Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr.
In the 1990s, following the Soviet Union’s collapse, few in Washington were thinking about China as a potential future threat. During this “unipolar moment,” the conventional wisdom held that China would become a responsible stakeholder of the global community once it had become a fully integrated member. Inside the Pentagon, however, a group of analysts charged with assessing the strategic environment saw things differently. Focusing increasing attention on the Chinese leadership, they concluded that China was intent on creating the capabilities needed to overturn the U.S.-led international order. Their findings proved prescient, anticipating by several decades the return of active great-power competition and China’s growing military challenge to the United States.
These insights came from the Office of Net Assessment, a small arm of the Department of Defense that has, through its independent analyses, for decades played a vital role in informing senior Pentagon leaders’ strategic planning and policy priorities. Although it comprises only a dozen or so staff and commands a research budget of roughly $20 million—“budget dust” in Pentagon-speak—ONA has again and again provided crucial and often contrarian analysis that has reshaped U.S. strategic thinking.
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