EXCLUSIVE: Is a Hot War With China Inevitable?

In this next part of our exclusive special series with Michael Sekora, founder and director of the Socrates Project within the Reagan White House, we tackle the question: is a hot war with China inevitable? And if so, is the United States ready for it?

Sekora noted: "The reality is, if you look at the U.S., we are not prepared to go for a hot war. If you look at, in terms of the Navy, there's a significant number of ships which are not battlefield ready. Okay, if we look at the Air Force, the Air Force is cannibalizing some of the older platforms to keep the new platforms up in the air and battle ready. If we look at the Marine Corps, which we've worked with, they say that they basically have to wait to see what China is going to do and hope like hell they can figure out how to fix it before it goes hot with them."

As for what China is doing, he noted: "They will continue to build their competitive advantage. And number two, they will know when they have the required competitive advantage. So even though some of these actions—like the CHIPS Act, like some of the other things, like increasing the [Department of Defense] budget such that we can execute the national defense strategy—China's still chipping away, maneuvering in the technology space and they're not going to engage until they have the required competitive advantage. So point being, is it inevitable? Yeah. Everything we're going to do right now is being done, it just delays that, and it will delay it until China knows they have the required competitive edge. "

"And then we'll go hot," he added.