At his January 2025 confirmation hearing to become the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio assessed that “unless something dramatic changes” in Asia’s military balance, China would attempt to invade Taiwan before the end of the decade. This view is widely shared. In May, for example, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party warned that “the clock is ticking to stop a war in the Indo-Pacific—and this Congress may be America’s last full chance to do it.” The good news is that