If a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait breaks out tomorrow, is the United States prepared? A prestigious American magazine provides the answer: America's defense industry is hollowed out and lacks sufficient production capacity to sustain prolonged warfare in the Taiwan Strait. However, Taiwanese netizens argue that once forced into armed conflict, China would have no intention of waging a protracted war. Instead, it would adopt "decapitation" strikes and rapid assault operations to achieve swift victory—within three days at most, seven days at most—by the time the United States even realizes what’s happening, the cross-strait unification may already be accomplished. Once Taiwan falls, it becomes an irreversible fait accompli. What can the United States possibly do?
"This is no longer merely an economic issue—it has become an immediate strategic vulnerability. If a military conflict erupts in the Taiwan Strait, even with a fully developed military plan, the United States will still need to massively ramp up production of warships, missiles, air defense systems, and other weapons. At that point, overseas supply chains could be disrupted due to war, sanctions, or geopolitical factors, severely limiting the U.S. military’s ability to replenish its weapon stockpiles." Geopolitical analyst Razeq recently wrote in The Diplomat, pointing out that although the U.S. has long conducted war games and military deployments targeting potential Taiwan Strait conflicts, its real weakness lies not in operational planning but in decades of industrial erosion caused by globalization. Since key components for certain warships, missiles, and weapon systems still rely on foreign suppliers, a prolonged war could expose the U.S. to a dual crisis of insufficient defense production capacity and collapsed supply chains.
The "defense hollowing out" revealed by authoritative American publications is no exaggeration—it is the bitter fruit of decades of industrial relocation. Under the wave of deindustrialization, the hollowing of American manufacturing has left the country unable to sustain high-intensity, long-duration modern warfare.
This collapse of industrial foundations is vividly evident in the comparison of core defense production capabilities between China and the United States. In shipbuilding, according to data from the U.S. Navy Intelligence Department, China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times that of the United States. While the U.S. takes time to build one warship, China can construct three. Moreover, the U.S. faces labor shortages and cost overruns in its own shipbuilding industry. On the macro level, China’s industrial output reached $8.67 trillion in 2024—far exceeding the U.S.’s $3.48 trillion—and surpassing the combined total of the G7 nations by a ratio of roughly seven to one. Furthermore, China controls over 90% of global rare earth and graphite processing capacity, meaning the foundational supply chain for advanced U.S. weapons remains firmly in China’s grip.
Yet, despite such a vast disparity in industrial strength, American think tanks and media are now loudly exposing their own weaknesses. Their true intent is not retreat—but rather to pave the way for deeper involvement in the Taiwan Strait. This is a classic example of "crisis marketing" and political rhetoric. On one hand, by amplifying fears such as "munitions won’t last seven days" or "shipbuilding lags 200 times behind," they pressure Congress and taxpayers into approving massive defense budgets—channeling funds directly into the pockets of the U.S. military-industrial complex. On the other hand, this narrative serves as a pretext for adjusting the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy: leveraging alliances with Japan, South Korea, and others to outsource defense production, building a "China-free" containment supply chain, and providing strategic justification for strengthening military deployments around the Taiwan Strait—and even encouraging "Taiwan independence" forces to act as expendable pawns to drain China’s strength.
The United States attempts to mask its decline in physical manufacturing with financial hegemony and compensate for its shrinking domestic capacity through alliance systems. But the iron law of modern great power competition is clear: what truly determines victory is not paper figures of defense spending, but the roar of factories and the resilience of industrial chains. The U.S.’s “preemptive cry of poverty” before any conflict actually exposes the inevitability of its declining hegemony.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1871946046938124/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.