The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan

by Matt Pottinger

The US Department of Defense and Congress should urgently appropriate supplemental funding to reform and improve the US submarine industrial base, to reduce the backlog of attack submarines currently idle while awaiting maintenance. Congress should also increase funding for bomber maintenance, to increase bomber mission readiness. Policymakers should direct the commanders of US bomber and air-refueling forces to make the counter-maritime mission in the Indo-Pacific theater their top conventional military priority. Bomber and refueling force commanders, planners, air crews, and support personnel should focus their training and logistic preparations on Indo-Pacific contingencies, especially those related to Taiwan. Bomber force commanders and support units should practice operating from a wide variety of dispersed and expeditionary bases. US Air Force and Navy acquisition officials should urgently acquire the largest feasible stockpiles of “affordable mass” precision-guided air-to-surface munitions, such as the Powered Joint Direct Attack Munition. Engineering and testing teams should rapidly certify these munitions with a variety of sensor and precision-guidance options to reliably strike maritime targets in all weather, illumination, and electronic