After primacy: US military options in contemporary East Asia

China’s most concerning behaviors for its regional neighbors, and the United States, are often when Beijing uses the PLA and affiliated entities in ways that fall short of aggressive military action. While the United States and its allies and partners must prepare for high-end contingencies—intense, kinetic conflicts with a capable adversary—policymakers cannot assume that doing so will be sufficient to deter or to respond adequately to short-of-war scenarios. The United States will instead need strategies that coordinate the application of multiple means through which to threaten and impose costs.

All regional contingencies and military responses will similarly have implications that extend beyond the immediate events themselves. These will include effects on the global economy, on perceptions of U.S. status and standing, and on the durability—and the credibility—of U.S. alliances, multilateral institutions, and international law. Choices about whether and how to use the military to defend and promote U.S. interests in East Asia will be conditioned by policymakers’ beliefs about how alternative military strategies and their possible outcomes might affect these strategic dynamics.

Alternative military strategies are very concretely constrained by the U.S. defense budget and the Department of Defense’s (DOD) authorities; by time, distance, and regional force posture; and by U.S. vulnerabilities to adversarial attack in theater and at home.¹ U.S. treaty alliances and partnership agreements impose their own limits on what the U.S. military can and cannot do, and when, where, and with what systems and capabilities. Beyond these terms and conditions, the national interests of U.S. allies and partners often mean that policymakers cannot assume that they will support U.S. action, much less participate directly in regional military contingencies.

Policymakers are also sensitive to the fact that any forward deployment of U.S. servicemembers and assets carries the risk of immediate harm, much as they are sensitive to uncertainty about whether or to what extent there will be domestic political support for the use of force for anything other than defending essential U.S. interests. This is especially true for actions that increase the chances of war with China, which would be enormously costly and risk escalation to nuclear exchange. In many cases, forward deployments that put U.S. and PLA platforms in close proximity create opportunities for miscommunication, miscalculation, and mistakes that can lead to intentionally and unintentionally dangerous encounters and crises. It is not possible to eliminate uncertainty about which deployments are more likely to deter and which are more likely to provoke violent responses from the PRC, or to predict how escalation dynamics following an accidental or intentional incident might unfold. This uncertainty is compounded by the cyber vulnerability of U.S. operational forces and supporting infrastructure and of U.S. domestic critical infrastructure and key civilian institutions.

The tradeoffs required by these material constraints, operational risks, and political considerations will apply to all scenarios, but they will vary in distribution and intensity across alternative military strategies.

In East Asia, the United States has formal defense treaty alliances with Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Philippines, which it implements through a combination of diplomatic engagement, military basing and access agreements, and regularized cadences of military training and exercises. It also has a security partnership with the government of Taiwan, but without an accompanying official diplomatic relationship—an unusual combination made necessary by the unique history of the dispute between Beijing and Taipei about the island’s political status. None of these arrangements binds the United States to a particular military response, but these commitments, and threats to them, are central to the 2022 NDS.

Neither the NDS nor the extensive collection of concepts of operations and military plans that implements it can capture all possible adverse events. There are nonetheless discernible types of conflicts of interests that expert analysis and U.S. government documents treat as consequential and as likely enough to occur that the DOD needs to have a ready response. This analysis therefore uses a set of stylized contingencies to represent these general categories and to generate a set of feasible alternative military responses to them (Table 1). The set does not include a crisis precipitated by a North Korean attack on South Korea or consider a scenario in which North Korea is directly involved. This omission is not a statement about the probability of such a crisis occurring but rather reflects the analytic conclusion that the United States does not have near-term, feasible alternatives to a conventional, expeditionary power projection response.

Each of these eight stylized scenarios is considered below and is accompanied by a set of plausible—and sometimes unorthodox—alternative military responses. Just as the scenarios are illustrative, so too are the alternative strategies. The intent is not to develop plans in any level of detail, but rather to consider ways in which the U.S. military can be used beyond the familiar model of expeditionary power projection. Similarly, although the discussion of each alternative strategy includes a treatment of the costs, risks, and dependencies it entails, these discussions reflect the authors’ informed judgments, not original in-depth research.

The simple low, medium, and high categorizations displayed in Table 2 provide the authors’ assessments of each constraint’s intensity for each alternative military response. These are inevitably arguable and subject to uncertainty. This is especially true for the classification of allies’ and partners’ possible attitudes and reactions—positions that seem firm before a crisis might shift once events are underway, as risks might seem more tolerable when threats are more immediate. Nonetheless, the judgments rendered here are based on information that is available from contemporary research and credible media reporting.

For each scenario, not using the military at all is an available option. This approach would not immediately increase the risk of direct conflict, and it would not be subject to fiscal or capacity constraints. Although military inaction does not violate domestic or international law, it would arguably, if not definitively, violate U.S. defense treaty commitments in instances in which the scenario is an aggression against an official U.S. ally. This would certainly have repercussions for those bilateral relationships, and possibly for perceptions of U.S. reliability and credibility more generally. These general effects might vary in magnitude but would nonetheless apply to each stylized scenario, and so the option of doing nothing with the military is not detailed for each one independently.

Throughout, this exercise defines regional U.S. security interests as:

1. Defending the United States against kinetic, cyber, and nuclear attacks.
2. Defending U.S. treaty allies against unprovoked kinetic, cyber, and nuclear attacks.
3. Defending unimpeded international access to all undersea, surface air, and space environments as allowed by international law.
4. Deterring an unprovoked kinetic attack against Taiwan.

Strategy option: blockade break

Consistent with the expeditionary power projection model, the DOD can deploy carrier strike groups and conduct forceful freedom of navigation operations while positioning air and naval assets to defend Taiwan. This course of action is expensive to maintain, absorbs considerable military capacity, puts U.S. servicemembers and assets at risk, and increases the probability of direct conflict. Concern about the outbreak of a U.S.-China war will strain regional U.S. alliances, and most should be expected to offer limited support and little to no direct participation. Expert analysis suggests that this strategy has a high risk of operational and strategic failure. Although responding forcibly might reassure other allies and partners of U.S. credibility, operational and strategic failure might degrade it.

Strategy option: counter-blockade

The United States can use its military to apply a coalition-based blockade of PRC interests in other strategic locations, such as the Strait of Malacca or key Belt and Road Initiative ports. This approach constitutes a significant defense of Taiwan, albeit an asymmetric one, and relies upon U.S. power projection capabilities. It would therefore consume significant U.S. military capacity and would require the use of substantial political capital, and possibly the use of other forms of leverage, to generate and maintain collective action. Impeding the transit of PRC commercial ships would be costly for the global economy, most especially for China’s Belt and Road partners in the Global South. The risk to U.S. servicemembers and assets operating outside of East Asia is relatively low—the PRC’s military currently is optimized for regional actions—though the U.S. homeland must be assumed to be vulnerable to cyber retaliation. Imposing a counter-blockade, however, is inconsistent with the long-standing U.S. defense of freedom of navigation rights, and so this strategy should be assumed to have some effect on the U.S. reputation for upholding international law. There is no analytically sound way to assess the likelihood that the approach would succeed in convincing the PRC to abandon its own blockade.

Strategy option: distributed maritime guerilla network

An alternative to using large power projection platforms to directly break the blockade is to deploy a network of low-signature, uncrewed vessels and submersibles throughout the region to persistently harass and disrupt PRC naval operations. This strategy would require preparatory investments in large quantities of these systems and the ability to maintain production and procurement—they will be vulnerable to Chinese kinetic and cyber interdiction and the strategy might need to be maintained for a long period of time. These platforms are cheap relative to investments in traditional power projection assets and to the Chinese blockade-capable ships that they would be deployed to harass, disrupt, and potentially damage. Uncrewed platforms also offer a means of moderating the risk of direct conflict by minimizing the likelihood of harm to U.S. servicemembers. U.S. regional allies might therefore be more willing to support this asymmetric approach than one that has the United States engage in direct military confrontation. There is no analytically sound way to assess the likelihood that this approach would deter rather than provoke a violent PRC response, or that it would succeed in convincing the PRC to abandon the blockade.

Strategy option: Operation Vittles II

Upon indications and warning, the United States can rapidly deploy resources to bolster Taiwan’s self-sufficiency, including emergency food and energy production capabilities. This approach focuses on mitigation and civilian resilience rather than on prevention or military reversal. As such, it absorbs very little conventional capacity, requires minimal advance preparation, and is a low-risk and short-duration operation. It also accepts the blockade as a fait accompli, however, and so very likely represents U.S. concession to forced unification. Although the strategy itself is likely to be supported by allies and partners, it also risks signaling that the United States is regionally risk-intolerant and might cause allies and partners to question U.S. intentions in the region.

Strategy option: increase U.S. military presence and activity

Consistent with the expeditionary power projection model, the DOD can conduct frequent and forceful freedom of navigation operations, accelerate the cadence of joint exercises with allies, and flow additional presence into the region. This option is expensive to maintain, absorbs considerable military capacity, must be maintained indefinitely, increases the opportunity for dangerous encounters, and puts U.S. servicemembers and assets at risk. Increased operational tempo will strain regional U.S. alliances and will heighten concerns about the possibility of a direct U.S.-China conflict. This strategy has been employed by the United States in response to past PRC gray zone activities, which are ongoing.

Strategy option: counter-gray zone

The United States can use its expeditionary power projection capabilities in coordination with allies and partners to implement a global, low-intensity campaign of harassment and disruption against Chinese interests. This strategy would absorb moderate to significant capacity, at moderate to significant cost to the DOD. It would negatively affect the global economy and would be particularly damaging to China’s larger trading partners. Executing a global gray zone campaign would require the expenditure of substantial U.S. political capital to generate and maintain risk tolerance, material contributions, and cohesion among allies and partners for an unknown duration. The strategy diverges from long-standing U.S. objections to the use of subthreshold tactics to bully and intimidate and would degrade norms around freedom of navigation and appropriate state behavior in the global commons. It is not possible to predict how this strategy would affect the risk of direct conflict with the PRC, nor to predict whether, and how, China would retaliate or relent.

Strategy option: anticipate and neutralize

An alternative to expeditionary power projection strategies is for the United States to use autonomous systems and artificial intelligence-enabled monitoring and predictive analysis to coordinate rapid, targeted information campaigns to preemptively expose PRC activities and/or to position assets to impede or disrupt them. A military-led unit would combine AI-driven predictive analysis, indications and warning analysis, and strategic information dissemination to counter China’s gray zone tactics. It would use digital media to frame and amplify messaging about China’s bad behavior.

This approach prioritizes information warfare and predictive operations over military coercion, and so has a low risk of direct conflict with the PRC. It absorbs little conventional capacity and has moderate costs, requiring the procurement, operation, and maintenance of sufficient uncrewed systems and support for data analysis resources and digital infrastructure for an unknown duration. The strategy would require U.S. access to overseas bases for system deployments, but its emphasis on information operations rather than on traditional military operations makes it likely to place minimal strain on U.S. alliance relationships. It is not possible to predict whether, or how, the PRC might retaliate, or whether it would persuade China to change its behavior. 

Strategy option: full military intervention

Timed with indications and warnings, the United States can use carrier strike groups, amphibious assault ships, extensive air force assets currently based in the first and second island chain, strike missiles from submarines, and even ground troops to try to repel PLA invasion forces, first in the Taiwan Strait, but potentially ashore also. This strategy relies entirely on U.S. capacity to surge forces into the region and to sustain high-intensity operations. It will result in the loss of U.S. servicemember lives and the destruction of military assets. It risks both sides’ homelands becoming legitimate military targets and nuclear escalation, and it might fail. U.S. allies are unlikely to support the U.S. war effort directly, and indirect support is likely to be limited.²

Strategy option: Taiwan Bulwark Activation Force (TBAF)

Implementing this strategy involves prepositioning a network of low-cost, attritable uncrewed systems on and around the Philippine and Japanese islands adjacent to Taiwan. This force would be composed of a diverse array of platforms, including long-range loitering munitions, medium uncrewed underwater vehicles, attack uncrewed surface vessels, and mobile air defense systems. These assets would be transported into position using self-propelled barges and uncrewed surface vessels. Upon activation based on indications and warnings of an imminent invasion, the TBAF would rapidly deploy to create a defensive bulwark in the waters and airspace around Taiwan.

The TBAF is not capable of entirely preventing a PLA landing, but it can significantly disrupt and delay the invasion process, making it costly and difficult. TBAF units would operate as simple, single-function systems akin to mobile mines operating below, at, and above the water’s surface. Uncrewed underwater vehicles acting as low-speed torpedoes would target amphibious vessels below the waterline, while attack uncrewed surface vehicles place shape charges at ships’ waterlines. Teams of small uncrewed aerial vehicles could use coordinated tactics to attack sensors and operating stations on PLA vessels, confounding defensive systems across multiple vectors. Distributed air defense systems on uncrewed platforms would engage assault helicopters and transport aircraft. By preferentially engaging PLA forces, the TBAF allows U.S. general-purpose forces to operate from less contested areas, improving their survival rates and preserving options for protracted conflict if needed.

This approach moderates the risk of direct U.S.-China conflict while imposing significant costs on the PLA. The TBAF’s narrow focus on defensive, short-range systems makes it less provocative than deploying general-purpose forces. Its relatively low cost—estimated at $6.5 billion for procurement and integration—makes it more sustainable than expanding general-purpose forces. While this asymmetric approach places some strain on regional allies hosting TBAF elements in their territorial waters, it is likely more palatable than direct U.S. military intervention. By raising the risks and costs for PLA planners, the TBAF could significantly enhance deterrence and dissuade Chinese leaders from pursuing invasion as a viable option for resolving the Taiwan issue.

Strategy option: forcible dislodgement

In response to the PRC’s occupation of a feature under the jurisdiction of an ally (e.g., the Philippines), the United States could invoke its mutual defense treaty obligations and undertake military action to try to forcibly remove PRC forces from the occupied feature. This would involve deploying naval, air, and possibly, amphibious assets and forces to the region. This conventional military approach would require the commitment of significant resources and risks escalation. Forcible dislodgement would demonstrate robust commitment to allies, but the major operational challenges imposed by China’s regional anti-access, area denial capabilities, which put U.S. surface vessels at considerable risk, make success uncertain. This strategy option would strain relationships with other regional partners; they would be highly unlikely to endorse or support direct military action and would have significant concerns about the prospects of a wider regional war. Even if U.S. forces initially succeeded, maintaining control of reclaimed features would require the indefinite forward deployment of U.S. forces within range of PLA weapons, creating an ongoing risk of escalation.

Strategy option: increase U.S. military presence and activity

Consistent with the expeditionary power projection model, the DOD can conduct frequent and forceful freedom of navigation operations, flow additional presence into the region, and provide military support to affected allies. This would likely include some combination of expedited military sales, transfers of air defense systems and munitions, intelligence sharing, and training. This option is expensive to maintain, absorbs considerable military capacity, must be maintained indefinitely, increases opportunities for dangerous encounters, and puts U.S. servicemembers and assets at risk. Increased operational tempo will strain regional U.S. alliances and will heighten concerns about the possibility of a direct U.S.-China conflict. There is no analytical basis with which to assess the likelihood that additional U.S. presence and activity will change PRC behavior.

Strategy option: distributed maritime harassment

The U.S. military can implement a strategy designed to decrease any occupied features’ utility for the PRC by cluttering the surrounding waters and making China’s activities visible to the international community. The United States can achieve this by deploying a network of uncrewed underwater and surface drones with self-regenerating energy sources (e.g., saildrones and wavegliders) to persistently occupy and monitor the contested areas. The United States would then publish data from these assets and from tasked low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations.

This strategy would be moderately costly to implement and maintain because it would require substantial reserves of uncrewed systems that the PRC should be expected to destroy and/or seize. It is, however, substantially lower in cost than deploying expeditionary power projection assets. It also minimizes the risk of conflict, creating presence without forward positioning U.S. servicemembers. Regional allies might be relatively supportive of an approach that doesn’t allow China’s transgressions to go unanswered but that also doesn’t considerably heighten the risk of war.

Strategy option: counter-feature occupation

The United States can answer a Chinese feature occupation in kind. The U.S. military can deploy a rapid-response engineering unit (e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) capable of supporting ally and partner nations in quickly creating or expanding small land features and climate-robust artificial reefs throughout the South China Sea. Construction would require months to complete, but once finished would convey both strategic benefits and have the practical effect of restoring fishing habitats. These activities can be conducted at a low cost to the DOD and can be crewed with partner nation coast guard contingents supported by a minimal U.S. conventional presence. Although this strategy has a low risk of inciting direct conflict with the PRC, it contradicts long-standing U.S. objections to these tactics and is dependent upon ally and partner nation willingness and ability to coordinate and maintain action. It is also unlikely to convince the PRC to abandon its own feature-building and occupation activities.

Strategy option: activate mutual defense treaty

Timed with indications and warnings, the United States can deploy naval and air assets to the area. These forces would seek to prevent or slow Chinese occupation, and/or would push back PLA forces if they had successfully established a presence. This strategy would be an effort to maintain the status quo without escalating to general war. It would require policymakers to accept the likely loss of U.S. servicemembers and platforms and the risk of escalation to general war. Although Japan would be expected to engage in joint operations with the United States, other allies are not likely to offer direct support or participation. The strategy would consume considerable conventional capability and might not succeed in displacing the PRC short of war.

Strategy option: focal maritime harassment

The U.S. military can implement a strategy designed to decrease the utility to the PRC of any occupied features by cluttering the surrounding waters and making China’s activities visible to the international community. The United States can achieve this by deploying a network of uncrewed underwater and surface drones with self-regenerating energy sources (e.g., saildrones and wavegliders) to persistently occupy and monitor the contested areas. The United States would then publish data from these assets and from tasked LEO constellations.

This strategy would be moderately costly to implement and maintain because it would require substantial reserves of uncrewed systems that the PRC should be expected to destroy and/or seize. The area of coverage required, however, is limited, focusing on a specific island group rather than a vast maritime area. The cost is therefore substantially lower than deploying expeditionary power projection assets. It also minimizes the risk of conflict, creating presence without forward positioning U.S. servicemembers. Regional allies might be relatively supportive of an approach that doesn’t allow China’s transgressions to go unanswered but that also doesn’t considerably heighten the risk of war.

Strategy option: counter-feature occupation

The United States can answer a Chinese feature occupation in kind. The U.S. military can deploy a rapid-response engineering unit (e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) capable of supporting Japan in quickly creating or expanding small land features. These activities are possible at a low cost to the DOD and can be crewed with Japanese coast guard contingents supported by a minimal U.S. conventional presence. Although this strategy has a low risk of inciting direct conflict with the PRC, it contradicts long-standing U.S. objections to these tactics and is dependent upon Japan’s willingness and ability to coordinate and maintain action. It is also unlikely to convince the PRC to abandon its own feature-building and occupation activities.

Strategy option: increase U.S. military presence and activity

The United States can use the expeditionary power projection model and deploy surface action groups and carrier strike groups to conduct forceful freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs). This option is expensive, absorbs considerable military capacity, must be maintained indefinitely, increases opportunities for dangerous encounters, and puts U.S. servicemembers and assets at risk. U.S. allies will likely agree that a response is required but will be concerned about the possibility of a direct U.S.-China conflict. It is not possible to predict whether the PRC would retaliate or to assess the likelihood that FONOPs would succeed in convincing the PRC to change its behavior.

Strategy option: counter-control

The United States can respond to PRC sea lane control assertively but asymmetrically. One such approach would be to establish U.S. and allied-controlled maritime zones in extra-regional areas that are critical to Chinese interests. This coalition would then communicate and enforce a clear policy of proportional response: any Chinese interference with U.S. or allied shipping in East Asia will result in corresponding restrictions on Chinese vessels in reciprocal areas. Example locations could include:

• The Indian Ocean: The United States would partner with India to establish a joint maritime security zone in the Indian Ocean, focusing on the key shipping lanes China uses for energy imports from the Middle East and Africa.
• The Malacca Strait: The United States would collaborate with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore to implement strict transit regulations in the Strait of Malacca, a critical chokepoint for Chinese maritime trade.
• Latin America: The United States would implement controlled navigation zones along key shipping routes to South America, particularly near Brazilian and Argentine ports, where China sources significant agricultural imports.

By operating outside of East Asia, in areas where the U.S. power projection advantage over the PRC is considerable, this strategy moderates the risk of direct conflict—though it remains possible that the PRC would retaliate by attacking in-region U.S. assets or through cyberattacks on the U.S. homeland. Allied-controlled maritime zones would require unprecedented coordination with allies and partners over an unpredictable period of time and would consume considerable U.S. military capacity. The strategy also contradicts long-standing U.S. policy on freedom of navigation; this would make a reversion to the status quo ante unlikely. Whether the PRC subsequently changes its behavior or not, therefore, the outcome would likely be to precipitate a new global maritime order.

Strategy option: proportional response

The United States can respond by launching counter-cyber operations against Chinese digital infrastructure and/or deploying electronic warfare or other assets to temporarily disrupt PLA activities (e.g., communications and exercises). This strategy is low-cost and retaliatory; there is no analytical basis for predicting whether or how the PRC might respond, or about the escalation dynamics that might follow. This strategy would not require participation from U.S. allies and partners, though they would likely be concerned about the possibility of escalation into kinetic conflict.

Strategy option: coastal electromagnetic pulse (EMP) retaliation

This strategy has the United States deploy aerial EMP devices to disable electronic systems in key Chinese naval and industrial areas,³ effectively constituting a “cyber-kinetic” response. These effects could well disrupt critical infrastructure and cause chaos that results in physical damage and/or civilian casualties, and so might be perceived by the PRC and by U.S. allies and partners as a disproportionate, escalatory response. The strategy, therefore, likely increases the risk of PRC retaliation and, ultimately, kinetic conflict.

Strategy option: AI-driven hair-trigger counterattack

An aggressive option is to deploy an advanced offensive cyberattack system designed for a hair-trigger response. This would create adverse impacts on the PRC before its cyberattacks are fully implemented. It would rapidly identify and attack PRC cyber sources and methods, automatically launch proportional counterattacks with minimal human oversight, escalate responses in predefined steps, and target unconventional cyber assets (e.g., social media networks and financial systems).

This strategy operates at machine speed, which introduces the possibility of error and unintended consequences; its offensive nature also increases the risk of retaliation and rapid and unpredictable escalation. Its use of AI-enabled technologies, limited human oversight, and the inclusion of non-military targets also pose legal and ethical questions. These features are likely to raise concerns and possibly objections among U.S. allies and partners regionally and globally.

Strategy option: rapid extraction and covert operations

Upon indications and warnings, the U.S. military can engage forces to secure and extract Taiwanese government officials. The United States would support Taiwan’s leadership as a government in exile, and the CIA would engage in covert operations in Taiwan to sabotage critical infrastructure, establish and support underground resistance networks, and in other ways hinder Chinese control.

This strategy violates current international norms by employing controversial Cold War-era tactics. It risks immediate and long-term operational failure and PRC retaliation against the people of Taiwan, within the region, and directly against the United States.

Strategy option: extract the chip industry

The United States can seek to deprive the PRC of control over Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Upon indications and warnings, the United States would use its military to rapidly evacuate key personnel and intellectual property, particularly from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), to allied countries. This would require considerable pre-planning, run a high risk of immediate operational failure, and would not produce continuity of operations—that is, the global economy would lose Taiwan’s semiconductor production capacity. The strategy also does not address the needs and future of Taiwan’s people, and therefore would likely be perceived very poorly by U.S. allies and partners worldwide.

The nine scenarios outlined here are notional but possible, and many of the alternative strategies that accompany them are unorthodox but feasible. Military planners with the benefit of access to classified materials that provide a level of detail on U.S., allied, and PRC capabilities and intent might eliminate some and add others. Nonetheless, even this open-source thought exercise comparing the distribution of constraints across strategy options (Table 11) produces some general observations and suggests some preliminary implications for policymakers whose work it will be to make choices about how to use the U.S. military to further the national interest in East Asia.

Strategic orientation

It is unsurprising and unenlightening to note that expeditionary power projection strategies that involve U.S. forces in direct confrontation with the PRC are high in fiscal and opportunity costs, constitute an immediate risk to U.S. servicemembers and assets, raise the specter of nuclear exchange, and do not promise operational or strategic success. They also are resource-intensive and tend to strain relationships with allies and partners. Among strategies that instead use the military asymmetrically, costs and risks tend to be lower, the demands on military capacity are lesser, the likelihood of war is moderated, and success in defeating PRC aggression, or in changing its behavior, also is uncertain.

Much of the criticism of asymmetric responses, however, is not that they are less likely to succeed than traditional expeditionary power projection strategies. It is, rather, that they would compromise U.S. credibility. This is despite regional allies and partners’ increasingly strong signals that they have no interest in supporting policies that make great power war more likely to occur and have even less interest in participating in one if it does. Policymakers deliberating among strategies will have to arrive at their own considered convictions about whether U.S. credibility derives more from direct military action than it does from being responsive to the concerns and preferences of U.S. allies and partners.

All but the exclusively cyber-based alternative strategies depend to some extent upon not just passive coordination but active cooperation between and among the United States and its allies and partners. This requirement is most pronounced in asymmetric strategies that must operate over large geographies. They similarly all rely to some extent on the availability and application of new technologies—satellites, long-range loitering munitions, uncrewed surface and subsurface systems, AI sensing and data processing capabilities, and mobile air defense systems.

Force structure

The United States will continue to rely upon the core elements of its expeditionary power projection capabilities for the foreseeable future: surface and undersea vessels, air transport and attack vehicles, and a large and well-trained cadre of servicemembers to operate and maintain them. The loss of regional U.S. military primacy does not imply a need to divest from all these assets. It does, however, create an imperative to develop strategies that do not conflate large platforms with deterrent effect, and that do not depend exclusively upon offensive lethality to threaten or to impose costs. Such strategies will inherently produce some rebalancing of DOD investments over time, though the cost difference between expeditionary power projection assets and asymmetric platforms means this will not require major reallocations within the 2025 Future Years Defense Program or infeasible near-term increases in the DOD budget.

Early indications are that systems composed of technologies available today can be employed to produce highly effective asymmetric strategies. Recent wargaming demonstrated low-cost uncrewed platforms’ potential to operate as sensing networks, picket lines, and screening forces to create sea denial capability across even a relatively large area of responsibility (AOR).⁴ This force structure proved able to constrain a potential aggressor’s freedom of movement and limited adversarial targeting opportunities by keeping high-value crewed U.S. assets at a distance. Its other attributes include persistent presence, good survivability, and cost and personnel advantages over traditional expeditionary power-projection capabilities.⁵

Distributed force structures that rely heavily on uncrewed assets have limited utility for strategically offensive operations. They are dependent upon robust command and control architectures and are suited to local, rather than global, deployment.⁶ The strategies that use these technologies manipulate position, information, resilience, and rapid adaptation to coerce an adversary, rather than deploy brute force to confront it. While these attributes might appeal to U.S. allies and partners, committing to distributed asymmetric strategies in East Asia will depend upon whether policymakers and the DOD accept the proposition that strategies of deterrence and military defense do not require an abundance of expeditionary, offensive warfighting capability.

Beyond military strategy

The most vexing of the stylized scenarios considered, however, are vexing largely because neither strategies that rely on expeditionary power-projection capabilities nor those that rely upon distributed systems of uncrewed platforms seem to offer a palatable balance among costs, risks, and rewards. Indeed, the problems posed by China being bold enough to close regional sea lanes or aggressive enough to effect a cyberattack on the United States should prompt the United States to look for solutions beyond long-term patterns in how the United States uses its military.

If, for example, the U.S. Navy is no longer able or policymakers are no longer willing for it to serve as the guarantor of transit over the world’s seas and through its skies, then now is the time to seek big ideas about how to minimize the incentives for regional closure and sectioning. It is worth asking, for example, such questions as whether it might be possible to work toward the establishment of an international, rules-based maritime traffic management system modeled after global air traffic control. Such a system could be overseen by a new international maritime organization that would implement standardized rules, manage dispute resolution mechanisms, and integrate multinational coordination centers, national coast guards, and advanced domain awareness systems.

New thinking is also needed to address concerns about a cyberattack on domestic critical infrastructure. Here it is worth considering that resilience might be an alternative to prevention or retaliation. This might look like activating pre-positioned DARPA Rapid Attack Detection Isolation and Characterization Systems to enable rapid black start recovery of power grids and other essential systems. This or a similar approach would require considerable changes not only in how the DOD conceptualizes defense but also in how it cooperates, coordinates, and interfaces with the agencies responsible for homeland security.

These and other such possible strategies would face numerous challenges and would require significant high-level policymaker conviction and commitment. This likely is true for all regional military strategies that diverge from established investment, procurement, doctrinal, and operational patterns. But if, as two consecutive national defense strategies assert, China is the military challenge with which the DOD must keep pace, and if, as the 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy contends, this is the “decisive decade,” then nothing but ambitious measures will suffice.