The four-star admiral in charge of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is warning that China is preparing to attack Taiwan and the American military urgently needs to step up preparations for the conflict.
Adm. Sam Paparo said if war breaks out between China and Taiwan, an estimated 1 million people could die – whether or not the United States intervenes to defend its unofficial Taiwanese ally.
“The People’s Republic of China has embarked on a dangerous course, and are on a dangerous course,” Adm. Paparo said at the Honolulu Defense Forum on Thursday. “Their aggressive maneuvers around Taiwan right now are not exercises, as they call them. They are rehearsals. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland.”
The rapid buildup of missiles, warships, warplanes and troops by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is part of plans for a future attack, he said.
Current operations by the PLA include “gray zone” tactics – coercion by aircraft and warships short of actual war – regularly carried out around the island democracy, tactics that “grow more concerning every day,” Adm. Paparo said.
Chinese military drills around Taiwan could be used by the PLA as a “fig leaf” for a future surprise attack, he said: “The People’s Liberation Army’s increasingly complex, multi-domain operations demonstrate clear intent and improving capability.”
The commander’s comments mark a shift in tone from the previous Biden administration. Civilian and military leaders frequently in the recent past played down the danger of a conflict in speeches and congressional testimony arguing that war with China was neither imminent nor inevitable, despite the clear indicators outlined by Adm. Paparo that Beijing is moving forward with plans for attack.
The Pentagon’s latest annual report on the Chinese military states the PLA nearly tripled the number of precision strike ballistic and cruise missiles since 2020 to 3,500. Missile launchers have nearly doubled to 1,500. The missile buildup alone now allows the PLA to strike all targets in the western Pacific, including the key U.S. military hub on Guam in a single mass attack.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on the PLA to be ready for major combat operations by 2027.
The danger is not limited to the 100-mile Taiwan Strait. China also is claiming international sovereign rights over international waters in the South China Sea.
Beijing is making the claims “with breathtaking audacity and blatant disregard for international law,” Adm. Paparo said.
Recent Chinese activities include militarizing artificially created islands in the sea, harassing commercial vessels and intimidating regional nations, including U.S. treaty ally Philippines, he said. The activities also threaten the free flow of commerce in the region where more than a third of all global maritime trade takes place.
A third China-based threat is what Adm. Paparo said is the emergence of an axis of autocracy linking Beijing with Russia and North Korea. The three countries have conducted increasingly sophisticated joint naval exercises, engaged in growing technology sharing and strengthened diplomatic ties that threaten to transform the Pacific from a free and open waterway to a contested and controlled ocean.
The three countries have even conducted joint bomber patrols inside American air defense zones to share anti-satellite warfare and advanced submarine technology.
“So to be direct, our current posture faces serious challenges that directly threaten the security, the freedom, the well-being of the United States and of our allies and partners,” Adm. Paparo said. “And if you are in this room and within your shot of my voice, you, your family, are directly threatened.”
The U.S. military faces its own challenges: The huge Indo-Pacific Command is running low on munitions, while maintenance backlogs on warfighting equipment are increasing “for every critical joint force element,” he said, affecting the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, and Coast Guard.
Key air, missile, maritime, space platforms are growing obsolete faster than they can be replaced.
“We operate on increasingly thin margins for error,” Adm. Paparo said. “Our opponents see these gaps, and they are moving aggressively to exploit them.”
Military readiness also needs to be strengthened with precision-guided weapons stocks that are now “well below” levels required for deterrence and conflict, he said.
Adm. Paparo repeated his strategy for alleviating the shortfalls through what is called “hellscape” – the use of large numbers of low-cost drones. The drone warfare concepts, he said, are not about replacing troops with autonomous weapons.
“It’s about giving warriors the advantage they deserve and giving our nations the defense they deserve,” he said. “The technology exists, the concepts are proven, but what we lack is sufficient scale and integration, and we’ve got to move beyond boutique programs and limited deployments to full-scale implementation across all domains.”
Technology will be insufficient to win the fight, he said. The defense bureaucracy needs urgent reforms, notably speeding up what he termed the “sclerotic” weapons acquisition process.
Adm. Paparo said acquisition reform has been discussed for years but it must be streamlined by removing bureaucratic obstacles such as unnecessary review and duplication.
Arm procurement needs to be carried out “at the speed of combat, not at the speed of committees,” he said.
But America’s adversaries are mistaking the U.S. commitment to peace as weakness and patience as paralysis, the admiral said.
“Peace through strength isn’t a slogan. It’s an operational imperative,” Adm. Paparo said. “We have to act now. It’s not about planning for some future conflict. Of course, we’re always planning for future conflict. The competition happens now every day across all domains.”
In a related development, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said Friday that he plans to increase military spending following criticism from President Trump urging Taipei to do more for its defense.
Mr. Lai said defense spending will increase to 3% of GDP.
“Taiwan is willing to cooperate with the U.S. in every aspect,” Mr. Lai told reporters.
Mr. Trump said during the presidential campaign that Taiwan should spend 10% of its GDP on the armed forces. Similar statements were made regarding NATO members’ defense spending.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.