This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Bill Gertz of the Washington Times about China's

preparation for war sometime in the next two or three years. Bill travels to Hawaii, speaks to the

commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific, who makes it very clear that we're as ready as China. Here's Bill

to explain. The best way to discourage war

is that old Roman saying, if you want peace, prepare for war. What I'm hearing is we're

preparing. More later this week. Yes, it's again, I recently was in Hawaii and I interviewed the commander of the Indo-Pacific

Command, Admiral Sam Paparo. And his number one priority is developing fighting forces,

ready forces to specifically deter China. And of course, there are two main flashpoints. One is Taiwan. The other is

now the South China Sea. A third is Japan. The Chinese are conducting aggressive military activities,

pushing the envelope and raising the stakes and considerably raising the possibility that there could be a mishap or miscalculation

that could set off a larger war. He's fairly confident that the Pacific forces, whether they are

air, maritime naval submarine, are capable of taking on the Chinese. It would not be a pretty

picture. It would not be an easy conflict. There would be no short, sharp war with the Chinese.

It would be a bloody and very difficult conflict. But he told me he's very confident that they

have the ability. I mentioned to him that the Chinese have been practicing quite often now for the past three,

past two or three years for an invasion of Taiwan.

And I said, that's a lot of practice they've been doing.

And he said, me too.

In other words, they're getting ready for whatever the Chinese have in store and with the whole idea that they're going to deter a conflict before it could start.