Military policies that reallocate to the Pacific and manufacturing PGMs deters China.

The third pillar of a unified grand strategy is military policy. If economic and diplomatic policy fail to deter China from seizing Taiwan, then US military policy must be robust. The US is pivoting to the Pacific, but not fast enough. There are two main policy options, and they are not mutually exclusive. The first policy alternative is to reshuffle force deployment in the Pacific theater. Currently the US uses a half-dozen major military bases within the first and second island chains. This is problematic because China has an extremely deadly and accurate ballistic missile force that would destroy 90% of the US Pacific forces within the first few days due to densely grouped assets.40 The policy alternative is the concept of Agile Combat Employment (ACE). ACE takes the WWII concept of island hopping and expands it.41 The goal would be to construct hundreds of small forward arming and refueling points within the first island chain to allow US forces to disperse and rearm and refuel before they are targeted by China’s ballistic missiles. 42 This would be coupled with obtaining increased basing rights in Southeast Asia and the Philippines, and greatly enhancing ballistic missile defenses in the Pacific. The goal would be to complicate China’s targeting, and to reduce the size of the salvos launched against US forces to allow a higher probability of interception by US forces.43

The other key policy alternative is to greatly enhance the US manufacturing capability of long-range, precision guided munitions (PGMs) and to expand the US network of multilateral alliances in the Indo-Pacific. The US is woefully understocked for a hot war with a major power. Taiwan invasion wargames have shown the US running out of PGMs within the first few weeks, leading to costly engagements and huge US losses. The US must greatly enhance its defense industrial base to build more PGMs and enlist allied nations to do so as well. Multilateral partnerships will help in this regard too. More security partners in the Indo-Pacific will mean more basing opportunities and angles to project US forces, complicating China’s invasion plans. The US may not have the full capability to defend Taiwan at such great distance, but Xi Jinping must doubt China’s ability to take Taiwan at minimal cost.