On his first tour of Asia last week, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told service members on the Pacific territory of Guam they were not just the “tip of the spear” of efforts to deter a big war with China, but also literally “living in history”.
Events since then appear to have proved him right.
Last Saturday, as he addressed a mixed American and Japanese audience announcing the creation of a new joint “war-fighting headquarters”, Hegseth reassured his audience: “America First does not mean America alone”.
"America is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait," Hegseth said, describing Japan as, "on the front lines of any contingency we might face in the western Pacific.”
Three days later, China mobilised a fleet of warships to conduct war games all around Taiwan, accompanied by some of Beijing’s most bellicose rhetoric so far against the island’s leadership.
Ships included China’s first indigenously built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, cruising between Taiwan and Japan’s outermost islands shadowed by Taiwanese naval forces and a Japanese destroyer.
The limits of US resources, however, are readily apparent – while relations between Washington and most of its key allies have been further complicated by the range of tariffs imposed on them this week by President Donald Trump.
As China sent one of its carriers towards Taiwan, the US Naval Institute noted that there was not a single US aircraft carrier in the Pacific at the time.
The two battle groups that might normally have been there – those of the Harry S Truman and the George Washington – were instead in the Middle East, supporting US operations against Yemeni Houthi militants and also tacitly threatening Iran.
While much of the media attention in recent weeks has been focused on the Trump administration’s war of words with Europe, China has spent the last month engaged in a hefty worldwide campaign of messaging pushing the idea that Washington is abandoning all its allies and opening the door for greater Chinese dominance abroad.
Hegseth’s visit appeared intended to deliver reassurance, at least to the Philippines and Japan, the two nations that would be most important for the US in any battle over Taiwan.
A classified Pentagon posture document leaked shortly before his visit described deterring and stopping such an assault as the Pentagon’s top priority, along with preparing for and deterring a wider Pacific war.
The wording of that document delivered at least a temporary piece of reassurance to Taiwan itself, which had become increasingly worried over rhetoric from Washington.
"China is the department's sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese 'fait accomplit' seizure of Taiwan – while simultaneously defending the US homeland is the department's sole pacing scenario," Hegseth wrote in the document.
How deep that commitment really goes, however, is a matter of widespread speculation, with different figures in the Trump administration sending notably mixed messages.
At the start of March, the Pentagon’s new number three official Elbridge Colby – one of a growing number of so-called “restrainers” in the new administration nervous of US overstretch abroad – suggested Taiwan was spending much too little on defence and might need to be cut adrift.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te has pledged to increase government defence spending to three per cent of gross domestic product. But Colby said that given the threat it should be 10 percent.
Taiwanese officials say that is impossible – not least because the opposition Kuomintang who favour closer ties with China are probably able to block new defence spending in parliament.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has repeatedly called Lai a "separatist". Lai rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.
Colby compared a US decision to abandon Taiwan to its fate to that made by British Fighter Command chief Sir Hugh Dowding in 1940 when he refused to allow more aircraft to be sent to France, warning that to do so would pointlessly sacrifice Britain’s own defences.
That is not an unreasoned argument – but it risks demotivating Taiwan’s own forces to the point where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Traditionally, Chinese planning for an invasion of Taiwan has involved multiple stages including a blockade, one of the activities China’s navy and coast guard appeared to be practising this week.
But authorities in Washington and Taipei are also concerned about a lightning seizure of the island or its capital perhaps also involving a local coup by Chinese elements already in Taiwan.
That, they believe, could be intended to confront both the US and world with a fait accomplit.
But Beijing would still need to move massive amounts of troops and material across the Taiwan Strait, something the US military says it has plans to block using submarines, missiles and large numbers of unmanned drones.
Plenty in the region believe that if Taiwan is allowed to fall, Beijing will move on rapidly to other targets. That includes disputed shoals in the South China Sea.
According to reports in the Philippines, last month also saw Chinese social media users begin to claim that Palawan, a large Filipino island, was in fact an historic Chinese territory called “Zheng He” island, named for a legendary Chinese admiral.
Certainly, Beijing is becoming more expansive in its military actions.
In February, China sent a warship flotilla to circumnavigate Australia and engage in live-fire exercises south of the Australian continent. It was something Beijing had never done before and fuelled days of alarmed media coverage, especially given the lack of comment by the US, Australia’s primary ally.
This week, the head of the Philippines military, General Romeo Brawner, visited his own northern headquarters to warn staff to begin “planning” for a potential Taiwan conflict.
He told them that at the very least they might be needed to rescue up to 200,000 overseas Filipino workers who were living in Taiwan.
His comments – as well as the Japanese warship shadowing the Chinese carrier – provided a reminder of just how fast the conflict around Taiwan could escalate.
US officials say Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered his military to be ready to invade the island by 2027, although they also say that they do not believe a final decision has been made.
Under the last US administration, President Joe Biden answered “yes” several times when asked whether he would commit US forces to combat if a Taiwan invasion transpired.
Trump, in contrast, has declined to answer the same question at least twice, saying he “would never put himself in that position” of being formally committed.
That position broadly reflects the traditional private position of US administrations going back to 1979, when Washington officially recognised the People’s Republic of China as the legitimate government of the mainland.
The simultaneous “Taiwan Relations Act” committed Washington to continuing to supply Taiwan with arms sufficient to meet the threat from China, while maintaining “strategic ambiguity” over whether the US would fight to defend the island.
Beijing, meanwhile, continues to throw resources into building its ever-growing military, including another seven per cent military budget increase announced last month.
China's construction of barge-type ships that can be used to build rapidly-deployable piers has drawn particular international comment as it is regarded as an essential part of any invasion planning.
For its part, Taiwan is looking to build up its defences, recently announcing an increase of spending to three per cent of GDP and a series of much more realistic training drills.
As the Chinese ships deployed on Monday, Taiwan was engaged in one of its own most realistic civil defence drills in recent history, involving emergency services as well as troops including conscripts.
But both Trump and his vice president JD Vance have voiced scepticism over the value of defending Taiwan. They have pushed the position that the island is contributing to little to its own defence.
Those concerns deepened when Trump hosted the head of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TMSC) CC Wei.
Taiwanese officials were alarmed when Trump praised the firm’s decision to relocate some semiconductor manufacturing to the US by saying it would be safer “if something happened”.
Chinese media outlets were quick to capitalise on those concerns, unleashing a blizzard of headlines and social media content at the island pushing the idea of “US abandonment” – something that many on Taiwan say they believe might railroad the island into an outright surrender to Beijing.
South Korea and Australia, too, are likely nervous as to why they were left out of Hegseth’s Asia trip – although in South Korea’s case the reason may be found in the complex legacy of its president's attempted coup last year.
But in Australia there are widespread worries Trump may dump the landmark AUKUS deal and perhaps look to keep Virginia-class submarines Australia has already partly paid for to give the already overstretched US Pacific Fleet the resources it needs.
The last few weeks may well have added Australia and Japan to the list of nations – including South Korea, Poland and Ukraine – quietly considering acquiring nuclear weapons if they believe it is the only way to guarantee their safety.
Some in Trump’s 10-week-old administration may regard that as a workable price for reducing US obligations abroad. Others would likely see it as a sign of failure.
Hegseth’s Pentagon doubtless includes both views. The question is which wins.
(By Peter Apps; editing by Mark Heinrich)