The Washington Times
NEWS AND OPINION:
So what could come from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan? Harry Kazianis, a longtime observer of global affairs, has a thought or two. “One thing is clear: the U.S. military, having fought for two decades in the Middle East, is not ready for a high-intensity war waged over the vast expanses of the Indo-Pacific against China. In fact, Beijing has spent the last several decades building out its military machine for a moment just like this — to fight the U.S. Navy in its home waters over Taiwan or the South China Sea,” Mr. Kazianis said in a statement shared with Inside the Beltway. “China has thousands of cruise, ballistic, and now hypersonic missiles prepped and ready to strike Navy aircraft carriers and bases all over Asia,” he continued. “If tensions were to spike over the Pelosi visit to Taiwan, China’s military strategy would be to fire a massive ‘bolt from the blue’ utilizing its thousands of missiles and do so much damage to U.S. forces and warships in the region that Washington would have no choice but to allow Beijing to dominate the region,” Mr. Kazianis said. “If Washington decided to fight on, the U.S. Navy would have to fight its way into the region while taking fire from Chinese missiles that can strike from thousands of miles away,” he concluded.
