This commentary originally appeared in The New York Times.

For a half-century, America has avoided war with China over Taiwan largely through a delicate balance of deterrence and reassurance.

That equilibrium has been upset. China is building up and flexing its military power; hostile rhetoric emanates from both Beijing and Washington. War seems likelier each day.

It’s not too late to restore the kind of balance that helped to keep the peace for decades, but it will require taking steps to ease China’s concerns. This will be difficult because of Chinese intransigence and the overheated atmosphere prevailing in Washington. But it is worth the political risk if it prevents war.

Deterrence came in the form of the implied use of U.S. military force to thwart a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Reassurance was provided by the understanding that the United States would not intrude on decisions regarding Taiwan’s eventual political status.

The United States and its regional allies must continue to create a robust military deterrence. But U.S. leaders and politicians also need to keep in mind the power of reassurance, try to understand China’s deep sensitivities about Taiwan and should recommit — clearly and unequivocally — to the idea that only China and Taiwan can work out their political differences, a stance that remains official U.S. policy.

During the Cold War, Beijing and Washington signed a series of communiqués related to Taiwan. One of them said the United States “reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.” This and other wording was deliberately ambiguous, but it was accepted by all sides as a commitment to avoid rocking the boat. China still views this arrangement as binding.

To be clear, it was China that began rocking the boat first.

Since 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party was elected president of Taiwan (succeeding a more China-friendly administration), Xi Jinping has repeatedly brandished China’s military power with large-scale military exercises and other pressure tactics apparently meant to discourage independence sentiment on Taiwan.

U.S. political figures have rightly responded with rhetorical support for democratic Taiwan, by supplying it with weapons and by strengthening the U.S. military presence in the region. But the American reaction is also pouring fuel on the fire.

I have worked on U.S. defense strategy in various military roles for more than a decade. I recently traveled to Beijing, where I met with Chinese government and military officials, leading academics and experts from Communist Party-affiliated think tanks. During these talks it was clear that Beijing is far less concerned with U.S. efforts to enhance its military posture in the region — the deterrence side of the equation — than with the political rhetoric, which is seen in China as proof that the United States is moving away from past ambiguity and toward supporting Taiwan’s de facto independence.

They have plenty of evidence to point to.

In December 2016, Donald Trump became the first U.S. president or president-elect since the normalization of China-U.S. relations in 1979 to speak directly with a Taiwanese leader, when Ms. Tsai called to congratulate him on his election victory. President Biden has, on four occasions, contradicted the U.S. policy of ambiguity by saying we would support Taiwan militarily if China attacked. The number of U.S. Congress members visiting Taiwan — which China views as overt support for the island’s independence — reached a decade high last year, including an August 2022 trip by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House at the time and the highest-ranking U.S. official travel to Taiwan since the 1990s. That has continued this year: In June a nine-member congressional delegation, the largest in years, arrived in Taipei.

Provocative legislation has not helped. Last year the Taiwan Policy Act, which articulated support for Taiwan’s role in international organizations, was introduced in the Senate, and in July of this year the House passed a similar act. House Republicans introduced a motion in January to recognize Taiwan as an independent country.

Actions like these put great pressure on Mr. Xi, who won’t tolerate going down in history as the Chinese leader to have lost Taiwan. That would be seen in Beijing as an existential threat, potentially fueling separatist sentiment in restive regions like Tibet and Xinjiang.

For now, lingering doubts over Chinese military capabilities and the specter of U.S. and allied retaliation are enough to restrain Mr. Xi. But if he concludes that the United States has broken, once and for all, from its previous position on Taiwan and is bent on thwarting unification, he may feel that he must act militarily. The United States might be able to build the necessary military power in the region to deter a Chinese war of choice. But the level of dominance needed to stop Mr. Xi from launching a war he sees as necessary might be impossible to achieve.

Reassuring China would require Mr. Biden to reiterate that the United States does not support Taiwanese independence or oppose the island’s peaceful unification with China and that, ultimately, Taiwan’s fate is up to Taipei and Beijing. It would mean moving away from attempts to create international space for Taiwan and chastising Beijing when it pulls away Taipei’s diplomatic partners. The White House would also need to use what leverage it has to discourage members of Congress from visiting Taiwan and threaten to veto provocative legislation.

There would doubtless be blowback in Washington and Taipei, and Mr. Xi may already have made up his mind to seize Taiwan, regardless of the U.S. stance. But a politically neutral position on Taiwan is what the United States has followed for decades. Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George H.W. and George W. Bush advocated peaceful dialogue between Taipei and Beijing to resolve their differences.

There also are longer-term repercussions to consider: If the combination of deterrence and reassurance fails and China attacks Taiwan, it will set a precedent in which Chinese leaders kill and destroy to achieve their goals. But if a pathway remains for China to eventually convince Taiwan’s people — through inducements or pressure — that it is in their interest to peacefully unify, then that may be a China that we can live with.

In the best-case scenario, the United States and China would reach a high-level agreement, a new communiqué, in which Washington reiterates its longstanding political neutrality and China commits to dialing back its military threats. This would avert war while giving China political space to work toward peaceful unification. That might mean using its clout to isolate Taiwan and eventually convince the island’s people that it should strike a deal with Beijing. But it isn’t Washington’s place to prevent the unification of the two sides — only to ensure that doesn’t happen through military force or coercion.

A war between the United States and China over Taiwan could be the most brutal since World War II. As politically difficult as it may be, U.S. leaders have a duty to try to prevent conflict, and that means speaking more softly but carrying a big stick.

I’ve been given a lot of unique opportunities in my life, and I’m delighted that coming to Stanford to study cyber policy is the next step in my journey.

My work with cyber has already taken me through the U.S. Army as an intelligence analyst and into tech companies like StubHub and eBay, where I was a financial crime investigator, and Meta, where I worked on investigative teams looking into issues surrounding the 2020 U.S. election, the military coup in Myanmar, Ethiopia's civil war, and the evacuation of Afghanistan.

It’s surreal in the best way to be working with scholars and advisors like Renée DiResta and Alex Stamos whom I’ve read so much research from over the years. Because Stanford is so connected to Silicon Valley, it’s a prime place to look at policy impacts in the private sector. I’ve already had a chance to see public policy close-up, and I want to look more closely at how we can better engage the private sector to bring about societal changes.

One of the places where I think we need to rethink our approach is digital security. I’ve worked a lot on fraud and online crime cases during my career, and we tend to treat those issues very adversarially: reducing either entire nation-states or groups and movements of thousands and millions of people to amorphous, shadowy, dark, evil bad actors lurking in the ether is not a sustainable way to grow as a community and species. There are definitely really bad people out there, and without question there are people who have been exploited, but thinking about the issue in pure diametrics can be very dehumanizing. For every dark web mob boss targeting the innocent, there are a lot of undereducated, marginalized people targeting each other in a basic effort to get by.

I think we need to start asking harder questions about the incentives and root causes that drive people towards these crimes in the first place. Is it a lack of education? A lack of opportunity? The need for more resources? How do we as a society want to deal with those issues? Instead of just playing the whack-a-mole game that digital security currently is, I think the braver approach has to come from understanding the societal factors that create bad actors in the first place. We have to change those paradigms and take on the work of rehabilitating people rather than simply demonizing and dehumanizing them.
 

While I was an undergrad studying in Australia, I did volunteer and fundraising work with other Indonesian students. Throughout the semester, we’d collect funds, and then there would be a trip where we would go back to Indonesia and visit the children at the foster house we’d been collecting funds for. Sometimes these kids would go on to go to school or get a job, but their situation always seemed so precarious. If the economy changed or the money stopped, they’d be right back where they started. There wasn’t a good safety net to catch people, and donations were never going to be enough to change the situation for the long-term.

Seeing this made me start thinking about the public sector and how to improve public services that can act as a robust safety net for people in difficult times. Earlier in my career, I was very focused on empirical-based recommendations. I felt that as long as the data was convincing, that would be enough to create change. What I’ve realized is that good policy advice isn’t enough — you also need political will to implement the policy, driven by a well-informed public who can hold their elected policymakers accountable to deliver the changes they wish to see .

However, currently people find it difficult to understand the stances politicians take on certain issues and to keep track of whether they're delivering on their promises during their term in office. There’s not a very well-developed culture of people participating in policy making. I want to find ways of closing that gap between the people and their policy makers. 

That’s a massive challenge to tackle, but I know that learning more about governance and political frameworks with my MIP cohort will help me develop skills I can take back to Indonesia. There’s a big emphasis in this program on hands-on learning and experience outside of the classroom. It’s very focused on designing a solution, then testing it in the real world, then going back to redesign and test, redesign and test, until you get something that can actually make a difference. I’m confident that my time here is going to be invaluable for building public participation in Indonesia’s democratic and policymaking process.
 

My journey towards climate adaptation and mitigation is deeply personal, shaped by my lived experiences in the coastal cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Mombasa, Kenya, where I grew up. My mission is to treat climate change as a sustainable development issue and implement policies that holistically alleviate its impacts on vulnerable populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and the world. At Stanford, I hope to explore how science, technology, business, and society can work together to make this possible.

I’ve had the privilege of contributing to the development of renewable energy, water, and land conservation projects at different scales while working for a global non-profit (The Nature Conservancy), a multinational company (Schneider Electric), and an intergovernmental organization (The United Nations). Additionally, I had opportunities to engage in projects that address local problems of environmental and economic insecurity in various towns and villages in Tanzania (Zanzibar and Tanga), Cameroon (Bamenda), and the United States. These opportunities enabled me to collaborate with a wide variety of stakeholders in business, government, and civil society, thereby helping me hone technical and interpersonal skills relevant to the environmental field. 

As I continue my studies at Stanford, focusing on international policy, my goal is to channel my experiences, skills, and commitment to creating meaningful change. One of the exciting things about MIP is being amongst a nexus of people with tremendous talent. Tapping into this rich and vibrant community will help transform me as an aspiring leader in the climate space.
 

Since I was a little kid, I’ve been interested in what’s going on around me, and why things are the way they are. I come from Peru, and in an emerging economy like that it can be more obvious when public services don’t work. Everyone has stories from friends or family or firsthand experience of the difficulties they’ve had in accessing public services. I think that instilled a desire to solve issues of poverty and inequality very early on in my life. I’ve been asking those sorts of questions – What is this system? Why is it this way? How can we make it better? – for a long time.

I’m trained as an economist, but I believe we’ll only be able to find solutions to the major issues facing the world if we take an interdisciplinary approach. Yes, we need economic tools, but we have to combine those with frameworks from political science, international relations, law, education, public health, etc. We have to understand how the institutions who administer these frameworks function, and what we can do to change them when they’re not serving their purpose effectively.

And we also need to be open to learning from each other and making sure many different voices and perspectives are part of these discussions. We especially need young voices and youth participation in public policy. One generation may be in a position to make the policy, but it's the younger generations who will live with them. If we’re not helping them learn now, how can they be effective policy makers later?

I’m looking forward to my time in the MIP program as an opportunity to expand my knowledge and my network and make the kinds of multidisciplinary connections that will make me a more effective leader and mentor. The people here come from so many different backgrounds, and talking with them and learning from them is going to give me even more tools for how to approach these problems. 
 

My work experience is at the intersection of dual-use startups, venture capital, and the federal government. I most recently worked for Booz Allen Ventures, which is the corporate venture capital fund of Booz Allen Hamilton - focused on defense tech startups that can support national security missions. I supported the deal process end-to-end, from sourcing defense tech startups to developing business cases and facilitating value creation for portfolio companies. Prior to that, I supported several Department of Defense (DoD) teams, scouting dual-use startups based on certain use cases and technical requirements. I also conducted research on foreign investment in the U.S. startup ecosystem, assessing foreign influence within specific technology sectors.

My work experience has provided me with a deep understanding of and familiarity with the defense tech sector – both startups with dual-use applications and associated government needs and priorities – and how critical commercial technology is to supporting DoD efforts and ensuring national security.  

With rising geopolitical tensions in the world and China positioning as a great power competitor to the U.S., it feels like a great opportunity to be at Stanford and study international security and policy. At Stanford, my research interests revolve around venture capital and dual-use startups that support national security, opportunities/mechanisms to bridge the "valley of death" in the U.S. government, and adversarial capital/foreign investment in the U.S. I was drawn to the MIP program at Stanford because there are so many opportunities to research these areas and study them in depth from leading experts.

The MIP program also has a mission-oriented structure and mindset that really resonates with me. There are programs like the Gordian Knot Center at CISAC and classes like Hacking for Defense that are working in this same space: identifying private sector solutions for public sector needs. I’ve seen how good venture capital investments can accelerate startups that strengthen the DoD, and how good innovation, technology, and defense policy supports national security. I’m excited to continue working on these areas through my time at Stanford.
 

As an active duty Army officer and Downing Scholar, I intentionally pursued the MIP program at FSI because of the opportunity for personal growth, among the other unique aspects of studying at Stanford. A decade of military service taught me the simple truth that one will experience the most growth in the challenging territories outside of one’s comfort zone. Today, while passionate about International Security or Government & Development (two of the specializations offered by the MIP program), the Cyber Policy and Security track resides the furthest outside of my comfort zone and, therefore, offers me the greatest opportunity for personal growth.

In the military, the geometry of warfighting is divided into domains as a way of organizing and analyzing them. Admittedly, the cyber domain is the one I’m currently least familiar with, but the area that I feel is going to have the biggest effect on my ability to make and influence military decisions in the future. I’ve already witnessed how exponential growth within the cyber domain can expand the array of options for policy makers but, conversely, also create a new front of domestic vulnerability that U.S. national security and democracy is far from immune to. As I continue in my service, I want to be able to provide the best possible recommendations and make the most informed decisions possible. So, I’m here at Stanford to grow, discover and cover my blind spots.

More broadly, I understand this opportunity to reflect on my first decade of service while studying at Stanford is rare and well-timed. Today, I'm at a career-juncture where I’m now expected to understand the policy and strategic purpose behind the operational and tactical tasks at hand. That comes with a lot of responsibility. I’m more frequently in situations where I’m either directly making the decision or being asked, “What do you think about this?” by senior leaders. As a leader at any level, I want to be able to provide the best military advice possible, and I want to have a clear understanding of where my own decisions are coming from. Am I being objective or subjective? Do we have a clear end-state? Are we walking into a familiar and avoidable trap? I know the roots of many of these questions reside in policy. Therefore, I seek to build more of a mental foundation in the development of effective policy through a hands-on educational experience.

Today’s world offers no shortage of international policy problem-sets. One of the reasons the MIP program at FSI was so appealing to me was the environment it creates for hands-on learning opportunities to grapple with some of these problems. Dr. Fukuyama’s Policy Problem-Solving Framework and the MIP’s culminating capstone project offer tangible and solution-based opportunities to hone the skills I’ll take back to the Army. Lastly, Stanford houses a potent mix of people who have been policy practitioners, who have worked in government either here in the U.S. or abroad, and who are leading scholars in their field. Additionally, in this small and talented cohort of 28, another highlight to the MIP is our ability to frequently and directly interact with the faculty leadership and grow together. I’m excited by the opportunity for growth this all creates for me to not only share what I’ve learned in my career so far, but also to have that directly challenged and get feedback from my peers and professors. This experience will undoubtedly be invaluable when the time comes to step back into military service.