 2021, https://www.ustaiwandefense.com/tdnswp/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021-Taiwan-Quadrennial-Defense-Review-QDR.pdf; James C. McConville, Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, Department of the Army, March 16, 2021, https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2021/03/23/eeac3d01/20210319-csa-paper-1-signed-print-version.pdf; and David H. Berger, Force Design 2030, Department of the Navy, March 2020, https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/CMC38%20Force%20Design%202030%20Report%20Phase%20I%20and%20II.pdf?ver=2020-03-26-121328-460.
[2] T.X. Hammes discussed the implications of shifting to this type of hardware change in 2014, T.X. Hammes, “The Future of Warfare: Small, Many, Smart Vs. Few & Exquisite?,” War on the Rocks, July 16, 2014, https://warontherocks.com/2014/07/the-future-of-warfare-small-many-smart-vs-few-exquisite/. See, also, his other writings on the topic, “Technologies Converge and Power Diffuses: The Evolution of Small, Smart, and Cheap Weapons,” Cato Institute, January 27, 2016, https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/technologies-converge-power-diffuses-evolution-small-smart-cheap-weapons; “Cheap Technology Will Challenge U.S. Tactical Dominance,” Joint Force Quarterly vol. 81, (March 29, 2016), https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/702039/cheap-technology-will-challenge-us-tactical-dominance/; and “In an Era of Cheap Drones, US Can’t Afford Exquisite Weapons,” Defense One, January 19, 2016, https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/01/cheap-drones-exquisite-weapons/125216/.
[3] Quadrennial Defense Review, MND, p. 19.
[4] Quadrennial Defense Review, MND, p. 11.
[5] Quadrennial Defense Review, MND, p. 12.
[6] Emily Rauhala, “Watch: Chinese soldiers storm what looks like a replica of Taiwan’s presidential palace,” Washington Post, July 24, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/24/watch-chinese-soldiers-storm-what-looks-like-a-replica-of-taiwans-presidential-palace/.
[7] Ben Blanchard, “Taiwan says tracks intruding Chinese aircraft with missiles, not always scrambling,” Reuters, March 29, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-security/taiwan-says-tracks-intruding-chinese-aircraft-with-missiles-not-always-scrambling-idUSKBN2BL0JS.
[8] Quadrennial Defense Review, MND, p. 26.
[9] The type of hardware that Taiwan’s armed forces should acquire are: coastal mobile anti-ship missiles, light and rapid maritime forces, and advanced naval mines. Quadrennial Defense Review, MND, p. 26.
[10] Ben Blanchard, “Taiwan says has begun mass production of long-range missile,” Reuters, March 25, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence/taiwan-says-has-begun-mass-production-of-long-range-missile-idUSKBN2BH0IT.
[11] Yimou Lee, “Taiwan to buy new U.S. air defence missiles to guard against China,” Reuters, March 31, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-defence-idUSKBN2BN1AA.
[12] Taiwan Relations Act, Public Law 96-8, 96th Congress, (1979), https://www.ait.org.tw/our-relationship/policy-history/key-u-s-foreign-policy-documents-region/taiwan-relations-act/.
[13] Quadrennial Defense Review, MND, p. 26.
[14] United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 Annual Report, December 2020, p. 464-5, https://www.ustaiwandefense.com/tdnswp/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2021-Taiwan-Quadrennial-Defense-Review-QDR.pdf.
[15] Andrew Feickert, “Defense Primer: Army Multi-Domain Operations (MDO),” Congressional Research Service, December 8, 2020, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF11409.pdf.
[16] McConville, Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, p. 1.
[17] Berger, Force Design 2030, p. 4.
[18] McConville, Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, p. 6.
[19] McConville, Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, p. 22.
[20] For an in-depth analysis of Force Design 2030, see, Frank G. Hoffman, “Still the First to Fight: Shaping the 21st Century Marine Corps,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, May 11, 2020, https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/05/still-first-to-fight-shaping-the-21st-century-marine-corps/.
[21] For a critique of the proposed changes to the Marines, see, Jim Webb, “The Future of the U.S. Marine Corps,” The National Interest, May 8, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/future-us-marine-corps-152606.
[22] Berger, Force Design 2030, p. 3.
[23] Berger, Force Design 2030, p. 5.
[24] Berger, Force Design 2030, p. 12.
[25] James Mattis, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge,” Department of Defense, 2018, https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf.
[26] Mattis, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy,” p. 2.
[27] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Section 1251, Public Law 116-283, 116th Congress, (2021) https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6395/text.
[28] Mallory Shelbourne, “U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Wants $4.68B for New Pacific Deterrence Initiative,” USNI News, March 5, 2021, https://news.usni.org/2021/03/02/u-s-indo-pacific-command-wants-4-68b-for-new-pacific-deterrence-initiative; Tom Bowman, “Pentagon Pushes For Bigger Effort To Deter China's Growing Military Might,” NPR, March 16, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/977987292/pentagon-pushes-for-bigger-effort-to-deter-chinas-growing-military-might; and Mark Montgomery and Bradley Bowman, “Listen to America’s Top Commander in the Indo-Pacific and Fund the Pacific Deterrence Initiative,” War on the Rocks, March 31, 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/03/listen-to-americas-top-commander-in-the-indo-pacific-and-fund-the-pacific-deterrence-initiative/.
[29] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Section 1260.
[30] For more on this debate, see, Richard Haass and David Sacks, “American Support for Taiwan Must Be Unambiguous,” Foreign Affairs, September 2, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/american-support-taiwan-must-be-unambiguous; and Bonnie S. Glaser; Michael J. Mazarr; Michael J. Glennon; Richard Haass and David Sacks, “Dire Straits: Should American Support for Taiwan Be Ambiguous?,” Foreign Affairs, September 24, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-09-24/dire-straits.
[31] Thomas J. Shattuck, “Biden Faced His First Taiwan Test. Now What?,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, January 27, 2021; Anthony Blinken, “Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press,” Department of State, April 11, 2021, https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-with-chuck-todd-of-nbcs-meet-the-press/.