Center For Maritime Strategy – The major challenge facing the United States in a great power war over the Republic of China (Taiwan) would be the very real possibility that such a war would become a protracted one. Both the United States and the People’s Republic of China (China) place immense strategic value on Taiwan. In a war over the island’s freedom, both sides are likely to continue fighting until they either triumph or do not have the personnel or materiel to continue sustaining the war. Some analysts have offered up Great Britain’s experience during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) as a useful basis for formulating a strategy to counter Chinese aggression, and hopefully deter a war from breaking out in the first place. British wartime spending also provides a number of lessons that the U.S. would do well to learn from.