According to assessments, China outnumbers the United States in the majority of its cruise and ballistic missile arsenal. A highly classified U.S. government report, revealed by 'The Telegraph,' warns that China would surpass the U.S. military in a war over Taiwan. The 'Military Superiority' report, which is kept under strict secrecy, states that the U.S. reliance on advanced, expensive weaponry makes it vulnerable to China's ability to produce cheaper systems in massive quantities. A national security official in the Biden administration, who has seen the report, was reportedly stunned to realize that Beijing has 'countless alternatives' to any trick the U.S. might conceive. The loss of Taiwan, America's main bastion against Chinese influence in the Western Pacific, would deliver a harsh strategic and symbolic blow to Washington. In war games detailed in the report, the U.S.'s most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, recently sent to the Caribbean for President Trump's anti-drug campaign, would be destroyed. The $13 billion carrier, commissioned in 2022 after years of delays, is vulnerable to attacks from diesel-electric submarines and China's arsenal of about 600 hypersonic missiles, capable of traveling five times the speed of sound. In September, Beijing showcased its ship-killer YJ-17 missiles, estimated to travel eight times the speed of sound. Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) plans to build nine additional Ford-class carriers, while no hypersonic missiles have been deployed yet. Eric Gomez, a researcher at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies, said the outcome wasn't clear when he participated in a war game simulating a potential conflict with Taiwan, but he noted that the U.S. suffered devastating losses. He told 'The Telegraph': 'The United States loses a lot of ships in this process. You lose over 5th-generation aircraft, several destroyers, two submarines, and two aircraft carriers.' Last year, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated, 'We lose every time' in Pentagon war games against China. Both great powers maintain a stockpile of 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
