Russian President Vladimir Putin has the benefit of Iranian drone production and North Korean ammunition. We lack both, and we have a bigger problem than Ukraine: China.

In May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said China plans to invade Taiwan in 2027 and warned of the enormous consequences for the region.

The problem is that, among other things, we would lose thousands of lives and billions of dollars in equipment (ships, aircraft and satellites) in that war, and we would certainly run out of ammunition (missiles, bombs and more) if the war lasted more than a few days or weeks. This has been proved over and over in war games and studies.

That is because of the deindustrialization of the United States and the hyperindustrialization of China. The Chinese are outproducing us in everything related to war: ships, aircraft, missiles, bombs.

That wouldn’t be a problem but for the fact that our technological edge has been whittled down to the point that many Chinese (and Russian) weapons systems are just as good as ours. Some may even be better.

We need to actively engage the means of producing the missiles, aircraft and other tools of war necessary to defeat the Chinese. The right approach is to rebuild our defenses with a war against China in mind.

When a war with China breaks out, we must suspect that the Chinese will do some or all of the following: seek to destroy our navigational, communications and spy satellites; launch air and missile attacks on our ships both near and far from Taiwan; attack vulnerable U.S. air bases such as Yokuta in Japan; and attack our cyber capabilities to a degree never before seen. That’s just the beginning.