China's Growing Home Field Advantage: The United States Must Revisit its Approach to Confrontation

Abstract

The balance of power shifts in the Pacific as the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) evolves into a maritime nation, investing heavily in its navy, air, and rocket forces. China enhanced and expanded its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities to deter and frustrate U.S. action in the region. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) modernized significantly over the past 25 years, making a U.S. response to crises in East Asia challenging. Amid China executing a strategy to establish regional hegemony, the U.S. military struggles to design a force optimized for defeating China in a potential conflict. Instead, the service branches mainly developed parochial concepts and seek force structures lacking joint unity of effort. This research first examines PRC A2/AD, which provides China with defensive advantages, then evaluates PLA transformation, assessing the navy, air force, rocket forces, personnel, and command and control. The research then pivots to examine U.S. operational concepts and the transformation of American military forces in response to Chinas rise and a modern PLA. In sum, the PRC prepares for potential conflict with the U.S. at a time and place of its choosing, where America would operate at a marked disadvantage. Instead of adapting its strategy and operational concepts, the U.S. finds itself preparing to fight in a high-risk, high-cost manner that escalates quickly. To avoid defeat and credibility loss, America must sidestep Chinas advantage in A2/AD systems and exploit its substantial power projection advantages. America should adopt an indirect approach to potential conflict with China that avoids a head-to-head confrontation but maintains faith with its allies and partners while encouraging those states to contribute more to their defense.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 28, 2021
Accession Number
AD1153991

Entities

People

  • Jason S. Schermerhorn

Organizations

  • National Defense University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerial Warfare
  • Air Force
  • Aircraft Carriers
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Command And Control
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Fighter Aircraft
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Naval Operations
  • Naval Warfare
  • Navies (Foreign)
  • Navy
  • Nuclear Powered Submarines
  • Tanker Aircraft
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Asian Economic Studies
  • Economics
  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control