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American Military Options in a Taiwan Strait Conflict

United States-People's Republic of China (PRC) relations since 1972 have varied from warm to frigid. Of most concern to U.S. policy makers and defense planners is the PRC's military buildup absent any real threat to her national interests in East Asia and her continued refusal to rule out the use of force to reunite Taiwan with the Mainland. 
 
 
 
Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is committed to insure that any reunification is by peaceful means. This paper examines several possible scenarios in which United States military force is used to back up America's commitment to Taiwan should the PRC decide on military force as the reunification option. 
 
 
 
The article hypothesizes that should conflict occur it will be between American-Taiwan forces, with limited Japanese support, on the one hand, and the People's Republic of China on the other. The task of ensuring Taiwan's security will primarily fall on the U.S. Navy. The paper asks the questions of whether the Navy is prepared for a naval war in the Western Pacific. Does it have the right ships in the right numbers? The paper concludes that given the present downsizing of the Navy and the buildup of PRC naval forces, it is questionable whether the United States would prevail should conflict come in the early twenty-first century.