David C. Gompert

Smarter Power, Stronger Partners, Volume II: Trends in Force Projection Against Potential Adversaries

This volume describes nine warfighting scenarios to test whether the anti-access and area-denial threat to U.S. force projection is growing more severe in critical regions. The potential adversaries in the scenarios are China, Russia, and Iran. The scenarios describe plausible U.S. and adversary military actions based on common understanding of current operational capabilities and approaches.

Conflict with China Revisited: Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies for Deterrence

Six years ago, the RAND Corporation reviewed the prospects for war between the United States and China. Possible theaters of conflict were the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Japan, the South China Sea, cyberspace, and India. We concluded that, while armed conflict between the two countries was not likely, the possibility was real enough to require prudent policies and effective deterrent measures. We also cautioned that those measures would become more demanding as Chinese capabilities grew. For the United States, this would mean assuming greater risks in the future to achieve the same objectives as in the past. Events since have confirmed these judgments. The range and capabilities of Chinese air and sea defenses have continued to grow, making U.S. forward-basing more vulnerable and the direct defense of U.S. interests in the region potentially more costly. As these trends continue, the United States will find itself gradually pushed more toward the threat of horizontal or vertical escalation for deterrence, with the attendant risks of counter-escalation. Neither the United States nor China is likely to employ nuclear weapons, but even an initially localized conflict could quickly spread into the economic, cyber, and space realms, doing considerable damage to both sides. The United States may be able to reduce or delay such reliance on escalatory responses by shifting to less vulnerable platforms: longer-range precision-strike drones and vessels to carry longer-range drones and submarines, along with the further dispersal of bases and force flows. The United States can also encourage and help allies and partners in the region to increase the range and capabilities of their own air and sea defenses. Barring unforeseen technological developments, however, it will not be possible for the United States to rely indefinitely on the direct defense of its regional interests. Unless China commits naked and large-scale aggression—which, to be clear, is not indicated by the current pattern of its use of force—the United States will likely want to focus on deescalating localized clashes and removing bones of contention. We recommend, therefore, that the United States move sooner rather than later—before its power position in the region diminishes further—to constructively engage China across a range of potential flash points. Such engagement might include more-energetic efforts to promote the resolution of conflicting maritime claims in the South China Sea; encouragement of improved cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwan; and more-extensive consultations with China on Korea issues, including possibilities for denuclearizing North Korea, formally ending the Korean War, and Sino-American collaboration in the event of a North Korean regime collapse. The United States should maintain a dense network of diplomatic relationships with China while strengthening channels for crisis communications, including regular leader-to-leader, military-to-military contacts. Conflict with China Revisited

Smarter Power, Stronger Partners, Volume 1: Exploiting U.S. Advantages to Prevent Aggression

Abstract : The proliferation of anti-access and area denial (A2AD) capabilities threatens to undermine the viability of offensive force projection. Thus, certainty that the United States could decisively defeat any state in all circumstances could be eroding. The U.S. military has taken steps to mitigate these A2AD challenges, but the focus has been primarily on technical and tactical fixes to maintain offensive force-projection capabilities. Meanwhile, the problem is growing, and strong underlying factors favor A2AD over force projection economically and operationally. The research reported here examined trends in military capabilities among potential U.S. adversaries, and the report proposes an alternative way for the United States to secure its interests. Specifically, after accounting for the underlying motivations, technology, and economics of A2AD, the authors argue that countering A2AD will require a new and fundamentally different strategy. Informed by case studies involving China, Russia, and Iran that are detailed in a companion volume and expanded on here, the authors conclude that the United States should, with its partners, adopt a military strategy based on using A2AD to prevent aggression to defend its interests rather than defeating A2AD outright. This strategy would seek to prevent international aggression by enhancing U.S. and allied A2AD capabilities (Blue A2AD), pursuing new approaches to limiting the vulnerability of U.S. and allied forces to enemy A2AD, and employing nonmilitary means of coercing would-be aggressors. They conclude that such a strategy would be more effective and likely less expensive than the current approach to securing U.S. global interests.