Robert O’Brien, who served as former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, laid out his vision of what the U.S. needs to do to prevent a war from breaking out with China in the next several years.

O’Brien made the remarks during a Sunday interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” when asked what another Trump administration would do if China invaded Taiwan.

“It’s called strategic ambiguity,” O’Brien said. “And we don’t tell the Chinese how we’re going to react to their actions. But the key thing is peace through strength. If we have a strong Navy, if we move our soldiers and Marines out of Europe, in Germany, where they’re garrisoned, and put them in Guam and Hawaii and the Philippines, and Australia, where we have Marines already, that sends a strong message to the Chinese not to invade.”

“The key is to deter war, not to fight and win a war, which we need to do if it happens,” he continued. “But we need to deter the Chinese and the Communist Party from – from invading Taiwan in the first place, which we failed to do with Russia in Ukraine. And so strength will deter the Chinese from invading. it’s not talk. It’s how they see our force posture.”

He said that the Marines were perfectly suited to fight in Asia and that they would be a greater deterrent there than in Europe where war has already broken out.

O’Brien said that the U.S. also needed to move a carrier strike group to the region to again send China a message to not invade.

“We need to increase our energy production,” he said, adding that the U.S. also needed to “rebuild our military, rebuild our Navy, get our shipyards producing ships again.”

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