Armed conflict between the United States and China is in no one's interest and must be avoided by wise diplomacy, China's burgeoning power requires that we "think the unthinkable."

This collection of essays looks at the military challenges posed by China's growing strength and explores various American strategies for coping with those challenges.

About the Contributors:

Neyla Arnas is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP) at the National Defense University. Previously, she was the Policy Program Director at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Ms. Arnas is a graduate of Louisiana State University and holds a master’s degree in political science and bachelor’s degrees in political science and French.

Tai Ming Cheung is a research fellow at the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, based in San Diego, and also teaches at the University of California San Diego’s Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. Dr. Cheung is a specialist on Asian and Chinese strategic affairs, especially on defense economic, industrial and science and technological issues.

Stuart E. Johnson is a Senior Analyst with the RAND Corporation. Prior to that, he served as the Chair for Force Transformation Studies in CTNSP at the National Defense University. He has been Director of International Security and Defense Policy programs at the RAND Corporation, Senior Scientist at the Naval War College, and Director of Systems Analysis at NATO Headquarters. Dr. Johnson is a graduate of Amherst College and has a PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Martin Libicki has been a senior management scientist at RAND since 1998, focusing on the relationship between information technology and national security, including information warfare and the revolution in military affairs. Prior employment includes 12 years at the National Defense University, three years on the Navy Staff as program sponsor for industrial preparedness and three years as a policy analyst for the GAO's Energy and Minerals Division. He holds a master’s degree in city planning and PhD in city and regional planning, both from U.C. Berkeley.

Timothy C. Lo is a Research Associate at CTNSP. He holds a master’s degree in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University, where he also earned a bachelor’s degree.

Duncan Long is a Research Associate at CTNSP. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, US Navy (ret) is a Vice President and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, a division of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a not-for- profit federally funded research center in Washington D.C. During his navy career Rear Admiral McDevitt held four at-sea commands; including an aircraft carrier battlegroup. He was the Director of the East Asia Policy office for the Secretary of Defense during the first Bush Administration. He also served for two years as the Director for Strategy, War Plans and Policy (J-5) for US CINCPAC. Rear Admiral McDevitt concluded his 34-year active duty career as the Commandant of the National War College in Washington DC.

James Mulvenon is Deputy Director, Advanced Analysis at DGI’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis. A specialist on the Chinese military, Dr. Mulvenon's research focuses on Chinese C4ISR, defense research/development / acquisition organizations and policy, strategic weapons programs (computer network attack and nuclear warfare), cryptography, and the military and civilian implications of the information revolution in China. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and attended Fudan University in Shanghai from 1991-1992.

David Shlapak is a Senior Defense Analyst with the RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh, PA. During his two-plus decades in the national security field, he has led studies on topics ranging from nuclear strategy to counterterrorism and homeland defense. For the past 10 years he has worked extensively on issues relating to Asian security and U.S. defense posture in the Pacific region.

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Introduction:

The probability of conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan has diminished in recent years. The chief potential flashpoint for war, a Taiwanese declaration of independence, has become less likely as Taiwan’s independence movement has waned and economic ties with the mainland have strengthened. Should the independence movement in Taiwan regain political momentum, however, the potential for U.S. military intervention in the Taiwan Strait would increase.

Further, the perception of U.S. vulnerability in the region could invite assertiveness. So, despite the fact that armed conflict between the United States and China is in no one’s interest, China’s burgeoning power requires that critical factors in U.S. plans for the defense of Taiwan be examined. This collection of essays offers just such an examination. It looks at China’s growing strength, the strategies underlying U.S. plans for military intervention in the Strait, U.S. vulnerabilities, and options for how these vulnerabilities might be overcome through the development of new technologies and strategies.

The U.S. defense commitment to Taiwan, though tacit and conditional, has been a long-standing strategic constant. America’s ability to prevent the invasion or coercion of Taiwan, however, is more variable. As the Defense Department’s most recent report to Congress on Chinese military power indicates, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has embarked on a concerted effort to modernize, with the goal of being able to conduct (and counter) the sort of rapid, precise, information-intensive operations of which the U.S military is now capable.

Of particular concern in a Taiwan scenario is China’s growing ability to track, target, and destroy U.S. carrier strike groups (CSGs), which are the fulcrum of American military strategy in the region. The Defense Department reports that the PLA is focused on targeting surface ships at long ranges, perhaps as far as the “second island chain,” east of Japan and as far south as Guam. China is amassing the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike assets needed to conduct long-range precision attacks. These growing capabilities are coupled with PLA doctrine that emphasizes preemption and surprise attack; the potential significance of this turn of thought was underscored by China’s January 2007 demonstration of an antisatellite weapon. China’s growing capabilities demand that the United States carefully review the evolving military balance in the western Pacific and consider the implications for future strategy.

Each essay addresses a key part of the Taiwan intervention puzzle. The compilation moves from an overview of U.S. strength and China’s growing military abilities (Gompert); to two pieces on China’s present and future military technology (Cheung) and personnel (Lo) resources; to an examination of a particular threat to U.S. regional power, China’s improving ISR capabilities (Mulvenon); to a review of U.S. maritime (McDevitt) and aerial (Shlapak) strengths and vulnerabilities; to a piece on how some aerial vulnerabilities could be allayed with UAVs (Libicki); to an analysis of U.S. options to better deter Chinese aggression (Gompert and Long); to a forward-looking article on how a new U.S. fleet architecture could change the balance of power in a Taiwan Strait conflict (Johnson).

David Gompert opens by defining the problem and its key components: China is getting stronger both specifically in its ability to contend with U.S. carrier battle groups and more broadly through military transformation. Gompert points out that though conflict with China is neither inevitable nor in the U.S. interest, the changing balance of power is cause for concern, as the perception of U.S. military vulnerability in the region could be a destabilizing factor.

Tai Ming Cheung then examines one aspect of Chinese military transformation, its military-technological development. Since the 1990s, China has made a sustained effort to develop its technological and industrial base commensurate with its rising economic status.

Citing the wide gulf in technological standards between China and the United States, Europe, and Russia, Cheung questions the goal set for the defense industry’s technocrats, scientists, and engineers to leapfrog ahead in defense modernization efforts to catch up to the world’s leading military powers by 2020. Cheung focuses on the efforts to introduce reforms to tackle the deep-seated obstacles that have held back China’s ability to absorb, create, and diffuse technological innovation.

Timothy Lo focuses on the people aspect of China’s military transformation. He emphasizes the need for change that yields a less centralized command structure, collaboration between military branches, a culture that values talent and risk-taking, and armed forces that concentrate on military activities. Lo argues that the Chinese have demonstrated the will to reform by taking actions on each of these, yet more remains to be done if the PLA is to transform itself into a modern military.

James Mulvenon discusses how Chinese advances in the particular area of ISR capability pose increased risk to U.S. aircraft carriers. The paper examines China’s overall information operations strategy, specific ISR capabilities, and intentions, and then explores a range of U.S. Navy counter-ISR options.

Mike McDevitt addresses China’s maritime strategy and the U.S. Navy’s need to improve its capabilities in order to maintain predominance in the Western Pacific. He concludes that Chinese advancements in missile and submarine capabilities means the U.S. Navy must focus on measures to counterbalance Chinese maritime progress.

David Shlapak discusses the role of the U.S. Air Force and notes that developing PLA capabilities will call into question the ability of the United States to operate effectively in such a scenario. Shlapak concludes that the U.S. Air Force and Navy must work together to exploit synergies that would counterbalance Chinese military progress.

Martin Libicki assesses the question of the role and vulnerabilities of U.S. air power and the pros and cons of manned versus unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) during a conflict scenario. Libicki concludes that, with further development, UAVs could make a significant (and survivable) contribution to U.S. ISR and communications capabilities.

David Gompert and Duncan Long analyze new strategic options for the United States. As China’s military capabilities improve and the U.S. deterrent threat seems relatively less formidable, America could explicitly threaten to escalate any conflict that China might start, and so confound Beijing’s apparent desire to sharply limit any war in both time and space. Such a strategy holds significant risk, but, as a possible way to improve the U.S. defense position in the Western Pacific without committing significantly more resources, deserves consideration. The authors weigh nuclear, economic, and conventional escalation, and conclude that of the three, the prospect of conventional escalation holds the most promise as a credible deterrent.

Stuart Johnson concludes with a proposal to change the naval equation with an alternative future fleet architecture. The aircraft carrier has long been the bulwark of U.S. power projection in the Western Pacific. Thus, China has long had a single problem to address in developing its military capabilities. Johnson discusses how a different U.S. fleet architecture would give China a more complex problem to solve than the one they have been focused on for years.

These essays were written independently of one another and reflect the authors’ own assumptions and conclusions, and not those of CTNSP or The National Defense University. Nor are they are intended to present a systematic or comprehensive review of the subject at hand; left largely untouched are such disparate but important subjects as the role of U.S.-China economic ties and the relative need for U.S. submarine forces. Taken together, however, they offer insights into the dynamics of the U.S.-China balance of power in the Western Pacific and make a valuable contribution to ensuring that the U.S. military remains capable of preserving American interests in the region.

Though these essays have a military focus, as one reviews the grim prospect of a clash with China as analyzed by the authors, one concludes that the United States must pay particular attention to the delicate political balances surrounding U.S.-Chinese relations and use diplomacy to reduce the chances of a military conflict.

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Acknowledgments:

The scholars and analysts who contributed these essays deserve special thanks. Though the essays can stand alone, this project had a collaborative beginning, and throughout preparation of this book, the authors provided thoughtful advice to the editors and to each other. David Gompert’s energy and insightful criticism stand out in this regard. The book also benefited tremendously from the early contributions of Elihu Zimet, Bernard Cole, and Robert Fonow.

The editors are indebted to the National Defense University Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs for assistance on this project, in particular Senior Research Fellow Dr. Phillip C. Saunders, for his review of and valuable comments on the manuscript.

The editors wish to express their appreciation for the support of their colleagues at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy, in particular its Director, Hans Binnendijk. This project would not have come to fruition without his patient guidance. Finally, this volume is stronger for the contributions of Neyla Arnas and Timothy Lo, who improved it in substance and detail.

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