This is John Bacheler. Speaking with my colleague Gregory Copley,

editor and publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs,

about the Washington talk that she didn't ping in the PLA

are getting ready to attack Taiwan within the next

50 months, four years. We're looking at a story that continues to change

and the Chinese favor it has said because of the large fleet now under

construction. However, Gregory observes that

the attack could come earlier and he argues why she might attack earlier

it's not out of strain. Here's Gregory. I'm John Bacheler.

Uh, he message that he does not have the

cohesion, trust and force structure ready to go to war

or will he interpret as the fact that the castle is falling

around him and he needs to take aggressive action. In other words,

start a war with Taiwan, for example, uh, in order to build up

public support for his leadership and to be able to purge all of his enemies

once and for all. Uh, the answer is, uh, it could go either way

and it could go, um, it could go into a earlier rather than later

commitment to conflict because the longer that she leaves that situation,

the worse his economy will be. The more prepared his

adversaries will be both in the Republic of China,

Japan, uh, Vietnam, India and the like. Um, and so, so there's an incentive to,

if he's going to attack, it could be sooner rather than later.

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