Drawing on a century of U.S. military planning, Rowan Allport examines how a future conflict over Taiwan might unfold and what it would mean for U.S. strategy in the Pacific. Blending history, technology, and current affairs, this timely analysis explores the rising risks of confrontation with China and the stakes for global security.

As tensions continue to escalate between Washington and Beijing, Taiwan’s fate has become a central issue in U.S. defense strategy. China’s growing aggression has many speculating that it will invade Taiwan in the second half of this decade. Though the most recently reported regional U.S. war plan for such a conflict, Operation Plan (OPLAN) 5077, is unavailable to the public, author Rowan Allport draws on a century of U.S. planning for wars fought and avoided to extrapolate what such a plan—and the war it is executed in response to—would look like.

War Plan Taiwan charts the defense challenges the Western Pacific has presented to the United States since its establishment as a territorial presence in the region, including in the context of preparation for and execution of the war against Imperial Japan, the subsequent threat from the Soviet Union, and the rise of China, which presents the greatest challenge to U.S. security since the nineteenth century. It examines the strategic and technological developments—particularly in anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities—that have shaped U.S. military planning, with support from relevant case studies.

Incorporating a historical narrative of U.S.-Taiwan defense relations and concluding with an examination of the potential course of a 2029 conflict between a U.S.-led coalition and China in the region, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to understand Taiwan’s pivotal position in today’s new Cold War.