; and (ii) if deployed in the initial stages of a conflict, these capabilities could seek to achieve a fait accompli that would make reversing Chinese gains more difficult, militarily and politically ; and (D) testimony by then Commanding General of Marine Corps Combat Development Command Lieutenant General David Berger in April 2019 that peer adversaries of the United States seek to create strategic dilemmas through fait accompli scenarios . (6) In March 2019, then Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan testified that the implementation of the 2018 National Defense Strategy would ensure the United States has the capabilities, posture, and employment of forces required to prevent a fait accompli by the People’s Republic of China. (7) According to the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, [t]he National Defense Strategy implicitly acknowledges the most stressing potential scenarios will occur along our competitors’ peripheries . An attempted fait accompli by the People’s Republic of China against Taiwan should therefore be expected to constitute a most stressing potential scenario for the United States Armed Forces. (8) The National Defense Strategy Commission found that the United States Armed Forces must be postured to deter and prevent a fait accompli by an agile opportunistic adversary in order to compete effectively in the Indo-Pacific region and stated that the United States must develop new operational concepts to achieve strategic advantage, including by addressing the ability of aggressive regimes to achieve a fait accompli against states on their periphery, in recognition of— (A) the unique challenges to the United States Armed Forces posed by the employment of the fait accompli strategy by the Government of the People’s Republic of China or another strategic competitor