China Military Buildup Leaves US ‘increasingly vulnerable’: Pentagon Report

WASHINGTON - December 24, 2025 -

The assessment also says that in 2024 China "tested essential components" of Taiwan invasion options, "including through exercises to strike sea and land targets, strike U.S. forces in the Pacific, and block access to key ports."

Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) honour guard members shout as they march during a welcoming ceremony for King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on November 12, 2025 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov-Pool/Getty Images)

ATLANTA — The recent push by China to build up and modernize its military means the American homeland is “increasingly vulnerable” to a myriad of threats that “directly threaten Americans’ security,” according to a new Pentagon report.

Over the course of 100 pages, the report, an annual assessment mandated by Congress and published Tuesday [PDF], makes the case that while the Trump administration is pursuing friendlier relations with Beijing, the Asian giant has expanded its capabilities in several key strategic domains, including the cyber, space and nuclear disciplines.

The People’s Liberation Army is also well on its way to meeting leader Xi Jinping’s directive that it be in a position to achieve a “strategic decisive victory” over Taiwan by 2027 if so ordered. “In other words, China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027,” the report states bluntly.

The assessment says that in 2024 China “tested essential components” of Taiwan invasion options, “including through exercises to strike sea and land targets, strike U.S. forces in the Pacific, and block access to key ports.”

Some other key findings:

• Buildup in space: By January 2024 China had already tripled its ISR satellite platforms on-orbit since 2018. Those satellites, along with others, and “coupled with PLA’s growing space-based ISR order of battle has dramatically increased its ability to monitor, track and target U.S. and allied forces both terrestrially and on orbit.”

• Nuclear weapons: China’s stockpile of nuclear weapons “remained in the low 600s through 2024,” the report says, which reflected a “slower rate of production” compared to previous years. However, it said a “massive” nuclear expansion has continued, and the PLA” remains on track to have over 1,000 warheads by 2030. (For comparison, the US holds around 3,700 nuclear warheads and Russia has around 4,300, according to the Federation of American Scientists.)

• Missiles in silos: The report contends that the Chinese military has “likely loaded more than 100 solid-propellant ICBM missile silos at its three silo fields with DF-31 class ICBMs, which are very likely intended to support EWCS [early warning counterstrike capability].” News of that assessment was first reported by Reuters earlier this week.

• An ICMB into the Pacific: In September 2024 China launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile “into the Pacific Ocean for the first time since 1980, probably to practice a wartime nuclear deterrence operation […].” (China warned the US about the test, but not some neighbors like Japan or the Philippines.)

• In cyberspace: “In 2024, China’s cyber actors continued to conduct widespread cyberespionage and pre-position cyberattack capabilities against the United States, its allies, and partners, in line with Beijing’s goals to gain dominance in the information domain,” the report says, referencing the widespread Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon infections.

• Relations with Russia: The report notes that in July 2024 China and Russia flew a “combined bomber patrol into the U.S. Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) for the first time,” which came months before the two nations “conducted their first combined coast guard patrol” in the Bering Sea. Overall, the report says Beijing and Moscow “deepened their strategic relationship, almost certainly driven by a shared interest in countering the United States” — but the two have stopped short of a defense alliance.

The report comes just weeks after the Trump administration published its National Security Strategy [PDF], which mostly shifted American focus to the Western Hemisphere and, when it discussed China, focused on economic relations. (China is not mentioned until page 19 of that 29-page document.)

Earlier this week President Donald Trump was asked if he had China in mind as a potential adversary for the newly announced Trump-class battleship.

“It’s counter to everybody; it’s not China,” Trump said then. “We get along great with China. I have a great relationship with President Xi.”

Tuesday’s assessment attempts to balance the administration’s diplomatic optimism with cold military assessment.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, relations between the United States and China are stronger than they have been in many years, and the Department of War will support efforts to build on this progress,” the report says. “[…] At the same time, we will ensure that the Joint Force is always ready and able to defend our nation’s interests in the Indo-Pacific. As we do so, it bears emphasizing that U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific are fundamental — but also scoped and reasonable.

“We do not seek to strangle, dominate, or humiliate China,” it says.

Credit:  Lee Ferran, Breaking Defense