Christopher Culver
For approximately thirty years, China has been modernizing with a competitive strategy focused on capabilities tailored to attack key vulnerabilities of the US military: targeting aircraft carriers, satellites, forward air bases, and command-and-control nodes to deter or prevent its ability to intervene in a potential regional conflict. The strategy has yielded an array of kinetic and nonkinetic counterspace systems, missiles, air and naval assets with multilayered ranges and effects, and cyber capabilities—supported by an exponential increase in satellites that can detect US forces and an arsenal of at least six hundred operational nuclear warheads, projected to grow to one thousand within five years. This unprecedented pace of modernization will continue as the People’s Liberation Army matures its multidomain precision warfare concept to leverage artificial intelligence and big data to rapidly identify and launch precision strikes against US vulnerabilities.
The US military’s ability to project traditional military power across the Pacific is seriously threatened by these capabilities. But seeking to compete by developing systems that can overcome them requires expenditures that, while potentially beneficial if they become politically feasible, are not sustainable. The United States faces an enduring challenge because of the difficulty and expense of projecting power over such vast distances while China fights from home. Beijing can therefore respond to US investments with less time and expense, fueled by an industrial base that is outpacing the United States and a political system that can deliver military resources with greater consistency and long-term focus.
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