As the 2027 “Davidson window” approaches, Washington appears less concerned about deterrence failure in Asia than at any point in recent years. The phrase, drawn from former US Indo-Pacific commander Admiral Philip Davidson’s warning about China’s timeline for achieving combat readiness for a Taiwan contingency, once became shorthand for fears of imminent conflict, especially in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Yet “deterrence” is scarcely mentioned in the US Intelligence Community’s 2026 Annual Threat Assessment, the intelligence community’s capstone document. While it notes that Beijing’s ambitions over Taiwan remain undiminished, it asserts that “Chinese leaders do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027, nor do they have a fixed timeline for achieving unification.” The intelligence community appears to have embraced a view of Xi Jinping’s strategy as gradual, positional, and political, aimed at tightening control over what Beijing calls a rogue province, even though the People’s Republic of China has never governed Taiwan.
Admiral Davidson’s warning was never a prediction of impending war. It was a caution about the convergence of two trends: China’s military modernization milestone in 2027 and a potentially declining US force posture, which could create a gap in deterrence. Ironically, on the eve of the People’s Liberation Army’s centenary in 2027, Washington risks becoming overly sanguine about the durability of deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
Although the Annual Threat Assessment reflects reasonable analytical caution, it risks strategic complacency.
Across both South and East Asia, structural trends are eroding deterrence. A fracturing international order, the expansion of conflict below the nuclear threshold, and the accelerating impact of emerging technologies are together undermining stability. This is no time to slacken efforts to shore up deterrence.
The Failure of Nuclear Deterrence
Recent conflicts suggest the stark lesson that while nuclear weapons may still deter large-scale war, they do not prevent conflict. Indeed, nuclear-armed states appear increasingly willing to incur risk by operating below the nuclear threshold. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains the most obvious case. Had Kyiv retained its nuclear arsenal, it is difficult to imagine Russia prosecuting a prolonged war of aggression on its territory.
Iran provides a more recent example of deterrence failure. Tehran exposed its capabilities through premature use, delegated credibility to unreliable proxies, and lingered at a nuclear threshold sufficient to provoke an attack but insufficient to prevent it. What should have imposed caution instead created opportunity for its adversaries. Deterrence did not fail quietly; it collapsed visibly.
More broadly, deterrence is no longer reliably governing the space below major war. This was evident in South Asia in spring 2025. After a terrorist attack in Pahalgam killed 26 civilians, India launched Operation Sindoor, striking deep inside Pakistan, including near sensitive military infrastructure. The episode demonstrated a higher tolerance for risk on both sides. It reinforced the parlous conclusion that even nuclear-armed rivals believe there is still room to engage in conflict without triggering nuclear escalation. Tensions continue to simmer on the Durand Line between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and last year was not the last time terrorism will prompt military reprisal. India’s subsequent shift toward compellence, outlined in Defence Forces Vision 2047, underscores this trend.
Across recent conflicts, from Ukraine to Iran, states are testing the limits of escalation, probing how far they can go without crossing nuclear red lines. Indeed, a Carnegie Endowment study of nuclear threats in recent years suggests that nuclear-armed governments have grown more adept at manipulating fears of nuclear exchange to pursue conventional aims. Some may think that even a tactical nuclear use might not elicit more than conventional retaliation.
That assumption is profoundly misplaced. As the line between coercion and conflict blurs, and as conventional and nuclear domains become increasingly entangled, ambiguity is rising. And with ambiguity comes a heightened risk of miscalculation. These pressures are global, but nowhere are they more dangerous than in Northeast Asia.