The war in the Strait of Hormuz is ending. The accounting for Taiwan has not yet begun.

Every resource consumed in the Gulf over the past weeks came from the same strategic account that underwrites deterrence in the Pacific. The aircraft carrier gap — no US carrier in the Pacific for more than two months — is not a logistical footnote. It is a signal. China read it. Taiwan felt it. The question now is what Beijing concludes about the durability of American commitments when a second crisis materializes in a different theater.