No One Wants a War with China over Taiwan

But the U.S. still needs to prepare for one.

The capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro was an impressive feat by the American military but could prove to be a distraction from more pressing geopolitical concerns. President Trump’s decision to seize Maduro, and the attention he must now pay to Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere in the aftermath, makes it likely that the administration could take its eye off a far more powerful adversary: China. Confronting the military of a rival superpower is a much more daunting task than swooping in and arresting one dictator, even with the superb execution of that mission.

On March 9, 2021, Admiral Philip Davidson, then commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee. Pointing to Chinese military preparations as evidence of the People’s Republic’s ambitions, he warned that China would likely be ready to invade and conquer Taiwan by 2027. The long-anticipated confrontation between the U.S. and China over the island was looming on the horizon, he warned.

Since then, the “Davidson window” has been used in national security circles as the timeframe the U.S. has to prepare to fight China for the freedom of Taiwan. It has informed debates over how the American military (especially but not exclusively the Navy) should be structured, what equipment it should purchase, and where its assets should be based. American service members are preparing to give their all to defend a fellow democracy.

Less attention has been paid, however, to preparing Americans outside the military for the effects of war. If the U.S. should come to blows with the PRC, the effects will be felt in many areas of American life, including the economy. With the Davidson window closing a year from now, America’s leaders need to level with the people they serve about what it will cost to keep Taiwan free, should that decision be made.

Preparing for War

Wargames carried out by American experts provide a mixture of hope and worry about the outcome of such a war over Taiwan. While there is a good chance the U.S. would prevail over China, it would do so at a significant cost of its military assets: America is estimated to lose hundreds of aircraft and dozens of warships, including one or more aircraft carriers. If a carrier were to be sunk (something that has not happened to an American carrier since World War II), it would be a severe blow to American prestige even if Taiwan remained free.

The good news is that the last few years have seen an encouraging renewal of awareness of how important maritime strength is for the United States. In a possible war with China to keep Taiwan from totalitarian tyranny, the U.S. Navy will play a leading role; keeping it strong and ready is clearly a bipartisan priority. Under both the Biden and Trump administrations, the Navy has developed plans for dramatically expanding the size of its fleet, which has shrunk drastically since the 1990s.

Such a conflict would have enormous repercussions within the U.S., though, effects that would ripple throughout many sectors of the civilian economy as well as American national security institutions. A war may well be a long one, and the American people may not have the stomach for a long conflict. The sooner American officials begin preparing the domestic economy for the shock of a war over Taiwan, the better. While it will take time, any wiggle room achieved this year can help.

Of the many economic areas that would be hit by a U.S.-China war, three in particular stand out as areas in which the government should begin increasing resiliency:

• Replacing vital manufactured goods that the U.S. would lose access to during a war;

• Ensuring the military has enough oil to fight China without disrupting domestic supplies; and

• Preparing for Chinese cyberattacks in an attempt by Beijing to weaken American resolve.

Manufacturing

Much of the debate surrounding trade with China concerns blue-collar American jobs lost during the last quarter century, rightly so. In reaction, many of America’s major imports from China have plummeted in volume since 2018 due to tariffs under both the Trump and Biden administrations and to an increasing American desire to decouple economically from a rival great power. But it is not only Chinese goods whose flow would be disrupted by a major war.

Taiwan manufactures 60 percent of the world’s semiconductors, including more than 40 percent of the most sophisticated logic chips the U.S. imports. When the price of these chips goes up—say, in response to constricted supply during a war in which a vital exporter of this technology is cut off from the world economy—the prices of multitudes of other goods will go up including computers, tablets, phones, cars, and TVs. In preparation for such an event, the more chips the U.S. can manufacture on its own soil, the better able it will be to withstand such shocks.

In 2022, President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, which authorized $39 billion in federal aid for semiconductor development on American soil. Companies have responded positively to these incentives: they have made large investments in U.S. manufacturing and related research and development, and a boost in production has created at least 15,000 jobs. While Trump initially derided the CHIPS Act upon returning to the White House, he later signed an expansion of tax credits under the act. There are additional measures the government can take to increase production, such as scaling back environmental permitting rules around manufacturing facilities.

There is also an ongoing push for a revival of the shipbuilding industry along similar lines. The bipartisan Shipbuilding and Harbor Infrastructure for Prosperity and Security (SHIPS) for America Act would encourage major investments in American shipbuilding to reverse the sector’s decline that dates back to Ronald Reagan’s ending of federal subsidies for the industry in 1981. Congress should pass this law, and Trump should sign it.

China’s current dominance of global shipbuilding currently gives it enormous leverage. As Jerry Hendrix, a former Navy captain and longtime defense expert who now heads the Shipbuilding Office at the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in The Atlantic in 2023:

The lack of civilian ships under our own flag makes us vulnerable. Today we remember the recent backlog of container ships in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, but tomorrow we could face the shock of no container ships arriving at all should China prohibit its large fleet from visiting U.S. ports.

Government incentives to increase semiconductor manufacturing and shipbuilding will both take time to reach their full effect. But the mere fact of Washington taking both these industries seriously would be a signal, both to American consumers and to America’s trading partners, that if the U.S. suffered economic blows from a conflict with China, the pains it suffered would be temporary. The world would have good reason to believe that America would bounce back.

Oil

There is a common saying in military circles: amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. In an era replete with ever-advancing technology, including videos and games that might give civilians some sense of being in a battle without facing any physical danger, it is easy to think of warfare only in terms of shooting. But the far less glamorous role of logistics—getting personnel, platforms, ammunition, equipment, and supplies from point A to point B—is equally important to a war’s outcome. And when it comes to military logistics, energy supplies are critical.

In 2021, Andrea K. Orlowski, deputy director of engineering at the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, wrote an article assessing the Navy’s inadequate oil supplies for its ships and aircraft. She warned that in a U.S.-China naval war over Taiwan, the U.S. would most likely run out of oil first, partly due to a shortage of refining capacity on the U.S. West Coast. The imbalance seems even more striking considering that Russia, whose oil has been sanctioned by the West for the last four years while it militarily batters Ukraine, exports much of its oil to China, giving the PRC a reliable supply from America’s other great power rival. The U.S. could try to shift the balance in its favor by interdicting Chinese oil imports from the Middle East, but sustaining this operation could take too many military units away from either the fight with China or the deterrence of Russia.

The U.S. military’s need for oil is already vast. The Department of Defense is the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. and the top bulk purchaser of fuel among federal agencies. Military oil consumption will increase even further during a full-scale war, such that it may be necessary to take oil out of the civilian economy, potentially raising its price.

Established in the wake of the surge in fuel prices that followed the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is America’s stockpile to guard against spikes in oil prices. The government purchases oil when prices are low, and presidents can sell it back into the civilian economy when prices are high. The SPR came to public attention in 2022, when President Biden tapped into it in response to high oil prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Filling the SPR is consistent with Trump’s desire to boost American oil production. He recently ordered the purchase of one million barrels for it, but this is a truly tiny amount. The SPR is authorized to hold up to 714 million barrels, and as of November 26, 2025, it held 411 million. The administration should go much further than a mere one million barrels.

Cyber

On May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline, the largest provider of refined petroleum products in the Eastern U.S., was hit with a ransomware attack. Long lines formed at gas stations in the Southeast, and Colonial was forced to temporarily shut down all its operations. This was the largest-ever cyberattack on American oil infrastructure.

This attack was carried out by criminals looking to make money. Imagine if another attack, doing even worse damage to critical American infrastructure, was perpetrated by China in the middle of a war over Taiwan. How long would Americans put up with disruption—to commerce, to the supply of critical goods, to their own peace of mind—before public opinion would turn against defending Taiwan and in favor of cutting a deal with Beijing?

Chinese cyberespionage against the U.S. has increased in frequency throughout the early 21st century. Victims have included government agencies, major corporations, and millions upon millions of ordinary users and consumers. In all likelihood, China would launch every cyber weapon at its disposal at the U.S. during a full-fledged war.

There is worthwhile legislation before Congress that would bolster America’s cyber defenses against China and other hostile actors. Trump should also reverse his confusing decision from last December not to sanction China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), Beijing’s spy agency and the perpetrator of a major cyber breach of U.S. telecom companies in 2024. As noted by Morgan Peirce in Just Security, letting China off the hook for its cyber aggression undermines Trump’s attempts to get America’s allies to bear more of the burden of their own defenses: “If the world’s largest economy will not confront China’s cyber operations, how can it credibly ask Indo-Pacific allies—who have far less leverage over Beijing—to step up?”

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It is not completely guaranteed that China will invade Taiwan in 2027. It is always possible that American deterrence will be so strong that Beijing will conclude that the cost of war is not worth the benefit of conquering the island. It is also possible that China will opt for means other than conventional war to bring Taiwan under its thumb, such as attempting a complete air and sea blockade to isolate the island from the world. Likewise, Russia’s quagmire in Ukraine during the past four years may give Chinese admirals and generals pause about waging a normal war.

Conditions within the United States, however, give Xi Jinping hope that he can subdue Taiwan with enough patience. Americans are so polarized politically and culturally that consensus on anything is difficult for them to achieve. Even war may not be enough to bring our people together. Xi may well bank on Americans’ unwillingness to fight for long as the factor that will give China the ultimate edge in an all-out conflict, especially if America’s leaders don’t prepare citizens to withstand it even as they take steps to prevent it.

Michael D. Purzycki is an analyst, writer, and editor based in Arlington, Virginia. He writes The Non-Progressive Democrat on Substack. Follow him on Twitter at @MDPurzycki.