This article uses the strategic theory of Carl von Clausewitz to analyze howthe 2008 elections in Taiwan and the United States may influence cross-Strait relations. The elections will affect governments, citizens, and armed forces, and thus the value Taiwan and the United States attach to preserving the island's de facto independence from the mainland. Surveying likely interactions across the Taiwan Strait, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the China-Taiwan-U.S. strategic triangle includes one power, China, whose Clausewitzian "trinity" remains uniformly locked on eventual unification with Taiwan and whose patience is finite; a second, Taiwan, whose government and people are ambivalent and whose military preparations are lagging; and a third, the United States, whose government and people have priorities that do not include a clash with China, whose military is shrinking, and whose officer corps wants to avoid fighting in the Strait. This mismatch in political commitments and capabilities suggests that, far from bringing about an enduring rapprochement, the elections have done little to dispel potential conflict in East Asia.