Can the U.S. Win a War in the Pacific Against China? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

**Dee Takos** (0:00)
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On Geopolitics. I'm here with Thomas Shugart, Jonathan Hackett and Jack Murphy. For the people that don't know who Tom is, he actually did a great episode on The Team House. You should check that out, talking about his career.
He's a former US. Navy Submariner, who served more than 25 years, and he's now a data analyst, defense analyst, excuse me, and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for American Security, where obviously he focuses on the Indo-Pacific and the involving, like, and just the balance between America and Chinese militaries and stuff. So he's the guy who's keeping his eye on all this. He's got a great Twitter account. I suggest if anyone's interested in this topic, to check him out and follow him there. I'll leave a link in the description as well. You can find them. Tom, thanks for joining us.

**Thomas Shugart** (0:53)
Pleasure to be here. Thanks, D.

**Dee Takos** (0:55)
Of course. I mean, obviously, I feel like the Chinese-American rivalry has kind of taken a backseat, at least in the press since Iran started. And there's obviously some connections there too. Like there's some rumor that China is helping Iran with some targeting or at least supplies.
Definitely, they were the biggest Iranians. They were Iran's biggest customer for oil. So, there are some connections there. But I definitely want to focus on that U.S.-Chinese rivalry, where it's at. I just saw that China just had some live-fire drills off the coast of Taiwan a few days ago for a couple of days. And just where we're at essentially now, July 2026, with this thing that will basically define the next probably 50 years.

**Thomas Shugart** (1:50)
So I would say that while there has been perhaps a drop-off a bit in the rhetoric of the competition, as it were, I mean, the facts on the ground from China's side certainly haven't dialed back at all.
They are being aggressive as they ever were in the South China Sea. We just saw the other day, Chinese sailors beating on Philippine sailors with sticks. Remember, that's a treaty ally of the United States we're talking about, that they're conducting violent action against.
The development of the Chinese military has, if anything, their trajectory has increased in the last few years. We now have multiple classes of nuclear submarines under production. We have the commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and Testimony recently said that Chinese submarine production is now going to go all nuclear. They're not going to build conventional submarines anymore, which is quite a surprise to me and development. We have their first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier under construction. We have the revelation that they are using even more than we thought commercial shipping and practicing conducting amphibious assaults. We have increasing numbers of Chinese aircraft crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait. We now have the Chinese, not just Coast Guard, but their whole of government, other agencies as well, acting like they own the waters east of Taiwan, waters that are actually really should be divided between the Philippines and Japan. I mean, so the facts on the ground in the Pacific are, if anything, more aggressive than they were in the past. It's just the US government doesn't seem to be choosing to make a lot of hay about it right now at this point. I guess they've got other things they're busy with.

**Dee Takos** (3:33)
Yeah, boys, any questions? Go ahead, please.

**Jack Murphy** (3:37)
Well, I mean, I think, you know, based on what you're saying, I'd be interested to hear you expand on the arms production. Because my impression, at least of China, is that their strategy in the past has been not to meet us tank for tank, fighter jet for fighter jet, carrier for carrier.
Is that still true? And if it is, what do you think this or how do you interpret this sort of like, I guess, increase in proliferation?

**Thomas Shugart** (4:06)
So I think what we'll see is, until Taiwan is resolved one way or another, there will be a pretty significant asymmetry between what China is doing and the capabilities are developing. And what we traditionally see is US power projection capabilities. Because Taiwan is only 100 miles away, right? So you need different capabilities to do that.
So for example, let's talk about amphibious assault vessels. So you know, when you look at the US. Navy and its amphibious assault vessels, you have, you know, large amphibious assault ships, you know, 40,000 plus tons in some cases. They're equipped to operate, you know, thousands of miles from home for months at a time. That's overkill for the Taiwan Strait. You don't, you need something that can efficiently take troops as fast as possible, load them as fast as possible, go 100 miles, unload them as fast as possible, come back and get more, right?