An exclusive report by the Washington Post on Saturday last week about a secret internal guidance memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth revealed that US defense strategy has officially been reoriented to focus exclusively on deterring the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) potential military invasion of Taiwan, saying it must be prioritized over other potential dangers.
The nine-page document, known as the Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance, states that all Pentagon branches and departments must adjust deployments and reallocate resources with the central focus of “deterring China’s actions to seize Taiwan,” while simultaneously strengthening US homeland defense.
“China is the Department’s sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan — while simultaneously defending the US homeland is the Department’s sole pacing scenario,” Hegseth wrote in the memo.
This is more than some theoretical document — it is an actual combat blueprint. The memo clearly outlines that the US military would increase its presence, and utilize deterrence capabilities, such as submarines, bombers, uncrewed vessels and specialty units from the US Army and Marine Corps to fully intervene throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
The plan also includes improving the defense of US troop locations, generating pre-positioned weapons stockpiles, improving logistics, and focusing on bombs that can destroy reinforced and subterranean targets.
All of these preparations have only one purpose — to prevent the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from invading Taiwan at the earliest opportunity, and use strength to nullify Beijing’s strategic fantasies of a “quick victory.”
Compared with former US president Joe Biden’s emphasis on multilateral deterrence, this document is much less vague and does not beat around the bush. It is a clear, unequivocal announcement to the world that the Taiwan Strait is a top priority for US national defense.
Even more shocking is that this document closely mirrors a longer report published last year by the Heritage Foundation, titled Project 2025. Several sections of the document have been copied verbatim, indicating that the Heritage Foundation is no longer just an opinion shaper, but a policymaker.
A coauthor of the report, Alexander Velez-Green, now works in an interim role as a top policy official at the Pentagon. This indicates that the strategic layout had already been completed prior to US President Donald Trump’s return to office, and the deep structure of the Pentagon already views countering China as an institutional mission. This is not the personal stance of an individual president, but rather the collective confrontational posture and long-term combat preparation of the entire US military and political system towards the CCP regime.
Washington’s official military documents explicitly designate “deterring China’s actions to seize Taiwan” as an exclusive strategic guiding principle, and the US military’s focus has shifted entirely from Europe and the Middle East to the Taiwan Strait. Despite this, some forces within Taiwan remain skeptical of the US. Some even believe that, at the critical moment, the US would simply sit by and twiddle its thumbs — an assumption that is not only ignorant, but a betrayal of Taiwan’s destiny.
The US has already placed Taiwan’s defense at the core of its national policy — what else is left to question? The only question worth asking is — is Taiwan itself prepared?
Elliot Yao is a reviewer.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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