This is CBS, I on the World.

I'm John Batchew with my colleague and friend Gordon Chang at Gordon-Gee-Chang,

looking at the threat of the People's Republic of China's PLA, Navy, and Air Force to attack Taiwan,

and really the whole of East Asia.

By 2027, as the date were given by dignitaries at the U.S. Navy.

I'll go with that.

And we welcome Brandon Weicker, who's going to help us understand what is to be done.

What are we anticipating?

And especially very technical language.

A2. A.D. A2. AD. A2A.D. Brandon, a very good evening to you. What is A2A.D?

And why are we worried about it in the Pacific? Good evening. Good evening, John. And hello, Gordon.

Thanks again, as always for having me. A2AD stands for anti-access area denial. And that basically is the

acronym the Navy has come up with, the Pentagon has come up with, to define the Chinese missile

and hypersonic weapons threat. Basically, for the better part of a decade, part of China's modernization

program for their military has been to line up as many of their missiles and hypersonic

kill vehicles as possible throughout the man-made islands in the South China Sea along their

coastline with Taiwan. And they've increased the ranges on these systems to

basically prevent the U.S. Navy from deploying the bulk of its aircraft carrier and

surface warfare fleet close to areas in the South, in the South China Sea or the Taiwan

Strait that China believes is theirs. In time of a war, these A2AD systems would form the equivalent of a protective bubble

around Chinese forces that would be engaged in war,

and they would basically keep U.S. carriers over the horizon.

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