US Army Pacific plans for possibility of war over Taiwan next year

Gen. Ronald Clark, head of U.S. Army Pacific, said at a defense conference that his command has prepared the Indo-Pacific theater under the assumption that China will have the capacity — and possibly the intent — to seize Taiwan by military force next year.

U.S. Army Pacific has prepared the region under the assumption China will have the capacity — and possibly the intent — to seize Taiwan by force next year. Gen. Ronald Clark, commander of U.S. Army Pacific, speaks at the TechNet Indo-Pacific conference in Honolulu on Oct. 27, 2026. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes) WAIKIKI BEACH, Hawaii — U.S. Army Pacific has prepared the Indo-Pacific theater under the assumption that China will have the capacity — and possibly the intent — to seize Taiwan by military force next year, its commander said Tuesday. The threat posed by what has come to be called the Davidson window is “still valid,” Gen. Ronald Clark told the audience at the TechNet Indo-Pacific conference in Honolulu.

In 2021, Adm. Philip Davidson, then head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a Senate committee that China was on course to achieve the military capacity to seize Taiwan by 2027. The six years leading up 2027 during which China achieved that capacity became widely known as the Davidson window, and it has driven U.S. defense budgeting and strategy in the Pacific with the goal of either deterring or obstructing such an invasion. China regards Taiwan, a self-governed democracy lying just off its southeastern coast, as a renegade province that must be brought under Beijing’s control. The U.S.