Gen. Ronald Clark said 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.
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,” head of U.S. Army Pacific 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. provides arms to Taiwan but maintains ambiguity as to its response if China were to attempt an invasion.
During an event at Georgetown University in 2023, former CIA Director William Burns said that U.S. intelligence indicated Chinese President Xi Jinping had instructed his military to be ready by 2027 to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan.
But an annual threat assessment issued this spring by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence specified that the threat to Taiwan was not imminent.
“Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification,” the assessment states.
Clark was asked at the conference whether the Davidson window remained relevant.
“The answer for us at USARPAC is yes,” he said.
Clark described the six-year window as “a period of time for which we’re snapping the chalk line to say we need to be ready by this date.”
“So, we’ve embarked upon a strategic approach to setting the theater that we refer to as Army Ready Forward,” he said.
Under Ready Forward, Army Pacific has postured equipment, materiel and personnel on a rotational basis west of the international date line on the island chains closest to China, Clark said.
The most pressing issue is finding the right balance between “exquisite high-end systems and affordable, mass-producible alternatives,” particularly in respect to autonomous systems, he said.
- Security