Coping with the 

Dragon 

Essays on PLA Transformation 

and the U.S. Military 

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTER FOR 

TECHNOLOGY AND NATIONAL SECURITY 

POLICY AT THE NATIONAL DEFENSE 

UNIVERSITY 

WASHINGTON, DC 

December 2007
The views expressed in these essays are those of the authors and do not 

reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense 

University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. All 

information and sources were drawn from unclassified materials. 

Portions of this book may be quoted or reprinted without permission, 

provided that a standard source credit line is included. 

This book was published by the National Defense University Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, 

DC. CTNSP publications are available online at 

www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/publications.html.
iii 

Contents 

Acknowledgments v

Introduction 1

Essay 1 

Strategic Context 5

By David C. Gompert 

Essay 2 

Innovation within China’s Defense Technological 

and Industrial Base 27

By Tai Ming Cheung 

Essay 3 

PLA Reform 47

By Timothy Lo 

Essay 4 

China’s Approach to Taiwan and the U.S. Navy’s 

Imperatives for Action 59

By Michael McDevitt 

Essay 5 

Counter-Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance 71

By James Mulvenon 

Essay 6 

Projecting Power in a China-Taiwan Contingency: 

Implications for USAF and USN Collaboration 83

By David Shlapak 

Essay 7 

Defending Taiwan Without Manned Aircraft 105

By Martin Libicki 
iv • Coping with the Dragon 

Essay 8 

Deterring China through Escalation 111

By David C. Gompert and Duncan Long 

Essay 9 

Introducing Complexity into China’s Attempt to 

Hold U.S. Maritime Forces at Risk 133

By Stuart Johnson 

About the Contributors 149
 v 

Acknowledgments 

he 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. 

T 

 1 

Introduction 

he 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.1 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.2

 

1

 In March 2005, the PRC legislature passed the Anti-Secession Law, which 

codified Beijing’s threat to go to war if Taiwan declared independence. For a 

discussion of the status of Taiwan’s independence movement, see Robert S. 

Ross, “Taiwan’s Fading Independence Movement,” Foreign Affairs, 85, no. 2 

(March/April, 2006), 141–148. 

2 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007 Annual Report to 

Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2007), 3–5, 

available at <http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/070523-China-MilitaryPower-final.pdf>. 

T 
2 • Coping with the Dragon 

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.3

 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;4

 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 

 

3

 Ibid., 16. 

4

 Ibid., 12. 
Introduction • 3 

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. 
4 • Coping with the Dragon 

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. 
 5 

Essay 1

Strategic Context 

By David C. Gompert 

 string of developments has prompted China to sharpen the 

focus of its defense strategy and shift military investments 

eastward, to the Taiwan Strait and the seas beyond. Beijing’s 

botched attempt to intimidate Taiwanese voters in 1996 exposed the 

extent of Sino-American disparity in usable power. The stunning U.S. 

interventions in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003 (notwithstanding 

subsequent U.S. problems in Iraq) displayed growing U.S. combat 

prowess, especially in exploiting information. From the Chinese 

viewpoint, U.S. post-9/11 policies, particularly the readiness to use 

force first and unilaterally, may suggest that the restraints, including 

self-restraint, on U.S. power are weakening even as that power grows. 

Meanwhile, China’s sharply rising dependence on imported oil has 

heightened Chinese concern with maritime access, rights, and security. 

Pro-independence sentiment on Taiwan in the early years of the decade 

led Beijing to be more explicit about solving the dispute with force if 

all else fails. 

While the motives behind China’s new seaward strategy are geopolitical, economic, and complex, the goal of re-unifying Taiwan has 

become the focal point for planning forces and military operations. 

Chinese pronouncements make plain that countering U.S. maritime 

power in the East China Sea and being able to overwhelm Taiwan are 

now the highest planning priorities for the Peoples Liberation Army 

(PLA).5 In fact, these two objectives overlap, in that superior U.S. 

forces could defeat a Chinese attack on Taiwan. To prevent the 

expansion of Chinese military power from endangering regional 

stability, U.S. interests, and the security of Taiwan, the United States 

must think no less clearly and act no less purposefully than China is 

doing. Yet, faced with other challenges, from Afghanistan and Iraq to 

 

5 China’s National Defense in 2006, PRC State Council on Information Office. 

Available at <http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/wp2006.html>. 

A 
6 • Gompert 

North Korea and Iran, the United States will not find it easy to counter 

the single-minded and well-resourced strategy on which China has 

embarked. 

Concern about the vulnerability of U.S. forces does not imply that 

military competition or conflict with China is inevitable or in the U.S. 

interest. The United States has much to lose by trying to interfere with 

China’s emergence as a responsible power in the region and the world. 

The United States does not seek a crisis, much less hostilities, over 

Taiwan, which could destabilize the region, endanger U.S. interests, 

and lock the two powers into long-term confrontation. However, failing 

to respond to the Chinese effort to make U.S. military power vulnerable 

could make a conflict over Taiwan more likely, not less. It could also 

erode confidence in East Asia, especially in Japan, that the United 

States can and will check China’s use of its growing power. This entire 

region of immense economic and strategic significance could be 

destabilized if the United States does not preserve its ability to prevent 

China from taking Taiwan by force. 

The U.S. answer to the new Chinese strategy should be thoughtfully 

conceived, taking account of the context and complexity of SinoAmerican relations, regional dynamics, and broadly defined U.S. 

interests. The United States has many equities to safeguard and many 

policy levers available to it, not just deadly force. Moreover, predicting 

Chinese counter-moves to U.S. moves is risky business. There should 

be no presumption that U.S. efforts to maintain its military advantage 

will convince China to abandon its effort to erase that advantage. After 

all, the existing Sino-American military disparity has not dissuaded the 

Chinese from trying to remedy it. In addition, the course chosen by 

others—Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asian states, and Taiwan 

itself—in the event of an arms race and confrontation between China 

and the United States is not entirely predictable. Given these unknowns 

and the potential for regional instability, the U.S. should be as judicious 

as it is resolute in responding to the Chinese buildup. 

Thus, the looming vulnerability of U.S. military forces in the 

Western Pacific should not be addressed in a vacuum. Indeed, what 

makes the Sino-American military balance critical is its context. With 

this in mind, this paper will set the stage for those that follow by 

examining trends in regional security and in the correlation of military 
 Strategic Context • 7 

 

capabilities, the implications of those trends, Chinese perspectives and 

means, and U.S. aims and options. 

The Regional Security Canvas 

Even during the height of Soviet power, the United States maintained 

military superiority in the Western Pacific. The rationale for U.S. 

military power in this vital region is as strong as ever, but changing. 

From Korea to Southeast Asia, stability and U.S. security interests 

depend on that power—therefore on keeping it from becoming 

vulnerable, but also on avoiding Sino-American conflict.

The most immediate security concern remains Northeast Asia. The 

need to prevent a Korean conflict is a constant. But the danger now is 

more one of implosion or nuclear recklessness of the North than of 

outright invasion of the South. North Korean possession of nuclear 

weapons raises the stakes for the United States, China, Japan, and of 

course South Korea, and could strain relations among these interested 

parties. Given Korean dangers—now nuclear—U.S. deterrence cannot 

be compromised, no matter what else happens in the region. The U.S. 

response to China’s growing military capabilities should neither neglect 

security on the Korean Peninsula nor roil Sino-American relations to 

the point that these two key powers cannot cooperate on Korea, pre- or 

post-unification. The ability of China and the United States to 

collaborate on the disposition of North Korea and its nuclear arsenal 

could become critical. 

The U.S. Cold-War mission of defending Japan has been 

transformed into genuine mutual defense cooperation in and somewhat 

beyond Northeast Asia. The Japanese are alarmed by North Korean 

nuclear capabilities and anxious over China’s military buildup. So far, 

the Japanese are reacting to China’s growing power and assertiveness 

with recommitment to their alliance with the United States. Japan may 

also become more assertive in response to North Korea’s nuclear 

weapons program, perhaps even inching closer to a nuclear weapons 

capability of its own. Already on edge, Japan would not stand still if it 

thought that U.S. forces were at risk, that U.S. credibility were in 

doubt, or that China’s growing power were unchecked. In that case, 

Japanese unilateralism and militarization seem at least as likely as 

pacifism and accommodation. If managing the rise of China seems 

difficult now, think of trying to manage the interplay of a rising China 

and a more assertive and muscular (perhaps nuclear) Japan. In turn, the 
8 • Gompert 

effects of Japan’s behavior on China must not be underestimated, given 

that the emotional wounds of their history remain raw to this day. 

While Japanese forces could do more to offset the growing 

vulnerability of U.S. forces, Japanese rearmament might cause China to 

expand its military buildup by augmenting forces, including nuclear 

ones, that are capable of striking Japan; this certainly would not be not 

good for regional equilibrium. Encouraging broad Japanese 

militarization is not an option the United States will want to consider in 

response to the growth of Chinese power.

In addition to these great-power dynamics, regional concerns are 

rising about terrorism, separatism, piracy, and other sub- and transnational threats in the vicinity of strategic choke-points of Southeast 

Asia. This sub-region is now both a front in the war on Islamist 

terrorism and one of the world’s most vital trade crossroads. The U.S. 

Navy’s continued strength is important, whether to pursue the terrorists 

or to guard the sea-lanes. This security function is crucial to East Asian 

nations and oil-importing allies, South Korea and Japan in particular, 

who depend vitally on seaborne trade but whose forces lack the range 

to provide security of their sea lanes. America’s naval primacy in 

Southeast Asia will create complications, however: China’s 

dependence on oil tankers passing through these waters is growing, and 

it is unlikely that the Chinese will be content with the U.S. Navy 

controlling waters vital to their economic security—yet another reason 

China is turning its strategic attention seaward.

Taiwan and U.S. Military Power 

At the geographic and strategic center of the region is Taiwan. The 

ability and will of the United States to assist in Taiwan’s defense is of 

growing importance as Chinese naval, air, and amphibious capabilities 

improve, and as Beijing seeks negotiating leverage in shaping the 

eventual relationship of the island to the mainland. With China’s 

offensive capabilities expanding faster than Taiwan’s defensive 

capabilities, the Chinese realize that having the means to degrade the 

ability of the United States to protect Taiwan could deliver eventual 

unification—peacefully if possible, forcibly if necessary. 

The resolution of the Taiwan dispute will affect far more than the 

lives of the island’s 23 million residents. Although the potential for 

Sino-American rivalry goes beyond Taiwan, a just and stable 

resolution, achieved without force or coercion, could reduce that 
 Strategic Context • 9 

 

potential. Conversely, war over Taiwan, beyond its immediate 

consequences, could shatter the existing order in East Asia. 

However accomplished, the fact and terms of Taiwan’s becoming 

again an organic part of China could affect the strategic balance, 

perceptions, and behavior in the region—most importantly, in Japan—

as well as the Sino-American military balance. If China were able to 

fortify and operate militarily out of Taiwan, its military position in the 

Western Pacific and beyond would be bolstered, and that of the United 

States correspondingly weakened. According to the political commissar 

of the PLA, “[Taiwan] is of far-reaching significance to breaking 

international forces’ blockade against China’s maritime security ... 

only when we break this blockade shall we be able to talk about 

China’s rise. To rise suddenly, China must pass through oceans and go 

out of the oceans in its future development.”6

The Chinese calculus revealed by such statements does not mean that 

the United States should oppose peaceful unification, which would be 

an untenable position. But it is important for the United States to 

comprehend the complex reasons for reunification and its importance to 

the Chinese. Moreover, if there is an eventual China-Taiwan 

settlement, the terms will have strategic implications. All the more 

reason why the United States cannot ignore China’s goal of shifting the 

correlation of forces to gain advantageous terms for reunification and, 

thus, a larger role as a great power. While the United States cannot and 

should not try to negate China’s goal of greatness, it can and should 

prevent the creation of a Greater China through forced absorption of 

Taiwan. 

Even if Taiwan is not compelled or coerced into unification, the 

prospect of unchecked Chinese power could disturb the region, 

producing a more belligerent Japan, more submissive ASEAN 

countries (perhaps retarding their bumpy progress toward democracy), 

and a nuclear or, in the event of unification, “Finlandized” Korea. 

Moreover, the United States should not assume that Taiwan, as critical 

as it is, is the only cloud over long-term Sino-American relations. The 

Chinese regard U.S. power as an impediment to Chinese freedom of 

action beyond the Taiwan issue. 

 

6

 Ann Scott Tyson, “Chinese Buildup Seen as Threat to Region,” The 

Washington Post, 20 July 2005. 
10 • Gompert 

With the stakes in the region huge, interconnected, and evolving, the 

United States continues to maintain and adapt a strong military 

presence as detailed below. A gradual shift is underway from a 

predominantly Northeast Asian presence to more East and Southeast 

Asian presence, and from permanent bases to more flexible access and, 

in Korea, to a more expeditionary force. U.S. forces are becoming 

increasingly net-centric and capable of joint operations. For now, they 

are capable of prevailing in any plausible contingency, including 

hostilities with China over Taiwan. While U.S. ground, air, and naval 

forces all play a role, naval forces, especially carrier-based, air-strike 

forces, are the indispensable core, which is why they preoccupy the 

Chinese. 

Approximate U.S. Forces Normally Deployed in East Asia7

Ground Forces 35,000 soldiers and marines in South 

Korea and Japan 

Air Forces 180 ground-based fighters and strike 

aircraft 

 One to several squadrons of heavy 

bombers in Guam 

Maritime Forces Carrier Strike Group in Japan, 

including 70 aircraft and 9 surface 

combatants 

 3 attack submarines based in Guam 

 1 USMC Amphibious Ready Group 

Whether to deter China from attacking Taiwan, to discourage China 

more generally from throwing its military weight around, or to avoid 

unpredictable and unilateral Japanese behavior, maritime power plays a 

central role in U.S. strategy. U.S. ground forces do not figure 

 

7

 From Department of Defense Report 309A, “Active Duty Military Personnel 

Strengths by Regional Area and Country,” 31 March 2006; 

GlobalSecurity.org, “U.S. Forces Korea Order of Battle,” available at 

<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/korea-orbat.htm>; 

GlobalSecurity.org, “U.S. Forces Japan Order of Battle,” available at 

<http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/korea-orbat-usfj.htm>. 
 Strategic Context • 11 

 

significantly in military contingency plans vis-à-vis China. Land-based 

tactical air power, while important, is limited by the long distances to 

China from available bases in Japan and elsewhere. U.S. maritime 

power offers reach, flexibility, and persistence. 

American allies, especially Japan and Australia, are being 

encouraged to play wider maritime defense roles. In cooperation with 

the United States, the Japanese may build a missile-defense system and 

beef up their anti-submarine warfare and other maritime capabilities. 

As already suggested, the United States will walk a fine line between 

getting Japan to take on increased responsibilities in peacetime security 

and crisis response and alarming regional neighbors, including South 

Korea and China itself. The key is to lock Japanese force improvements 

into the U.S.-Japanese alliance. Of course, that depends on Japanese 

confidence in U.S. military power, which in turn depends on how the 

United States responds to China’s effort to place at risk U.S. forces in 

the Western Pacific. 

Chinese Perspectives and Programs 

Historically, because of their concern about Japanese rearmament, 

the Chinese have been ambivalent about U.S. military presence in the 

region—suffering U.S. power as the price of keeping Japanese military 

power dormant. However, as the U.S. presence appears in Beijing to be 

aimed increasingly at blocking and even menacing China, as well as 

frustrating its goal of national reunification, Chinese sentiments about 

that presence have turned decidedly negative. Presumably, the Chinese 

are prepared to run the risk of a resurgence of Japanese power if the 

constraint of American power on Chinese interests can be lifted. This 

would be consistent with a Chinese worldview that sees China and the 

United States, not China and Japan, as the final contenders for power in 

and beyond the Pacific. 

As the Chinese see it, the strike capabilities of U.S. nuclear-powered 

aircraft carriers (CVNs) represent the heart of U.S. military power—

and the bull’s eye for Chinese strategy and growing capabilities. The 

ability of carrier-based aircraft to gain air control over the Strait, to sink 

Chinese amphibious forces, and to strike targets in China is more 

important than any other factor in a Taiwan scenario. Thanks to more 

precision-guided munitions and better sensors, CVN-based strike 

capability is growing, even though the number of CVNs is not. The 
12 • Gompert 

threat to China and its forces could become even greater when the 

United States deploys the stealthy Joint Strike Fighter, starting in 2012. 

More broadly, the CVNs are seen by China as the symbol of U.S. 

military supremacy, a peril to China’s economically vibrant coastal 

regions, the chief obstacle to Chinese freedom of action in the Western 

Pacific, and a potential barrier to China’s unfettered access to the world 

and its markets. It is neither surprising nor proof of hostile intent that 

the Chinese want to put the American CVNs at risk, but it is of concern 

to the United States, nevertheless. 

The aim of holding the CVNs at bay, and plans for achieving that 

aim, are clear from Chinese declaratory policy, and are highlighted and 

refined by the current PLA national defense policy, concepts of military 

operations, shifts in emphasis among forces, and investment priorities. 

It is not difficult to discern a lucid line of strategic thought in the latest 

Chinese defense White Paper.8

 The document declares that 

reunification and the defense of China and its maritime rights are the 

nation’s top security priorities and identifies U.S. military power as the 

main threat and obstacle to them.9

 It outlines a multi-tier national 

strategy to achieve these goals, with particular focus on countering 

American maritime forces by reorienting and improving Chinese 

military capability. Other elements are: 

 National economic and defense strategies are to be integrated 

(suggesting that resources, technology, and talent from China’s 

thriving civilian sectors will be made available to the military). 

 A reformed, professional, high-quality, trim PLA is needed and 

will be created. 

 “Leapfrog development” of technologies and capabilities will be 

pursued. 

 Emphasis will be on naval, aviation, and missile capabilities, 

informed and linked by “informationalization,” which is the 

Chinese term for the use of information technology (IT) and 

networking for intelligence collection and command and control. 

 Operations will be increasingly integrated and joint. 

 

8 China’s National Defense in 2006. 9

 Chinese references to the United States avoid vituperation, which is reserved 

for the “vicious” forces of Taiwan independence. 
 Strategic Context • 13 

 

 The reach of Chinese “offshore defensive operations” will be 

extended. 

 Long-range, precision-strike capabilities are to be fielded. 

China’s calculations and motives may be complex, but there is 

coherence in its strategy and programs. The geopolitical, technological, 

and institutional pieces are being put in place. China has placed its 

long-standing disputes and rivalries with India, Russia, and Vietnam on 

the back burner and its Pacific interests, access, and defenses on the 

front burner, which constitutes a shift of focus from the continental 

west to the oceanic east of the Middle Kingdom. While being careful 

not to antagonize the United States—economic partner, leader in the 

war on Islamist terrorism, guardian of world oil supplies and routes, 

and in any case the world’s superpower—Chinese military planning 

now revolves around Sino-American contingencies. 

China’s emerging security aims and strategy appear to enjoy the full 

and united support of political and military leaders and are receiving 

substantially increased resources. Chinese defense spending has 

increased an average of about 14 percent annually since 1999, 

compared to average annual GDP growth of about 10 percent. China 

increased its defense spending by 18 percent in 2007, bringing the 

official defense budget to $45 billion.10 Actual total Chinese defense 

spending is thought by the U.S. Government to be about three times 

that amount.11 As important, funding is being shifted into naval and air 

forces more relevant to countering U.S. maritime power. In a military 

establishment long (and still) dominated by army generals, this is a 

powerful indication of Chinese seriousness and of the involvement of 

party leadership in setting military priorities. 

China’s force plans favor specific capabilities needed to: 

 coerce or force Taiwan into unification; 

 neutralize U.S. capabilities to protect (and possibly 

embolden) Taiwan; 

 counter a perceived U.S. threat to China proper; and 

 break U.S. control of the Western Pacific.

 

10 Edward Cody, “China Boosts Military Spending,” The Washington Post, 5 

March 2007. 

11 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007. 
14 • Gompert 

Every one of these goals demands raising the costs and risks to the 

United States of using its maritime power near or against China and 

Chinese forces. Yet China is not setting its sights on the ability to 

defeat the United States in a large, wide, and protracted military 

conflict, which would require greater resources for the PLA than the 

leadership is prepared to commit and is unrealistic for the foreseeable 

future. Moreover, the Chinese surely appreciate the incalculable 

dangers, should hostilities move beyond engagements off China’s 

coast, last a long time, and turn into a wider Sino-American war that 

China cannot win. 

Rather, with the idea of a swift and decisive move against Taiwan in 

mind, the Chinese aim is to delay, disrupt, degrade, and possibly deter 

U.S. intervention based on CVN strike power. The Chinese would 

surely prefer that U.S. forces not engage at all or, failing that, that 

hostilities could be tightly confined in duration, scope, and 

destructiveness—ideally permitting Sino-American relations and trade 

to get back on track after making amends. Not to get ahead of 

ourselves, but the ability to frustrate the tidy Chinese idea of a brief, 

scripted, controlled campaign, with U.S. forces marginalized, should 

figure in the design of a U.S. response to the looming vulnerability of 

its maritime power. 

In classical terms, China is challenging U.S. sea control of the 

Western Pacific. Sea control implies an unchallengeable ability to use 

particular waters and routes while also being able to deny such use to 

others.12 It does not mean that others would routinely be deprived of 

their freedom to use the seas in question for commercial or military 

purposes, but, rather, that use may be denied at the sole discretion of 

the controlling power, e.g., in a crisis or conflict. In fact, sea powers 

like the United States and Great Britain have been champions of 

freedom of the seas for one and all, except when they choose to curtail 

that freedom. Sea control, classically understood, does indeed describe 

fairly what the United States currently seeks in the Western Pacific. 

Thus, the Chinese would be right to understand this to mean that China 

could be denied use of these international waters in the event of 

trouble—e.g., Chinese military action against Taiwan—but wrong to 

 

12 E.B. Potter and Chester W. Nimitz, Sea Power: A Naval History

(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hill, 1960), 19. 
 Strategic Context • 15 

 

interpret it to mean that China could be denied use of the seas and 

access to the world under normal peacetime conditions. 

At the same time, the United States is increasingly concerned that 

China intends to establish the capability to deny the U.S. Navy freedom 

to operate in the East China Sea. It is important to distinguish between 

a Chinese desire to break U.S. sea control and a Chinese goal of being 

able to deny the United States access to and use of these waters. There 

is nothing in Chinese writings to suggest that the Chinese seek or 

believe they could achieve such sea control. Their specific ambition 

appears to be able in limited circumstances and waters to reduce the 

ability and opportunity of the United States Navy to intervene against 

Chinese forces. In turn, if the United States cannot maintain permanent 

and absolute sea control of the Western Pacific—almost certainly an 

unrealistic goal so near a country with China’s potential, ambitions, and 

need for access—it should aspire to preserve its ability to operate in the 

region and deny China the hostile use of any international waters of the 

region. 

Chinese Capabilities and Constraints 

To assemble the capabilities to break U.S. sea control, China is 

buying major air and naval combat systems from abroad (figure 2) and 

will have ample economic means and hard currency to buy much more. 

To date, Russia has been the main source and, given its limited 

potential for non-military exports, is likely to remain an eager vendor. 

China purchased an average of $2.3 billion in military equipment 

annually from Russia 1999––2003, up from $1.9 billion annually 

during the 1990s. To counter U.S. military power, China will need 

more sophisticated and capable systems than it can buy from Russia, 

including long-range sensors and command and control systems. Even 

if the United States succeeds in pressuring the European Union to retain 

its embargo on arms sales to China, individual European states, starting 

with France, will almost certainly pursue deals in disregard of EU 

guidance. Success in acquiring technologically advanced military 

equipment from Western suppliers would be an indicator that China is 

leapfrogging its way into acquiring the technology needed for modern, 

information-intensive warfare. 
16 • Gompert 

Select Major Chinese Foreign Military Purchases 1998–2004.13

Equipment Type Quantity Origin 

Diesel Submarine 8 Russia 

Missile Destroyer 2 Russia 

Missile Destroyer 2 Russia 

Surface-to-Air Missile 12 Bns* Russia 

Surface-to-Air Missile 4 to 8 Bns Russia 

Strike Fighter 76 Russia 

Strike Fighter 48 Russia 

Combat Aircraft 200 Russia 

*Bns = battalions 

China cannot, however, be confident of getting all the systems and 

applied technology it needs from abroad. To gain self-sufficiency, it is 

gathering and nurturing the technologies needed to produce its own 

advanced military systems. Thanks mainly to frenzied Western 

investment in China-based production of civilian products, the Chinese 

are acquiring modern engineering and manufacturing know-how and 

experience, technical as well as managerial. For reasons of economic 

and military strategy, China is also becoming increasingly competent in 

all aspects of IT. 

Whether the weapons, sensor, and communications systems are 

purchased from abroad or made in China, the PLA’s programmatic 

priorities are clear, ambitious, and true to its new strategy: 

 large numbers of advanced submarines, including air-independent 

propulsion (AIP) submarines14—the fleet has increased by 19 in 

the last decade, including new Russian and indigenously-built 

boats; 

 large numbers of advanced short- and medium-range ballistic 

missiles—the ballistic missile force is estimated to have increased 

by about 500 in the last decade;

 

13 Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment, “China and Northeast Asia: Chinese 

Military Procurement.” Available at <http://www4.janes.com/K2/ 

doc.jsp?K2DocKey=/content1/janesdata/sent/cnasu/chins150.htm@current&P

rod_Name=CNASU&>. 

14 AIP refers to technologies other than nuclear power that enable a submarine 

to operate without the need to surface or snorkel to obtain atmospheric 

oxygen. 
 Strategic Context • 17 

 

 modern aircraft—China has purchased over a hundred advanced 

Russian fighters and is making hundreds more on contract in 

China; 

 modern naval combatants—16 major surface combatants were 

added in the last decade;

 extended-range sensors—e.g., two AWACS planes from Russiasoon to be delivered, and over-the-horizon radar developed in 

China; 

 information operations, including computer network attack (CNA) 

and anti-satellite capability—China successfully destroyed one of 

its own obsolete satellites in January 2007. 

For all the emphasis on naval, air, and missile systems, IT and 

networking are at the heart of what the Chinese are trying to do 

militarily. As already noted, the PLA has plans to change from a 

mechanized to an “informationalized” force. Only by integrating naval, 

air, and missile attacks and enabling them with the fused products of 

long-range sensors is the Chinese strategy meaningful. With Mao’s 

antiquated “Peoples War” doctrine giving way to the concept of 

striking at key enemy capabilities, the Chinese are replacing mass, 

wide-based, popular resistance and patience with reach, awareness, 

integration, precision, and speed—all of which demand shared data, 

collaboration, and, therefore, connectivity. 

The Chinese appear to understand how radical a change this is and 

what they must do to effect it. The PLA recognizes that joint—air, 

naval, missile, amphibious—operations demand capabilities such as 

networked battle-management, surveillance, reconnaissance, target 

acquisition, tracking, sensor-weapon linkage, and weapon guidance. 

China’s investment in telecommunications networks, extended-range 

sensors, and its own and European global positioning and navigation 

systems should come as no surprise. 

The PLA is still backward in training, doctrine, inter-service 

collaboration, flexibility, and distribution of authority in operations. 

But the need for military reform has been clearly articulated and linked 

to high national interests, which suggest agreement between the PLA 

and China’s political leaders that it must happen. In fact, such reforms 

have begun. Whether it will take a generation or merely years for the 

PLA to change its character, culture, and practices remains to be seen. 

(This topic is taken up later). 
18 • Gompert 

Even if the Chinese are successful in transforming the PLA, they 

face an equally difficult challenge in acquiring and absorbing IT in 

their defense sector, which includes incorporating it into their weapons, 

platforms, and sensors, as well as using it to integrate those systems 

with one another and into a distributed, networked command and 

control network. This challenge can be disaggregated into two separate 

but related problems: transferring the technology into the military, and 

creating integrated military networks. 

In regard to the first of these problems, imagine a path that stretches 

from the global pool of advanced IT to China’s military forces. The 

Chinese must clear two hurdles on that path: getting the technology into 

China, and getting it into China’s forces. There are, in turn, two ways 

the Chinese can overcome these hurdles. The first is to insist that those 

who wish to sell them military systems also transfer the embedded 

system technology and associated production directly to China’s 

defense industry, which would enable China over time to curtail 

military imports and produce what it needs domestically. This strategy 

of using their huge domestic market as bait is the way the Chinese have 

acquired technology for infrastructure, manufacturing, and other 

sectors. The other strategy is for China to develop broad and deep 

capabilities in IT in the Chinese economy as a whole, with non-defense 

sectors taking the lead, and then to transfer it into defense. 

The first of these strategies is, of course, a more direct route, in that 

it clears both hurdles in one step. It could bear fruit sooner, since the 

development of military applications of the technology would already 

have been done by foreign suppliers. However, the Chinese cannot 

have complete confidence that this approach would satisfy the 

requirements implied by their military strategy. They must assume in 

their strategic calculations, that the United States may put enough 

pressure on European exporters to minimize sensitive technology 

transfer to China. 

Meanwhile, as noted, China is acquiring a great deal of commercial 

IT through telecommunications, computer production, and other sectors 

and ventures in the economy as a whole. While this will provide a vast 

reservoir of technology and know-how from which the Chinese can 

draw for military uses, the development of military applications will be 

largely up to them. There is no question that China, with its growing 

pool of technically skilled workers and other resources, can do this over 
 Strategic Context • 19 

 

time. However, it will take more time than the direct strategy for two 

reasons. First, the Chinese defense industry is not only behind Western 

defense industries but also, generally speaking, behind Chinese nondefense industries in applying IT. Second, while there have been some 

efforts in integrating the private sector with the defense sector, the 

entrepreneurial Chinese firms, scientists, and knowledge workers who 

are leading China’s technology march are not naturally drawn to work 

in or with the defense sector (certainly not before the PLA is drastically 

reformed). 

A separate but related problem, already mentioned, is the need to 

integrate military systems—weapons, platforms, sensors, and command 

and control—into networks of systems. The Chinese have limited 

capabilities in the design, engineering, and integration required for 

discrete complex systems (e.g., air defense radar-interceptor ensemble), 

much less inter-domain networks of systems (e.g., space-air-ground 

sensor fusion or air-naval-missile attack synchronization). Moreover, 

these are not skills that can simply be imported or licensed. At the same 

time, with the growing applicability of commercial IT in military 

networking, as well as the fact that that technology is increasingly 

designed for connectivity, the Chinese might find systems networking 

less daunting. This challenge of making complex systems work with 

one another could be surmounted in years, not decades, if and as welleducated and creative engineers and information scientists become 

available to contribute to national defense—another reason for the 

Chinese to expedite military reform. 

The speed with which the Chinese will be able to overcome the PLAinstitutional problem, the technology-acquisition problem, and the 

systems-integration problem will be determined by how motivated and 

determined they are. It is important to keep in mind why the Soviet 

Union could not overcome these obstacles while the United States 

raced ahead from around 1980, namely, that the Soviet Union had 

essentially no consumer market for or commercial investment in IT 

surrounding its huge, industrial-age, military complex. China is the 

opposite, with growing demand and even more rapidly growing 

investment to satisfy not only Chinese but also world markets. It is also 

important to bear in mind that the U.S. military establishment continues 

to struggle with its own reform and with acquiring, applying, and 

integrating IT into complex capabilities. Both powers have a difficult 
20 • Gompert 

climb ahead, though at present, the U.S. military has a substantial head 

start. 

The net effect of all this is the prospect of a significant Chinese 

threat to U.S. maritime power in the Western Pacific—the core of U.S. 

military power and the backbone of regional stability—in years, not 

decades. This is not only a PLA priority but also a national priority 

(though the PLA is undoubtedly using the national commitment to the 

unification of Taiwan as a way of focusing, motivating, and funding its 

modernization). In the past, China’s overriding twin goals of political 

stability and economic growth relegated military capabilities to a 

relatively low priority. Now, the goals of preventing an independent 

Taiwan (and eventual unification with mainland China) and expanding 

China’s status, freedom of action, and security have become more 

important—and China’s economic successes are in any case no longer 

seen as being in tension with domestic economic growth and political 

stability, which remain paramount. 

Given the obstacles to be overcome, the development of Chinese 

capabilities to hold U.S. maritime power at risk will likely be gradual. 

There may not be a Sputnik-like flash that illuminates an altered 

balance of forces. U.S. military advantages are sizeable, and the 

development of Chinese capabilities will take some years. 

Nevertheless, China’s economic and technological ability to alter the 

status quo should not be underestimated, especially now that the 

political leadership and the PLA are of one, clear mind that this is a 

high priority. 

Implications for the United States and Its Interests 

Confrontation or military conflict with China would signify a failure 

of U.S. policy. U.S. interests lie in China’s becoming a reliable 

economic partner, a responsible power in a vital region, a collaborator 

in battling global Islamist terrorism, a stakeholder in secure seas and 

trade routes, an active member of international institutions, and, 

someday, a member of the world community of democracies.15

Nevertheless, growing vulnerability of U.S. maritime forces to Chinese 

 

15 Apart from Taiwan and the U.S.-Japanese military alliance, China and the 

United State disagree on definitions of sovereignty and territorial claims and 

on the right and responsibility to intervene in sovereign nations where 

oppression is rampant. 
 Strategic Context • 21 

 

submarines and missiles could adversely affect U.S. ability to maintain 

a strong presence and mount a strong response to Chinese military 

initiatives. In turn, this would weaken the ability of the United States 

to: 

 maintain regional stability and assure allies and others, 

 safeguard economic interests in this vital region, 

 contribute to the successful protection of Taiwan from attack or 

coercion, and 

 encourage China to pursue a moderate, non-hegemonic regional 

strategy. 

Although we have cautioned against preoccupation with Taiwan 

scenarios, it is important to consider the possible effects of increased 

U.S. maritime vulnerability in that particular context. To illustrate, 

imagine a future moment in which Beijing concludes that the 

government in Taipei is using practical cooperation and political 

dialogue with China as a smoke screen for the pursuit of perpetual 

separation and de facto independence. The PRC decides it must have a 

more agreeable and malleable government across the Strait or risk the 

permanent loss of Taiwan. So it declares a maritime keep-out zone 

around Taiwan; it deploys its (by then) large and capable submarine 

fleet; it readies its abundant and accurate ballistic and cruise missile 

forces; it threatens Taiwan with a missile-air-amphibious assault unless 

the pro-independence government resigns; and it warns Taiwan that 

requesting U.S. military intervention would amount to external 

interference and thus lead to war. 

Under such circumstances, if U.S. aircraft carriers are not already 

operating near Taiwan and China, or if they cannot get there in 2–3 

days steaming, or if they are simply not ordered to enter these 

dangerous waters, the Taipei government may opt to accommodate 

Chinese wishes by agreeing to negotiate reunification terms or else 

yielding power to a pro-Beijing government that would agree to do so. 

Alternatively, if the Taiwanese defy China and call for U.S. help, the 

carriers could be delayed, disrupted, and degraded enough that Chinese 

forces will be able to deliver a decisive blow against Taiwan. Either 

way, since Taiwan will be unable to defend itself independently and 

might not want to risk destruction, China could prevail by having held 

off the U.S. fleet. The United States would still have military options, 

such as trying to liberate the island. But China would have the upper 
22 • Gompert 

hand by then. Even if China has no intention of pursuing such a bold 

and risky move, it wants all concerned to know that it could, so that 

Taiwan’s politics and policies become more malleable and America’s 

military posture becomes more cautious. 

Thus could the outcome of a Taiwan contingency, along with wider 

U.S. interests and regional stability, be affected by the vulnerability of 

U.S. maritime power. Such vulnerability is precisely what the Chinese, 

more or less openly, are endeavoring to create. The new military 

strategy aimed at blunting the threat of U.S. intervention and the threat 

of force against an intransigent Taiwan send an unmistakable signal. 

The United States must take stock of the new dynamic and adjust its 

strategy and forces accordingly. 

Yet, in responding, there are hazards the United States wants to 

avoid—let’s call them (in Chinese fashion) the “four instabilities.” 

The first is “arms-race instability.” It would be a mistake for the 

United States to assume that China will become less determined if the 

United States reacts firmly to the growing vulnerability of its fleet. 

While considering each of its options, the United States must calculate 

whether the Chinese can and will respond in ways that are even harder 

and costlier to counter. For example, as we shall see, a race in which 

the United States adds more and better anti-submarine and anti-missile 

defense while the Chinese add more submarines and missiles will be 

determined by the economics and physics of trying to find growing 

numbers of submarines and shoot down growing numbers of missiles. 

In time, depending on China’s will to play and pay, the United States 

could find itself either losing the race (and facing a larger Chinese 

threat) or holding its own but at soaring costs. 

The second is “crisis instability.” With both sides striving for an 

operational edge that could be used to gain early and decisive 

advantage, the benefits of striking first could cause incidents or 

misunderstandings about either U.S. or Chinese military activities—

submarine patrols, flight patterns, and missile tests—to escalate into 

war. One especially chilling example is that China might fear that 

launchers for its conventionally-armed ballistic missiles are targeted by 

U.S. strike aircraft and therefore launch them massively against 

Taiwan, U.S. CVNs, and U.S. bases in Japan upon first warning that 

U.S. aircraft have been launched. The very danger of such escalation 

may make the parties even more inclined to act precipitously. All else 
 Strategic Context • 23 

 

being equal, the U.S. response should be designed to induce Chinese 

hesitation, not promote haste. 

The third is “balance-of-power instability.” Growing Sino-American 

tension, regardless of cause, could make actors in this vital region more 

power-conscious, less confident in regional trading partners, and less 

sure of the wisdom of alignment with the United States. The danger is 

less that third parties would side with China than that they would run 

for the sidelines. The United States must walk a fine line. Acting to 

preserve the survivability and credibility of U.S. military power may 

help avert allied skittishness, but a Sino-American cycle of action and 

reaction could have the opposite effect. Its current policy 

notwithstanding, Japan could become less stalwart, and Southeast 

Asian countries and Korea could become non-aligned in the SinoAmerican confrontation. Apart from realignments, the United States 

does not want to see the vibrancy of this critical region dampened by 

power politics and anxiety. Compared to other regions of the world, 

confidence and tranquility have accompanied East Asian progress over 

the past several decades. 

Finally, there is the risk of “political instability” on Taiwan or 

between Taiwan and China. U.S. strategy is to deter China from 

attacking Taiwan while discouraging Taiwan from pursuing 

independence, which might provoke China to use force. While the 

United States cannot allow its maritime power to grow vulnerable to 

China without a response, neither does it want its response to convince 

Taipei that U.S. protection is unconditional. To illustrate, proindependence factions on Taiwan might be strengthened and unwilling 

to entertain reasonable Chinese proposals if the United States declared 

that China itself might be struck if it attacked Taiwan. 

As risks must be calibrated, so must measures of success. Beyond the 

judgment that the United States cannot allow the core of its maritime 

power in the Western Pacific to become vulnerable to Chinese forces, 

policymakers must have in mind some minimally acceptable condition. 

Is that condition military dominance or mere superiority? Or is a stable 

balance good enough? Must the United States control the Western 

Pacific, in the sense of being able to deny China access to and use of 

those waters, or is it enough to ensure that China cannot deny access 

and use to the United States? 
24 • Gompert 

In the end, what matters are broad regional perceptions and specific 

operational expectations. The United States can live with growing 

Chinese capabilities and visible military activity, provided it is 

understood by all in the region, including China, that U.S. forces can 

prevail decisively in any conflict. For that to be the perception, it must 

be the reality. 

U.S. Aims and Options 

Because Chinese objectives include both favorable, long-term, 

geopolitical-economic conditions and reunification of Taiwan, U.S. 

aims should address both. The United States cannot block China’s rise 

as an international power and does not need to.16 Only at great cost 

could the United States frustrate China’s quest for greater reach and 

access to the world’s oceans, resources, and markets. Setting Taiwan 

aside for a moment, the United States should have no objection to 

China’s commercial or military use of the Western Pacific (or any other 

international waters), provided U.S. use of the same waters is not 

challenged. As a country with global interests and security 

responsibilities, the United States will maintain the capacity to bring 

decisive power to bear to prevent China (or any other country) from 

denying U.S. commercial or military freedom on the seas, regardless of 

what happens on Taiwan. For this reason, China must expect that the 

United States will maintain the capability to exert sea control, even if it 

may not need to do so. Assuming the Taiwan dispute is resolved 

peacefully, the only circumstances in which the United States would 

deny sea access and use to China is in the event of Chinese aggression. 

However, as long as China holds out the option and builds 

capabilities to use force against Taiwan, the United States should 

consider it necessary, in effect, to police Chinese military use of 

international waters from which an assault on Taiwan could be 

mounted. In other words, it is China’s own declaratory policy and arms 

buildup vis-à-vis Taiwan that have led the United States to position 

itself to exercise sea control in the East China Sea and, thus, 

curtailment of the maritime rights China holds dear. Of course, the 

Chinese will not agree with this analysis. They could not accept that the 

 

16 This point is made forcefully by no less than Henry Kissinger. Emma 

Graham-Harrison, “China’s Inevitable Rise Risks Conflict-Kissinger,” San 

Diego Union Tribune, 3 April 2007. 
 Strategic Context • 25 

 

United States has any privilege whatsoever to deny China the use of 

international waters for any reason, let alone to subdue a renegade 

province. However, as the world’s one great sea power, the United 

States does indeed have this prerogative. The problem it faces is to 

preserve this prerogative in the face of the determined challenge on 

which the Chinese have now embarked. 

Conceptually, the United States can respond to the Chinese effort to 

reduce the survivability of its Western Pacific maritime forces in 

several ways: 

 Making its forces less vulnerable by protecting them better. 

 Exploiting vulnerabilities in China’s strategy and forces. 

 Reducing dependence on maritime forces without compromising 

the ability to respond to Chinese aggression. 

 Being able and willing to escalate, and making that known. 

 Transforming its maritime forces to be less vulnerable. 

Making U.S. maritime forces less vulnerable by protecting them 

better would require, above all, improved anti-submarine warfare 

(ASW) and theater missile defense (TMD) of the fleet, especially the 

CVNs. In addition, preserving the ability to gain and maintain air 

control would be relevant, as would the ability to destroy Chinese 

weapons and installations from which strikes against U.S. forces could 

be launched. 

Exploiting vulnerabilities in China’s strategy would begin by 

recognizing that the Chinese are novices in applying IT and networking 

to military capabilities and operations. The PLA’s legacy structures and 

preoccupation with centralized operational control are not conducive to 

networked warfare. Even for more experienced militaries—like that of 

the United States—collecting, fusing, distributing, and using 

information quickly and intelligently are challenges. It may be possible 

to disrupt Chinese sensor networks or confuse Chinese senses. Beyond 

targeting the Chinese military’s information systems, the United States 

could also attempt to degrade those in the country at large, hoping to 

break Chinese will in a conflict. 

Reducing dependence on maritime forces without compromising the 

ability to respond to Chinese aggression would require alternative 

means to perform what is now expected of ships. In sheer volume, 

land-based air power can exceed CVN-based air power. The problem is 
26 • Gompert 

that available land-bases are not very close to China and, despite their 

distance, could be increasingly vulnerable to Chinese missile attack. 

Being able and willing to escalate, and making that known, would 

open up a different, larger set of issues and require a different analysis. 

Several potential escalation paths are open to the United States: 

resorting to economic warfare; spreading the fighting geographically, 

including into China; and, in extremis, using nuclear weapons if 

conventional defense is failing. Whether the United States should take 

any of these paths depends not only on how damaging it would be to 

China, but also how damaging it would be to the United States, and 

how the prospect of escalation, of one or another sort, would affect 

Chinese conduct. 

Transforming U.S. maritime forces to be less vulnerable is much 

easier to imagine than to do. The U.S. fleet is shrinking as ships 

become more complex and expensive. Moreover, as currently designed 

and built, the fleet takes decades to change. This condition simplifies 

Chinese calculations in two respects: operationally, the Chinese can 

concentrate their attacks on a few high-value ships (e.g., several 

CVNs); strategically, they can be confident that the U.S. fleet will not 

change quickly. A different fleet—larger in number, with strike power 

distributed, more easily modified—could present the Chinese with 

added complexity. In parallel, development of unmanned aircraft could 

give the United States an edge in hostilities with China that does not 

depend on CVNs as we know them. But such transformation is a longterm option, and a lot could happen—including a showdown over 

Taiwan—in the decades it could take to build and deploy a new and 

less vulnerable U.S. Navy. 

The remaining essays deal with some of these options. Each option is 

considered by a different author but within a common framework of 

U.S. interests, military trends, Chinese strategy, regional third-party 

interests, and risks. 
 27 

Essay 2 

Innovation within China’s 

Defense Technological and 

Industrial Base 

By Tai Ming Cheung 

fter spending much of the late 20th Century in intensive care, 

the Chinese defense technological and industrial base (DTIB) 

has been showing increasing signs of life and vitality in the 

past few years. This was most vividly demonstrated at the beginning of 

2007 when, in the space of a few weeks, China publicly unveiled its 

first fourth-generation fighter aircraft (which had taken nearly twenty 

years to get from design to production) and conducted an anti-satellite 

test in which a ground-launched ballistic missile successfully blasted 

apart a Chinese satellite more than 500 miles in outer space. These 

were visible displays of rising Chinese military technological clout. 

China’s emergence as a thriving, globally connected, market 

oriented, and increasingly prosperous economic power, coupled with a 

sharp acceleration in the rearmament needs of the PLA, has paved the 

way for a concerted effort to tackle the DTIB’s deficiencies and put it 

on a development path to take its place with leading military powers. 

The country’s defense industry technocrats and military scientists and 

engineers have been given the task of leapfrogging ahead in their 

defense modernization efforts to catch up with the world’s leading 

military powers by 2020.17

 

17 Zhang Zhaoyin, “Firmly Seize the Period of Important Strategic 

Opportunities to Promote Leap-Type Development,” Jiefangjun Bao, 25 

February 2003, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service [FBIS], 7 April 

2003. 

A 
28 • Cheung 

Such an ambitious target may be more aspirational rhetoric than 

attainable objective, given the current wide gulf in technological 

standards between China and the United States, Western Europe, and 

even Russia. Still, the Chinese DTIB has, since the turn of the 21st

century, begun to make progress in achieving technological 

breakthroughs. New generations of military equipment and other 

sophisticated hardware are coming off production lines in quantities 

unmatched in the previous 50 years. This paper examines efforts since 

the late 1990s to transform the Chinese DTIB. Of central interest are 

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. 

Reform and Consolidation of the Defense Industry 

Since the Late 1990s 

Before the late 1990s, the approach to reform of the inefficient, 

backward, and grossly oversized Chinese DTIB was hesitant, 

piecemeal, and incoherent. This was because the defense industrial 

leadership in charge had trained and advanced through the ranks of the 

Maoist-era central planning economy, of which the DTIB was the 

crown jewel. They blocked the implementation of critical reforms that 

would have addressed some of the most serious woes impeding its 

performance. But this determined protectionism began to falter from 

the mid-1990s as this network of senior military and civilian leaders 

were retired or sidelined and replaced with a more reform-minded 

leadership. 

The new leadership signaled its intention to move assertively to 

restructure an ailing DTIB by pointing out the importance of the reform 

of the defense science and technology (S&T) system during the Ninth 

Five-Year Plan, which covered 1996–2000. Reform measures included: 

 providing greater funding for research institutions, 

 improving the management of research funds, 

 introducing a competitive mechanism for defense research; 

 adopting a contract system for research projects, 

 speeding up the application of research findings for production, 

 improving the integration of military and civilian technologies. 

Far-reaching organizational changes were also drawn up that called 

for a restructuring of the Commission for Science, Technology, and 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 29 

 

Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), a revamping of the 

country’s loss-making defense conglomerates, and a more influential 

and direct role for the PLA in the management of the defense S&T 

process. 

A key principle guiding the leadership was to intensify efforts to 

erode the barriers that separated the defense and civilian economies. 

Defense policymakers wanted to readjust the relationship between 

these two sectors from a largely one-way, military-to-civilian 

conversion process to a two-way process in which the defense 

establishment could harness the technological and economic prowess of 

the civilian economy for its own purposes. 

Reducing the Role of COSTIND and Separating it from 

the PLA 

One of the first key reform measures was the separation of the 

military and civilian components of COSTIND. Under the old state 

planning system, COSTIND’s role was to represent and balance the 

interests of the DTIB and the military. This had led to constant 

bureaucratic infighting, because these two groups had diverging 

interests. As the consumer, the military wanted weapons delivered on 

time that met its specifications and were cost-effective. But the DTIB 

had little incentive to meet PLA requirements because it faced little 

competition. 

Under the system that was introduced in April 1998, the military 

portion of COSTIND was incorporated into a newly established 

General Armament Department (GAD). The civilian component was 

retained and kept its COSTIND title. Under this new system, the DTIB 

no longer enjoyed monopoly control in the production and supply of 

arms to the PLA. Although the GAD is obligated to look to the 

domestic defense industry to fulfill orders for the PLA, if military 

procurers judge that local manufacturers cannot meet their 

requirements, they can turn to overseas suppliers to meet their needs. 

Another key goal in the restructuring of the defense industrial 

management system was to separate conflicting administrative and 

commercial duties of COSTIND and its subordinate defense industrial 

conglomerates. COSTIND’s role following the restructuring was to 

make and administer government policies toward the defense industry. 

A dearth of planning guidelines and detailed regulations had 
30 • Cheung 

contributed to the woes and lack of direction for the DTIB during the 

1980s and 1990s. Following its reorganization, COSTIND rushed to 

issue an extensive range of rules, work procedures, and guidelines to 

fill this gap in the regulatory regime. Between 1998 and 2002, more 

than 20 regulations and documents on technological and quality control 

were issued.18

Reform of State-Owned Defense Industrial Enterprise 

Groups 

A central cause of the plight of the DTIB during the 1990s was the 

faltering performance of its prized defense industrial conglomerates. 

The five line ministries that had overseen the running of the principal 

defense sectors had been turned into state-owned corporations during 

the 1980s and early 1990s, but this change had been cosmetic. They 

continued to function as state bureaucracies rather than independent, 

commercially-minded corporations. With little competition to 

encourage efficiency or innovation and the continuation of soft budget 

constraints, these firms consistently accumulated losses. Corporate 

reforms sought to correct a number of specific problems.19

First, an effort was made to distinguish and separate the 

responsibilities and functions between the conglomerates and 

COSTIND. The piecemeal and freewheeling nature of reforms during 

the 1990s in the defense sector and throughout the general economy 

had led to confusion and extensive overlapping of activities between 

enterprises and government agencies. While COSTIND was 

responsible for the regulatory administration of the defense sector, it 

was also deeply involved in supporting the business operations of 

enterprises that it owned. 

Second, the establishment of two conglomerates for each industrial 

sector was intended to promote, what officials described as “moderate” 

competition. 

 

18 COSTIND Technology and Quality Section. “Yifaxingzheng, Guifanguanli” 

[According to Law, Administration, Standard Management], Guofang Keji 

Gongye [Defense S&T Industry], September 2002, 15–16. 

19 “Zhu Rongji Talks at Defense Group Ceremony,” Beijing Central Television 

Programme One Network, 1 July 1999, in FBIS, 1 July 1999. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 31 

 

Third, the central government reiterated that the central mission of 

defense industrial enterprises was to develop and produce weapons to 

support the country’s defense modernization. This message had become 

obscured as defense enterprises switched their attention to serving the 

civilian market during the reform period to compensate for dwindling 

military work. Defense-related work had fallen to around 20 percent of 

the DTIB’s annual industrial output value by the late 1990s. 

Fourth, the pace of restructuring of enterprises would be speeded up 

through the backing of “superior” institutions while “inferior” 

organizations would be eliminated. This was an important policy 

breakthrough because it gave a green light to the closure or merger of 

chronically loss-making enterprises. 

Fifth, more financial support was made available to assist enterprises 

to reduce their debts and resolve other operating difficulties. Economic 

mismanagement and loss-making operations during the 1980s and 

1990s had led to a sharp rise in debt levels across the DTIB. To further 

reduce dependence on the state for financial support, some of the 

better-managed enterprises were allowed to raise funds on the domestic 

and international capital markets through bond issues and, more 

importantly, stock market listings. 

These cost-cutting measures, debt restructuring, and access to new 

sources of capital, combined with a strong pickup in defense orders, led 

to an impressive turnaround in the business operations of the defense 

conglomerates, beginning with the end of the 1990s. After eight 

consecutive years of losses, COSTIND declared that the defense 

industry had technically broken even in 2002.20 While the output of 

civilian goods accounted for most of the defense industry’s economic 

expansion during the 1980s and 1990s, this robust across-the-board 

increase in revenues and production since the end of the 1990s reflected 

rising orders for both weapons and civilian products. 

 

20 The size of these past losses was enormous. In 1996, for example, the 

defense industry’s combined losses totaled more than Rmb five billion, which 

may have been equivalent to around ten percent of the sector’s total production 

output value. See Liu Yichang, “Lifting Defense Scientific and Technological 

Industries Out of Their Predicament,” Junshi Jingji Yanjiu [Military Economic 

Research], January 1998, 8. 
32 • Cheung 

Introduction of the “Four Mechanisms” 

While organizational, corporate, and financial reforms were aimed at 

addressing structural problems inherent within the defense industrial 

system, civilian and military decisionmakers were equally concerned 

with the underlying problems of a highly conservative, uncompetitive, 

poorly motivated, inefficient, and corrupted institutional culture. These 

issues, a legacy of the Maoist socialist planning era, lay at the heart of 

the defense industry’s disappointing performance. The concept of the 

“Four Mechanisms” was introduced in an effort to overcome the 

entrenched monopoly that the country’s defense industrial 

conglomerates had maintained, not only since their corporate 

establishment in the early 1980s but also in their previous manifestation 

as government ministries. 

The key concepts contained within the “Four Mechanisms” were: 

 Competition. The authorities were keen to introduce competition, 

albeit limited and regulated, into the defense industrial and 

weapons procurement system to tackle the widespread structural 

problems and malpractices. 

 Evaluation. Efforts are now being made to establish a more 

robust evaluation system by improving the training of financial 

audit personnel and technical specialists, extending project 

evaluation requirements beyond major projects to also include 

medium and small projects, and ensuring that evaluation 

assessments are written into contracts. 

 Supervision. Corruption and other forms of financial and business 

malpractices had been a growing problem in the defense industry 

and weapons procurement system in the reform period. 

 Recruitment. Fostering a highly motivated workforce is an 

important goal of the defense industrial authorities. They are 

seeking to develop mechanisms that will encourage the grooming 

of more innovative, committed and hard-working employees. 

Building a Robust Regulatory and Standards-based 

Regime 

A glaring deficiency of the DTIB in the late 1990s was the absence 

of a comprehensive and coherent institutional framework of regulations 

and technical standards to guide technological development. The 

formulation and implementation of rules, procedures, and technical 

specifications during the 1980s and first half of the 1990s took place on 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 33 

 

a decentralized and often ad hoc basis because of the lack of strong 

centralized organizations to oversee this work. In an environment of 

conflicting standards and competing rules and practices, the diffusion 

of technological knowhow and sharing of information was seriously 

impeded. 

One of the first priorities for the GAD and COSTIND after the 1998 

reorganization was to strengthen and expand the regulatory framework. 

The GAD immediately began work on the drafting of detailed 

administrative regulations and laws governing armaments research and 

development, production, and management issues.21 The first fruit of 

this labor was the PLA Regulations on Armaments, which took two 

years to draw up and was promulgated by the Central Military 

Commission in 2000. A steady flow of new rules and regulations 

concerning defense technological and weapons-related matters have 

since been issued by military and civilian authorities. 

The authorities have encountered considerable difficulty in 

implementing these laws and regulations. Military units and defense 

enterprises that previously enjoyed wide-ranging freedom in their 

activities and were unencumbered with laws and regulations have 

resisted these new procedures. 

The establishment of a regime of common and comprehensive 

technical standards and military specifications has been another 

important mission for the PLA and DTIB since the beginning of the 

reform period.22 This task has taken on added urgency since the mid1990s in the face of growing leadership calls to the military 

establishment to pursue technological leapfrogging. The development 

of complex weapons systems is dependent on thousands of 

standardized parts and components that must be of high quality and 

reliability. 

The setting of technical standards and military specifications is 

jointly overseen by COSTIND and GAD, which coordinate and define 

 

21 Jiao Qiuguang, (Chief Ed), Junshi Zhuangbei Guanli Xue [The Study of 

Military Armaments Management] (Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe 

[Academy of Military Sciences Press], 2003), 178. 

22 For a detailed examination and history of the evolution of the Chinese 

military standardization system, see Kong Xianlun, editor, Jungong 

Biaozhunhua [Military Standardization] (Beijing: Guofang Gongye Chubanshe 

[National Defense Industry Press], 2003). 
34 • Cheung 

the activities of several dozen specialized military committees that 

formulate standards in a wide range of technical areas. Beginning in 

1983, when the first 15 national military standards were issued, an 

average of around 400 standards were passed annually over the next 15 

years, totaling around 5,700 by the end of 1998. 

The Chinese military specifications and standards regime has a long 

way to go to catch up with its counterparts in advanced industrial 

countries. The U.S. Defense Department had an active list of more than 

26,000 military specifications and standards in 2001,23 which was more 

than four times the size of the Chinese national military standards list. 

Access to Foreign Technology Transfers 

Expanding access to foreign technological knowledge, products, and 

practices, both in the military and civilian sectors, has had far-reaching 

impacts in promoting the technological development of the Chinese 

defense innovation system in the reform era. This trend has accelerated 

and deepened since the late 1990s. Although self-sufficiency remains a 

cornerstone of the country’s defense technological and industrialization 

modernization goals, this is a long-term, strategic aspiration. The focus 

over the next couple of decades is to pursue a parallel development 

strategy of acquiring and absorbing foreign technology that 

complements and supports indigenous weapons R&D. 

Since the 1990s, the DTIB has employed several approaches in the 

pursuit of foreign technological products and processes: 

 Technical and advisory consultation. China invited large numbers 

of foreign defense scientists and engineers during the 1990s to 

provide technical and consulting advice for weapons development 

projects as well as for academic and professional exchanges and 

conferences. This provided the DTIB with a useful source of 

external information and analysis. 

 Off-the-shelf purchases of complete systems. The predominant 

form of technology transfers during the 1990s was the acquisition 

 

23 U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense 

(Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) Logistics Plans and Programs, 

MilSpec Reform: A Final Report (Washington, DC: Defense Standardization 

Program Office, April 2001), 11. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 35 

 

of sizeable amounts of completed weapons systems, primarily 

from Russia, for PLA operational use.24

 Supply of sub-systems and components. In technological areas in 

which the Chinese DTIB was weak, foreign assistance has been 

sought to provide specific sub-systems and components to be 

incorporated into domestic designs. 

 Offset license assembly and production of complete systems. From 

the mid-1990s, China signed a small number of deals, all with 

Russia, for the license production of fighter aircraft and missiles. 

This allowed the transfer of technological products and 

manufacturing processes that were at least a generational leap 

ahead of existing Chinese technology levels. 

 Joint design and development. This approach offers the greatest 

opportunities for technology transfers to China. Since the 

beginning of the millennium, the Chinese government has asked 

Russia to undertake the joint development of new generations of 

weapons and supporting systems. Moscow had previously been 

lukewarm to these proposals because it was concerned that this 

would allow the Chinese DTIB to catch up with Russian defense 

technology levels. 

The absorptive capacity of the Chinese DTIB was severely tested in 

assimilating the influx of Russian defense technology transfers, 

especially such advanced and highly complex systems as fighter 

aircraft and naval vessels. The case of the Su-27 license production 

project provides a vivid insight into the difficulties that the Chinese 

encountered.25 When Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC), one of the 

DTIB’s premier manufacturing facilities, began to build the Su-27 

fighter aircraft from self-assembly kits in the late 1990s, Chinese 

engineers struggled to implement the advanced technological and 

industrial management methods needed to construct the aircraft. The 

first two locally assembled aircraft had to be shipped back to Russia for 

re-assembly because of sub-standard work. 

After these initial problems, quality and productivity levels gradually 

improved so that, by the end of 2003, the annual production rate of the 

 

24 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2004 Annual Report to 

Congress (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2004), 30–31. 25 This section is based on extensive interviews with Russian military officials 

closely involved in the Su-27 project, Beijing, 1997, 1998, and 1999. 
36 • Cheung 

Su-27 had reached the target figure of 15 aircraft.26 This showed that 

SAC was able to learn, adapt, and absorb the technology transfers and 

eventually turn the technology and knowledge acquisition into 

productivity and quality improvements. 

While the Russian defense technology transfers have directly 

contributed to increases in productivity and quality performance levels 

in the case of SAC, the impact on indigenous technological innovation 

capabilities in the DTIB is more difficult to assess because of the lack 

of available information. Studies of foreign technology transfers into 

the Chinese civilian manufacturing sector, though, suggest that these 

transfers alone are not sufficient to promote innovation within local 

firms. Only when the importation of technological knowledge, 

products, and processes are combined with in-house R&D activities do 

increased returns for indigenous R&D result. 

Mending a Broken Diffusion System 

A fundamental weakness of the defense S&T system has been its 

poor ability to diffuse technological achievements. At the end of the 

1990s, it was estimated that fewer than 15 percent of the military 

inventions annually developed by defense R&D institutes were 

commercialized, and fewer than three percent were eventually adopted 

for large-scale, serial production.27

A key reason for the ineffectiveness of the diffusion process is the 

lack of incentives that research institutions have to pursue their 

activities to fruition in the marketplace or on the production line. Most 

importantly, the lack of an effective patent system and intellectual 

property rights culture has meant that researchers and their institutions 

 

26 Interview with Russian military official, Beijing, December 2003. 27 Zhu Qinglin and Meng Renzhong (Chief Eds), Zhongguo Caijun Yu 

Guofang Ziyuan Peizhi Yanjiu [China’s Disarmament and Research into the 

Disposal of Defense Resources] (Beijing: Junshi Kexue Chubanshe [Military 

Sciences Press], 1999), 152–153; and Xin Guoping, “Research on the 

Industrialization and Commercialization of Science and Technology 

Achievements from Military Industry,” Ranqi Wolun Shiyan Yu Yanjiu [Gas 

Turbine Experimentation and Research], No. 2, Vol. 14, 2001, 55–58. The 

commercialization rate for the NDSTU was three percent. Zhujian Weili, 172. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 37 

 

have received little or no reward from the exploitation of their work.28

Scientists and engineers have had little motivation to carry on with the 

development of their research output for commercial dissemination. 

The Chinese government and the DTIB finally began to pay serious 

attention to protection of intellectual property rights in the mid-1990s, 

spurred by serious disputes with major trading partners, the country’s 

efforts to gain admission into the World Trade Organization, and a 

growing recognition that an effective patent regime was crucial to 

spurring S&T development. This has led to the gradual strengthening of 

the patent regime since the beginning of the new century. Special 

attention has been paid to enhancing the protection of scientists 

involved in civilian and defense-related R&D.29 A new statute on 

defense patents was promulgated in November 2004 to supersede an 

earlier, outdated law. 

Diffusion of defense technological R&D also has been obstructed by 

other factors, including: 

 the backward state of the military technical standards framework, 

 the dominance of technology push in R&D projects, in which 

government requirements have determined priorities and goals, 

while the demands of end-users have been ignored,30 and 

 the lack of a comprehensive regulatory framework to provide rules 

and laws to guide the development of the commercialization of 

defense S&T achievements.31

Overhauling the Research and Development Process 

The Achilles heel of the DTIB during the 1980s and 1990s was the 

R&D apparatus. None of the measures taken to improve its 

performance adequately addressed the root causes of the problems 

holding back the creation, nurturing, and diffusion of innovation that 

 

28 See Du Ying, “Guofang Jishu Zhishi Chanquan Baohu Yanjiu” [Research 

into the Protection of Defense Technological Intellectual Property Rights], 

Zhishi Chanquan [Intellectual Property], April 2002, 21–24. 

29 “Protection of Patents to be Strengthened in China,” China Daily, 23 April 

2003. 

30Carl J. Dahlman and Jean-Eric Aubert, China and the Knowledge Economy: 

Seizing the 21st Century (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2001), 109. 31 Chen Lin and Chen Kai, “Tuiguang Zhuanhua Gongzuo” [Working to 

Transform Popularization], Guofang Keji Gongye, March 2003, 36–37. 
38 • Cheung 

persisted as a legacy of the socialist planning system. The major 

structural impediment was the continuing separation of the R&D and 

production systems. A second obstacle was that the only source for the 

promotion of innovation came from governmental agencies and not 

commercial enterprises. As research institutes and production 

enterprises relied exclusively on the government and military 

establishment for funding and resources to undertake defense-related 

R&D, they had no independent capability or incentive to come up with 

or pursue their own initiatives. The resultant, deep-rooted, institutional 

passivity smothered any innovative creativity. 

A bolder reform strategy was required to tackle these serious 

shortcomings in the R&D apparatus. 

 First, there was a pressing need to reform the relationship between 

secondary government and military actors. COSTIND’s dual role 

of looking after the DTIB and at the same time being responsible 

for meeting PLA equipment needs created fundamental conflicts 

of interest and confusion. 

 Second, the urgent need to break down the compartmentalization 

of the R&D and production systems was identified, but policy 

planners were unsure how to carry out this task. There was 

agreement that the starting point for tackling this issue would be 

based on the reform model undertaken in the civilian S&T system, 

i.e., by focusing on the transformation of R&D institutes into 

commercial enterprises with their own independent legal and 

financial rights. But concerns were expressed that if defense R&D 

institutes were turned into commercial enterprises, they would put 

the pursuit of profits ahead of their duties of engaging in lowmargin defense R&D activities. 

 To bolster this effort to place defense conglomerates at the heart 

of the defense innovation system, the establishment of in-house 

technology development centers in large-scale defense enterprises 

was also encouraged.32 The goals were to increase the amount of 

investment that firms devoted to R&D, promote interaction with 

universities and research institutes, concentrate more resources on 

developing high-technology and dual-use products, and speed up 

the exploitation and commercialization of proprietary R&D 

output. 

 

32 Liu Jibin, “Actively Push Ahead with the Work of Reforming of Military 

Industrial Enterprises,” Guofang Keji Gongye, April 2002, 9. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 39 

 

 Third, a shake-up in the management of the R&D of major 

weapons projects was undertaken in response to intensifying highlevel criticism over the DTIB’s dismal track record. Efforts had 

been made during the 1980s and 1990s to concentrate limited 

funds on focal points and overcome S&T bottlenecks in a manner 

harkening back to the development of strategic weapons in the 

Maoist era.33 These initiatives were unsuccessful because of deepseated structural problems within the R&D system. 

 A new project management model was introduced in the late 

1990s that was based on foreign and civilian practices. It included 

the adoption of a more centralized leadership structure combined 

with matrix management concepts designed to improve 

coordination, responsibility, and regularization among different 

entities participating in project design and R&D. Overall 

management of a project was placed in the hands of a director 

who supervised and coordinated the activities of a number of 

departments responsible for specialist functional activities, such as 

planning, technology management, engineering management, 

production management, contracts management, and equipment 

testing. 

 Fourth, basic R&D assumed even greater importance and priority 

in funding allocations, especially as defense planners focused 

increasingly on embracing information-based warfare as a central 

tenet of PLA future warfighting doctrine and force modernization. 

Although there had been efforts to enhance basic R&D activities 

during the 1980s and 1990s, much of the focus had been on 

traditional defense technology. 

These reforms have led to a significant improvement in the 

performance of the defense R&D system. A conference to review the 

progress in preliminary weapons R&D during the Ninth Five Year Plan 

from 1996 to 2000 concluded that a string of major research 

breakthroughs had taken place in critical basic technologies that had 

previously held back the development of key weapons projects. The 

structure of the preliminary research management system had also been 

readjusted “steadily and in an orderly manner,” and this had contributed 

 

33 Evan A. Feigenbaum, China’s Techno-Warriors: National Security and 

Strategic Competition from the Nuclear to the Information Age (Stanford, CA: 

Stanford University Press, 2003), 138–139. 
40 • Cheung 

to raising the overall innovation capability of the defense S&T system, 

which in some areas had “reached international advanced standards.”34

Training a New Generation of Defense Scientists and 

Engineers 

The aging and thinning of the ranks of China’s defense S&T 

workforce had been a ticking time-bomb for the defense innovation 

system throughout the 1980s and 1990s. While some limited measures 

were taken to stem the steady depletion in the talent pool during this 

period, the allure of higher salaries, better career advancement and 

improved working conditions in the civilian arena proved irresistible 

for many experienced defense researchers. 

Throughout the 1990s, defense policymakers had called for the 

grooming of a new generation of scientists and engineers to meet the 

new technological challenges of the 21st Century. But the concrete steps 

required to reverse chronic under-investment, reform the ossified 

personnel system, improve the working and living conditions, and stem 

the widespread waste in resources that had dampened morale, 

creativity, and productivity were lacking. 

COSTIND-affiliated universities also benefited from increased 

allocations that they began to receive from their parent organization 

and the PLA toward the end of the 1990s to attract younger blood to 

join the ranks of the country’s defense S&T workforce. By 2003, 

COSTIND estimated that the annual number of students graduating 

from its seven premier universities totaled more than 34,000, of which 

around 72 percent were undergraduates and 15 percent were 

postgraduates with masters or doctoral degrees. This represents a 

significant increase from the late 1990s. The number of graduates from 

these seven institutions reached around 40,000, or a 19 percent 

increase, in 2004. Around one-third of the top graduates were allocated 

jobs in the DTIB.35

 

34 Fu Mingyi and Xi Qixin, “Army Reports Progress in Preliminary Weapons 

Research,” Xinhua Domestic Service, 9 December 2001, in FBIS, 13 

December 2001. 

35 COSTIND Personnel Education Section, “Convey Defense Talent to Bring 

About the Raising of the Employment Rate,” Guofang Keji Gongye, 

September 2003, 33. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 41 

 

Attracting and retaining the brightest, best, and most experienced 

defense scientists and engineers has been an enormously difficult task, 

especially since the economic benefits offered by the civilian sector far 

outstrip the DTIB’s. It was estimated in 2002 that backbone S&T 

research staff in defense R&D institutes earned between one-third and 

one-half as much as their colleagues in the civilian sector. The gap was 

even wider when compared to scientists and engineers employed in 

foreign-owned enterprises.36

The PLA’s top tier of technological and engineering schools and 

academies also underwent a major reorganization as part of the 

streamlining of the defense R&D sector and the downsizing of the 

military establishment toward the end of the 1990s.37 Jiang Zemin 

pointed out that the military authorities regarded the PLA academic 

apparatus as at the forefront of the drive to “develop a military force 

that could win in the era of information technology.”38

This upgrading and modernization of the defense industrial and 

military education systems will require careful and long-term nurturing 

to overcome their neglect and under-investment during the Maoist and 

early reform periods. A review of the reform of the PLA education 

system at the end of 2003 found that progress had been mixed. More 

effort needed to be made in improving training and research facilities 

and in providing more material support to poorly paid S&T personnel 

who faced “poverty”. To address these concerns, the PLA announced in 

2002 that it would sharply increase investment in the development of 

key academies, science laboratories, and new teaching courses by five 

times over the next four years compared to the Ninth Five Year Plan.39

 

36 Li Bin, “Thoughts on Establishing a System to Industrialise Achievements 

Made by Defense R&D Institutes,” Jianchuan Kexue Jishu [Ship Science & 

Technology], Vol. 24, No.6, December 2002, 4. 37 For an overview of the restructuring of the PLA educational system at the 

end of the 1990s, see State Council Economic System Reform Office, 

Zhongguo Jingji Tizhi Gaige Nianjian 2000-2001 [China Economic System 

Reform Yearbook, 2000–2001] (Beijing: Zhongguo Caizheng Jingji 

Chubanshe [China Financial and Economic Press], 2001), 360–362. 

38 “Development of Military Institutes a Priority,” Renmin Ribao [People’s 

Daily] 2 September 2003. 

39 Shen Yuejin and Huang Huamin, “With the Approval of CMC Chairman 

Jiang Zemin, the Priority Construction Project for Military Colleges and 
42 • Cheung 

Modernizing the Defense Manufacturing Apparatus 

The defense manufacturing apparatus has been among the most 

conservative and insular components of the DTIB. It had grown bloated 

and inefficient during the central planning era. Despite several efforts 

to curb its size and improve its output during the 1980s and early 

1990s, the production apparatus continued to be an enormous burden 

and drag on the performance of the rest of the DTIB. The mounting 

losses that the country’s major defense conglomerates suffered 

throughout the 1990s were in large part due to the chronic structural 

mismatch between their excessive and outdated manufacturing capacity 

and the increasingly high-technology demands of the marketplace. 

To overcome this serious bottleneck in the design and manufacturing 

processes, the DTIB became a leading participant in the research and 

development of computer integrated manufacturing systems (CIMS). 

DTIB policymakers have further urged the adoption of other hightechnology manufacturing and management hardware and software 

systems to improve productivity, coordination, and discipline within 

the industrial production system. They see these integrated hardware 

and software systems as essential in promoting innovation and paving 

the transition of the DTIB into the era of information warfare by 

allowing defense enterprises and the R&D system to digitize and 

automate many of their activities, become connected to information 

networks, and fully integrate disparate operations.40

A significant rebound in military production activity since the late 

1990s has contributed to a revival in the performance of the defense 

manufacturing sector. The sharp cutbacks in defense spending during 

the 1980s starved production enterprises of military work, which led to 

the layoff and redeployment of workers to civilian activities. Even 

when defense expenditures picked up at the beginning of the 1990s, the 

bulk of the spending went to foreign purchases, R&D, salary increases 

and welfare-related issues. This dire situation improved in the late 

1990s, as long-awaited advanced weapons finally began to emerge 

from the defense R&D pipeline and enter production. The volume of 

 

Universities has been Officially Launched,” Jiefangjun Bao, 17 May 2002, 1, 

in FBIS, 17 May 2002. 40 Luan Enjie, “Promote the Development of the Defense Manufacturing 

Industry Through the Strengthening of Manufacturing Technology 

Innovation,” Guofang Keji Gongye, August 2003, 10–12. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 43 

 

orders, especially for missiles, aircraft, and naval equipment, 

accelerated at the end of the 1990s as the PLA undertook a concerted 

buildup of military capabilities to prepare for contingencies in the 

vicinity of the Strait of Taiwan. The rearmament of the Chinese 

military establishment, now a central priority, has allowed the defense 

production apparatus to shake off its lethargy and pessimism and begin 

to devote more attention and resources to upgrading its performance. 

Increased Role of the End-User 

The ascendancy of the PLA in guiding defense S&T research and 

production activities in the reform era, especially since the late 1990s, 

has been an important factor in raising the performance of the DTIB. 

The emergence of demand-pull factors has helped to reinvigorate a 

system that had lost momentum, direction, and purpose under a central 

planning bureaucracy that had increasingly become more preoccupied 

with preserving its own survival than promoting technological 

innovation and serving the needs of its end-users. 

Until the beginning of the 1990s, the technology push policies of the 

central leadership overwhelmingly drove weapons development and 

innovation in the defense S&T system. Demand-pull requirements from 

military end users were secondary. Since the 1998 reforms, the PLA 

has sought to reorient the DTIB to focus more on meeting end-user 

needs. Results have been mixed. Through the implementation of the 

four mechanisms system, the PLA has imposed tougher competitive 

and evaluation procedures in the development and procurement of 

weapons systems. In principle at least, defense enterprises have been 

required to improve their performance to meet these more stringent 

demands or face losing work. In practice, though, the still highly 

regulated nature of the Chinese weapons market has impeded the 

effective application of these procedures. As only limited competition 

is permitted within the defense sector, enterprises have not had to face 

the rigors of fully-fledged market competition that would be 

characterized by competition in design and cancelled projects. 

Second, one of the main ways that the PLA has been able to 

implement demand-pull mechanisms has been through the procurement 

process: by withholding or postponing orders for equipment that do not 

meet its requirements. The military had no option but to accept the 

output of the DTIB during the Maoist era. It was able to become more 

selective in the reform period. As the quality of indigenous equipment 
44 • Cheung 

steadily declined, the PLA became increasingly reticent to procure 

these arms and began to look elsewhere for weapons that met its needs 

in the 1990s. Although military chiefs continued to reaffirm the 

importance of self-reliance, the new demand-pull pressure forced the 

DTIB to re-examine how it could improve its performance or risk 

losing valuable contracts. 

Third, considerable efforts have been made to link military strategy 

and doctrinal planning with weapons and technology development. The 

separation between the military and defense industrial bureaucracies 

during the central planning era had also led to a gap in joint planning 

over their long-term development strategies. While consultation and 

coordination did regularly take place between the two establishments, 

this was primarily concentrated on annual, 3-year and 5-year economic 

and administrative plans. Little attention was paid to long-range, 

strategic planning efforts that often played a crucial role in shaping the 

evolution of force doctrines and weapons requirements. 

Prospects for Technological Leapfrogging 

The post-1998 reforms have led to significant enhancement in the 

performance of the defense innovation system. In 2003, looking back 

over the first five years of this restructuring effort, military and defense 

industry chiefs hailed the changes and achievements as the “best period 

of development in the country’s history.”41 How far-reaching and 

sustainable have these reforms been? In particular, to what extent are 

the key drivers in the underlying innovation process (the invention 

cycle, absorptive capacity, and integration) now able to further raise the 

performance of the system to meet leadership demands for 

technological leapfrogging? 

These reform efforts have enabled the DTIB to make long-awaited 

generational advances in the development and production of weapons 

systems. A growing proportion of the output of the DTIB since the late 

1990s has shifted from outdated early third generation (1960s) to late 

third generation (1970s) technological standards. In a select number of 

high-priority areas, such as missiles, progress has been even more 

 

41 Wang Wengjie, “Delegate Li Jinai Emphasizes: Grasp Tightly the Important 

Strategic Opportunity, Accelerate the Development by Leaps of Our Army’s 

Weapons and Equipment,” Jiefangjun Bao, 8 March 2003, in FBIS, 8 March 

2003. 
Defense Technological and Industrial Base • 45 

 

pronounced, with technological capabilities reaching to early fourth 

generation levels (1980s). Nevertheless, the Chinese DTIB still lags as 

much as two generations behind the latest global standards in most 

areas. 

Can the DTIB maintain this reform momentum and continue to 

advance up the ladder of technological innovation through 

leapfrogging? The Chinese leadership has set an ambitious target of 

catching up with the world’s leading defense industrial powers by 

2020. To meet this goal, military planners point out that the defense 

industry “must not follow the conventional path of development,” but 

must instead “act with daring to skip certain stages” of the 

modernization process42 and focus on the adoption of transformational 

information technology-related capabilities in place of conventional 

mechanized systems. 

This alternative pathway to modernization entails considerable risks. 

It involves the development of unproven technologies, the diversion of 

substantial resources from other parts of the DTIB, and the 

unpredictable nature of the technological development process. The 

risks are even higher if the focus is on the development of “frontier” 

technologies rather than the adaptation and imitation of existing designs 

and products. Moreover, much of the information technology-related 

knowledge and technology lies outside the boundaries of the DTIB and 

within the civilian economy. 

The Chinese DTIB would also need to devote significantly more 

capital investment and other resources if it is to realistically pursue the 

goal of catching up with the world’s advanced military industrial 

powers. In the late 1990s, China’s defense S&T budget was equivalent 

to just 5 percent of the amount that the U.S. spent in the same area.43

This huge gap in funding strongly suggests that any broad-based 

leapfrogging efforts would fall far short of reaching the technological 

standards enjoyed by the U.S. and its Western allies. A more attainable 

strategy would be the concentration of limited resources in a select 

 

42 Fan Xizhong, “Grasp the Core of Informization,” Jiefangjun Bao, 8 

February 2004, 2, in FBIS, 8 February 2004. 43 Liu Jingshu, “New Military Changes in the World and Research on the 

Distribution of China’s Defense Economic Resources,” Junshi Jingji Yanjiu, 

March 2004, 6. 
46 • Cheung 

number of areas where chances of success in narrowing technological 

gaps and potential military payoffs are greatest. 
 47 

Essay 3 

PLA Reform 

By Timothy Lo 

he Chinese realize that to carry out a strategy of increasing 

“comprehensive national power” and achieving dominance in 

the Western Pacific, they need to be able to successfully 

exploit technology and in particular, information technology (IT) 

within their defense establishment. 

Effective exploitation of IT within the military requires a networked 

command and control system that distributes authority and cultivates 

collaboration across service lines, especially between naval and air 

forces. In both the commercial and military sectors, the ability to 

exploit information provides a distinct advantage over those who lack 

it. Optimal exploitation of information requires a networked 

decisionmaking process that is not centralized at the top but, rather, 

distributed down to levels of command that can react with speed and 

adaptability to emerging events. It also demands cooperation among the 

branches and units to share information to form a clear picture of the 

operational environment and achieve better warfighting capabilities. 

Historically, however, the PLA command structure has tended to be 

inflexible and highly centralized. The rigid command structure does not 

allow for quick adaptation to situations on the battlefield, nor does it 

facilitate initiative and creativity at lower levels of command. 

Integration and communication between ground, naval, and air forces is 

still a relatively new concept to the Chinese. Moreover, the PLA lacks a 

permanent wartime command organization. This makes transitioning to 

war a slow process and inhibits jointness, especially during unplanned 

engagements. The current command structure is organized around 

separate and distinct “military regions” designed for training and 

equipping forces for territorial control. China’s historical propensity to 

maintain large ground forces as the focus of its military has resulted in 

a cumbersome organization with weak and outdated naval and air 

T 
48 • Lo 

forces. These and other shortcomings have contributed to the difficulty 

of attracting young talent to the organization. 

These characteristics are not restricted to the PLA. They reflect the 

greater Chinese society and its customs. The traditional roots of 

Chinese culture and the components of the social ethic of Confucianism 

stress self-sufficiency and acceptance of hierarchy, both of which, 

when taken to extremes, are not conducive to change and can stifle 

creativity. A “pattern of duties—no real rights—was the basis for 

achieving these ideals,” and when the ideals faltered, “there was always 

the law and the sword.”44 This concept was especially prevalent in 

military society. Many Chinese observers since the late nineteenth 

century have blamed these traditional values for China’s past inability 

to defend itself against foreigners. 

Some changes have been made over the last 2 decades, but many 

more are necessary if the Chinese are to achieve their goal of being the 

dominant power in the Western Pacific. Effective reform and 

transformation within the PLA will be sweeping, disruptive, and 

painful. The success or failure of China’s military strategy is contingent 

on its ability to overcome structural and cultural impediments. 

What Does the PLA Say It Must Do? 

Though cultural and structural reformation within the PLA is 

complex and unprecedented, and the entirety of what the Chinese 

leadership hopes to achieve is ambitious in both size and breadth, 

public figures from the military and the political leadership have made 

statements indicating an acute awareness and understanding of the 

problems ingrained in the Chinese military and the steps they need to 

take to remedy them. 

For some years, Chinese military planners and thinkers have made 

statements urging reductions in the size of the PLA. Defense Minister 

Chi Haotian explained in a 1998 speech to the Japanese National 

Institute for Defense Studies that part of “developing the PLA into a 

revolutionary, modernized, and regular army,” required “streamlining” 

the military to a “reasonable size” with “attention paid to quality 

 

44 Ross Terrill, The New Chinese Empire (and What it Means for the United 

States) (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 56. 
PLA Reform • 49 

instead of quantity and scale.”45 This idea has remained a theme for 

some time and was reiterated in the 2006 Chinese Defense White 

Paper. After affirming that “the focus for the Army was force 

reduction,” the paper goes on to explain that the necessary condition for 

this includes reducing the number of troops and increasing the NCO 

corps.46

In addition to, and perhaps of more significance than, the reduction 

of troops is the priority the PLA places on building up naval and air 

forces. Plans are being made so that “the Army is streamlined by 

reducing the ordinary troops that are technologically backward while 

the Navy, Air Force, and Second Artillery Force (China’s strategic 

nuclear force) are strengthened.” This, the Chinese argue, will 

“strengthen the capabilities for winning both command of the sea and 

command of the air, and conducting strategic counter-strikes.” 

PLA reformers also recognize the importance of communication 

between branches and have made plans to “push forward an integrated 

tri-service support system.” This, the White Paper explains, will 

“enhance the capability to provide fast, efficient, and integrated 

support” and make the military more “flexible and swift in command.” 

Experimental reforms of joint logistics had already been initiated in the 

Jinan Theater, several hundred miles south of Beijing, as early as July 

2004. For that regional unit, all the “logistical organs, logistical support 

resources, and logistical support channels of the three services are 

starting to be integrated.” 

In personnel restructuring, the Chinese have proposed “streamlining 

the staff offices and the directly affiliated organs at the corps level and 

above, so as to compress the command chains and further improve the 

operational command system to strengthen the command functions.” 

They have targeted reducing the number of offices and personnel by 

about 15 percent by “adjusting staff functions, dismantling and merging 

offices, and reducing the numbers of subordinate offices and assigned 

personnel.” 

 

45 Le Shaoyan and Gang Ye, “China: Chi Haotian on PRC Defence Policy,” 

Xinhua Domestic Service, 4 February 1998. 46 China’s National Defense in 2006, Information Office of the State Council, 

People’s Republic of China. Available at 

<http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/doctrine/wp2006.html>. All of the 

quotations to the end of this section are from the White Paper. 
50 • Lo 

To upgrade the quality of its soldiers, the PLA plans to implement 

the “Strategic Project for Talented People,” which they hope will allow 

them to “focus on training a new type of high-caliber military 

personnel.” This project will be implemented in two stages. Its goal is a 

“remarkable improvement in the quality of military personnel, and a 

big increase in the number of well-educated personnel in combat units.” 

The White Paper goes on to promise that “the following decade will 

witness a big leap in the training of military personnel.” 

Are They Doing It? 

The statements above paint a picture of where the PLA would like to 

be in the near future, but it is by no means certain that they will get 

there. Because of the disruptive nature of such wide-ranging reforms, 

not only to the organizational structure, but also to the culture and 

traditions of the PLA, there are many obstacles that could prevent the 

Chinese from achieving these objectives. Yet, while these statements 

and writings demonstrate only a cognitive understanding on the part of 

the Chinese leadership, the actions they have taken and are taking, 

point to sufficient, if not overwhelming evidence of motivation and 

intention to bring about reform to the Chinese military. 

The Chinese laid out a plan of action in the mid-1990’s and have 

continued to apply the principles embodied in it. With the support of 

the political leadership, the Central Military Commission put forth a 

“new line” (policy) for “army building” (defense modernization) to 

guide all aspects of PLA reform. Known as “Liangge Zhuanbian,” or 

“Two Transformations,” it called for the armed forces to undergo a 

“metamorphosis.” The first transformation called for the transition from 

an army preparing to fight local wars under ordinary conditions to an 

army preparing to fight and win local wars under “modern high tech 

conditions.” The second transformation called for an army based on 

quality instead of quantity. 

In preparing to fight and win local wars under modern, high-tech 

conditions, the Chinese have realized that they must maintain focus on 

military affairs. In May of 1998, President Jiang Zemin pronounced 

that all enterprises run by the PLA and People’s Armed Police Force 

(PAP) must be separated from the army within 3 years.47 The edict, 

 

47 “Jiang Zemin Critcizes Slow Progress in Army Reform; Reducing the Army 

by 500,000 Not Proceeding on Schedule,” Ming Pao, 19 May, 1998. 
PLA Reform • 51 

which was reiterated later that year, applied mainly to commercial 

enterprises, such as major hotels, restaurants, real estate ventures, and 

trade and investment operations. This separation forced the PLA to stop 

non-military activity and shift its focus to war-fighting proficiency. 

To shift the emphasis away from quantity and toward quality, the 

PLA has reduced manpower over the last 20 years from about 3.3 

million to 2.2 million and had proposed a further reduction of 200,000 

soldiers by the end of 2006—which the Chinese say they had already 

completed at the end of 2005.48 If the PLA carries out its stated 

reduction plans, by 2010, it will have a total strength of about 1.5 

million.49

This reduction becomes even more significant in light of how the 

Chinese are restructuring the remaining manpower. The shares of the 

PLAN and PLANAF have increased substantially. In 1998, PLAN 

personnel totaled 280,000, or 10 percent of the PLA total; in 2010 it is 

projected to be 199,000 or 14 percent of the PLA total. The PLANAF 

stood at 470,000 personnel, or 17 percent of the total military 

population in 1998; it is projected to be 334,000 strong or 23 percent of 

the military in 2010. The Army made up 73 percent of the 1998 PLA 

population but is projected to drop to 932,000 troops, or 64 percent, in 

2010.50 Successful implementation of China’s new strategy requires a 

proper balance between its services and is contingent on creation of a 

stronger navy and a more advanced air force than it currently 

possesses.51

Historically, integration between the services has been weak. The 

Chinese realize now that joint logistics and combat service support are 

 

48 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, 5. 

49 Yitzhak Shichor, “Demobilization: The Dialectics of PLA Troop 

Reduction,” The China Quarterly (London: Oxford University Press, 1996), 

336-359. 

50 The Military Balance, 2004-2005 (London: International Institute for 

Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press, 2003). 51 When reviewing Chinese military figures, it is relevant to note that civilians 

working for the PLA are included in the total number of China’s active duty 

forces. While the exact number of civilians is not known, it is estimated that 

they constitute 20 to 25 percent of the total force. Source: China’s Defense in 

2004: “The citizens in active service in the PLA are servicemen in active 

service, consisting of officers in active service, civil cadres and soldiers in 

active service.” 
52 • Lo 

essential to winning “modern high-tech wars,” so the PLA is beginning 

to develop a joint logistics department. In a 1999 article, the Liberation 

Army Daily newspaper praised the Guangzhou military region for being 

the first to successfully establish a “theater command automation 

system” to achieve interoperability between the three service branches 

in that southern province.52 Efforts are also being made to standardize 

certain functions, including fueling, transportation, and medical care, 

throughout all branches of the military. In future wars, the PLA is 

expected to consume large amounts of material. Planners recognize that 

this need can be better met with joint logistical mobile teams rather 

than fixed supply points. Efforts are being made to create such a 

system. 

Little freedom is granted to subordinate commanders within the 

Chinese military organization. However, the requirements of modern 

warfare and the U.S. military’s emphasis on attacking command nodes 

has recently forced a debate on the benefits of distributing 

decisionmaking and has prompted investigations of alternative 

command styles. A Liberation Army Daily article acknowledged the 

perils of highly centralized decisionmaking and explained that 

successful integration of the directives of high-level commanders 

requires “an understanding of what the higher organ (higher leadership) 

wants, finding out the unit’s situation, and making the unit’s own 

policy decision.”53 Although the higher leadership’s desire is still the 

main objective, the lower level commanders are able to formulate “a 

policy decision in light of the specific conditions and problem.”54

Recently published Chinese military textbooks are also beginning to 

suggest decentralization as a necessity of modern warfare. In Joint 

Campaign Operations Command, published by the Chinese National 

Defense University, the authors advocate “entrusting command” over 

centralized command.55 Arguing that attacks using modern weapons 

can often cut off commanders from their troops, they argue that lowerlevel commanders must be able to “skip the chain of command and 

 

52 “Guangzhou War Zone Sets up PLA’s First ‘Theater Command Automation 

System,’” Liberation Army Daily, 25 May 1999. 53 Yu Yongjun, “Jiefangjun Bao Urges PLA to Implement Orders ‘Creatively,’ 

Avoid ‘Formalism,’” Liberation Army Daily, 18 March 2002. 54 Ibid. 

55 Wang Wangzhun and Lu Lihua, eds., Joint Campaign Operations Command

(Beijing: National Defense University Press, 2000). 
PLA Reform • 53 

directly provide assistance.” This allows for rapid reaction to the 

situation and flexibility in completing tasks. 

Talent at every level of rank is essential for reform. To that end, the 

PLA has taken several steps toward transforming to a military based on 

quality instead of quantity. In competing with a commercial sector that 

often offers salaries twice as high as those of the military, the PLA 

struggles with attracting young, smart, and intellectually curious 

individuals to groom as future leaders. Admiral Shi Yunsheng 

described the situation when he said, “those that we need will not come 

or will not stay. Those we do not need will not go away.”56 In its efforts 

to improve the quality of officers, the PLA recognizes that it will need 

to select from a larger, more diverse pool of candidates who are 

knowledgeable and skilled in a wide variety of areas, including 

advanced technologies, engineering, and social sciences. To attract 

these skills, the PLA has set up formal officer recruitment programs in 

universities, seeking both undergraduates and graduates. It is offering 

scholarships to qualified and willing individuals, such as the National 

Defense Scholarship, which allows recruits to have “breaks in 

education” in exchange for short periods of service in critical functions 

and then return to their studies. Among the existing officer corps, the 

PLA has instituted minimum and maximum times of service for 

specific locations. This allows for personal development while helping 

to prevent corruption and nepotism that can occur during extended 

stays in one location.

Is the PLA Arguing for and Implementing the Right 

Actions? 

The actions and statements discussed above demonstrate the will of 

the Chinese to reform. They have begun implementing measures 

necessary to transform their military to achieve unchallenged military 

dominance in the region. It is important, however, to examine whether 

the actions they have argued for are indeed the right actions that will 

bring about an effective and efficient PLA. The requirements of 

modern warfare and the ability of the U.S. military—as China’s 

 

56 David M. Finkelstein, "Looking for the People in the People's Liberation 

Army: Who is G.I. Zhou?," paper presented at the U.S. National Defense 

University, Chinese Military Affairs: A Conference on the State of the Field, 

26–27 October 2000. 
54 • Lo 

greatest military challenger—to attack command nodes demand that the 

PLA achieve certain capabilities to achieve dominance in the Western 

Pacific. 

 Collaboration between all military branches. Shared situational 

awareness enables collaboration and self-synchronization and 

enhances sustainability and speed of command, which in turn 

dramatically increases mission effectiveness. 

 Decentralized decisionmaking. Distributed decisionmaking 

permits junior officers to adapt to changing tactical situations and 

to seize combat opportunities within the operational-level 

guidance provided by senior commanders. 

 Hiring quality officers. The ability to recruit and retain 

competent, qualified, and risk-taking individuals into positions of 

leadership is essential to any organization, and the PLA is no 

exception. Even if reform begins now, it will require generations 

of leaders to maintain the changes and preserve a military culture 

conducive to exploring new opportunities and taking creative 

approaches to problem solving. 

 Focus on military goals. To achieve transformation of its 

military, the PLA needs to focus on its war mission and not 

engage in such civilian activities as running government-owned 

restaurants and building roads and hotels. 

 Rewarding risk-taking. Future leaders need to have the freedom 

to think and develop new ideas. It is important to reward and 

advocate risk-taking. An article in the Liberation Army Daily

newspaper observed that the PLA does not “need cowards who are 

afraid of taking risks and bearing hardships.”57

The matrix on the following page compares the old PLA with the 

proposed new PLA according to the five criteria discussed above. 

 

57 Yu Yongjun. 
PLA Reform • 55 

Old PLA Proposed New PLA 

Jointness and 

Integration 

Between 

Branches 

Service-specific 

logistics and combat 

support 

Joint logistics and 

operations 

Decentralized 

Authority 

Highly centralized 

decisionmaking 

Empowerment of junior 

officers to make 

decisions 

Recruitment 

and Retention 

of Quality 

Officers 

Conscripted military 

with very little room 

for creativity 

Recruitment from 

universities, 

establishing military 

scholarships, 

recruitment from the 

graduate and postdoctorate levels, 

increased salaries 

Focus on 

Military Goals 

Attention often 

shifted to running 

factories or building 

and maintaining 

hotels 

Separation of PLA-run 

institutions from the 

military, yielding a 

PLA solely focused on 

warfighting 

Rewarding 

and 

Advocating 

Risk Taking 

Risk is avoided, 

orders carried out 

“mechanically,” with 

a “formalistic 

attitude”58

Risk is encouraged and 

rewarded 

As indicated earlier, the PLA has made substantial shifts from the old 

to the new. Though not yet strong in all categories of reform, there 

already is significant contrast between the old PLA and the new PLA, 

especially on a provincial level. The reforms have slimmed down the 

 

58 Ibid. 
56 • Lo 

PLA, making it more mobile, more technologically advanced, and more 

focused, thus indicating a shift in the direction of effective reform. 

How Long Will These Changes Take—Years? 

Decades? 

While China’s involvement in the greater global economy, interest in 

the regional balance of power, and concern over Taiwan’s threats of 

independence have provided the motivation for these reforms, the 

amount of time it will take for reform to come to fruition is contingent 

on several factors. First and foremost, the attitudes of the political 

leadership in Beijing must be encouraging and supportive of change. In 

addition, the senior military leadership of the PLA must be willing to 

devolve power and autonomy to lower-ranking officers, and the quality 

of future Chinese junior officers must be on par with the best and 

brightest of the civilian sector. In essence, all three factors must be 

present for reform to come about quickly and effectively. 

The relationship between the senior military leadership and the 

political leadership has changed significantly in recent decades. In the 

past, the political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 

dictated military goals and specified how to achieve those goals. The 

military existed to serve the political interests of the CCP and its 

command structure. The Party led and the military followed. This 

approach was designed to maintain the military’s loyalty to the party.59

While regime survival remains the priority of the Chinese political 

leadership, much more autonomy is granted to the generals and top 

officers in the day-to-day decisionmaking of military modernization 

and defense planning, as long as they adhere to two stipulations. First, 

the military must continue to actively support Hu Jintao as the 

paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Second, they must 

stay out of the management of non-military policymaking areas, such 

as the economy and factional conflicts. Before, the military was 

involved in city planning and the building of civilian infrastructure. 

They were often involved with policy planning in regards to the 

conflict with Taiwan and land disputes in Tibet. Now they are to focus 

solely on warfighting and revolutionizing the military. 

 

59 James C. Mulvenon, “China: Conditional Compliance,” in Coercion and 

Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia, ed. Multiah 

Alagappa (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 4. 
PLA Reform • 57 

Given the power relationships just described, we know that if the 

political leadership insists on change, the senior military leadership 

must either promote or permit change. It would not be feasible for the 

senior military leadership to oppose change insisted on by the political 

leadership. However, because of the autonomy granted by the CCP to 

the military leadership to carry out its own implementation, we know 

that the political leadership will not insist on the specifics of how to 

change. This gives latitude to the senior military leadership to either 

slow down reform through the slow implementation of policies, or 

hasten reform by continuing to bring about the changes mentioned 

above. Another factor in determining a time frame for change is the 

junior officers who will be the military’s future leaders. If these officers 

accept and fit into the status quo, or if the military cannot attract 

technically savvy young people to begin with, reform is certain to be 

delayed until more changes are made to attract those who favor reform 

and will fight for it. A new generation will enter the PLA and carry out 

reform only if the military leadership actively promotes it. It follows 

that the attitude of the military leadership remains the critical variable 

and the catalyst for successful reform. 

Because we know some changes are already occurring, and the PLA 

today is beginning to stand in contrast to the PLA of a decade ago, we 

can assume that the senior military leadership is permitting change, if 

not actively promoting it. From the speeches of various political 

leaders, and from the Defense White Paper, we gather that the Party 

leaders believe reform is necessary if China is to embark on its strategy 

of comprehensive national power and dominance in the region. PLA 

effectiveness in attracting quality officers is yet to be determined, but 

the developments described above provide a strong case that reform is 

at least on the way and should be achieved within the timeframe of 

years rather than decades. 

Conclusion 

It may not always be easy to distinguish between a China that is 

ready and willing to be a dominating force in the Western Pacific and 

one that merely talks about it, but it is also not too difficult. The actions 

the PLA have taken thus far–shifting resources to naval and air forces, 

devolving authority, integrating the various branches, recruiting quality 

officers, and developing a culture that is conducive to supporting these 

changes—are at least a step in the right direction, if not a leap. These 
58 • Lo 

reforms however, have been limited mostly to specific regions or 

brigades. For the Chinese to achieve their stated goal of dominance in 

the region, all parties—the political leadership, the military leadership, 

and the junior officer corps—must be on board. Most important, the 

changes made at the regional level need to be implemented PLA-wide. 
 59 

Essay 4 

China’s Approach to 

Taiwan and the U.S. 

Navy’s Imperatives for 

Action 

By Michael McDevitt 

hina’s chief strategic issues are maritime or littoral in nature: 

Taiwan and other territorial disputes, maintaining the economic 

growth currently driven by overseas trade, and the vibrant 

economic region on its eastern seaboard. United States predominance 

in the Western Pacific is the main obstacle to China’s control of the sea 

and airspace along its littoral, and China is bolstering its maritime 

power in a way that over time could threaten this American 

predominance. The U.S. Navy must improve its capabilities if it is 

going to continue to operate freely in the region. Moreover, in light of 

the changing strategic environment, the U.S. should take stock of the 

contribution it might expect from regional allies to see if their 

capabilities are being leveraged to their full potential. 

The PLAN and Command of the Sea 

China’s 2004 Defense White Paper set “command of the sea” as 

Beijing’s goal, but it has been less clear about the path the Chinese will 

take to achieve this. What would a People’s Liberation Army Navy 

(PLAN) built for “command of the sea” look like? 

One alternative is for the PLAN to mimic the pre-WWII Imperial 

Japanese Navy, and build a fleet to contend with the U.S. Navy in 

classical naval warfare. This would require aircraft carriers and an 

effective anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability against American 

and Japanese submarines. It could also include a significant submarine 

C 
60 • McDevitt 

launched ballistic missile force. Whole-hearted adoption of this 

concept, though, seems unlikely. The costs of both mounting an 

effective ASW challenge to the U.S. Navy and taking significant 

numbers of tactical aircraft to sea would be prohibitively expensive. 

PLA strategists will likely conclude that these capabilities are 

unnecessary to their strategic objectives and can be achieved by other 

means. 

A much more likely option for the PLAN is a concept called “sea 

control” by the Chinese. This concept can be described more accurately 

as a modification of the Soviet “sea denial” strategy of the 1980s. This 

requires a force that can attack foreign surface, subsurface, and aerial 

platforms that enter China’s maritime region. This sort of force is 

within the ability of the PRC to execute and would satisfy most of the 

PRC’s strategic requirements on the “maritime frontier.” There are 

indications that Beijing has already decided on this model and is on the 

path to developing the necessary forces. 

A sea denial strategy depends on a suite of capabilities that can 

impose significant cost on the U.S. Navy as it projects power in the 

Western Pacific. In particular, it depends on capabilities that threaten 

American aircraft carriers. China is in the process of bringing three key 

types of assets to bear on this problem: land-based airpower mated with 

air-launched cruise missiles, attack submarines, and, in the future, the 

potential of land-based ballistic missiles with maneuverable war heads 

that could be effective against ships at sea. To knit this “anti-access 

system” together they need an intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance (ISR) capability that can find and fix U.S. Navy surface 

forces on the high seas. 

The People’s Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF) and the 

PLA Air Force (PLAAF) are refining air-to-sea tactics that make use of 

air-launched cruise missiles. This, of course, is a threat the U.S. Navy 

faced in the 1970s and 1980s from the Soviet Union that led to, among 

other things, the AEGIS air defense combat system. It also caused the 

U.S. Navy to think through novel operational concepts, most notably, 

using fighters to shoot down Soviet bombers before they got within 

cruise missile range of carrier battle groups. Collectively these tactics 

and systems were characterized as shooting the archer, not the arrows. 

The concept continues to be valid. 
Taiwan and U.S. Navy Imperatives • 61 

Chinese aircraft would most likely continue to operate from the 

mainland. A small aircraft carrier or two is not out of the question, but, 

it is unlikely that it would play a role in anti-access, because of its 

vulnerability to U.S. submarines and aircraft once it ventured beyond 

the first island chain (about 200 nautical miles from the coast of China). 

In any case, the cost is heavy and mastering the complex engineering of 

a project this size will take a decade or more. The use of offshore 

islands, such as the Paracels, to station aircraft is a possibility. This, 

though, is likely to be a losing proposition, because the assets would be 

exposed and vulnerable to U.S. Navy attack aircraft and cruise missiles. 

The second facet of the PLAN’s anti-access strategy is a submarine 

force for offensive use against U.S. Navy surface forces. The Soviets 

used nuclear guided missile submarines (SSGNs) in this role, while 

employing their nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) to protect nuclear 

ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) bastions. The Chinese have no 

bastions to protect, and no SSGNs, but their submarine concept is 

essentially the same as the Soviets: use submarines to attack U.S. Navy 

surface strike groups operating within tactical aircraft range of 

mainland China. The Chinese are focusing on conventionally powered 

attack submarines that, over time, will carry cruise missiles as well as 

torpedoes. 

The PLA is working on a third element to its anti-access layered 

defense—one that is uniquely Chinese and uses one of the PLA’s most 

effective capabilities. This new wrinkle is to use ballistic missiles to 

attack moving surface warships.60 Traditionally, ballistic missiles were 

considered a poor weapon to use against ships at sea; ships move, and 

once the missile is fired, the aim point of a ballistic trajectory, by 

definition, cannot be altered to account for target motion. 

What the PLA is apparently trying to do is place seekers in highexplosive missile warheads that will activate as the warhead descends 

into the target area, and then steer the warhead to the moving ship. This 

is a difficult but not impossible technical task that depends on accurate 

surveillance plus missile warhead maneuvering technology that can 

slow down the warhead when it reenters the atmosphere so the seekers 

 

60 China’sNational Defense in 2006. The report says that, “China is exploring 

the use of ballistic missiles for anti-access/sea-denial missions. 
62 • McDevitt 

are not burned up by the heat of reentry.61 If the PLA can master and 

field this weapon system, it will be able to present as serious a 

challenge to the US Navy as the one presented by Soviet Backfirelaunched cruise missiles before the introduction of the Aegis radar 

system. 

The fourth and final component of sea denial is intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). China’s counter-ship strike 

power is dependent in large part on the PLA’s ability to put together the 

appropriate surveillance, command, tracking, and targeting 

architecture. Open ocean surveillance capability is needed to locate and 

track approaching naval forces in order to cue conventional submarines 

and land-based aircraft. A further, space-based ISR capability would be 

vital, should China develop long-range land-based anti-ship missiles. 

Beijing must be able to preserve this ISR architecture, or net, from U.S. 

disruption. Such ISR capability is the long pole in the tent for the PLA. 

Without this capability, PLAN ambitions of gaining sea control will not 

be realized. and the PLA would have to fall back on sheer mass to 

compensate. In large quantities, a frontal attack by submarines, aircraft, 

and cruise missiles would still present a credible sea denial capability. 

Even within an overarching sea denial strategy, the PLAN is going to 

require a high capacity amphibious capability so long as Taiwan 

remains an unsettled issue. This capability need not be able to project 

land power over vast distances in the manner of U.S. Navy or Imperial 

Japanese amphibious forces. Taiwan is only 100 miles away from the 

mainland, and there is no indication that the PRC would be interested in 

trying to invade another country from the sea. 

The PLA and Command of the Air 

In addition to command of the sea, the 2004 Defense White Paper 

also established “command of the air” as a key PLA goal. The concepts 

of command of the sea and command of the air are closely related in 

actual combat. Chinese failure to establish command of the air, for 

instance, could make invasion of Taiwan impossible and hamper its sea 

 

61 Interview between author and technical experts in the Department of the 

Navy, June 2006. See also Ronald O’Rourke, “China Naval Modernization: 

Implications for U.S. Naval Capabilities—Background and Issues for 

Congress,” (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 22 January 

2007), 5–6. 
Taiwan and U.S. Navy Imperatives • 63 

denial strategy by neutralizing its ability to deliver air-launched cruise 

missiles. It is essential, therefore, to establish some understanding of 

what PLA command of the air might entail. It has three components: 

win air-control over the Taiwan Strait, deny U.S. Air Force and Marine 

Corps (USAF/USMC) land-based tactical aircraft (TACAIR) access to 

the region, and deny access to sea-based TACAIR. 

Winning air control of the Taiwan Strait is a necessary prerequisite if 

China intends to achieve reunification with Taiwan through invasion. 

The PLA would have to first disable and/or ground the Taiwan air force 

by destroying early warning systems and airfields through ballisticmissile bombardment and special operations forces (SOF) attacks on 

airfields and Republic of China (ROC) fighter aircrews. The PLA 

would also have to deploy modern long-range surface-air-missiles 

(SAMs) near enough to the mainland coastline so these SAM batteries 

can command the air space over the Taiwan Strait. Modern fighters 

armed with advanced air-to-air missiles to engage ROC and U.S. 

fighters beyond visual range are also important assets for keeping U.S. 

combat aircraft at bay. The airspace over the Strait lends itself to air-toair combat where positive visual identification will probably not be a 

prerequisite to engagement. 

A related component of command of the air is denying USAF/USMC 

land-based TACAIR access to the region. In the event of conflict with 

China, the United States would hope to make use of its airbases on 

Okinawa and Guam. With some preparation, former U.S. facilities in 

the Philippines, notably Cubi Point Naval Air Station, could be possible 

staging areas. Denying the United States access to these bases would 

involve long-term diplomatic and strategic decisions. 

Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa will be the primary node for 

U.S. fighters to be employed in denying the PLA air superiority over 

the Taiwan Strait. If an invasion of Taiwan is the PLA’s goal, it cannot 

permit U.S. TACAIR to operate freely from Kadena, regardless of the 

consequences of attacking Japanese territory. China would likely make 

use of ballistic missiles and possibly SOF to damage or neutralize the 

base. The only scenario in which the Chinese would engage in 

hostilities with Taiwan but not attack Kadena is if the PLA is merely 

intent on a “lesson teaching campaign.” In this case, neither Guam nor 

the Philippines would likely be struck, either. 
64 • McDevitt 

As with targeting Kadena, Chinese ballistic missile and submarinelaunched cruise missile strikes against Guam and the Philippines would 

have serious implications. In the case of Guam, striking U.S. territory 

may be an escalatory step that Beijing would hesitate to take. It would 

certainly provide some justification for the U.S. National Command 

Authority to authorize U.S. strikes against the Chinese mainland. On 

the other hand, if the Chinese do not attack Guam, they permit longrange U.S. strike and surveillance assets to operate freely against them. 

With the Philippines, the Chinese might try to use diplomacy and 

threats to pressure the government into preventing U.S. access to 

facilities there. If diplomacy fails, though, the use of force is rife with 

complications. A ballistic missile strike against Cubi Point or other 

facilities could result in the reinstitution of the Philippines-U.S. 

Military Alliance and a more permanent U.S. presence in the 

Philippines, a consequence Beijing would surely want to avoid. 

The third component of Chinese air control over the Strait is denying 

access to U.S. sea-based TACAIR—in other words sinking, disabling 

or otherwise keeping at bay U.S. carriers. Key to this is the PLA 

developing a capacity to detect, track, target, and strike U.S. carriers 

with high reliability and on a timely basis. 

Based on this brief review, PLA ambitions to achieve command of 

the air beyond the immediate vicinity of the Taiwan Strait would come 

head-to-head with tough political-military issues with war-widening 

implications. China has range on its side in competing over the Strait, 

but the risk of a stiff challenge from USAF fighters operating from 

bases outside the immediate vicinity remains. Neutralizing them by 

attacking third country airfields is a complex political issue. 

U.S. Navy Imperatives 

The purpose of the foregoing review was to illuminate what areas are 

operational imperatives for the U.S. Navy. In other words, what must 

the U.S. Navy be able to accomplish to frustrate PLA attempts to win 

command of the sea? There are four operational (warfighting) 

imperatives the U.S. Navy must achieve if it is to intervene in the 

defense of Taiwan: frustrate PLA ballistic missile attacks on forces at 

sea if the PLA fields this capability; maintain the ability to operate in 

the airspace over Taiwan and the Strait; disrupt Chinese ISR; and 

successfully stave off Chinese submarine attacks on U.S. carriers. 
Taiwan and U.S. Navy Imperatives • 65 

These imperatives would also apply to any other Sino-American 

conflict in the Western Pacific. 

Coping with the ballistic missile challenge will require both active 

and passive defenses. Continuing to improve the preliminary ABM 

capability already present in surface combatants, so that they can 

engage faster-flying, longer-range missiles is one step. The other is to 

adapt to ballistic missile defense the same passive defense techniques 

fielded to decoy or deceive cruise missiles. 

Secondly, in order to frustrate a PLA attempt to invade Taiwan, U.S. 

and ROC forces must be able to preserve their ability to penetrate the 

airspace over the Taiwan Strait. The key to success in this portion of 

the campaign will be the destruction or neutralization of the PLA’s 

mainland-based SAM sites that have sufficient range to cover the Strait. 

If the U.S. Navy and the USAF are not permitted to conduct 

suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) missions against mainland 

based SAMS, we can expect a steady attrition of non-stealthy allied 

aircraft over the strait. 

Thirdly, Chinese hopes of holding at risk, disabling, and sinking U.S. 

surface ships, and carriers in particular rest on finding and maintaining 

a reliable track on those ships. This is particularly true of the missile 

threat. The most effective way to neutralize China’s capability to attack 

U.S. ships is to disrupt, destroy or otherwise interrupt the PLA network 

that would allow them to gather open ocean surveillance data, geolocate ships at sea, identify them as warships, and pass targeting 

information to missiles in flight. The same disruptive ability would also 

blunt the submarine threat. The Chinese ISR network should be 

vulnerable at several points, and attacking it may be a more certain 

method of defense than trying to shoot down the incoming missiles or 

spoof them with ship-like decoys. All three approaches—hard kill, 

network disruption, and decoys—could provide good leverage in 

neutralizing emerging Chinese capabilities as a standard layereddefense approach. 

The fourth and final operational imperative for the U.S. Navy is to 

counter the threat that Chinese submarines pose to the aircraft carriers 

and other surface ships. China is fielding a relatively large number of 

diesel submarines based on Russian technology. To detect and destroy 

them, the U.S. Navy needs to make great strides in its ASW capabilities 

in the Western Pacific. 
66 • McDevitt 

The good news is that the ASW problem is at this stage a regional 

and not a global issue. The U.S. Navy can concentrate its ASW efforts 

on the Western Pacific. That should permit a narrowly focused 

approach to training, procuring and equipping; not every ship or aircraft 

squadron in the entire U.S. Navy needs to be brought to the highest 

level of ASW proficiency and capability. 

Even with a regional approach, though, the U.S. Navy still faces a 

difficult challenge. It is aware of its shortcomings and is focused on the 

solving the ASW problem. Research and development (R&D) is 

showing promise, and new systems will be deployed on the new 

Virginia Class submarines. 

In addition, the Navy could also consider approaches that are more 

oriented to process and operations. For example, the Navy could 

organize a variant of the U.S. 10th Fleet, which was established in 1942 

to focus solely on countering U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. 

Another model from the past would be Task Force Alfa, which in the 

1960s and 1970s was a dedicated ASW operational force. Task Force 

Alfa developed and refined ASW tactics during deployment at sea and 

became an “elite” anti-submarine warfighting organization. Similarly, 

during the 1980s, a dedicated ASW destroyer squadron was established 

with some success in the Pacific Fleet. Such initiatives would bring 

needed dedicated operational focus to the problem. 

Another option would be to review the Atlantic-Pacific fleet balance 

and increase the numbers of naval combatants assigned to the Pacific 

Fleet. For example, perhaps all of the remaining Perry-class frigates 

(FFGs) in commission could be reassigned to Pearl Harbor. 

Allied Contributions 

The United States Navy is not alone in its efforts to 

ensure continued freedom to operate in the Western Pacific. The 

continued presence, and efficacy, of our forces is of considerable 

interest to our allies in the region. The U.S. can expect to be 

supported and to receive help in achieving these imperatives. 

Allied contributions come in two basic forms: land from which to 

operate and naval capability. Of the U.S. allies in the region—a 

list that includes South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia—
Taiwan and U.S. Navy Imperatives • 67 

Japan is in a position to help the United States the most in a 

conflict with China over Taiwan. 

Territory from Which to Operate 

Bases on Japanese soil are of the foremost importance. The reality is 

that any combat over Taiwan will take place in the vicinity of Japan, 

and location is critical to a successful defense of Taiwan. In any sort of 

a Taiwan conflict, access to bases in Okinawa (especially Kadena air 

force base), and perhaps to facilities on smaller islands in the Ryukyu 

chain between Taiwan and Okinawa, would be central to successful use 

of land-based fighters to help maintain air operations over the Taiwan 

Strait. Air bases in Japan are also essential for land based surveillance 

and ASW aircraft (E-2’s and P-3’s) and other support aircraft, 

especially tankers. It is a long flight from Kadena on Okinawa to 

Taiwan (about 350 nautical miles) and tanking would be a central 

factor in sustaining fighters in the vicinity of Taiwan. 

The Philippines are in a position to make a similar contribution. Like 

Japan, the nation enjoys the advantage of location. The Bashi Channel 

separates the northern island of Luzon from Taiwan, where the former 

U.S. airfields of Clark Air Force base and Cubi Point Naval Air Station 

are strategically desirable locations that can accommodate large 

numbers of land-based tactical aircraft. Granting access to these air 

bases would be a high leverage contribution the Philippines could 

make. Providing access to these facilities would allow large numbers of 

aircraft to be close to the conflict and allow the United States to 

generate many more combat sorties (because of the relatively short 

range compared to other locales). History provides a telling example of 

this point. In December 1941, Japanese aircraft flying from Taiwan 

destroyed General Douglas MacArthur’s air force based at Clark Field, 

and ensured Japanese air superiority for the rest of their campaign in 

the Philippines. 

While South Korea is also in the vicinity of any fight over Taiwan, 

Seoul’s contribution is expected to be much more limited. Much 

depends up whether or not the threat of a North Korean invasion has 

abated, which would determine whether a strong deterrent posture was 

necessary or not. 

On the other hand, maintaining a good relationship with Seoul could 

also work to Beijing’s advantage. The Republic of Korea (ROK) 
68 • McDevitt 

government has made it clear it does not want to have to choose 

between Washington and Beijing, and has yet to agree to permit the use 

of U.S. forces such as air power in off-peninsula missions. It is 

extremely unlikely that Seoul would be willing to permit U.S. forces 

currently in Korea to use the ROK as a base to stage against China or 

even fly defensive sorties over the Taiwan Strait. It is also extremely 

unlikely that Thailand would permit its airfields to be used for 

launching strikes into South Western China. 

Force Contributions 

In addition to real estate, U.S. allies could make direct military 

contributions to a conflict over Taiwan. The Japanese Self Defense 

Force (SDF) in particular has capabilities that would be important to 

success in a “defense of Taiwan” campaign; specifically, a modern air 

defense surveillance and fighter force, a significant number of P-3 

ASW aircraft useful for both ASW and open ocean surveillance, and an 

excellent surface Navy force of ASW destroyers and Aegis equipped 

air defense destroyers. Not only is the SDF well equipped, it is well 

trained and used to operating with U.S. forces. 

The Air Self Defense force contribution is unlikely to include active 

participation in counter air work over Taiwan, but its modern 

interceptors and up to date air defense and early warning capability 

would be important because it provides a rear area relatively secure 

from PLA air raids against bases or U.S. ships operating in proximity to 

the Japanese islands. It would also be something that Japan could do 

without creating a constitutional issue, because it would involve 

protecting the homeland from attack. 

The Maritime Self Defense Force is very good at anti-submarine 

warfare. Its helicopter-equipped surface combat force, when combined 

with the ASW P-3’s, provides an important capability that could greatly 

assist the U.S. Navy in dealing with PRC submarines, provided the 

government leadership permits them to operate in an offensive, hunterkiller mode. If they are only permitted to operate in defense of Japanese 

territorial seas, their value is limited to periods when U.S. Navy forces 

are operating near Japanese waters. Nonetheless Japanese 

contributions, even if limited to their territorial seas, would be very 

important to the U.S. Navy. The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force 

(JMSDF) would essentially “have the U.S. Navy’s back,” to put it in 

street vernacular. 
Taiwan and U.S. Navy Imperatives • 69 

Japan has a small but very capable conventional submarine force. 

Conventionally powered submarines are not an optimum ASW weapon 

because slow submerged speed and limited endurance on battery limits 

the amount of water they can search. However, operating south of 

Okinawa in Japanese waters, they could perform valuable roles as 

pickets against PLA Navy attempts to pass from the East China Sea 

into the Pacific. 

A close study of the maritime geography of the region illustrates that 

the Ryukyu chain, including Okinawa, forms a sort of “picket fence” 

between Central and North China and the open ocean of the Pacific. 

The Ryukyus essentially form a seaward boundary of the East China 

Sea, making it difficult for PLA ships and submarines to easily access 

open-ocean. This fact of geography provides a tremendous advantage 

to the United States, provided that Japan is diligent in monitoring these 

waters even if not an active belligerent. 

The United States could probably count on a useful Australian naval 

contribution to the ASW campaign against PRC submarines, as well. 

Beyond that, there is not much that the Australians could bring to the 

fight, though political support from Canberra would be important. 

Other Asian allies and friends do not really have much capability that 

would be relevant in a campaign fought over a thousand miles away or 

are likely to withhold active support for political reasons. 

When tallying possible allied contributions, it is important to 

consider whether political circumstances could keep Japan on the 

sidelines. Though the recent February 2005 statement in the wake of 

the 2+2 U.S.-Japanese Ministerial meeting has put Japan on record as 

seeing the issue of Taiwan as a strategic issue for Tokyo, it would be a 

mistake to conclude that the United States can count on unquestioned 

Japanese support. 

The circumstances that lead to conflict would be an important 

consideration for Tokyo. If China launched a “bolt out of the blue” 

attack on Taiwan because Beijing was simply tired of waiting for 

Taipei to get on with some sort of reunification dialogue, then active 

Japanese support in the ensuing fight would be more likely. On the 

other hand, if Taipei were perceived as having provoked the conflict by 

baiting Beijing through incrementally moving toward independence in 

Chinese eyes, then Japanese support would be much more problematic. 

Even then, it is unlikely that the Japan would forbid launching U.S. 
70 • McDevitt 

combat sorties from Kadena air force base on Okinawa. But it is likely 

that their military would be limited to a strictly defensive role 

defending Japanese sovereignty and interests. 

In this situation, Japan would probably not be drawn into proactive 

support unless China chose to attack U.S. bases on Japanese soil, 

especially Kadena air force base. If Beijing elected to widen the war by 

attacking Japan, then Tokyo probably would aggressively hunt down 

PLA submarines. Just as it is Beijing’s finger that is on the trigger on 

whether or not fighting starts, in certain circumstances, it is also 

Beijing’s choice whether or not the conflict widens. 

Conclusions 

The PLA has been able to accomplish a great deal in recent years in 

developing capabilities to influence military action in and around 

Taiwan. Up to now, it has had the advantage of being able to focus its 

energies on a single canonical scenario. Taiwan is the PLA’s equivalent 

of America’s Cold War focus on the inter-German Central Front. 

China’s will and capability should not, therefore, be underestimated. 

In response, the U.S. Navy can and must become just as focused. The 

Navy must think clearly through the implications of what it must be 

able to do to preserve its ability to operate freely in the Western Pacific. 

This will include a determined focus on key advances in China’s 

submarine and missile capabilities in particular. By combining this with 

cultivating close cooperation with capable allies (Japan and Australia), 

the U.S. can, if not neutralize, at least retard China’s ability to disrupt 

operations of the U.S. fleet in the Western Pacific. 
 71 

Essay 5 

Counter-Intelligence, 

Surveillance, and 

Reconnaissance 

By James Mulvenon 

he Carrier Strike Group (CSG) would be the primary U.S. force 

projection asset in a China-Taiwan conflict. Yet the U.S. Navy’s 

CSGs face an increasingly serious threat from Chinese anti-ship 

cruise missiles (ASCMs), advanced torpedoes, and ballistic missiles. 

The effectiveness and lethality of Chinese attacks depends heavily on 

effective ISR (space, airborne, underwater, and terrestrial) to find, 

track, and target the carriers and other components of the strike groups. 

At a minimum, this requires weapons systems with long reach and an 

ISR infrastructure to identify and track the target's path (and any course 

changes after launch), send this information to the missile(s), and then 

update the tracks of the ships and transmit any changes so the missile 

and/or warhead can make mid-course corrections. This paper briefly 

examines China’s overall information operations (IO) strategy, specific 

ISR capabilities, and intentions, and then explores a range of U.S. Navy 

counter-ISR options. 

Chinese Information Operations (IO) Strategy 

At the highest level of theoretical abstraction, China’s ISR 

modernization program can be seen as a subset of the PLA’s emerging 

IO doctrine. Chinese definitions of IO closely mirror U.S. joint 

information operations doctrine. Chinese IO doctrine incorporates 

operational security (OPSEC), communications security (COMSEC), 

computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations 

(PSYOP), electronic warfare (EW), physical destruction, and denial 

T 
72 • Mulvenon 

and deception (D&D). Chinese writings group these concepts into five 

broad categories: intelligence warfare (qingbaozhan), communications 

countermeasures (tongxin duikang), electronic countermeasures (dianzi 

duikang), psychological warfare (xinlizhan), and computer 

countermeasures (jisuanji duikang). Chinese ISR capabilities and 

counter-ISR measures against U.S. or other allied assets fall mostly 

under the “intelligence warfare” category, though the categories are not 

cleanly delineated. 

The offensive and defensive aspects of information operations, 

including ISR and counter-ISR measures, are attractive to the PLA for 

a number of reasons. First, IO allows the PLA to attack both of the 

centers of gravity in a Taiwan contingency: (1) the will of the 

Taiwanese people and (2) U.S. military intervention. To this end, IO is 

meant to help deter or delay U.S. intervention, target U.S. assets in the 

theater, and thereby help create sufficient panic that Taipei capitulates 

before the United States arrives in force. Chinese ISR systems could 

potentially assist this goal by facilitating the identification, tracking, 

and targeting of U.S. Navy ships, and China’s emerging counter-ISR 

capabilities threaten the U.S. space-based reconnaissance infrastructure. 

Second, IO has longer range than their conventional power projection 

assets, which allows the PLA to “reach out and touch” U.S. forces, 

even in the continental United States (CONUS). In the intelligence 

realm, this means that Chinese ISR systems could develop a picture of 

U.S. and allied force posture at a range that exceeds the range of their 

non-strategic weapons. It also means that PLA preemption or 

retaliation in the cyber realm can reach all the way to military rear area 

systems or even civilian networks and critical infrastructure. Third, the 

U.S. military is perceived to be dangerously dependent on information 

technology systems, particularly computers and the need to use civilian 

backbone. For some PLA specialists, for instance, the Non-Classified 

Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNET), the DOD network used 

to exchange unclassified but sensitive information, is an “Achilles 

Heel,” and attacking it with distributed denial of service tools could 

degrade U.S. force deployment with plausible deniability. It is 

important in this context to recognize that Chinese IO strategy focuses 

on two levels of disruption and paralysis, not destruction. The first level 

is disruption of an opponent’s C4ISR and logistics infrastructure, while 

the second level targets critical non-military domestic infrastructure to 

“paralyze civilian political leadership” and degrade operational 
Projecting Power • 73 

capability. In addition, it must be noted that Chinese IO strategy is seen 

as a complement to kinetic operations, not a replacement for them. 

Fourth, IO is a facilitator of and a central element of China’s emerging 

concept of preemptive attack against high-tech adversaries like the 

United States. From their analyses of Operations Desert Storm, Allied 

Force, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom, the Chinese military has 

concluded they cannot allow U.S. forces to assemble unmolested on 

their periphery with a full force protection package in place, unless they 

wish to suffer the same fate as their Iraqi, Serbian, and Taliban 

counterparts.62 In this view, the only way to challenge a high-tech 

adversary is to attack preemptively, using so-called “assassin’s mace” 

weapons. The success of such an effort, however, relies heavily on the 

ability of a survivable ISR infrastructure to find and track the targets in 

the first place. The next section describes these capabilities in broad 

outline. More detailed description can be found in classified 

documentation. 

Chinese ISR Capabilities and Intentions 

Recent editions of the annual Department of Defense report to 

Congress on Chinese military power provide ample evidence of 

Chinese progress in improving the PLA’s space, airborne, underwater, 

and terrestrial ISR capabilities: 

Acquisition of modern ISR systems remains a critical aspect of 

Beijing's military modernization. China is developing its ISR 

capabilities based on domestic components, supplemented by 

foreign technology acquisition and procurement of complete 

foreign systems. PLA procurement of new space systems, AEW 

[airborne early warning] aircraft, long-range UAVs, and over-thehorizon radar will enhance its ability to detect, monitor, and target 

naval activity in the western Pacific Ocean. It appears, from 

writings on PLA exercises, that that this system currently lacks 

integration and that a fused, efficient ISR capability will not be 

achieved for many years. 

Exploitation of space and acquisition of related technologies 

remain high priorities in Beijing’s ISR improvements. China is 

placing major emphasis on improving space-based reconnaissance 

 

62 For example, see Lu Linzhi, “Preemptive Strikes Are Crucial in Limited 

High-Tech Wars,” Jiefangjun bao, 7 February 1996. 
74 • Mulvenon 

and surveillance, including electro-optical, synthetic-aperture 

radar, and other satellite reconnaissance systems. These systems, 

when fully deployed, are expected to provide a regional, and 

potentially hemispheric, continuous surveillance capability. China 

has begun to embrace new satellite architecture emphasizing 

common satellite buses. This approach to satellite construction is 

based on use of a standard, versatile satellite bus module, with 

minor modifications to accommodate various payloads. In 

addition to domestic development, China probably will continue 

to use commercial satellite imagery and may seek to join an 

international consortium-owned constellation. China is 

cooperating with a number of countries, including Russia, 

Ukraine, Brazil, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy, 

to advance its objectives in space. 

China’s airborne ISR program has placed significant emphasis on 

UAVs. China’s armed forces have operated the Chang Hong (CH1) long-range, air-launched autonomous reconnaissance drone 

since the 1980s. China developed the CH-1 by reverseengineering U.S. Firebee reconnaissance drones recovered during 

the Vietnam War. An upgraded version of the system was 

displayed at the 2000 Zhuhai air show and is being offered for 

export. A PRC aviation periodical reported that the CH-1 can 

carry a TV, daylight still, or infrared camera. It most likely is not 

equipped with a data link, which would allow remote-controlled 

operation, nor is it capable of providing real-time payload 

feedback to the remote operator. China’s armed forces also 

operate other UAVs, primarily for battlefield reconnaissance or 

electronic warfare. 

China also is pursuing naval ISR programs that include the Y-8 

AEW aircraft and efforts to procure or produce an AWACS. 

These platforms eventually will complement China’s other ISR 

platforms, such as the Tu-154 multi-role, special mission aircraft 

equipped for ELINT collection missions and possibly electronic 

warfare. The PLAAF reportedly also has several aircraft–both 

fighters and bombers–capable of performing an imagery 

reconnaissance function. China may have developed passive 

acoustic sensors for use in coastal waters and also may have at 

least one underwater acoustic range. This range could be used to 

track torpedoes during training exercises. Because of China's 

interest in ASW, development and deployment of additional 
Projecting Power • 75 

underwater sensors is probable in the next 5–10 years and will 

expand through 2020. Some of these future systems may be 

installed as far offshore as the edge of the continental shelf. 

Passive sensors would provide only a few miles of coverage 

against quiet submarines but could detect merchant shipping and 

noisy combatants at greater distances. 63

Taken together, these systems represent a growing threat to U.S. 

Navy assets in the Western Pacific, particularly in a cross-Strait 

contingency. The remainder of this essay addresses potential U.S. Navy 

options to counter Chinese ISR capabilities. 

Potential U.S. Navy Counter-ISR Options 

A variety of counter-ISR options are available to the U.S. Navy. 

These range from long-term economic measures to choosing much 

more aggressive crisis options. In between these extremes are other 

possibilities, such as plausibly deniable actions and options unrelated to 

China itself. Each of these options is discussed below. 

 Long-term measures 

o Strengthen export controls on C4ISR-related technologies 

 Non-China crisis options 

o Stop sharing disposition of U.S. Navy assets with Taiwan 

o Isolate PRC from international ISR data 

 Plausibly deniable crisis options 

o Disabling or destroying dedicated PLA satellites 

o Disabling or destroying PRC satellites 

o Computer network attack (CNA) against Chinese 

cyberspace, including backbone telecom 

o Disrupting sensor fusion with CNA 

o Disrupting C2 with CNA 

o Covert action or air strikes against OTH radar sites on 

coast 

 Escalatory (in order of gravity of consequence) crisis options 

o Overt CNA against Chinese C4ISR 

 

63 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2004 Annual Report to 

Congress (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2004), 44,45. While 

more recent reports are available, the 2004 report dwelt extensively on ISR 

issues. It is quoted at length here to ensure that sensitive information is not 

compromised. 
76 • Mulvenon 

o Sinking submarines 

o Shooting down AEW aircraft 

o Air/missile strikes against OTH radar sites on the 

mainland 

o Air/missile strikes against fusion centers on the mainland 

o Air/missile strikes against National Command Authority 

facilities 

Long-Term Measures 

Strengthening export controls on C4ISR-related items sounds good 

in theory, but is extraordinarily difficult in practice. Dual-use items and 

components are very difficult to track, and non-U.S. suppliers would be 

all too happy to fill the gap if U.S. companies were prohibited from 

selling such items to China. For these reasons, a better option is 

strengthening the European Union (EU) Code of Conduct in the event 

that the EU arms embargo is lifted, which would at least facilitate a 

record of transactions. Another part of this approach would be pushing 

a “buy American” strategy that would basically trade export licenses 

for transparency. This would offer two main benefits. First, it would aid 

in monitoring of Chinese C4ISR modernization. Second, it would help 

collectors, because they would be dealing with familiar technologies. 

Moreover, it would provide opportunities to manipulate key 

components in China’s supply chain through tactics such as placing 

covert “backdoors” in the technology for later surreptitious intrusion 

and even possibly shutdown. 

Non-China Crisis Options 

One way to reduce the likelihood that the PRC would be able to 

locate and track U.S. surface ships is to withhold information about 

their positions from Taiwan. Some advocate sharing information about 

the disposition of U.S. Navy forces with Taiwan early in a crisis or 

conflict. Others argue against this option on the grounds that the 

information passed to Taiwan would quickly find its way into the hands 

of the Chinese intelligence services. Indeed, a mountain of open source 

reporting indicates that Taiwan is not faring well in its intelligence war 

with the PRC. According to Taiwan media reports, networks of agents 

are being rolled up on the mainland with alarming regularity and there 

is widespread concern about PRC penetration of the Taiwan military, 

intelligence community, and political system. The main advantage of 

withholding this information from Taiwan would be increased 
Projecting Power • 77 

operational security. At the same time, refusing to share the 

information would not be cost-free. The potential disadvantages include 

political fallout in the form of accusations of “lack of trust” and the 

potential lost benefits of joint planning and at least limited 

interoperability. 

Another possibility that addresses the problem somewhat indirectly, 

but carries relatively low risks of escalation, is attempting to isolate 

China from international ISR data. Commercial remote sensing data 

from many sources is widely available to China. The PLA would likely 

seek to purchase imagery from some of these providers. For U.S. 

companies that provide commercial imagery, Washington’s options 

include exercising shutter control or outright purchase of all images. As 

for foreign providers, disabling foreign platforms is not likely to be in 

U.S. interests for straightforward diplomatic reasons, but Washington 

would have the option of putting diplomatic pressure on foreign 

governments or purchasing the relevant images directly from the 

providers. In addition, navigation satellite data could be jammed, or 

access to such data could be otherwise denied. The advantages of such 

an approach would be reducing the PLA’s comprehensive ISR 

capability in a way that doesn’t directly impinge upon Chinese 

sovereignty and is thus unlikely to spark unintended escalation of a 

crisis or conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The main disadvantage is that 

U.S. ability to pressure foreign providers to refrain from selling images 

or other data to China is likely to be highly limited. 

Plausibly Deniable Crisis Options 

As the PLA moves from reliance on civilian satellites to dedicated 

military systems, a more aggressive, though potentially still deniable 

crisis option is disabling or destroying PLA satellites. This option 

offers a discreet response to plausibly deniable information operations 

by the Chinese side, particularly during the pre-kinetic phase of 

coercion against the island. Such an approach would hopefully send a 

clear deterrence signal to Beijing, while allowing China to back down 

without losing face with its domestic population. The main 

disadvantage is that the reliance of U.S. forces on space-based assets 

for communications, positioning, and ISR renders the United States 

asymmetrically vulnerable in space, China’s successful 11 January test 

of a direct-ascent kinetic-kill vehicle highlighted that vulnerability. 
78 • Mulvenon 

The United States could also consider disabling or destroying PRC 

satellites that do not belong to the PLA. Most satellites in the PRC 

constellation are state-owned or controlled. The PLA could revert to 

civilian satellite transponders for at least some purposes if its dedicated 

satellites were disabled, or it could “mobilize” civilian satellites to 

augment its capabilities in the event of a crisis. The advantage of 

disabling such satellites would be degradation of PRC ISR and 

communications capabilities. The disadvantages would be the 

likelihood that the attack would not stay secret for long owing to the 

greater public profile of non-military satellites, and that the United 

States is asymmetrically dependent on space assets. 

The United States could also contemplate computer network attack 

against civilian telecommunications and computer backbone 

infrastructure, either as a “shot across the bow” or to degrade national 

network capability. Given state ownership of the major infrastructure, 

the former could, like the previous example, be a deniable signal, 

though much less discreet. An attractive target for this type of the 

attack is any one of the nine, state-owned, international Internet 

gateways, destruction of which would symbolically sever some 

percentage of China from the global grid. A more comprehensive attack 

against all nine gateways could severely hamper the PLA’s ability to 

conduct unfettered computer network attack against DOD networks, 

forcing them to use ad hoc connections. Attacks designed to degrade 

national network capability, on the other hand, could have important 

operational impact, particularly given PLA plans to mobilize a large 

percentage of the national communications grid in preparation for 

operations against Taiwan. 

Another option would be to attempt to disrupt PLA C2 by attacking 

computer networks. The main advantage this option offers is that CNA 

is a potentially potent and plausibly deniable long-range weapon. The 

disadvantages are that it is a high-risk strategy and that inadequate 

knowledge about the target communications infrastructure could lead to 

unintended, escalatory cascade effects into other C2 networks, the most 

worrisome of which would be those related to nuclear C2. The 

relatively small size of China’s nuclear force, coupled with the lack of a 

robust strategic early warning infrastructure, mean that attacks against 

nuclear C2 could cause Beijing to move its forces unnecessarily to a 

higher state of alert and thereby trigger parallel reactions from U.S. 

Strategic Command. This is not to say that there would be a nuclear 
Projecting Power • 79 

exchange, but the rapid dynamics of the crisis might put pressure on 

Blue to attempt to decapitate Red’s silo-based force with conventional 

or even nuclear assets. Conventional attack is especially attractive to 

Blue, given that it would potentially hoist Beijing by the petard of its 

no-first-use policy. If one wishes to avoid any of these nuclear 

dynamics, overt CNA should steer clear of unknown command and 

control networks and use caution with those only partially understood. 

A less risky strategy would be to target sensor fusion with computer 

network attack, particularly the fusion of space, airborne, and ground 

sensors for maritime surveillance against U.S. Navy ships in the area. 

Again, CNA has the advantage of range and plausible deniability, but 

attacks against sensor fusion could be more circumscribed with less 

chance of escalatory cascade effects. 

The last—but potentially most escalatory—of the plausibly deniable 

counter-ISR options would be direct action missions, presumably to be 

carried out by Taiwan special forces personnel, against the OTH radar 

sites. The advantage of this measure is the possibility of disabling 

significant ISR assets without using more overt means like air strikes or 

cruise missiles. The disadvantages, apart from the risk of escalation, are 

the high risk of failure and the likelihood that captured personnel would 

be used as hostages. 

Escalatory Crisis Options 

In an escalatory environment, particularly after the Chinese have 

conducted kinetic attacks against Taiwan or U.S. military assets, all of 

the measures discussed above could be employed, though in some cases 

with different targeting strategies or new methods of attack. 

With less concern for escalation, allied forces could disable or 

destroy a wide range of military and civilian satellites with the express 

purpose of degrading PLA communications and relay capability, rather 

than simply communicating deterrence in a pre-crisis phase. Overt 

CNA attacks could also be conducted on a much wider scale against 

civilian telecommunications infrastructure, military command and 

control, and sensor fusion targets. Despite the reduction in concern 

about unintended consequences, however, these attacks would 

nonetheless require a high degree of intelligence preparation of the 

battlefield, particularly to avoid degradation of networks related to 

nuclear command and control. Instead of employing special forces, 
80 • Mulvenon 

OTH facilities could be attacked using precision air or cruise missile 

strikes. 

In this phase, kinetic attacks against ISR could include sinking 

submarines, attacking AEW platforms, and attacking other high-value 

targets on the mainland. From an escalation perspective, there is a 

significant firebreak between attacks on ISR assets operating outside 

China’s borders or in outer space and those assets located on Chinese 

territory. Attacks on the mainland would immediately raise concerns in 

Beijing about the vulnerability of its strategic nuclear forces. Sinking 

one or more non-nuclear Chinese submarines, given the plausibly 

deniable nature of subsurface combat, is potentially the least escalatory 

of these targets, since one or both sides could disavow the attack or 

ascribe it to an accident. Attacks on AEW platforms would be more 

escalatory, though losses of aircraft in an intense beyond visible range 

missile environment could be downplayed or even blamed upon third 

parties. Air strikes on OTH radars, intelligence fusion centers, and 

command and control facilities on the mainland would run a high risk 

of contributing to escalation, and, like the overt CNA described above, 

would likely lead to a higher level of alert for Chinese theater and 

strategic nuclear forces. Efforts to use the choice of targets as a signal 

of escalation control, such as only choosing targets below the Yangzi 

River or avoiding targets in Beijing, run the risk of being 

misinterpreted or ignored by the Chinese side, which may not have the 

capability or the political freedom to respond with appropriate restraint 

to the signals. 

Conclusions and Implications 

Recent advances in Chinese C4ISR and long-range weapons have 

increased the risk to the carrier strike group, which is the primary force 

projection asset in a China-Taiwan scenario. The above analysis 

suggests a wide range of potential U.S. counters to the PLA’s ISR, 

which is critical to Chinese ability to detect, track, target, and strike 

U.S. forces at extended range and keep them at bay or disrupt U.S. 

military forces long enough to effect Taiwan’s capitulation. Options at 

every rung of the escalatory ladder are available, though the various 

measures present a spectrum of difficult challenges. Some require 

almost exquisite intelligence knowledge about Chinese systems, 

particularly command and control, while others, especially those that 

contemplate preemptive escalation, require sophisticated assessments 
Projecting Power • 81 

of Chinese intentions and capabilities. Some escalatory options open 

new battlefields that might have long-term, deleterious effects on 

current U.S. military dominance, particularly measures involving 

combat in space. Nonetheless, the measures outlined above, governed 

by careful planning and combined with political will, offer the hope of 

undermining the ability of Chinese ISR to successfully identify, track, 

and target U.S. Navy assets in the Western Pacific. 
82 • Mulvenon 
 83 

Essay 6 

Projecting Power in a 

China-Taiwan 

Contingency: Implications 

for USAF and USN 

Collaboration 

By David Shlapak 

This paper assesses the contribution the U.S. Air Force (USAF) might 

make in deterring or defeating aggressive action by China in the 

Western Pacific. The model used in the analysis assumes an attempt by 

China to seize (or coerce) Taiwan, but the conclusions are applicable to 

a broad range of contingencies in the Western Pacific. 

Air and maritime power, along with surface-to-surface missiles 

(SSMs), are at the core of the threat that the PLA poses to Taiwan. 

Defending against them will be critical for the island’s armed forces 

and the United States, should the United States choose to support 

Taiwan in a showdown with China. While there may be a limited role 

for U.S. land forces in a China-Taiwan conflict—primarily as potential 

providers of ground-based theater missile defense (TMD)—the lion’s 

share of the burden would most likely be borne by air and maritime 

units.64

 

64 We include under the maritime umbrella those units of the United States 

Marine Corps that might be engaged—primarily fixed-wing aviation 

squadrons operating from land bases or as part of afloat carrier air wings. 
84 • Shlapak 

This paper will explore the potential role of U.S. air power in 

countering a Chinese attack on Taiwan.65 The PLA is fielding an array 

of capabilities that will increasingly call into question the ability of 

U.S. forces to operate effectively and efficiently in a Taiwan scenario. 

Innovations in the capabilities of U.S. air forces would increase the 

likelihood of a successful intervention in a cross-Strait battle and could 

enhance deterrence. 

A Review of the Situation Six Years Ago 

To understand how the cross-Strait balance has changed, it is 

noteworthy to examine the situation 6 years ago. At that time, the 

author and two RAND colleagues undertook an assessment of the 

China-Taiwan military confrontation using a mix of quantitative and 

qualitative measures, including a sophisticated computer theater 

warfare model, the Joint Integrated Contingency Model (JICM). The 

resulting analysis “[i]dentified a handful of issues that appear crucial in 

helping Taiwan maintain an adequate defensive posture vis à vis the 

PRC, and [d]eveloped a set of recommendations for steps the United 

States might take to assist Taipei in dealing with those issues.”66

This simulation, which was set in a notional 2005 time frame, 

focused primarily on the fight for air superiority, Chinese attainment of 

which—at least for periods of time and over specific areas—would be 

necessary to mount a sustained coercive campaign or any variety of 

invasion.67 Using techniques of “exploratory analysis,” the RAND team 

simulated over 2,000 different air wars between China and Taiwan, 

systematically varying seven parameters that a prior screening analysis 

had identified as potentially critical:68

 

65 By air power in this paper we mean both land- and sea-based fixed-wing 

aviation. 

66 David A. Shlapak, David T. Orletsky, and Barry Wilson, Dire Strait? 

Military Aspects of the China-Taiwan Confrontation and Options for U.S. 

Policy, MR-1217-AF, (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2000), 4. 67 The study also examined some key aspects of the struggle for sea control in 

the Taiwan Strait, the outcomes of which we will not discuss here. 68 Exploratory analysis, which is intended to help analysts build and illuminate 

compelling arguments illustrating the differences between policy options, was 

first described by Steven C. Bankes in Exploratory Modeling and the Use of 

Simulation for Policy Analysis, N-3093-A (Santa Monica: The RAND 

Corporation, 1992). 
Projecting Power • 85 

 The size and composition of the air forces committed by the PLA. 

 The possession by each side of modern, beyond-visual-range 

(BVR) air-to-air missiles (AAMs), such as the Advanced 

Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). 

 The number and quality of SSMs used by the Chinese. 

 The number of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) available to 

the Chinese. 

 The ability of Taiwan’s air force to sustain sortie generation in the 

teeth of a concerted Chinese attack. 

 The quality of Taiwan’s aircrews. 

 The number, if any, of U.S. land- and sea-based air forces 

committed to Taiwan’s defense. 

RAND also made two important assumptions regarding U.S. forces 

in those cases in which they engaged in the conflict. First, we assumed 

that the U.S. and Taiwan forces could coordinate their actions 

sufficiently that “blue on blue” fratricide would not be a significant 

problem. Second, we assumed that U.S. power projection bases, 

whether on land or at sea, would not be attacked or otherwise interfered 

with. 

Overall, the Chinese fared poorly in these simulated campaigns. 

When the RAND team rated each outcome as “good,” “fair,” or “poor” 

from the U.S. perspective, we found that China appeared to score 

definitive wins in only about ten percent of the cases in which the PLA 

employed the forces that represented our best estimate of its 

capabilities in 2005. 

Among the study’s conclusions, three merit recapitulation here. First, 

denying the PLA Air Force control of the air required that Taiwan’s air 

bases remain operable and able to efficiently generate sorties so that its 

air force could keep up the fight against the numerically superior 

Chinese. 

Second, cases in which the Chinese were permitted to close the 

qualitative gap between their air force and that of Taiwan—by flying a 

larger proportion of more modern aircraft, by fielding advanced BVR 

AAMs like the Russian AA-12, or by improving the training of their 

pilots and aircrew—tended to turn out badly for the United States and 

Taiwan. 
86 • Shlapak 

Third, even relatively small injections of U.S. combat power—a 72-

jet USAF fighter wing flying from Kadena Air Base on Okinawa in 

Japan, for example, or one or two carrier air wings—could make a 

major difference in the outcome of the air war. 

Such were our findings looking forward to 2005 from the vantage 

point of 1999. The situation appears significantly different today. The 

actual 2005 base case would incorporate: 

 substantial doubt as to whether Taiwan’s air bases could survive a 

heavy Chinese assault; 

 a PLA Air Force inventory that looks more like the “advanced” 

case RAND described in 2000; 

 substantially improved Chinese capabilities to threaten U.S. bases 

like Kadena and platforms like aircraft carriers. 

The Shifting Balance on the Taiwan Strait 

Since the turn of the century, the preponderance of evidence suggests 

that China’s defense modernization has come farther faster than many 

analysts had anticipated. One indication of this is in China’s official 

military budget, which has doubled since 2000 to almost $45 billion in 

2007. China’s real military budget—taking into account central 

government defense expenditures not accounted for in the PLA 

account, as well as the differential costs of personnel and equipment in 

China—is much higher. The Department of Defense estimated China’s 

real military budget at $90 billion for 2005, while a detailed RAND 

analysis estimated it at between $69 and $76 billion.69 As a result of 

these investments, areas of substantially improved capabilities have 

appeared within the PLA. Three that would be of special importance in 

a cross-Strait contingency are: 

 Continued deployment of more capable SSMs. Our 2000 analysis 

projected China with a force of either 210 or 420 short-range 

missiles (CSS-6 and CSS-7 SRBMs) in the 2005 time frame. The 

Pentagon’s 2006 annual report on the PLA stated that China had 

710-790 SRBMs aimed at Taiwan and was deploying about 100 

additional missiles per year.70 In addition, China is developing 

 

69 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2007, 22. See also Keith 

Crane et al., Modernizing China’s Military: Opportunities and Constraints, 

MG-260-1-AF (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 2005), 233. 

70 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2006, 3. 
Projecting Power • 87 

land-attack cruise missiles (LACM) and, while Taiwanese reports 

that up to 200 might have been deployed by 2006 seem 

exaggerated, there is little doubt that LACMs will soon begin 

entering PLA service, if they have not already done so.71

 Second, the PLA Navy (PLAN) has been making progress in 

deploying platforms and weapons that will greatly improve its 

ability to mount a sea denial threat against Taiwan and U.S. Navy 

(USN) forces.72 Included in these additions are new surface 

warships, such as the LANZHOU class guided missile destroyer, 

which features Aegis-like phased array radar and vertically 

launched surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and new advanced KILO 

and YUAN class submarines armed with advanced torpedoes and 

anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM).73

 Third, China appears to be significantly improving its ability to 

defend its own airspace and contest control of the skies over the 

Taiwan Strait. The PLA Air Force is reckoned to deploy over 150 

Su-27/30 Flanker aircraft, for example, and is fielding SA10/15/20 SAMs as well as developing the F-10 fighter (similar in 

capabilities to the F-16 and likely to enter squadron service in the 

next year or so) and developing its own advanced SAMs. 

Taiwan has thus far been unable to keep pace with China’s military 

buildup. While the PLA’s budget has skyrocketed over the past decade, 

Taiwan’s has declined, in real and nominal terms and as a percentage of 

 

71 Rich Chang, “China to Deploy Cruise Missiles: NSB,” Taipei Times, 24 

April 2005. Available at <http://taiwansecurity.org/TT/2005/TT-240405.htm>. 72 While the subject of this article is air power, China’s increasing naval 

capabilities are relevant in that they could affect how U.S. naval aviation 

engages in any cross-Strait conflict. 

73 Regarding the Yuan, see Bill Gertz, “Chinese Produce New Type of Sub,” 

Washington Times, 16 July 2004. Available at <http://www.washtimes.com/ 

national/20040716-123134-8152r.htm>. For a sobering assessment of the 

threat posed to U.S. naval forces by China’s submarine force, see Lyle 

Goldstein and William Murray, “Undersea Dragons: China’s Maturing 

Submarine Force,” in International Security, spring 2004. See also Goldstein 

and Murray’s dialog with Michael O’Hanlon, “Damn the Torpedoes: Debating 

Possible U.S. Navy Losses in a Taiwan Scenario,” in International Security, 

fall 2004. 
88 • Shlapak 

the island’s GDP over the same period.74 Economic woes—Taiwan, the 

“Silicon Island,” suffered grievously with the collapse of the 1990s tech 

bubble—and the rancorous politics of its young democracy have left 

the island’s defensive capacity treading water. That the $20 billion 

arms sale offered by the United States in 2001—which included 

systems critical to countering China’s growing power, such as theaterballistic missile defenses—remains unconsummated after years of bitter 

partisan wrangling between Taiwan political parties is but the most 

obvious example of the worrisome lethargy that seems to be afflicting 

Taipei’s response to the threat posed by the PLA.75

Critics of the arms sale package, and by extension of any increased 

Taiwanese efforts at self-defense, argue that attempting to match 

China’s buildup is akin to tossing grains of sand into the ocean; tiny 

Taiwan can never hope to win an arms race with the leviathan across 

the Strait. This is true, as far as it goes. However, it ignores two crucial 

points. 

First, deterrence is not only about whose forces are stronger, or even 

which side experts believe would likely prevail in a conflict; it is about 

perceived costs and benefits. Given that the Chinese leadership almost 

certainly understands that it would incur enormous political and 

economic losses in the wake of even a successful military campaign 

against Taiwan, it seems likely that Beijing would seriously 

contemplate taking such a gamble under only two conditions: if 

Taiwan’s behavior were unbearably provocative, or if China believed 

that it could achieve a quick victory that presented the world with a fait 

accompli that rendered futile any resistance to the new status quo. As 

the military balance across the Strait shifts in the mainland’s favor, the 

latter possibility looms as a growing risk. 

 

74 Michael Pillsbury, “The U.S. Role in Taiwan’s Defense Reform,” paper 

presented to U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission 

conference in Taiwan, February 2004. Available at <http://www.uscc.gov/ 

researchpapers/2004/04_05_24_dr_pspeechintaipei_final1.htm>. 75 There are others. For example, in the late 1990s, the Taiwan navy planned to 

procure about 40 Kwang Hua VI missile-armed attack boats. These small, fast, 

stealthy warships could be very effective in helping ward off any Chinese 

invasion attempt. At this writing, only one vessel of the class appears to have 

been completed, with the rest on indefinite hold due to lack of funding. 
Projecting Power • 89 

Second, Taiwan’s strategy has never been to stand alone against the 

unleashed might of the PRC. Instead, its goal has been to hold out, like 

the beleaguered settlers in an old John Wayne Western movie, until the 

cavalry—in the form of the U.S. military—can throw its weight into the 

balance. While the termination of the U.S.-Taiwan defense pact in 1979 

ended any formal American commitment to come to Taiwan’s defense, 

every U.S. administration since has made clear that a PLA attack on the 

island could result in conflict between China and the United States. The 

deterrent impact of this possibility is substantial, but to a large degree it 

hinges on Taiwan’s perceived ability to buy sufficient time for the 

United States to bring its superior power to bear in a meaningful way. 

If Taiwan’s military continues its decline relative to the PLA, its ability 

to “hang in” under attack will become increasingly doubtful, with 

potentially dangerous consequences for cross-Strait stability. 

Anti-Access with a Vengeance? The Growing Threat to 

U.S. Forces 

If Taiwan’s own defenses are growing less robust, responsibility for 

deterring or defeating any Chinese use of force will fall more and more 

on the shoulders of the United States. The U.S. military’s ability to 

project power into the Taiwan Strait and coastal China is currently a 

three-legged stool, with carrier-based air serving as one leg, and land 

bases on the Japanese island of Okinawa and the U.S. territory of Guam 

serving as the two dry-land components. As noted above, China is 

investing heavily in capabilities that are likely, over time, to put all 

three of these at risk.76

The importance of carrier-based air in the U.S. response to any 

Chinese attack on Taiwan is indisputable. When China attempted to 

coercively influence Taiwan’s 1996 presidential election by lobbing 

missiles into the sea near the island’s two major ports, Beijing was 

apparently shocked by the appearance of two U.S. carrier strike groups 

(CSGs) deployed by the Clinton Administration as a show of support 

for Taiwan. The incident appears to have motivated an urgent effort to 

upgrade the PLA’s ability to threaten American naval forces, especially 

 

76 An extensive assessment of the potential of China’s antiaccess capabilities 

can be found in Roger Cliff et al., Entering the Dragon's Lair: Chinese 

Antiaccess Strategies and Their Implications for the United States, MG-524-

AF (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 2007). 
90 • Shlapak 

CSGs. The PLAN currently operates three Russian-built 

SOVREMENNYY-class destroyers and has an additional hull on order. 

Equipped with the SS-N-22 SUNBURN supersonic anti-ship cruise 

missile (ASCM), these warships, along with the other modern 

destroyers and frigates China is putting to sea, form the surface 

component of a credible, if limited, sea-denial capability. Beneath the 

waves, KILO, SONG, and YUAN diesel submarines and the soon-tobe-operational Type 93 nuclear attack sub—all equipped with various 

combinations of wire-guided and wake-homing torpedoes and 

ASCMs—constitute another challenge to U.S. naval commanders. 

There are also indications that China is seeking to develop the 

capability to strike ships at sea with ballistic missiles and has reportedly 

tested a maneuvering re-entry vehicle (MaRV) potentially suitable for 

such a mission. Even if a CSG’s defenses are powerful enough to 

protect the carrier and its escorts from Chinese attack, to the extent that 

its efforts are diverted from protecting Taiwan to protecting itself—by 

operating further away from the Strait, for example, or committing 

sorties to fleet air defense—the U.S. ability to counter a Chinese move 

against Taiwan would be diluted. 

As a 2004 DOD report notes, the PLA is deploying a new, longerrange variant of the CSS-6 SRBM that will be able to reach U.S. air 

bases on Okinawa.77 If the Chinese fit these missiles with submunition 

warheads, which they have reportedly done, unsheltered aircraft at 

these installations will be extremely vulnerable.78 Kadena, which plays 

host not just to a USAF fighter wing but also airliner-size aircraft like 

E-3 AWACS and air-to-air refueling tankers that cannot fit into 

shelters, could be devastated. Analysis suggests that a handful of 

reasonably accurate missiles with submunition payloads could 

essentially blanket the parking ramps at Kadena, damaging or 

destroying dozens of aircraft in the opening minutes and hours of a 

cross-Strait conflict.79 Missiles could also be used to attack unhardened 

 

77 Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2004, 37. 78 For reports of Chinese development of submunition warheads for airfield 

attack, see for example Richard J. Newman, “The Chinese Sharpen Their 

Options,” Air Force Magazine, October 2001. Available at 

<http://www.afa.org/magazine/oct2001/1001china.asp> 

79 For a discussion of conventional ballistic and cruise-missile attacks on air 

bases, please see John Stillion and David T. Orletsky, Airbase Vulnerability to 
Projecting Power • 91 

maintenance facilities and to damage runways and taxiways, slowing 

sortie generation for surviving aircraft and further diminishing the 

combat power that the U.S. could bring to bear.80

Guam, which lies about 1,300 nautical miles from the Taiwan Strait, 

is today relatively safe from Chinese attack. The only missiles presently 

in the PLA arsenal with sufficient range to strike targets there are 

IRBMs and ICBMs that are fitted only with nuclear warheads; nor can 

any current Chinese bomber reach Guam. The relative sanctuary and 

assured access offered by the island, which is sovereign U.S. territory, 

are why both the USAF and USN are investing heavily in making 

Guam the primary hub for power projection in the Western Pacific.81

 

Conventional Cruise-Missile and Ballistic-Missile Attacks, MR-1028-AF 

(Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 1999). 

80 By attacking a U.S. base on Japanese territory, China would be engaging in 

a form of horizontal escalation, with all of the attendant risks. Allowing U.S. 

forces to use facilities on its soil in operations against China would make 

Japan a cobelligerent, affording Beijing some legal cover for striking back 

against those installations. One may also speculate that a China anxious or 

angry enough to pick a fight with the United States over Taiwan might be 

unlikely to retreat from the prospect of angering Japan, calculating that its 

post-war status in Asia would be determined far more by its success or failure 

in coercing or conquering Taiwan than by the details of how the outcome was 

reached. 

81 Guam is United States territory, so striking it might appear to be a major 

escalatory step for Beijing. As with everything else relating to using force 

against Taiwan, China’s leaders would certainly think long and hard before 

attacking American territory. There are, however, several factors that might 

mitigate the escalatory risks in Chinese eyes. 

First, of course, is the possibility—perhaps probability—that U.S. 

forces will strike targets on the Chinese mainland (indeed, as the PLA field 

more and more advanced and longer-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) 

systems, it becomes difficult to imagine how the U.S. could engage in 

defending Taiwan without attempting to draw down those defenses and, in the 

process, bombing Chinese territory). Regardless of how limited these attacks 

might be, they would seem to clear the way for the PLA to launch parallel 

attacks against targets directly supporting U.S. military actions against China. 

Second, it should be recognized that declaratory policy aside, there is 

“U.S. territory” and then there is “U.S. territory.” Would the Chinese 

leadership expect Washington to risk a significant escalation or expansion of 

the war over, say, a few missile warheads impacting on an air base almost 

10,000 miles from the U.S. mainland? It is probably helpful for U.S. 
92 • Shlapak 

One near-term option the Chinese could pursue to neutralize Guam 

might be to execute a high-altitude nuclear burst, tens or hundreds of 

miles above the island. Such a detonation, which is well within China’s 

means, would produce an electromagnetic pulse that could damage 

electronic equipment, including the avionics of aircraft and the combat 

systems of surface ships and surfaced submarines. The use of a nuclear 

weapon would of course represent a major roll of the dice for the 

Chinese, who would be banking on the escalatory risks being 

dampened by the absence of large-scale physical destruction and 

minimal loss of life connected with a high-altitude explosion. Beijing 

certainly would not undertake such a risky gambit lightly; however, if 

U.S. forces on Guam were seen as a threat that needed somehow to be 

dealt with, the Chinese might feel compelled to at least consider the 

option. 

The PLA appears poised to field weapons that will give it additional, 

conventional options against U.S. installations on Guam. LACMs fired 

from long-range bombers and submarines will begin to pose a threat 

sometime in the next few years. It is also not implausible that Beijing 

could choose to field IRBMs with advanced conventional payloads 

explicitly to target Guam, especially if the United States continues to 

build up its forces on the island. 

In addition to these increasingly dangerous threats to its bases, U.S. 

airpower will confront more serious challenges once in the air. China 

has assembled the components of a relatively sophisticated integrated 

air defense system (IADS) that could be deployed to support a 

 

policymakers to assert that they would run those risks, but in the event it 

would be hard to blame the Chinese for disregarding those assertions. 

Third, what meaningful escalatory options would be available and 

attractive to the U.S. leadership should they wish to respond to an attack, on 

Guam? Could the President credibly threaten to use nuclear weapons against 

an adversary that has the ability to incinerate a handful of American cities? 

Expanded conventional attacks on China would risk either being so small as to 

constitute pinpricks or, if larger, both dilute the main effort at defending 

Taiwan and run the risk provoking a Chinese counter-counter move, forcing 

another turn on the escalatory spiral. 

The argument here is not that China would lightly make the decision 

to strike Guam but, rather, that it may be imprudent to stake too much on the 

belief that Beijing would not dare to attack military targets on a distant outpost 

of American soil. 
Projecting Power • 93 

campaign against Taiwan. In the next few years, China will field 

several hundred aircraft capable of employing advanced BVR “fireand-forget” air-to-air missiles, such as the Russian AA-12 and the 

domestically developed PL-12. These weapons could help offset the 

relatively poor—in comparison to their U.S. counterparts—training of 

Chinese fighter pilots. As the author has argued elsewhere, “[e]ven a 

mediocre pilot can become a serious threat when equipped with an 

AMRAAM-type missile.”82 China is also reported to have spent over a 

half billion dollars in recent years buying various versions of the 

advanced Russian S-300 SAM system, which is being operated in 

conjunction with the SA-15, and indigenously produced weapons. 

Having painted a dismal picture of an increasing Chinese threat to 

U.S. forces in defense of Taiwan, it is well to remember that the PLA 

would still face enormous challenges in executing any operation against 

the island. While the mainland’s military is on a path to greater 

professionalism, its training levels remain low by Western standards. 

China’s command, control, reconnaissance, and logistics 

infrastructures, while improving—in some cases rapidly—are 

nonetheless underdeveloped. It is also worth emphasizing that the PLA 

has absolutely no experience of modern warfare. Its most recent 

venture in large-scale operations was the 1979 invasion of Vietnam, 

which was a military disaster. However, as the PLA’s institutional 

reforms, doctrinal innovations, and hardware modernization efforts 

continue to progress, the contemporary U.S. concept for power 

projection—built upon unchallenged dominance of the oceans and 

skies and freedom of operation from relatively invulnerable bases 

ashore and at sea—will increasingly be called into question. Ensuring 

that the United States can effectively intervene in a Taiwan Strait 

contingency at a reasonable cost in lives and resources demands that 

U.S. air power be able to deny China control of the air over Taiwan and 

the Strait and the seas around the island, interdict the air and sea 

movement of PLA troops to Taiwan, and hold at risk a variety of 

targets on the Chinese mainland. Accomplishing this in the face of 

growing Chinese capabilities for power projection and area denial will 

require a new degree of innovation and cooperation between the landand sea-based components of U.S. air forces. 

 

82 Shlapak, Orletsky, and Wilson, 36. 
94 • Shlapak 

Collaboration to Defend Taiwan 

Neither the USAF nor the USN can reasonably expect to singlehandedly carry the day in defense of Taiwan in the face of China’s 

growing power. The USAF suffers from a dearth of potential operating 

bases. As noted earlier, Kadena is the best situated, assuming that 

Tokyo permits it to be used in a Taiwan contingency.83 Osan and 

Kunsan air bases in South Korea are a reasonable distance from the 

Taiwan theater, but forces based there will for the foreseeable future be 

focused on the dangers emanating from Pyongyang, and there are 

serious questions surrounding their political availability to support U.S. 

intervention in a cross-Strait fight.84 Bases in the northern Philippines 

are about as far from Taipei as is Kadena, but could be politically 

difficult and would be just as vulnerable to Chinese attack—more so, 

since presumably they would not be hardened or equipped with missile 

defenses. Basing USAF assets on Taiwan itself is politically 

implausible and operationally foolhardy.85

 

83 There are possible air base locations on islands further south in the Ryukyu 

chain, such as Shimojishima. Even Japan’s own self-defense forces have 

encountered profound resistance from local residents to establishing additional 

bases in the islands. For a discussion, please see Zalmay Khalilzad et al., The 

United States and Asia: Toward a New U.S. Strategy and Force Posture, MR1315-AF (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 2001). 

84 In March 2005, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun stated that U.S. 

forces based in Korea “should not be involved in disputes in Northeast Asia 

without our consent.” Given warming relations between Seoul and Beijing, 

and South Korea’s need for China’s cooperation in managing Kim Jong-il, it 

should certainly not be assumed that consent would be forthcoming if 

requested for a Taiwan Strait scenario. “Roh Opposed Expansion of U.S. 

Troops’ Role to Northeast Asia,” Seoul Yonhap in English, 8 March, 2005. 

Available at <http://www.yonhapnews.net/Engservices/3000000000.html>. 85 China has stated that the deployment of foreign forces on Taiwan constitutes 

as casus belli that could itself trigger an attack. Whether the U.S. would want 

to test Beijing’s seriousness on this score during peacetime is certainly 

debatable. There are also major risks associated with deploying USAF assets 

to Taiwan in a crisis context. The PLA operates about 100 missiles that can 

reach Kadena, as opposed to perhaps 700 that can strike Taiwan, and Taiwan’s 

air bases have few if any shelters available for any USAF aircraft based there; 

a decision to try to operate from Taiwan would put U.S. forces in the center of 

the proverbial bulls-eye. Also, almost all of the maintenance and support 

equipment for the U.S. units, as well as their munitions, would need to be 
Projecting Power • 95 

The USN, for its part, homeports a single carrier in Japan. While it 

plans to rapidly generate additional decks in the event of a Taiwan 

crisis, it is not implausible that only one or two CSGs will be available 

in the first hours to days of a China-Taiwan fight. The PLA’s doctrinal 

emphasis on striking hard and fast to achieve a rapid decision in any 

future conflict makes that initial period crucial.86 Given the dangers 

posed by Chinese submarines and other “anti-access” assets, a naval 

force operating in the vicinity of Taiwan will likely have to commit a 

substantial portion of its available combat power to protecting itself. A 

single carrier or a pair might be hard-pressed to provide more than a 

token level of air superiority or maritime strike capability until PLAAF 

and PLAN threats had been substantially suppressed. 

Given these circumstances, timely and effective U.S. intervention in 

a cross-Strait contingency may well require a degree of USAF-USN 

collaboration that goes beyond each service’s existing doctrinal and 

operational preferences. Here we will discuss two broad issues: 

 

transported to Taiwan. This would substantially prolong the period before 

USAF forces could mount sustained, high-tempo operations even if the 

deployment were unmolested by the Chinese. If we take Beijing at its word, 

the operation might be undertaken under fire, which would almost certainly 

make it far more time-consuming and costly. Whether the deterrent value of 

having U.S. forces actually on the island would offset these risks is a judgment 

that would be up to the President and his senior advisors. To this author, at 

least, the balance seems fairly one-sided. 

86 At the heart of China’s new doctrine is a conviction that “in limited, modern 

war...winning the first battle is vital, because it may be the decisive one.” 

Victory and defeat will typically be determined by the delivery of swift, 

punishing blows that undermine the enemy’s political will or diplomatic 

position—“fighting a quick battle to force a quick resolution.” This doctrinal 

inclination to strike the first blow has obvious, and troubling, implications 

when applied in the context of a future U.S. attempt to deter Chinese military 

action against Taiwan. See Paul Godwin and John J. Schulz, “Arming the 

Dragon for the 21st Century: China’s Defense Modernization Program,” in 

Arms Control Today, December 1993; Nan Li, “The PLA’s Evolving 

Warfighting Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics, 1985-95: A Chinese Perspective,” 

in The China Quarterly, June 1996; Harold Brown, Joseph W. Prueher, and 

Adam Segal, Chinese Military Power, (New York: Council on Foreign 

Relations, 2003); and Thomas J. Christensen, “Posing Problems without 

Catching Up,” International Security, Spring 2001. 
96 • Shlapak 

protecting the joint force’s key bases, and bringing air-to-air and 

maritime strike combat power to bear against China. 

Protecting Bases of Operation 

First, for both services, maintaining secure bases for operations will 

be of paramount importance. For the USN, this may mean operating 

further to the east of Taiwan than would have been the case a decade 

ago; putting more blue water between the CSGs and the mainland 

would both move the carriers out of range of some Chinese strike assets 

and allow the group’s defenses more space and time to engage threats. 

The price, of course, is a decreased ability to generate sorties over 

Taiwan and the Strait because of the increased distances that the 

carriers’ fighters would need to fly to and from the combat arena.87

The USAF could assist the USN in several important ways. As the 

nation’s primary provider of aerial refueling capabilities, the Air Force 

has long provided tanker support to USN aircraft. Longer distances 

mean more fuel, and the need to generate combat sorties could reduce 

the number of USN F/A-18s available for use as “buddy” tankers for 

their brethren. USAF planning for a Taiwan contingency should 

incorporate sufficient tanker support to enable the USN to maximize 

the number of air-to-air sorties it can produce from any given number 

of carrier decks. 

The USAF could also augment the CSGs’ organic surveillance and 

targeting capabilities. E-3 AWACS aircraft and long-endurance UAVs, 

like the RQ-4A Global Hawk, operating from Guam, could 

significantly enhance situational awareness for the strike group 

commander.88

 

87 Longer base-to-target distances reduce sortie rates both because the missions 

simply take longer and because some aircraft components, such as hydraulic 

systems, tend to break down as a function of how long they are in use, 

increasing maintenance workloads as the jets are forced to fly farther. See 

David A. Shlapak et al., A Global Access Strategy for the U.S. Air Force, MR1216-AF (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 2002), especially chapter 3. 88 In the limit, the CSG could conceivably rely on the USAF to provide the 

bulk of its airborne C4

ISR capability and trade off some of the air wing’s 

airborne early warning and intelligence collection assets to make room for 

additional fighters. 
Projecting Power • 97 

For the Air Force, secure basing for its fighter forces, at least, 

appears to mean developing the capacity to defend Kadena and fight it 

effectively under attack. This will involve making substantial 

investments in passive defenses, including hardening key facilities, 

building additional aircraft shelters, and improving rapid-runway repair 

capabilities.89

Active defenses should not be neglected, either. There have 

historically been political questions associated with any U.S. 

deployment of theater-missile defense (TMD) systems on Okinawa. 

With closer U.S.-Japan security relations and more open concerns 

being voiced in Tokyo over China’s increasing military power, it is 

worth at least considering permanently basing additional U.S. Army 

Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) interceptors at Kadena.90 The 

USN could boost Kadena’s TMD defenses substantially by deploying 

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warships to help protect it. Adding a 

midcourse defense layer to the terminal protection offered by PAC-3 on 

top of the hardening and reconstitution of Kadena itself would make the 

base a far tougher nut for the Chinese to crack. And, in a Taiwan 

scenario, Kadena is a sufficiently valuable asset to warrant a joint effort 

to defend it.91

Guam will likely grow in importance as a power-projection hub for 

both the USAF and USN. While Guam currently faces only a very 

limited conventional threat from China, it seems likely that over the 

next 10 years or so it will become increasingly at risk. The LACM 

threat, whether air- or submarine-launched, will demand attention from 

 

89 These kinds of capabilities are not new for the USAF, which built extremely 

robust air bases in NATO Europe to counter Warsaw Pact offensive air and 

missile attacks that were expected to dwarf anything that China will likely be 

able to unleash on Okinawa in the near- to mid-term. 

90 PAC-3 systems are cumbersome to deploy, so moving them to Kadena “on 

warning” could well take too long and expose the base to devastating attacks 

before they could become operational. One battalion is currently in place at 

Kadena, having deployed there in fall 2006. 

91 Large aircraft that cannot be sheltered, such as AWACS, E-8 JSTARS, and 

air refueling tankers, are particularly vulnerable to even a ragged attack on an 

air base. The USAF might therefore also want to consider either re-basing 

large aircraft from Kadena to Guam or putting plans in place to “flush” them 

to safer locations if conflict with China (or North Korea, for that matter) 

appears likely. 
98 • Shlapak 

both services, as will defending the island from ballistic missiles. It 

may also be prudent to begin planning how and when to begin 

hardening key facilities on Guam. 

Quelling the Dragon: Bringing Combat Power to Bear Over 

and On the Taiwan Strait 

Bringing adequate air combat power to bear over the Taiwan Strait 

and attacking targets on the mainland will be made more challenging 

by increasing Chinese air defense, air, and naval capabilities and the 

need to commit substantial effort to defending U.S. land and sea bases. 

An intelligent and synergistic division of labor between the USAF and 

USN could leverage U.S. capabilities in ways that make the problems 

much more tractable. 

In terms of flying into the surface-to-air and air-to-air threats that 

China will be deploying in increasing numbers, U.S. naval aviation will 

be hampered for at least the next decade by the lack of stealthy aircraft. 

Conventional aircraft confronting China’s modern fighters and, 

especially, its SA-10/20-class “double digit” SAMs, run the risk of 

suffering unsustainable losses unless and until PLA defenses are 

suppressed or eliminated. Early on in a Taiwan contingency, then, the 

main USN contribution to offensive “airpower” may well be in the 

form of Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) strikes on Chinese 

targets. The Block IV variant—the so-called “Tactical Tomahawk”—

could be very valuable in helping defeat Chinese air defenses and 

mobile missile launchers because of its ability to be retargeted in-flight 

to hit any of 15 pre-programmed aim points or a specific set of GPS 

coordinates and to loiter and transmit back battle-damage assessment 

information.92 On the negative side of the ledger, the air and missile 

threats posed by China will mean that TLAM rounds will be competing 

for magazine space with air-defense and TMD missiles in the verticallaunch systems of USN surface ships, possibly limiting the number of 

cruise missiles available. 

Once the Chinese long-range air defense began to be rolled back, 

USN and Marine F/A-18s could begin to engage in air-to-air and 

surface strike missions over the Strait. As noted earlier, however, the 

number of available sorties could be limited by the need to protect the 

 

92 United States Navy Fact File, “Tomahawk® Cruise Missile.” Available at 

<http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/wep-toma.html>. 
Projecting Power • 99 

fleet and the possibly increased distance between the carrier’s secure 

operating area and the Strait. 

Compensating for any limitation in USN ability to mount air-to-air 

missions, the USAF would exploit its ability to operate out of 

Kadena—an ability partially and importantly secured by sea-based 

missile defenses—to fly a fairly large number of air-to-air sorties over 

the Strait. F-15C and F-22 aircraft at Kadena should be able to sustain a 

two-a-day sortie rate over the Strait, assuming the base remains 

operable.93 The stealth design and superior avionics of the F-22 would 

likely come into play to good effect in a China scenario by allowing the 

aircraft to operate with substantial effectiveness in both counter air and 

surface-attack roles, even in the presence of modern Chinese fighters 

and SAMs. 

With adequate refueling support, fighters operating out of Guam, 

which should also be the base for almost all of the many large tanker 

and ISR aircraft needed in this scenario, could reinforce aircraft flying 

off carrier decks and out of Kadena. However, fighter sortie rates 

would be significantly reduced by the long duration of each mission.94

Analysis suggests that flying from Guam would reduce sortie rates by 

about 50 percent versus operating from Kadena. So, a fighter wing that 

could sustain three combat air patrol stations over the Strait if flying 

 

93 The sortie rate is derived from Shlapak et al., 63. 

94 The air superiority problem over the Strait could be partially addressed by 

adding longer-range fighters to both the USAF and USN inventories. 

However, unless these aircraft also flew at significantly higher speeds than 

even the “supercruise” F-22—and building a maneuverable fighter that is at 

once very fast, very long-legged, and even remotely affordable would be a 

possibly-insuperable design challenge—they could not be expected to come 

close to the level of productivity in terms of sorties generated per airframe that 

is achieved by current-generation aircraft based closer in. As the USAF fighter 

force seems likely to shrink in numbers over the coming decade(s), this would 

represent a problem in scenarios where maintaining combat air patrol (CAP) 

orbits represents a sizeable portion of what U.S. air forces are called upon to 

do, as would likely be the case in a China-Taiwan contingency. Thus, the best 

solution for the problem may be to continue to base at least some fighters at 

places like Kadena and perhaps other “close in” facilities, but—as discussed 

earlier—provide those (likely few) installations with quality active and passive 

defenses. 
100 • Shlapak 

from Okinawa might manage only one or two if operating out of 

Guam.95

USAF bombers operating from Guam or elsewhere—Diego Garcia, 

Alaska, Hawaii, or the continental United States—would undertake 

attacks on surface targets, including Chinese warships and troop 

transports. The stealthy B-2 could operate at night to attack mobile 

targets in defended airspace, while B-1B and B-52H bombers could 

employ long-range standoff weapons to engage fixed land targets.96

Modified heavy bombers equipped with Harpoon, SLAM-ER, or Joint 

Air-to-Surface Standoff (JASSM) missiles could inflict heavy damage 

on Chinese surface forces from ranges “in excess of 135nm.”97

Facing the Future: U.S. Air Power in the Taiwan Strait 

By harnessing innovative, cooperative concepts, the USAF and USN 

can maximize the effectiveness of American air power in a Taiwan 

Strait contingency. However, even the cleverest thinking and planning 

cannot disguise the existence of some critical shortfalls in existing—

and in some cases, planned—capabilities. 

The first is the fact that the joint force fields entirely inadequate 

defenses against ballistic missiles, either to protect its own operating 

bases (and the prospect looms of a Chinese ballistic missile threat to 

carriers as well as to land bases) or to help defend Taiwan from the 

coercive threat presented by China’s ever-increasing arsenal of 

sophisticated SRBMs.98 Even taken together, existing TMD programs 

may be inadequate to provide the kind of robust defenses that would be 

desired in this kind of campaign. New initiatives may be needed. Given 

the value of a layered approach to increasing TMD effectiveness, the 

development and deployment of workable boost-phase defenses would 

 

95 The sortie rate is derived from Shlapak et al. (2002), 63. 

96 If it can be spared from air-to-air duties, the F-22 would provide a 24-hour 

ability to prosecute defended targets within China and on the Strait. 

97 United States Navy Fact File, “SLAM ER Missile Systems.” Available at 

<http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ 

factfile/missiles/wep-slam.html>. It is important to note that, as of this writing, 

USAF heavy bombers cannot employ long-range weapons to strike maritime 

targets. 

98 As the threat presented by China’s conventional missiles to Japan grows, it 

would not be surprising if Tokyo demanded a substantial U.S investment in 

protecting Japan as part of the price for its cooperation in a Taiwan conflict. 
Projecting Power • 101 

be of special importance. Since these would most likely be fielded 

either as high-altitude or space-based systems, the USAF—which is 

currently making relatively small investments in TMD—may need to 

consider upping its ante in the missile-defense game.99

The second concern is the continued lack of a carrier-based stealthy 

fighter. When it reaches service sometime in the next decade, the 

Lockheed-Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter will give the USN its first 

true low-observable aircraft, more than 20 years after the F-117 

debuted with the USAF.100 Until then, the effectiveness of the fleet’s 

F/A-18 fighters in a China-Taiwan conflict will be limited by 

survivability concerns. 

Using a Taiwan contingency as a driver for force modernization 

reaffirms the USAF commitment to pursue additional stealth 

capabilities within its force structure, both for platforms and standoff 

munitions. The role for large numbers of short-range land-based 

fighter-bombers, on the other hand, is less clear. In the Western Pacific, 

there is simply no place to base them. 

Further, the Joint force needs to develop better concepts and 

capabilities for all facets of the kill chain against defended, mobile 

 

99 The USAF’s Airborne Laser (ABL) program is the only boost-phase defense 

system currently under development. The ABL has suffered from cost and 

technical problems throughout its development cycle and, at this writing, it is 

unclear if and when it will become operational. See, for example, two reports 

from the U.S. General Accountability Office: Theater Missile Defense: 

Significant Challenges Face the Airborne Laser Program, GAO/NSIAD-98-

37, October 1997, and Airborne Laser Costs and Military Utility, GAO-04-

643R, May 2004. 

It is also worth noting that a race between China’s ability to deploy 

additional ballistic missiles and U.S. efforts to defend against them will be 

very expensive for the defender, and may prove impossible to “win” 

definitively, as is discussed elsewhere in this volume. However, the political 

and operational costs of allowing not just our own forces but our allies’ 

territory to be essentially undefended may be sufficiently high to justify 

additional investments in systems capable of at least “thinning out” the 

attacker. 

100 The initial operational deployment for the F-35C (the USMC variant, the F35B, is scheduled to enter service one year earlier) is slated for 2013. The 

program’s history, as well the recent track record for bringing new combat 

aircraft into service, suggests that this date may prove optimistic. 
102 • Shlapak 

targets. For the USAF, this could involve not just improved ISR but 

possibly a new generation of platforms offering a combination of 

survivability and endurance that will allow them to loiter close enough 

to targets such as SSM launch areas to successfully engage fleeting 

targets—perhaps with a yet-to-be-developed set of highly responsive 

(hypersonic or directed energy) weapons.101

The growing Chinese threat to Kadena has led some observers to 

suggest that the USAF seek additional bases to confront China with the 

need to attack additional targets—and, not incidentally, additional 

countries—in order to suppress Air Force operations. And, indeed, in 

part due to relationships energized or reinvigorated by the so-called 

“global war on terrorism,” new opportunities for basing may be 

cropping up in the Asia-Pacific region, in places as diverse as the 

Philippines and India. It would certainly behoove the USAF to explore 

options for gaining additional contingency access. However, two points 

need to be made about any USAF attempt to disperse its way out from 

under its survivability problem. 

First, there are actually only a handful of places where it makes sense 

to base short-ranged fighters—the asset most vital to operate relatively 

close to the combat zone—for a China-Taiwan contingency. Absent a 

decision by the United States to turn a localized struggle for control of 

Taiwan into a general war with China, the theater of operations will 

likely for the most part be geographically constrained to China’s 

 

101 UAVs potentially offer the important advantage of not putting a pilot and 

crew at risk when undertaking dangerous missions such as these. An armed, 

stealthy platform with range and endurance similar to Global Hawk would be 

very valuable in this and other future scenarios for both strike and surveillance 

tasks. There is, however, little evidence to suggest that developing and 

building such a UAV would be substantially cheaper than fielding a similar 

manned aircraft—which means that it would probably wind up being quite 

expensive and not as “disposable” as many of the more enthusiastic advocates 

of unmanned aircraft might wish. There is also the problem that there is 

currently no program to develop such a system; the primary effort to build a 

“combat” UAV, the Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS), aims to 

produce what is essentially an uncrewed JSF. Short-legged and with a limited 

payload, it would not appear to be ideally suited to the scenario we envision 

here. 

For his insights regarding historical and contemporary experience 

with aircraft and UAV costs, I thank my colleague Thomas Hamilton. 
Projecting Power • 103 

southeastern coast. Thus, bases in India or Kazakhstan are likely to be 

of little use, for fighters at least. The southern Ryukyus and northern 

Luzon in the Philippines are really the only places where fighters could 

usefully be based. 

Second, the old military adage that “tracers work both ways” also 

applies here. Any base close enough to the Strait to enable fighters to 

operate efficiently is also close enough to China to be at risk from PLA 

missiles. It takes only a few dozen reasonably accurate ballistic missiles 

with submunition warheads to ravage even a fairly large, unhardened 

air base; in a race between a USAF seeking suitable new bases and 

Chinese missile production, the outcome seems foreordained. Only a 

hardened and defended base—something that the USAF has not yet 

managed to construct even at Kadena-would seem to offer significant 

operational advantages.102

Conclusions 

Growing Chinese capabilities and Beijing’s refusal to forswear 

violence as a means for resolving its dispute with Taiwan poses an 

important challenge for U.S. strategy and planning. Air power, both 

land- and sea-based, will be central to any U.S. military response to a 

Chinese attack across the Strait. The PLA recognizes this, and is 

inventing heavily to field a range of weapons that will over time pose 

increasingly worrisome threats to American forces and bases in a 

Taiwan contingency. As these develop, the USAF and USN will need 

to exploit the synergies offered by their forces to ensure that the 

necessary joint capabilities and concepts are in place to enable effective 

operations. Leveraging Naval TMD capabilities to protect USAF bases 

and employing USAF C4

ISR and long-range bombers to help defend 

Naval surface forces and conduct maritime strike are two examples of 

the kind of innovative doctrinal and operational thinking that will be 

needed to enhance deterrence and, if necessary, successfully prosecute 

a war in the Taiwan Strait. 

 

102 The political advantages should also not be overestimated. It seems 

doubtful that a China willing to confront Taiwan, the United States, and Japan 

would be deterred or deflected from a violent course by the likelihood that it 

would also have to take on the Philippines. 
104 • Shlapak 
 105 

Essay 7 

Defending Taiwan Without 

Manned Aircraft 

By Martin Libicki 

he current U.S. reliance on air power to defeat conventional 

adversaries may not work in a no-warning Taiwan Strait 

scenario. Both carrier- and land-based aircraft need survivable 

runways to work from. Aircraft carriers, large non-stealthy ships with 

very unique visual signatures, are becoming easier to find and hit. 

Fixed air bases have become straightforward to target. China’s missiles 

are becoming good enough to disrupt operations or to take them out of 

commission altogether. Moreover, with repeated missile strikes, China 

can keep manned aircraft degraded or out of commission for an 

extended period of time. 

The United States can find another way to keep the Chinese from 

physically taking (as distinct from coercing) Taiwan. China’s strategy, 

after softening Taiwan’s defenses, would require landing enough 

soldiers and equipment on the island (primarily by sea) and counting on 

them to overwhelm Taiwan’s remaining defenses. The Taiwan/U.S. 

counterstrategy would be to destroy such forces either in transit, on 

arrival, or on the island. It is no great exaggeration to abstract a 

successful campaign into a simple contest: 

 China attempts to run the gauntlet of the Strait with sea and air 

assets to land forces and logistical supplies on the island, as well 

as deliver ordnance in support of land forces. 

 The United States and Taiwan try to destroy those forces or turn 

them back. 

The United States thus focuses on finding and killing China’s 

assets—or on operations that support such activity—on the theory that 

success at doing so will be the single greatest contributor to carrying 

T 
106 • Libicki 

out the military mission. Other elements of war, in particular those that 

require land forces, are more appropriate for Taiwanese forces. 

An invasion requires naval and air lift. The former suffer the longer 

exposure—a minimum of 3 hours transit time (and perhaps closer to 

10), plus the additional burden, once the war starts, of keeping afloat 

while in harbor, especially while loading and unloading. Airlift will be 

exposed for 30 minutes while taking off and landing, plus transit time. 

If China can achieve tactical surprise, the first wave across the Straits 

has the advantage that it is unlikely to be targeted until it is underway, 

and Taiwan or the United States concludes that it is an invasion fleet. 

If the United States cannot depend on runways within range of the 

theater, then it cannot depend on the aircraft. Operations will have to 

depend on more survivable assets. These include submarines (together 

with their sensors, weapons, and mines), satellites, very-long-range 

bombers, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). 

UAVs are likely to be key to preventing a Chinese invasion. 

Engaging enemy platforms requires four conditions: finding targets, 

tracking them, communicating information about them, and engaging 

them. The U.S. submarine force alone is unlikely to be able to engage 

more than a small part of the entire invasion fleet. There are simply too 

few submarines in the present and programmed fleet. In the opening 

days of the war, they are unlikely to number more than five in theater. 

Their sensor capabilities are unsuited for wide-area scanning and 

geopositioning. Satellites can see but not loiter. Proposals to field 

enough Synthetic Aperture Radar-capable satellites to provide 15-

minute revisit times may help, but having them track and characterize 

large numbers of moving objects still presents quite a challenge. They 

cannot “paint” a target (provide missiles radio frequency [RF] 

reflections to home on), and they do not shoot. In theory, B-2s could 

loiter in the Strait, searching for Chinese assets and attacking them. 

However, B-2s were not designed for that mission. Worse, they can 

provide only limited time on station, given the flight times from 

CONUS and air refueling points. Further, at least some number of the 

B-2 inventory of twenty would have to be held back to hedge against 

the kind of nuclear contingencies a conventional war with a nucleararmed China might create. 

Finally, there is no guarantee that the satellite communications 

required to tie these systems together will be viable. Geosynchronous 
Defending Without Manned Aircraft • 107 

satellites, the workhorses of long-range battlefield communications, sit 

in known positions in the sky. Jamming in-theater uplinks to such 

satellites is not hard for those with enough RF energy at their disposal 

nearby—and the Chinese mainland is nearby. 

UAVs, by contrast, can play three-and-a-half of the four roles 

required to break down a Chinese invasion force. They can provide 

persistent, wide-area sensing over and around Taiwan. With the 

addition of specialized payloads they can “paint” a target with laser or 

radar, or, at a minimum, keep continuous watch over a target sufficient 

to provide its GPS coordinates. UAVs can also be outfitted to form a 

communications network stretching from the battlefield to land-based 

nodes on the global fiber-optic grid (two objects flying at 20 kilometers 

altitude can “see” each other if within a thousand kilometers). Finally, 

at least one UAV, the Predator, already has the capacity to damage 

vehicles and thin-hulled ships with Hellfire missiles, which means that 

they have the heft to carry Sidewinders and other anti-aircraft missiles. 

Submarines and other stealthy ships carry an arsenal of heavy weapons 

that could strike targets that UAVs found but could not strike 

themselves. 

If manned aircraft are not available for the scenario, why assume that 

UAVs are? After all, they have to take off and land, just as manned 

aircraft do. 

The answer has three parts. First, because UAVs are smaller, lighter, 

and slower than manned aircraft, they will not need the same takeoff 

and landing infrastructure required for manned aircraft. This gives the 

military more launch options, not least of which is a slingshot from a 

naval vessel that is smaller and/or stealthier than an aircraft carrier. 

Second, because UAVs are not manned and are not meant to carry 

heavy loads, they are cheaper, which means that one can afford to build 

and lose more of them. One-way UAVs can be built without worrying 

about recovery subsystems. A mission that requires a $500,000 missile 

and a one-way $500,000 UAV is no less cost-effective than one that 

uses a two-way aircraft and a $1,000,000 missile. Third, some UAVs 

are, in fact, built for 24-hour missions (durations that are hard on 

aircraft crews). Such a UAV flying at 500 knots could spend about 12 

hours on station, even though based 5,500 kilometers from Taiwan. 

The basic operational concept for employing UAVs is as follows. 

Once the decision is made to engage the Chinese invasion force, the 
108 • Libicki 

United States would flow UAVs into the region. The latter would 

consist of (1) stealthy long-range UAVs (e.g., Global Hawk) 

maintained at air bases out of Chinese range, and (2) cheaper but still 

high-endurance UAVs that can be dispersed among smaller airfields 

closer to the theater or even to Taiwan itself. Over time, these would be 

complemented by shorter-ranged and even cheaper UAVs launched 

from stealthy ships, and perhaps very inexpensive short-range UAVs 

airdropped into Taiwan. Together they would form a sensor net coupled 

with a communications grid that would specialize (at least initially) on 

spotting and characterizing Chinese naval assets. With some tweaking 

they could also be used to spot and get bearings on airlift assets. 

Targets would either be struck by UAVs themselves, or would be 

painted and geolocated for strike by long-range missiles. 

Several issues need to be addressed to implement this concept. 

 Takeoff and recovery: U.S. doctrine assumes the existence of 

manned aircraft runways for UAVs. Experimentation is needed to 

determine capability for launching (and recovering) UAVs in 

austere environments including naval environments. 

 Survivability: China is unlikely to let UAVs operate unmolested. 

Some of them may survive by being hard to see; others by 

appearing in such numbers that all of them cannot be engaged at 

once. 

 Communications: What are the obstacles that would impede 

UAVs from communicating as a network: e.g., station-keeping in 

the face of weather, jamming, power requirements? 

 Spoofing: The light weight (and expected low cost) of UAVs 

limits the size of the sensor packages they can carry. Experiments 

would need to be conducted to explore tradeoffs of range, loiter 

time, and sensor payload weight. Time is on our side here, as 

advances in information technologies permit more sensing and 

computing capability to be incorporated into a given package. 

Also, to be fair, success at attriting an invasion force is not the same 

as sea superiority of the kind that can keep any forces from reaching the 

island. An attrition strategy is necessarily a probabilistic one. Some 

percentage of the invasion force will get through, though a large share 

will not. Afterwards resupply becomes an issue. That may be enough to 

give native forces a fighting chance and Beijing pause. That said, U.S. 

forces, with manned aircraft, cannot promise this, at least for the first 

week of an invasion. 
Defending Without Manned Aircraft • 109 

UAVs can make a high-impact contribution to preventing China 

from dominating the battlespace around Taiwan. That said, there is still 

a role for manned aircraft in the air superiority mission. Successful airto-air engagements require high-quality structural airframes, powerful 

engines, and, not least, agile and fast responses. The first two make the 

UAV expensive (and in need of the long runways). The last requires a 

degree of artificial intelligence that for now rests in long range research 

and development. Therefore, to the extent that the defense of Taiwan, 

or deterrence of an attack, depended on keeping China from operating 

in the airspace over and adjacent to the Strait, Taiwan and the U.S. will 

have to depend on classical manned fighters. 
110 • Libicki 
 

 111 

Essay 8 

Deterring China through 

Escalation 

By David C. Gompert and Duncan Long 

he day must not come when Chinese decisionmakers perceive 

the likely consequences of taking military action as less bad than 

the likely consequences of not doing so. Given China’s 

increasing investment in military capabilities designed to counter 

American power in the Western Pacific, the perceived risk of military 

failure that U.S. forces currently present to Chinese decisionmakers 

may be diminishing. A careful examination of America’s deterrent 

options is warranted. Although the most straightforward solution to an 

undesirable shift in the regional correlation of forces is to apply more 

U.S. resources to the area, this may not be tenable, given other U.S. 

defense commitments. The United States should carefully consider 

whether it can improve its deterrent posture toward China by 

introducing the probability that China would regret using force even if 

it succeeded in shifting the local correlation of military forces in its 

favor. Three escalatory strategies to deter China merit analysis: nuclear 

escalation, economic escalation, and conventional escalation. 

Before taking up the merits of these three strategies, it is useful to 

reflect on the deterrent value of escalation. One strong argument for 

examining escalation options is the unmistakable theme in Chinese 

military thought in favor of confining the duration, scale, and 

geographic scope of hostilities with the United States.103 Recent 

Chinese writings on military strategy reveal a belief that U.S. forces 

can be defeated in a quick and limited action against vulnerable “key 

strike points” (e.g., CVNs) before larger and superior U.S. forces can 

be brought to bear. The essence of Chinese thought is not to escalate 

 

103 For examples, see James C. Mulvenon et al, Chinese Responses to U.S. 

Military Transformation and Implications for the Department of Defense

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2006), 46–59. 

T 
112 • Gompert and Long 

but to de-escalate hostilities after achieving initial success, such as the 

submission of Taiwan before U.S. forces can intervene. The Chinese 

know that the larger and longer the conflict, the poorer the chances of 

prevailing militarily over their more powerful opponent. Above all, 

they want to minimize the risk to China itself. Because the United 

States has not declared an intention to escalate—and may even have 

created the impression of an aversion to escalation—the Chinese may 

think that it is possible to win a local battle and avoid a general war. 

For the United States to eschew escalation in favor of a brief “local war 

under high-tech conditions”—the term the Chinese have coined—is to 

conform to China’s expectation and preference. It follows, then, that a 

U.S. strategy designed to confound these preferences could have a 

profound deterrent effect on the Chinese, thus avoiding war altogether. 

China’s predilection for conducting a quick, limited war thus begs 

examination of whether some kind of escalation strategy could deter 

China and ameliorate the growing threat to U.S. forces in the Western 

Pacific. To be an effective deterrent, such a strategy must be credible. 

The United States must be capable of putting escalation into practice, 

and its actions must meet two basic criteria: they must leave America 

better off relative to China and better off relative to not having 

escalated. This last criterion is especially important in light of the 

disparity of interests in the Western Pacific. Any U.S. strategy, no 

matter how catastrophic the consequences it threatens for China, loses 

credibility if it demands that America pay too high a price to pursue it. 

To establish whether an escalatory strategy can be an effective 

deterrent, it is necessary to analyze the consequences of putting it in 

practice. In this paper, the chosen setting for examining U.S. nuclear, 

economic, and conventional escalation options is an armed conflict 

between China and the United States involving conventional forces off 

and along the eastern seaboard of China.104 We neither predict nor 

prescribe rivalry or confrontation with China of the sort that could lead 

to armed conflict. Indeed, the consequences of an escalating conflict 

with China could be catastrophic for both countries and much of the 

world. However, there are scenarios, mainly involving Taiwan, 

plausible and important enough to warrant thinking them through and 

preparing accordingly. 

 

104 “Conventional forces” could include information warfare attacks by one or 

both sides. 
Deterring China through Escalation • 113 

Nuclear Escalation 

The 9/11 terrorist attacks brought home to Americans the ghastly 

reality of mass destruction in a way that the Cold-War abstraction of 

mutual assured destruction never did. That event has stiffened U.S. 

resolve to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on 

U.S. soil. On one level, this resolve finds expression in tough policies 

toward states seeking nuclear weapons, such as North Korea and Iran, 

as well as fanatical anti-American terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda, 

which presumably would use a nuclear weapon if it had one. On 

another level, though, the determination not to allow large numbers of 

Americans to die in such a way again may affect public and official 

attitudes about whether and under what conditions the United States 

would ever use nuclear weapons first, knowing there would be nuclear 

retaliation.105 Consideration of escalation across the nuclear threshold 

in a conflict with China must start with these new facts of life. 

There is another important fact of life: the United States cannot be 

confident of denying China the option of detonating at least a few 

nuclear weapons on U.S. territory, if China is determined to have this 

option. Why is this so? After all, the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal is 

and will likely remain vastly larger than China’s, with 1000s versus 

100 or fewer deliverable weapons.106 China’s long-range delivery 

systems—twenty or so intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and a 

single nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) carrying 

another dozen missiles—are currently highly vulnerable to a U.S. 

nuclear (counter-force) attack, especially if the whereabouts of the 

SSBN is known. Moreover, an ambitious (e.g., multi-tier) U.S. ballistic 

missile defense (BMD) system—assuming one is deployed—could 

 

105 The United States has not given up its prerogative to use nuclear weapons 

first against a nuclear weapon state or ally of a nuclear weapon state. 106 “China’s current nuclear weapons arsenal totals about 400 devices, 300 of 

which consist of warheads and gravity bombs for use on its “strategic ‘triad’ of 

land-based ballistic missiles, bomber and attack aircraft, and SSBN.” David 

Gompert et al. China on the Move: A Franco-American Analysis of Emerging 

Chinese Strategic Policies and Their Consequences for Transatlantic 

Relations (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005) 41. 
114 • Gompert and Long 

intercept most or all of the few Chinese missiles that are not destroyed 

on their launchers.107

However, it is well within the technological and economic means of 

China to expand and improve its retaliatory force to the point that the 

combination of a U.S. counter-force first strike and BMD would not 

prevent at least a few weapons from penetrating and causing enormous 

death and destruction within the United States.108 It is important for 

American strategists to remember that China has placed a relatively 

low priority on its long-range strategic-nuclear offensive capabilities, 

which could and likely would change if the United States were to 

declare a nuclear escalation strategy. Even while modernizing its 

conventional forces, China can afford to build a strategic nuclear force 

of substantially greater size, readiness, reliability, and survivability than 

its current one. Already, the Chinese regard the survivability of their 

nuclear delivery systems as their highest priority in modernizing their 

strategic nuclear force, implying a commitment to a credible, secondstrike capability. In addition, the Chinese could develop relatively 

cheap counter-measures and decoys to complicate U.S. missile defense. 

Attainment of what the Chinese call “credible minimal deterrence” of 

U.S. nuclear use would seem to be achievable, inevitable, and 

sustainable for China, despite clear and continued U.S. strategicoffensive superiority and deployment of BMD.109

Any U.S. threat of nuclear escalation is, thus, of dubious credibility. 

To execute such a threat, the United States would have to be prepared 

to launch a massive nuclear first strike against China and quite possibly 

suffer a smaller but still devastating Chinese nuclear retaliatory strike 

on the U.S. homeland. The former would cause incalculable harm to 

China, its population, its stability, and its economy, not to mention 

long-term damage to America’s moral and political standing. The latter 

could visit as much destruction on the United States in a day as, say, 

 

107 Such performance is beyond the capacity of the existing U.S. missile 

defense program of record, but not necessarily beyond one that combined 

boost-phase, mid-course, and terminal interceptors integrated with land- and 

space-based sensors. 

108 China could be expected to follow a “counter-value” retaliatory strategy, 

aimed at maximizing damage. 

109 Mulvenon et al, 98–99. 
Deterring China through Escalation • 115 

the American Civil War did in four years.110 In effect, China can, if 

determined to do so, confront the United States with a decision of 

whether to lose Los Angeles and destroy Beijing to save Taipei. A U.S. 

threat to resort to nuclear weapons if Taipei’s loss appeared certain, 

knowing that tens of millions of Chinese and millions of Americans 

could be killed if it carried out that threat, exceeds the bounds of 

credibility. For the United States to fail to prevent the conquest of 

democratic Taiwan by undemocratic China would be a terrible blow to 

U.S. interests, values, credibility, and prestige. But few Americans 

would view it as worse than, say, a hundred “9/11s.” Indeed, few would 

deem it bad enough to justify a massive nuclear attack on China, quite 

apart from Chinese retaliation. A U.S. nuclear escalation strategy 

against China, then, would leave America better off than China, even if 

China retaliated, but worse off for having escalated. 

This does not mean that the United States should make a point of 

relieving Chinese fears that an attack on Taiwan and on U.S. 

intervening forces could somehow lead to nuclear war, with 

consequences for China that would vastly outweigh any possible gains. 

Nor is it certain that China would expand its nuclear retaliatory 

capabilities in response to an explicit U.S. nuclear escalation strategy. 

However, to rely on nuclear escalation would require U.S. planners and 

leaders either to bet that China would not respond as described above 

or to be prepared for an arms race in which China multiplies missiles 

and nuclear warheads, which are relatively cheap, while the United 

States ploughs more and more resources into more and better missile 

defense, which is very expensive. Moreover, to rely on a nuclear 

escalation strategy is to rely on a future U.S. president to make an 

improbable decision: starting a nuclear war with a nuclear power over a 

non-vital interest. 

Economic Warfare 

The importance of economic growth to China and the dependence of 

China on the world economy and on the American economy to sustain 

that growth suggest that China could be deterred if the United States 

threatened to escalate any local military conflict by attacking China’s 

economy. At the same time, the credibility of such a deterrent threat is 

 

110 Civil War casualties were nearly two hundred thousand killed outright, over 

half-a-million dead from all causes, and another half-a-million wounded. 
116 • Gompert and Long 

in doubt; the importance of China to the world economy and to the 

American economy means that attacking China’s economic health 

could be costly to the attacker and third parties, especially but not only 

if China responds in kind with economic attacks. 

It is difficult to analyze economic escalation as a separate strategic 

option. The massive trade, investment, and financial flows involving 

China and the United States, described below, would not in any case be 

unaffected by a severe crisis, much less a shooting war, between the 

countries. Markets do not like turmoil or violence, and Sino-American 

war would inevitably do economic damage. Moreover, domestic 

politics can turn hostile toward business interests and transactions that 

smack of “trading with the enemy.” However, the depth, duration, and 

effects could be much more severe if Washington systematically 

targeted economic values of China (or vice versa, of course). In any 

case, any utility of economic warfare as a deterrent or path of escalation 

would depend on whether it was a chosen strategy as opposed to a mere 

byproduct of war. 

The material, psychological, and strategic effects of economic 

escalation strategies have not gotten the thorough analysis that nuclear 

theory received during the Cold War. Because the Soviet Union was 

neither dependent on nor important to the world or American economy, 

there was not a vast difference between economic warfare and the low 

level of “business as usual.” The situation with China, of course, is 

radically different. Debate on economic warfare with China has not 

progressed beyond two rather simplistic and paradoxical propositions: 

 First, that China’s integration into the world economy will 

moderate its external behavior, even as it will promote liberty and 

reform internally. China’s economic dependence may even be 

used to constrain and manipulate its conduct. 

 Second, that U.S. investment in and importation from China will 

engender accommodation in U.S. policy toward China. This 

affords China some protection against U.S. attempts to constrain 

and manipulate its conduct. 

There is truth in both propositions; economic interdependence is one 

of many reasons the two countries have to try to avoid confrontation 

and conflict. Indeed, the urge to cooperate is evident, though not 

absolute, in the policies and conduct of both sides. Yet, this relationship 
Deterring China through Escalation • 117 

of mutual dependence and caution could, in theory, be exploited by one 

side or the other in search of advantage in a crisis. After all, the danger 

of nuclear holocaust induced both the United States and the Soviet 

Union to be cautious, yet each followed strategies, on and off, to 

exploit the other’s caution. Whether the United States could turn 

economic interdependence with China to its advantage to affect the 

outcome of a war—thus, as a strategy to deter war—depends on the 

scale and asymmetries in that interdependence, the tolerance of each 

population for hardship, and the sensitivity of national leaders to public 

feelings. 

Let’s start with some numbers. The data used here are purposely and 

liberally rounded off, since actual figures fluctuate from year-to-year, 

and rough magnitudes are what matter.111

 China’s GDP is about $2.5T (five percent of the world economy) 

and growing at about 10 percent annually.112

 The U.S. GDP is about $13T (30 percent of the world economy) 

and grows at about three percent annually.113

 The value of annual growth (in $) of China’s economy is roughly 

half that of the U.S. economy. 

 China’s exports to the United States are about $280B/year, which 

represent 13 percent of U.S. imports and 20 percent of Chinese 

exports.114

 China’s imports from the United States are about $55B/year, 

which represent four percent of U.S. exports and eight percent of 

Chinese imports.115

 

111 It should be further noted that Chinese and U.S. economic figures often 

differ. See Michael F. Martin, “What’s the Difference—Comparing U.S. and 

Chinese Trade Data,” Congressional Research Service, 10 April 2007. The 

sources of the numbers used are noted below. 

112 Figures are based on 2006 estimates. IMF World Economic Outlook 

Database, September 2006. Available at < http://www.imf.org/external/ 

pubs/ft/weo/2006/02/data/index.aspx>. 

113 Ibid. 114 Figures are from 2006. Trade in Goods (Imports, Exports and Trade 

Balance) With China, U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Statistics. Available 

at <http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#2007>; and U.S. 

Trade in Goods and Services, U.S. Census Bureau, Foreign Trade Statistics. 

Available at <http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/ 

historical/gands.pdf>. 

115 Ibid. 
118 • Gompert and Long 

 Chinese annual investment flow into the United States is on the 

order of $150B,116 nearly all of it for portfolio investment.117 As 

of 2005, China held about $530B in U.S. securities, including U.S. 

Treasury debt, agency debt, corporate debt, and a small amount of 

equity.118 As of January 2007, China held $350B in Treasury 

securities, or 15 percent of all outstanding U.S. Treasury debt held 

by foreign countries119 and seven percent of all such debt held by 

the public.120 Very roughly, China receives $30B from the U.S. 

Treasury annually in interest payments and debt retirement 

payments.121

 U.S. annual investment flow into China is on the order of $5B, 

nearly all of it direct investment in production.122 The total U.S. 

direct investment position in China is around $17B.123

 

116 Based on 2004 to 2005 change in estimated Chinese holdings of U.S. 

securities of all types. Survey of Foreign Holdings of U.S. Securities, 1974–

2005. U.S. Department of Treasury, Treasury International Capital System. 

Available at <http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/shlhistdat.html>. 117 China’s total FDI position in the United States in 2005 was only $400M. 

Jennifer Koncz and Daniel Yorganson, Direct Investment Positions for 2005, 

U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis, July 2006, 35. 

Available at <https://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2006/07July/ 

0706_DIP_WEB.pdf>. 

118 Survey of Foreign Holdings of U.S Securities. 119 Major Foreign Holders of U.S. Treasury Securities. U.S. Department of 

Treasury, Treasury International Capital System. Available at 

<http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt>. 

120 The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It, U.S. Department of Treasury, 

TreasuryDirect. Available at 

<http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np>. 

121 This figure is based on the assumption that China receives the same share 

of interest payments and debt retirement payments as it holds Treasury 

securities—seven percent. Based on FY2006 figures, the U.S. Treasury pays 

about $410B in interest a year, and retires about $35B in debt. Annual interest 

expense figure from Interest Expense and Average Interest Rate Graph, U.S. 

Department of Treasury, TreasuryDirect. Available at 

<http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/charts/charts_expense.htm.>. Debt 

retirement figure from Debt Position and Activity Report, September 30, 2006. 

U.S. Department of Treasury, TreasuryDirect. Available at 

<http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/ 

pd_debtposactrpt_0609.pdf>. 

122 This figure is based on $3.1B in documented foreign direct investment flow 

from the United States to China in 2005 and $9B in FDI from the Virgin 
Deterring China through Escalation • 119 

Of these facts and figures, the most salient for our purposes are the 

scale of China’s (a) annual exports to the United States and (b) 

cumulative investment in U.S. financial securities. Americans consume 

Chinese products, while Chinese accumulate American holdings in 

huge numbers. These two phenomena are related, in that China’s 

bulging investment in the United States finances America’s equally 

bulging trade deficit with China. While the Chinese economy depends 

heavily on American consumers, the American economy depends 

heavily on Chinese (official) investors. 

Also significant for our purposes is that the U.S. and Chinese 

economies are not merely interdependent but deeply integrated, in the 

sense that a great deal of China’s manufacturing is done by U.S. 

companies (largely for re-export), and a great deal of U.S. assets are 

held by Chinese banks. Because the two economies overlap, what 

affects each, including economic warfare, unavoidably affects the 

other. 

For our purposes, Sino-American trade and investment can be 

viewed as several streams of payments from one country (or entities of 

that country) to the other (or its entities): 

 Payments for imports 

 Repatriated profits 

 Interest payments 

 New investment flows 

In a given year, China might receive, say, $300B from the United 

States via these streams, and the United States might receive two-thirds 

that amount from China. The former is about 15 percent of the Chinese 

economy; the latter about one percent of the U.S. economy. 

 

Islands to China in the same year. It is reasonable to presume that substantial 

additional investment flows to China from U.S. firms registered offshore. The 

Virgin Islands, for instance, provided $9B in FDI to China in 2005. Thomas 

Lum and Dick Nanto, China’s Trade with the United States and the World, 

CRS Report for Congress, 4 January 2007, 39. 

123 Jennifer Koncz and Daniel Yorganson, Direct Investment Positions for 

2005, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, July 

2006, 33. Available at 

<http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2006/07July/0706_DIP_WEB.pdf>. 
120 • Gompert and Long 

It is not our purpose to get into the intricacies of Sino-American 

economic accounting or the mechanics of possible Sino-American 

economic warfare. A simplified, indicative way to think about an 

economic escalation strategy is to imagine the United States cutting off 

all payments going to China in the event of Chinese use of force (e.g., 

against Taiwan and/or U.S. forces). This is tantamount to discontinuing 

imports from China, investment to China, and returns on Chinese 

investments in the United States.124 It is reasonable to assume that 

China would reciprocate. In such an event, there would be several sorts 

of macroeconomic effects: 

 Direct losses China would suffer 

 Direct losses the United States would suffer 

 U.S. losses resulting from its stake in China’s economic health 

 Chinese losses resulting from its stake in U.S. economic health 

 Effects of third-party reactions on the United States 

 Effects of third-party reactions on China 

Direct losses can be derived from the flow of payments. On the 

surface, it appears that Chinese direct losses would be appreciably 

larger than those of the United States—half again as large in absolute 

terms and 15 times as large as a fraction of GDP.125 Of course, not all 

payments have equal significance. For example, if China suddenly lost 

$280B in revenue (annualized) from exports to the United States, it 

could also avoid some of the costs associated with the production of 

that $280B worth of goods, or it could sell some of them (presumably 

at lower prices) in other overseas markets, depending on the behavior 

of third parties (see below). So the real economic loss would be less 

than $280B. 

Similarly, if China discontinued buying U.S. Treasury bonds, other 

buyers, domestic or foreign, could be found. The real concern, though, 

is what would happen to U.S. interest rates if Chinese demand for U.S. 

bonds were to vanish. Independent estimates indicate that U.S. interest 

 

124 Note that it is often unclear who owns U.S. debt; it would be difficult to cut 

off interest payments on U.S. Treasury securities and agency securities to 

China in a targeted fashion, much less payments on corporate debt. For the 

sake of broad analysis, though, we presume that these steps are possible. 

125 Of course, as in all fair economic dealings, both parties gain from all SinoAmerican transactions and therefore may lose if these transactions are 

terminated. 
Deterring China through Escalation • 121 

rates would rise by 200 basis points if China cut its rate of 

accumulation of U.S. financial holdings in half.126 In that event, the 

value of the dollar would fall, and a recession could ensue. Equity 

values would decline because companies would be forced both to 

compete for capital with rising bond yields and to pay higher interest 

on debt. Factors that have buoyed the U.S. economy in recent years—

the strong housing market and steady consumer spending—would be 

vulnerable. Higher mortgage costs would cause housing prices to fall; 

household consumption would decline as mortgages, home-equity lines 

of credit, and credit-card usage all became more expensive. Through it 

all, the U.S. government would be hard-pressed to stave off the crisis—

the large deficits would constrain fiscal stimulus, and the Federal 

Reserve could not finance recovery in the face of rising interest rates 

without risking inflation. 

The consequences of Sino-American economic warfare are 

complicated by the fact that companies and banks from each country 

are heavily invested in the other. About half of Chinese exports are 

from foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) operating in China, of which 

some share (perhaps ten percent) are U.S.-invested.127 Therefore, some 

share of the economic loss from a cutoff of U.S. imports from China 

would fall on the profit line of U.S. firms (which could not repatriate 

those profits anyway, in our scenario). By the same token, if U.S. 

interest rates had to be raised to attract investors to offset the loss of 

new Chinese financial investment, this would penalize China by 

depressing the value of its existing $530B in U.S. financial assets. 

These secondary effects do not alter the overall picture: significant 

losses for both sides; larger absolute losses for China than for the 

United States; and much larger Chinese than American losses as a 

percent of GDP.128

The content of Sino-American trade is important in consideration of 

economic warfare. The popular belief that Americans get only cheap 

 

126 Daniel Gross, “The Perfect Storm that Could Drown the Economy,” The 

New York Times, 8 May 2005. 127 Matt Nesvisky, Will Super-High Chinese Growth Continue? National 

Bureau of Economic Research, November 2006. Available at 

<http://www.nber.org/digest/nov06/w12249.html>. 128 We are not suggesting that GDP would actually fall by this amount. We are 

simply using it as a point of reference. 
122 • Gompert and Long 

clothes and gadgets from China is way off the mark. U.S. imports from 

China range from consumer goods to machinery to electronics and 

information systems. Although China provides nothing that the United 

States could not get elsewhere, Chinese products are indeed 

inexpensive and feed important sectors of the U.S. economy, including 

retail and IT. Sudden interruption of these supplies—again, 13 percent 

of all U.S. imports—would be extremely disruptive. 

About half of all U.S. exports to China are capital and infrastructural 

equipment (e.g., machinery and power-generation systems), which are 

important to modernizing the country, expanding its productive 

capacity, and employing the large influx of laborers entering the 

economy from the countryside. Very roughly speaking, U.S. exports to 

China, while smaller, matter as much to China as Chinese exports to 

the United States matter to the United States. Whether China could buy 

from other sources the vital production and infrastructure equipment it 

has been importing from the United States depends on the behavior of 

U.S. competitors. It would be a mistake for China to assume that any 

countries would conduct business as usual with China in the middle of 

a war with the United States begun by a Chinese attack on Taiwan 

and/or U.S. forces. 

Third-party reactions could be very important both for the United 

States and China. For instance, denying the Chinese their interest on 

U.S. Treasury bonds or payment for selling those bonds could spook all 

foreign investors. The Chinese could exacerbate this problem by 

placing their U.S. financial securities on the market. At the very time 

the U.S. Treasury would need more bond buyers to make up for the loss 

of Chinese investment of as much as $150 billion per year, it might find 

itself with fewer. It is one thing to expect friends of the United States 

not to buy from or sell to China in the event of U.S. economic action, 

and it is quite another to expect them to lend money to the United 

States to make up for lost Chinese financing. More likely, third parties 

would reduce existing U.S. holdings if they expected interest rates to 

rise and the dollar to fall. Further, the blows sustained by the U.S. 

economy could spark a crisis in the world economy, of which the U.S. 

economy is the locomotive. A fall-off in global economic growth and 

demand would deepen the impact on America. 

It is said that capital is cowardly: it becomes more costly to attract 

when perceptions of risk rise. The act of freezing Chinese financial 
Deterring China through Escalation • 123 

investment could send a chill through the very financial markets the 

United States would count on to make up the difference from lost 

Chinese capital, possibly requiring it to raise interest rates even more to 

finance federal spending. Raising interest rates above levels indicated 

by normal monetary conditions and policy would dampen the economy, 

while also increasing future U.S. interest payments to creditors. Thus, 

tampering with Chinese financial holdings in and returns from the 

United States would have significant and lasting ramifications. 

At the same time, Chinese suspension of repatriation of U.S. profits 

could weaken third-party enthusiasm for direct investment in China, on 

top of possibly suspending investment in support of the United States. 

Combined with the loss of new U.S. investment in China, this could 

deprive China of capital needed to sustain strong economic growth, 

which has been based heavily on foreign direct investment. Perhaps 

third parties would instead swoop into the Chinese market to increase 

both exports and holdings at the expense of their U.S. competitors, but 

that is unlikely. The third parties with the capital and products that 

China needs are mainly Japan, Taiwan, and the European Union—all 

American allies of one or another ilk. Bearing in mind that the context 

is one of Sino-American conflict, the most plausible scenario is that 

they would at least be cautious in the face of huge uncertainties and at 

most would align themselves with U.S. policy in response to China’s 

resort to force. On the whole, third-party reactions and other indirect 

effects are as likely to increase as to offset the costs of economic 

warfare to both countries, though more punishingly to China than to the 

United States. 

Overall, China would suffer more than the United States in the event 

of reciprocal cutoff of payments. Indicatively, China’s loss might be on 

the order of its annual economic growth, whereas loss to the United 

States might constitute a significant fraction of its lower economic 

growth—say, ten percent of GDP compared to, say, one percent of 

GDP.129 Economic escalation would leave China worse off than the 

United States. At the same time, the U.S. economy could receive a 

strong shock. 

Whether or not the defense of Taiwan would justify such a cost to 

the United States depends on one’s view—ultimately subjective—of 

 

129 This assumes a one-year interruption. Briefer interruptions would 

presumably have less effect but would still be a major shock. 
124 • Gompert and Long 

the importance of defending Taiwan. Like China, the United States 

depends on growth to support a growing population; to create 

individual opportunity; to deal with major post-industrial challenges, 

from public education to urban renewal; to cover the costs of baby 

boomer health and retirement care; and to reduce the budget deficit. 

Unlike China, the United States has huge global security interests, 

responsibilities, and liabilities. A step reduction of U.S. economic 

growth from, say, three percent to two percent is a big drop with big 

implications. Though there is no common metric that permits weighing 

economic and societal interests against the adverse consequences of 

failing to counter flagrant Chinese military action, it is at least arguable 

that the United States could end up worse off for having depended on a 

strategy of economic escalation, especially since it is unclear that 

economic war with China would actually prevent the loss of Taiwan. 

This undermines the importance of deterrent value to a strategy of 

escalation. 

There is a further flaw in using economic escalation as a deterrent. In 

seeking to deter China by threatening economic warfare, the United 

States would necessarily reveal which economic weapons it felt yielded 

it an advantage. China would naturally seek to blunt these weapons 

prior to hostilities. It could, for instance, reduce its holdings of U.S. 

Treasury bonds and invest instead in assets that could not be used 

against it. A U.S. declaration that its debt commitments were 

conditional on geopolitical considerations would also have chilling 

effect on the market at large. The United States would bear pain in the 

near term for adopting a strategy that would become steadily less 

effective. 

Apart from general economic war as an escalation strategy, the 

United States might attempt a more discriminating campaign—in 

effect, a “precision strike” against China’s economy. Two options come 

to mind: information warfare (IW) attacks on Chinese computer 

systems and networks, and interruption of sea-borne oil imports. Both 

these subjects deserve greater consideration than can be afforded them 

here. For the former, suffice it to say that the Chinese regard IW attacks 

as an attractive option for a weaker military fighting a stronger one, a 
Deterring China through Escalation • 125 

fact that militates against IW as U.S. escalation strategy.130 Clearly, 

though, the United States must be prepared for intensive, extensive, 

and two-way IW against both military and economic targets in any 

Sino-American conflict. As for the latter, China has a growing 

requirement for imported oil, mostly transported by sea, and there is 

little doubt that the U.S. Navy can pinch off much or all of that flow. 

But the more difficult issues are whether the deprivation would have a 

major effect on China in a conflict, how China would react, and what 

the effect would be on world oil flows, markets, and economics. For 

now, let’s just say that neither an IW campaign or the interdiction of 

Chinese oil imports alter the general conclusion that economic 

escalation warfare is not an attractive deterrent, at least not one on 

which the United States would want to rely. 

If we have failed to identify all the ramifications of economic 

warfare between the world’s largest, strongest mature economy and its 

largest, strongest emerging economy, we have probably failed on the 

side of underestimating the harm. Overall, this excursion into the realm 

of economic escalation as a way of deterring conflict with China leaves 

us at least as wary as we admittedly were at the beginning. 

Conventional Escalation 

Nuclear escalation and economic warfare are not the only ways the 

United States could confront China with the prospect of costs that 

exceed expected gains of taking military action against U.S. friends 

(e.g., Taiwan) and forces. If Sino-American hostilities occurred, the 

Chinese, according to their own statements, will try to limit (a) the 

scope of combat with U.S. forces to Taiwan and the waters around it; 

(b) the duration of hostilities to days; and (c) targets for both sides to 

the forces directly engaged.131

Indeed, the central premise of Chinese strategy is that it is possible to 

win a conflict with the United States only by making selective “quick 

and decisive” attacks on critical U.S. forces in hopes of settling the 

issue at hand (e.g., Taiwan’s fate) before the United States can bring its 

 

130 First and well documented in Roger C. Molander, Andrew S. Riddile, Peter 

A. Wilson, Strategic Information Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1996). 

More recently, Mulvenon et al. 

131 Mulvenon et al, 46–59. 
126 • Gompert and Long 

full power to bear against Chinese forces or China itself.132 U.S. 

strategy could target that premise. Being warned or shown that U.S. 

forces will both persist and expand the conflict—even with no hint of 

nuclear use—could give the Chinese pause, either before or during 

hostilities. This could furnish the United States with added dissuasion, 

deterrence, crisis dominance and, failing that, operational advantage. 

Even before analyzing the costs and benefits of conventional 

escalation as a deterrent, it is important to bound the discussion. While 

the Chinese have a clear interest in keeping a conflict short, the United 

States also wants to keep some limits on a war. Rational American war 

aims for a conflict over Taiwan amount to some approximation of the 

status quo ante. War with China would demonstrate that America will 

not tolerate Chinese use of force to achieve its goals and would blunt 

the immediate Chinese military threat. It would not entail China’s total 

military defeat or regime change—the resources demanded by such 

expansive aims (like the use of ground troops on the mainland) are out 

of balance with U.S. interests in the region, and it is difficult to imagine 

how such a conflict could come to a favorable stable end state. A 

conventional escalatory deterrent, then, hinges on a declared U.S. 

intention to turn back any Chinese aggression, no matter how initially 

successful it may be. This would include, if necessary, strikes on 

capabilities on the Chinese mainland that make successful aggression 

possible. 

Apart from deterrence strategy, the United States would likely face 

operational choices regarding conventional strikes on capabilities on 

the Chinese mainland in the course of a conflict. In the event of war 

with the United States, China would rely heavily on air, naval, missile, 

and air-defense forces based in and deployed from the mainland to gain 

control of the Straits, delay and disrupt U.S. intervention, and launch 

air and missile strikes and an amphibious assault on Taiwan. The 

United States could not treat Chinese territory as a sanctuary without 

granting the Chinese all the advantages of operating near the homeland, 

with none of the disadvantages. U.S. exemption of mainland targets 

could influence the course and outcome of hostilities, as well as the 

extent of U.S. losses. 

 

132 Lu Linzhi. “Preemptive Strikes Are Crucial in Limited High-Tech Wars,” 

Jiefangjun bao, 7 February, 1996, quoted in Mulvenon et al, 47. 
Deterring China through Escalation • 127 

The further the Chinese get in building air, naval, and missile 

capabilities to attack U.S. forces, the more dependent U.S. forces 

become on having the options (i.e., capabilities and authority) to strike 

such targets. In effect, the Chinese strategy of gaining an edge in a 

quick, local engagement will naturally push the United States to avoid 

being confined to such an engagement. 

Indeed, even in the absence of a calculated escalation strategy, the 

U.S. Secretary of Defense and President could well receive requests 

from U.S. force commanders to target some or all of the following, in 

ascending order of strategic significance: 

 Air-defense radar installations and missile batteries 

 Short- and intermediate-range missile launchers 

 Air forces and bases 

 Amphibious-force staging areas 

 Naval bases 

 Military command and control facilities 

 Reinforcements en route from elsewhere in China 

 War reserve stocks 

 Telecommunications networks used for command and control 

 Forces throughout the country 

 Other infrastructure, ports, and industry needed to sustain combat 

operations 

The question here is whether operational exigency can be turned into 

strategic advantage. The United States could consider the ascent of this 

ladder not only on its immediate military merits but also as an 

escalatory strategy aimed at deterring China’s leaders from using force 

or convincing them to stop fighting and back down before the PLA as a 

whole and China proper are damaged. Put differently, if the Chinese are 

optimizing for a short local engagement, and the United States plans 

counter that by preparing for expanded hostilities, it makes sense to 

apprise the Chinese of this logical implication of their own strategy. 

Whether the conventional escalation option is, on balance, advisable 

hinges on how the Chinese would react to it, programmatically and 

operationally. Surely they already realize that there is some risk of not 

being able to confine the geography, target classes, and duration of a 

conflict. Despite this—or, perhaps, because of it—they are building 

capabilities not only to assault Taiwan but also to attack U.S. forces. 

The specific capabilities being stressed in their modernization program 
128 • Gompert and Long 

(e.g., attack submarines and missiles) suggest that the Chinese believe 

it may be possible to deliver a quick strike to prevent U.S. forces (e.g., 

carriers) from saving Taiwan. They have not shown equal commitment 

to capabilities to protect China itself from U.S. counterattack. The 

Chinese thus appear to believe that improved capabilities for quick and 

limited attacks on U.S. forces might help avert wider war and forestall 

U.S. counterattacks. Disabusing them of this belief would undermine 

the logic of their current modernization priorities. Alternatively, it 

would force them to allocate more resources for the defense of the 

Chinese mainland. Either way, convincing the Chinese that their 

current strategy will raise, not reduce, the risks to China itself would 

shake the foundation of that strategy. 

How would a U.S. conventional escalation strategy affect Chinese 

decisions in actual hostilities? Might the Chinese respond with nuclear 

weapons to U.S. conventional attacks on China? A Chinese general 

recently indicated that, despite Beijing’s official “no first use” policy, 

they might.133 Given U.S. nuclear preponderance, if the Chinese 

respond to escalating conventional attacks with nuclear weapons, they 

could be lighting a fuse that could lead to devastation of their country, 

the end of stunning Chinese economic growth, and the end of the 

regime—with no reunification of Taiwan to show for it. A Chinese 

threat to resort to nuclear weapons in the event of U.S. conventional 

attacks on mainland military targets is hardly credible and therefore 

does not argue against a U.S. conventional escalatory option. The 

United States should nevertheless avoid targeting the political 

leadership or China’s nuclear arsenal, attacks China could consider to 

be strategic enough in nature to warrant a nuclear response. 

At the same time, the Chinese could and might well escalate with 

conventional weapons against U.S. bases and forces in Japan, Guam, 

and elsewhere in the region. While China’s air force would likely be 

decimated or grounded by U.S. air superiority, its growing 

 

133 "If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on 

to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with 

nuclear weapons," General Zhu Chenghu said at an official briefing. His threat 

was not that China would use nuclear weapons first if U.S. forces intervened 

in a crisis or conflict over Taiwan, but rather if U.S. forces attacked mainland 

China. Alexandra Harney, “Top Chinese General Warns US Over Attack,” 

The Financial Times, 14 July 2005. Available at 

<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-00000e2511c8.html>. 
Deterring China through Escalation • 129 

intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) force would give it some 

deep-strike capacity, using conventional warheads. Depending on the 

level of U.S. conventional escalation against China, the Chinese might 

not limit conventional missile attacks on Japan to U.S. facilities and 

forces. Whether this would shake or instead harden Japanese support 

for the United States in conflict with China is unclear, though the 

Chinese know Japan better than to bet on the former. Still, the threat to 

Japan is a credible one. The United States is unlikely to consider using 

nuclear weapons in response (for reasons already presented) and, thus, 

may have some difficulty deterring this Chinese response to U.S. 

conventional escalation. Therefore, the United States should assume 

that its forces and bases in the region could come under attack in the 

event that it attacked the mainland. However, the Chinese should be 

aware that such counter-escalation on their part would ultimately work 

to the disadvantage of the weaker combatant in the war. 

U.S. objectives—de-motivating China’s emerging military strategy, 

deterring China from contemplating its execution, and dissuading 

China from menacing Taiwan—all depend on Chinese awareness of the 

risks they are inviting. It follows that if the United States is in fact 

prepared to extend the duration and scope of hostilities as necessary to 

prevail, including conventional strikes on military targets in China, it is 

essential to make this known to the Chinese. The United States would 

need to communicate that Chinese aggression—as defined by 

Americans, not Chinese—would start an escalatory process that would 

lead ineluctably to Chinese defeat and extensive losses.134 This need 

not be conveyed as a threat so much as an inevitable implication of 

China’s own strategy of building capabilities for a decisive strike on 

those U.S. forces that could assist in the defense of Taiwan. The 

Chinese need to understand that they have embarked on a provocative 

strategy and thus risk provoking the United States to counter it. This 

may not convince hard-liners in the Chinese military; but it could and 

should be taken seriously by their political leaders. 

 

134 The Chinese would still have the theoretical option of trying to pressure 

Taiwan into submission without engaging U.S. forces at all. But the United 

States could counter that by positioning its forces, particularly its fleet, to 

make it hard for Chinese forces to avoid. Whether it would do this despite the 

growing vulnerability of the fleet would be an important U.S. decision, 

weighing the deterrent benefit of a “trip-wire” against the risk of losses. 
130 • Gompert and Long 

U.S. statements would have to be made with the utmost care. Taiwan 

cannot be allowed to assume that it now has unconditional American 

support; an emboldened Taipei could precipitate the very conflict a 

conventional escalation strategy is designed to prevent. It is therefore 

worth reiterating the U.S. policy that provocation by Taiwan, including 

moves toward independence, would jeopardize U.S. willingness to help 

defend the island. 

In sum, the threat of conventional escalation should frustrate China’s 

evident strong desire to keep any conflict limited. As importantly, even 

assuming non-nuclear Chinese retaliation, this strategic option could 

meet both of the criteria suggested earlier: the United States would end 

up (a) better off than China and (b) better off, arguably, than if limited, 

localized hostilities go badly and China achieves its war aims by use of 

force. Geography and other factors make it hard for China to counter 

conventional escalation in kind. A Chinese nuclear response would be 

deterred by the forbidding U.S. nuclear retaliatory threat. At any point 

in the escalation, there would be more harm that U.S. forces can yet do 

to Chinese targets than the other way around—a key to crisis 

dominance and success should deterrence fail. 

Comparisons and Conclusions 

China has started down a path that could lead it to the brink and 

beyond. It is committed to unification of Taiwan with the mainland 

regardless of Taiwanese democratic views; it has said it will use force 

if all else fails to achieve unification; and its new national defense 

strategy and military priorities reflect an increasingly sharp focus on 

making Taiwan feel growing pressure and, if need be, deadly force. 

Knowing that the United States is prepared to intervene militarily to 

prevent China from forcing its rule on Taiwan, the Chinese understand 

that their current policy could lead to hostilities with U.S. forces. This 

is reflected in the priority the Chinese put on the ability to disrupt, 

degrade, delay and possibly deter U.S. armed rescue of Taiwan. 

Because the current U.S. military posture has not dissuaded the Chinese 

from the course they have chosen, the United States must contemplate 

an alternative or else be prepared to accommodate China’s wishes and 

compromise its own interests and ideals. 

Deterring China with the threat of escalation is one such alternative. 

China has clearly demonstrated its preference for limiting any conflict 

in the Western Pacific in time and space, creating a prima facie case for 
Deterring China through Escalation • 131 

U.S. strategies that deny this aim. Effective escalatory strategies must 

both cause greater harm to China than to the United States and leave 

the United States better off executing than not, even with China’s likely 

response. 

The former criterion is easily met—the nuclear, economic, and 

conventional options considered here all pass that test. The latter 

criterion is more difficult to satisfy. An escalation strategy must be not 

only feared by China but also be one that the United States would be 

willing to execute if deterrence failed. If the Chinese sensed that the 

United States would not escalate in the event—if the deterrent threat 

was not credible—their fear of the consequences and thus the 

moderating effect on their policies would be diminished. Only one of 

the strategies considered here passes this test—escalation of 

conventional attacks on the Chinese mainland. 

In addition to fielding the needed escalatory capabilities, the United 

States would need to modify its declaratory policy, which presently is 

not designed to accentuate Chinese fears about escalation to include 

attacks on the mainland. While strategists like to be vague about 

contingent options, and diplomats shudder at talk of escalation, it seems 

better in this case to be sure that the Chinese get the message, namely: 

A conflict with the United States will last and could expand until 

Chinese forces are defeated, in the course of which China itself will not 

be a sanctuary. The United States might also want to be sure the 

Chinese knew that it was not planning a nuclear first strike. 

Even seemingly attractive escalation strategies are fraught with 

dangers: failing to deter; creating bi-lateral tensions; triggering 

preemption; inducing responses worse than anticipated; and the worst 

“sin” of all, being left to choose between exposing a bluff and carrying 

out a disastrous escalation. In the particular case of Sino-American 

conflict, chances are that the stakes will be greater for the Chinese than 

for the United States, which can add to the unpredictability of the 

results of escalation. As already stated, escalation strategies make sense 

only if there are no effective and affordable non-escalation strategies. 

The regional military status quo, however, is changing to favor the 

Chinese. If the United States is unprepared to accept this and unwilling 

to redress the correlation of forces by reallocating its resources, 

threatening conventional military escalation could be an effective 

strategy to deter China in the Western Pacific. 
132 • Gompert and Long 
 

 133 

Essay 9 

Introducing Complexity 

into China’s Attempt to 

Hold U.S. Maritime Forces 

at Risk 

By Stuart Johnson 

he aircraft carrier is the fulcrum of American maritime power 

and the key to U.S. power projection in the Western Pacific. 

Carriers present a multi-pronged and powerful threat to China—

they can establish air superiority, strike targets in mainland China, 

interdict Chinese forces moving on Taiwan, and provide a protective 

umbrella under which other U.S. and allied maritime elements can 

operate. This is a difficult challenge for the Chinese to surmount, but it 

is a clear and simple one. Incremental improvements in U.S. 

capabilities, which take years to be incorporated in the fleet, can be 

anticipated and accounted for. Given a relatively static target against 

which to focus its resources, China’s military will eventually solve the 

problem. Be it through ever greater numbers of anti-ship missiles or 

diesel submarines, China will find a way to hold America’s carriers, 

and through them the U.S. position in the Western Pacific, at extreme 

risk. With U.S. forces largely at bay, Beijing could feel confident that 

any conflict in or around Taiwan could be kept limited in scope and 

brief in time. 

The United States has several options to prevent this erosion of its 

maritime dominance and ability to operate freely in the Western 

Pacific. One is to impose complexity upon the Chinese by redesigning 

U.S. fleet architecture around numerous smaller, networked platforms 

with modular capabilities. Rather than present the Chinese with a single 

T 
134 • Johnson 

and relatively static, albeit difficult, maritime challenge to overcome, 

such a U.S. fleet architecture can enormously complicate the problem 

with which the Chinese must cope. It would leave them a much greater 

number of lower signature ships to track, no clear center of gravity to 

target, and uncertainty as to the threat with which they are faced. 

Modular systems would allow the fleet to adapt much more rapidly, 

both in the strategic sense, by incorporating new technologies in 

months and years instead of decades, and in the tactical sense, by 

deploying capabilities as circumstances demanded. These features 

would impose costs on Chinese planning and procurement by creating 

uncertainty as to how they should prepare for conflict with the United 

States, and, in the event of such a conflict, give a clear operational 

advantage to the U.S. fleet. A new fleet architecture based on numerous 

smaller, networked ships with modular capabilities can achieve all this 

while making the U.S. Navy’s own planning and operations simpler 

and more economical.

Causing Complexity 

Military operations are typically dynamic, confusing, stressful, and 

unpredictable. Combatants are presented with very complex problems 

to understand and solve. Even with advanced information networks, the 

command and control of forces still comes down to people choosing 

which enemy units to engage, which of one’s own units to use, when to 

advance or retreat, and so on. Because the quality of human problemsolving tends to decline steeply as the complexity of the problem 

increases, military strategy, capabilities, and tactics are often aimed at 

complicating the enemy’s operational problems and decisionmaking. In 

developing and using U.S. naval forces, the ability to complicate 

warfare for the Chinese and other potential adversaries is an important 

quality. 

In maritime operations, qualities of forces that can complicate the 

decisionmaking and operational problems facing an adversary include: 

 Large numbers of platforms that the enemy must target 

 Large variety in the forces with which the enemy must contend 

 Fast platforms 

 Low signature platforms 

 Different combinations of forces, quickly organized 

 Distribution of forces across large areas for the enemy to search, 

control, or avoid 
 Introducing Complexity • 135 

 Uncertainty as to the mission and capabilities of a given platform 

 The ability of dispersed and diverse units to collaborate 

Without necessarily having superior firepower, weapon accuracy, 

sensor quality, or training, forces that possess the aforementioned 

complicating qualities can make warfare more perplexing than 

otherwise for Chinese decisionmakers and intelligence systems. 

Possible consequences include slowing their decision speed; delaying 

the positioning or use of suitable forces once decisions are made; 

making it more difficult for Chinese forces to elude detection; taxing 

their surveillance, tracking, targeting and weapons allocation; isolating 

over-matched enemy units; producing command and control confusion 

or overload; and shifting the balance of opportunities to China’s 

disadvantage. Such operational effects can decide battles and wars. 

Moreover, faced with such an operational environment, China’s leaders 

are far less likely to conclude that they can execute an operation in or 

around its littoral while containing the ability of the U.S. fleet to 

engage. 

Of course, the factors that produce these effects—numbers, speed, 

variety, distribution, collaboration—must be developed in the 

architecture and capabilities of a fleet. Architectures and forces that are 

designed to exploit network principles are, all else being equal, superior 

at creating these effects and thus complicating the operations of the 

Chinese or other potential adversaries. 

The process of designing and building the right fleet, and then 

adapting it as conditions change, can also be very complex—i.e., 

dynamic, unpredictable, multi-dimensional, expensive. This is 

especially so when responding to or anticipating the force development 

of adversaries, which may be equally complex. Of course, the pace and 

dynamics of developing capabilities are much slower than those of 

operating them: years and decades instead of days and weeks. While 

this may provide the Chinese time to observe and analyze what 

capabilities are being built, it can also preclude swift adjustment if their 

observations or analyses are wrong or tardy. Just as it takes years to 

plan, develop, build and field a given ship, weapon, or sensor, it can 

take years to realize mistakes and decades to recover from them. 

Consequently, fleet-development strategies that confuse, divert, 

impede, or tax the Chinese in developing their forces can provide 
136 • Johnson 

decisive operational advantages when hostilities occur. Better yet, such 

strategies may dissuade the Chinese from policies that might lead to 

confrontation, assuming the Chinese realize that the capabilities they 

have built may be inadequate. Even if hostilities do not occur, the 

economic losses could alter the terms of the military competition 

between the United States and China. In order to recover, China may 

have to write off, redirect and/or increase investment. 

There are a number of ways to complicate Chinese forcedevelopment, among them: 

 Concealment, deception, and ambiguity. 

 Producing new capabilities quickly. 

 Expanding existing forces quickly. 

 Significantly altering capabilities quickly without having to build 

anew. 

 Producing capabilities that have multiple applications, the 

priorities among which can be quickly shifted. 

 Producing capabilities that are very costly to counter. 

Of course, such techniques only make sense when they are consistent 

with sound and economical efforts to produce effective forces. Better to 

achieve the desired effects by natural than by artificial design or 

deception that impairs the development of ones own capabilities. Thus, 

a fleet architecture that facilitates fast production of a large number of 

platforms and systems, that opens up and preserves a variety of ways to 

package capabilities, that shifts in emphasis in light of changing 

missions, and that cultivates ambiguity regarding future capabilities can 

complicate and compromise China’s force development. 

Suffering Complexity to Cause Complexity 

Minimizing complexity for the United States is as important as 

causing it for the Chinese, whether in conducting operations or in 

developing capabilities. Often, however, the attempt to create complex 

problems for an adversary has involved comparably complex 

undertakings. Here are some examples from recent U.S. military 

experience: 

 Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aims to confound and neutralize 

submarines by detecting, tracking and attacking them with a 

variety of sensors, platforms and weapons. But ASW involves 
 Introducing Complexity • 137 

mastering complex acoustics, underwater weapons physics, and 

coordination of many systems to achieve even modest success. 

 The U.S. nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine program is 

meant to present the enemy with insurmountable strategic 

problems. But it involves exceedingly demanding propulsion, 

navigation and weapons science and engineering. 

 Ballistic-missile defense (BMD) can reduce an enemy’s 

confidence of being able to strike ones forces or territory. 

However, even the United States can achieve only minimal 

success at this after decades of effort and billions of dollars spent. 

 U.S. and other militaries are now investing in the technologies and 

operating concepts of integrated, net-centric warfare in order to 

improve their ability to wage joint expedition warfare. Developing 

the information systems and networks is a challenge, but relatively 

simple compared to the complexities of transforming 

organizations and command-and-control architectures. 

 Because counter-terrorism involves the integration of law 

enforcement, military operations, border security, aviation 

security, maritime security, international collaboration and myriad 

other undertakings, it is if anything more complex to the 

protagonists than to the antagonists. 

In every case, the price for imposing complexity on an adversary has 

been the requirement to manage and support complexity, with all its 

costs, risks, and challenges. While all these cases may have been 

justified, or unavoidable, none provided particularly good economic 

leverage, in cost, time or management effort. 

The U.S. naval fleet can be thought of as a complex way of 

presenting adversaries with operational and force-development 

complexity. There are 7 different basic types of ships, as well as 

significant variations among classes within several of the types. Each 

type has at least one hull; some have more than one. Because each 

vessel of each type is expected to carry out multiple missions, it must 

contain multiple systems. Indeed, it is more accurate to think of a ship 

of the current and planned U.S. fleet not as a singularity but as a 

collection of multiple integrated systems and some common support 

(e.g., hull, propulsion, and overhead). The crews partly provide 

common support and partly operate the separate systems. Each vessel is 

very complex, as is the fleet as a whole. 
138 • Johnson 

The fact that a multi-purpose ship is really a bundle of separate 

systems tends to make each ship costly and technically risky to build, 

man, operate and maintain. Consequently, with funding for shipbuilding constrained and the cost of units going up, the fleet is both 

smaller than it need be and smaller than is needed. Yet, for all this 

complexity, a given unit at a given time and place during an operation 

may be able to present Chinese forces with only a single problem, be it 

ASW, BMD, air strike operations, maritime intercept, air defense, or 

surveillance. Moreover, because it takes so long to build such complex 

systems, adversaries, and the Chinese in particular, have ample time to 

observe, analyze and develop forces to counter them. In sum, the 

current approach provides poor leverage: incurring complexity for the 

United States without necessarily complicating the adversary’s 

operational or force-development choices. 

As was touched on earlier, one of the most significant cases of such 

complexity is the U.S. large-deck nuclear-powered aircraft carrier 

(CVN), which has a crucial role in preserving security worldwide and 

in vital regions, most notably the Persian Gulf and the Western Pacific. 

To the Chinese, the CVN presents enormous operational and strategic 

problems, as evidenced by determined Chinese efforts and growing 

investments to counter it. Yet, because CVNs take so long to build, are 

kept in the force so long, cannot be readily modified, have more or less 

known properties, and are too costly to be built in large numbers, the 

Chinese can concentrate their investment in capabilities that are 

effective against small numbers of large, “high-value” surface targets—

i.e., long-range surveillance, anti-ship missiles and quiet submarines. 

Indeed, the U.S. CVN presents China with a simple (though not easy) 

force development problem. As the Chinese deploy very large numbers 

of ballistic missiles and quiet submarines (both being relatively 

inexpensive), the United States will face a new strategic complication: 

CVN vulnerability. More vulnerable U.S. CVNs will simplify 

operational difficulties for the Chinese and give them greater leverage 

both in military competition and in an actual contingency. In sum, the 

U.S. CVN could become a more complex problem for the United States 

than for China. 

Another case involves the nuclear-powered attack submarine 

(SSN)—highly sophisticated, unmatched in ASW, expensive, and, of 

necessity, relatively few in number. Against Soviet missile-carrying 

submarines, U.S. SSNs presented an effective threat. However, against 
 Introducing Complexity • 139 

larger and growing numbers of inexpensive but quiet new non-nuclear 

submarines spread over wide areas, an area in which China is making a 

substantial investment, the SSNs may be faced with greater complexity 

than they themselves present. Efforts by the United States to respond to 

this quantitatively and geographically expanding threat of simple 

submarines could result in reversed leverage. 

Of course, in the new security environment, challenges and threats 

are numerous, varied and changing. The U.S. fleet may be called upon 

to respond to a range of threats in the Western Pacific, from major 

conflict with China, to a limited conflict with China, to interdiction in 

support of counter-proliferation and counter-terror efforts, to name only 

a few. CVNs, SSNs and other platforms may be used for multiple 

purposes in a wide spectrum of contingencies, adding further diversity 

to the operational problems they may have to face. The environment 

also presents a dilemma in developing forces, namely, how to create 

versatility, which is crucial. Designing individual platforms to be 

versatile can add to the complexities of building, maintaining, manning, 

and using them. A fleet architecture should address the problem of 

diverse, and shifting, requirements without adding to the complexity of 

developing and using it. 

Keeping It Simple 

Like complexity, simplicity can be realized both in how capabilities 

are developed and maintained and in how they are used. Moreover, 

given that both military forces and military operations are inherently 

complex, what does it mean to keep them simple? 

In an operation, commanders are confronted with many difficult and 

urgent choices, especially in regard to how to employ their own forces. 

Having numerous and widely distributed forces with diverse 

capabilities does not necessarily add to complexity. Indeed, having 

small numbers of multi-purpose/multi-system ships can complicate a 

commander’s choices insofar as ships cannot be in several places or 

perform all of their functions at the same time. Having large numbers 

of single-purpose/single-system ships, capable of being distributed over 

a wide area, can provide a commander with both more options and 

fewer, simpler choices. To illustrate with an elementary case, a single 

complex ship capable of performing ASW, BMD, and land-strike, but 

only one at a time, offers fewer solutions than a set of simple ships each 

of which can perform just one of these missions. The former can 
140 • Johnson 

address one problem in one place at a time; the latter can address three 

problems in as many as three places at a time. For the commander, the 

latter simplifies decisionmaking Simplicity is also an important quality 

in force-development. The combination of fewer hull-types and 

versatility through modular specialization means: 

 Fewer investment programs to manage. 

 Simpler ships to design, build, maintain and man. 

 Greater commonality in technical and industrial capabilities. 

 Less bureaucracy to administer these functions. 

With the right architecture, a fleet can be highly versatile even 

though its individual elements are simple. Instead of being multisystem/multi-purpose singularities, ships can be simpler components of 

larger networked systems. The former is becoming increasingly 

complex and costly, at both the individual ship and fleet levels. They 

are also integrated systems, with weapon and sensor packages 

hardwired to the hull, making them difficult to adapt. A fleet designed 

to exploit networking, modularity and common hulls can be simpler 

overall and in its units, thus reducing costs, risks, bureaucracy, and 

technical and industrial capacity needs. Such a fleet and its units can 

also be simpler to modify. 

In sum, in an operation, simplifying U.S. decisionmaking and 

solutions can be as beneficial as increasing complexity for the Chinese. 

Similarly, the more simply and economically the U.S. can complicate 

and raise the costs of planning, building and maintaining China’s 

forces, the greater the competitive leverage. 

A recent study, commissioned by Congress and done by the 

Department of Defense’s Office of Force Transformation (OFT), 

outlined alternative architectures for a future fleet. The alternative fleet 

designs matched the projected cost of the programmed fleet. They also 

mimicked the programmed fleet’s operational formations; that is, the 

alternatives had 12 Carrier Strike Group equivalents, 12 Expeditionary 

Strike Group equivalents, and 9 Surface Strike Group equivalents. The 

alternatives were designed to present an adversary with increased 

complexity through increased numbers of smaller, faster, stealthier 

platforms networked together for overall combat effectiveness. A brief 

review of the OFT alternative with the smallest and most numerous 

ships illustrates a future fleet that captures simplicity in design while 

presenting an adversary with a highly complex operational challenge. 
 Introducing Complexity • 141 

This fleet architecture (outlined in Tables 1-3 below) makes use of 

ship concept designs developed at the Naval Postgraduate School and 

by NAVSEA. Very small aviation support ships (SAVNs) carry a 

squadron of eight Vertical/Short Take Off and Landing (VSTOL) Joint 

Strike Fighters, 2 MV-22 (Osprey) helicopters, and 8 unmanned aerial 

vehicles (UAVs). Eight SAVN ships match the cost and capability of 

one CVN. The SAVN’s displacement is about 13,500 tons. Very small 

(100 tons displacement) surface combatants, designated VSC-100, 

provide a fast, low-signature hull that can be fitted out with a combat 

module tailored to the operational challenge at hand. The sensor and 

weapons modules with which they could be equipped are listed in 

Table 4. They are designed to be carried to theater by a support ship 

(designated SPT) and deployed in flights, much like aircraft from an 

aircraft carrier. 

More surface strike power would come from a large hull weapons 

ship, designated WPS, outfitted with 360 vertical launch systems as 

well as USVs and UUVs. This WPS would share a 57,000-tondisplacement hull with the SPT. An amphibious operations support ship 

(T-AKE) would also make use of this common hull. Four small air 

independent propulsion (AIP) submarines, designed to be carried to 

theater by the SPT ship, are substituted for each of the programmed 

fleet’s nuclear attack subs. A ship design already included in the 

programmed fleet, a fast combat logistics vessel (T-AOE), rounds out 

the platforms used in the alternative fleet architecture. 

This force would have 846 total combatants, compared to 243 

combatants in the programmed fleet. It would also have 1,560 

unmanned vehicles of various kinds; the programmed fleet currently 

has none. 
142 • Johnson 

Programmed Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 

Alternative Aviation Strike Group (ASG) 

12 Formations 12 Formations 

Platform Type Number Vessels in each 

Formation 

Platform Type Number Vessels 

Formation 

CVN 1 SAVN 8 UVs 6 UVs 3 UAV, 3 USV, 18 UUV 

and 8 UAV on each X-CRS 

Aircraft 60 JSF (CV) and 12 MV-22 Aircraft 64 VSTOL JSF and 16 MV-22 CGX 3 WPS 1 

VSC-100 24 LCS 2 SPT 1 

SSN 1 AIP 4 T-AOE 1 T-AOE 1 

Table 1. An Alternative Carrier Strike Group. 
 Intro

Programmed Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 

Alternative Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 

12 Formations 12 Formations 

Platform Type Number Vessels in each 

Formation 

Platform Type Number Vessels 

Formation 

LHD, LPD and LSD 1 each T-AKE or MPF(F) 2 Aircraft 6 VSTOL JSF and 24 MV-22 Aircraft 6 JSF VSTOL (or mod

JSF, 18 MV-22, and 3 M

CGX 2 DDX 1 

WPS 1 

UVs 9 UVs 3 UAV, 3 USV, 

On X-WPS 

 SPT 1 

LCS 3 SSN 1 VSC-100 23 

Table 2. An Alternative Expeditionary Strike Group. 
144 • Johnson 

Programmed Surface Strike Group (SSG) 

Alternative Surface Strike Group (SSG) 

9 Formations 9 Formations 

Platform Type Number Vessels in each 

Formation 

Platform Type Number Vessels 

Formation 

CGX 3 WPS 1 

UVs 3 UAV, 3 USV, 

On X-WPS 

 VSC-100 5 

Table 3. An Alternative Surface Strike Group. 
 Introducing Complexity • 145 

Capabilities and Modules for the Very Small Surface 

Combatant (VSC-100) 

 Used in the aviation, expeditionary, and surface strike groups 

of Alternatives B and C 

 Small, fast, modular surface combatant craft 

 Carried to theater by large support ship (X-SPT) 

 Payload capacity increased as less fuel carried 

 Full Load Displacement: 100 tons 

 Speed: 60 knots; Crew: 3 

 Limited capacity for fixed systems, carries one module at a 

time 

 Operated as a unit or in flights of two or more craft 

 Modules: 

 ASW-1: Variable depth sonar 

 ASW-2: Towed array, torpedoes, fire control system 

 Strike-1: 6-cell launcher, fire control system 

 Strike-2: 3 UAVs (for targeting) 

 Mine Warfare: 1 UUV, acoustic MCM system, mine 

neutralization system 

 SOF: 2 rigid-hull inflatable boats 

 USV: 2 unmanned surface vehicles 

 SUW-1: 8 Surface-to-surface missiles 

 SUW-2: Close-In Weapon System 

 AAW: Launcher, missiles, multifunction radar 

 UUV: 12 medium UUVs 

 Sensors: small sensors for acoustic detection 

 Half of a set of modules bought for each VSC-100 

Table 4. Modules for the VSC-100. 
146 • Johnson 

While it would create complexity for the enemy, a fleet like the 

proposed force would simplify things for the United States. The three 

largest ships—the WPS, the T-AKE, and the SPT—make use of the 

same hull, making construction less complex and less expensive. 

Hulls designed with a common interface permit the fleet to be 

adapted to changing circumstances, tactical or strategic. A change in 

the environment that demands more of a given capability can be 

accommodated by plugging the appropriate module into more ships. 

Moreover, as advances in technology evolve, they can be “spun on” to 

the module without having to pull the entire ship out of service. The 

hulls themselves would be quicker and cheaper to build, and could be 

built by more shipyards, than large, complex multi-mission ships with 

highly integrated systems. 

At the tactical level, ships can be outfitted with the set of modules 

that the situation requires. Whereas a multi-mission destroyer can 

perform ASW, BMD or land-strike roles, but only one at a time in one 

place, three smaller ships with the appropriate modules can perform all 

of these various roles simultaneously in three different places. This 

modularity both streamlines shipboard operations, by giving the ship 

commander one major task, and simplifies things for the battle group 

commander, who has distinct pieces that he can assemble for a distinct 

set of challenges. 

Economizing in the Creation of Complexity 

Whether in operations or in force development, a fleet based on 

numerous smaller, faster ships with low signatures and modular 

capabilities increases complexity as viewed by China and other 

adversaries while making fleet design and construction simpler for the 

United States. It offers greater numbers, dispersion, area-surveillance, 

variety, and versatility. This increase in numbers alone would present 

an adversary like China with greater complexity. At the very least, 

instead of targeting American airpower by striking a single CVN, 

China must locate eight SAVNs ships. Rather than one or two Virginia 

class submarines with which to cope, an aviation strike group would 

present four or more AIP submarines. Moreover, the profusion of 

platforms and unmanned vehicles will distribute U.S. sensing capability 

over a greater area and make it more difficult for Chinese forces to 

operate undetected. 
 Introducing Complexity • 147 

The fleet would involve many specialized but adaptable types of 

surface vessels, based on a small number of hulls with common 

interfaces that allow modular combat systems to be inserted as an 

operation demands. By utilizing more or less standard modular systems 

that can be installed to make the vessels capable of one or another 

mission, this architecture creates complexity for adversaries. It can thus 

provide both operational and strategic-economic leverage. 

Specifically, such an architecture would: 

 present Chinese forces and commanders with large numbers and 

variety of threats and targets; 

 place a heavy burden on China’s ISR and its ability to find and 

track large numbers of fast, low signature units; 

 make each battle loss less costly; 

 provide wide surveillance and more individual trackers; 

 permit specialization without adding to fleet complexity; 

 deliver new capabilities more quickly than China can adjust; 

 provide flexibility as conditions and requirements change; 

 create diverse options more easily and quickly pursued; 

 simplify industrial-technical base requirements (e.g., building and 

maintenance). 

Like other network-based structures, such an architecture allows for 

continual reconfiguration, whether of vessels, strike groups, or entire 

fleets. While Chinese capabilities are more or less fixed, those of this 

architecture are variable and versatile. The latter may be able to reduce 

substantially the time it takes to create new capabilities. In addition to 

providing competitive advantages, such qualities may be of great value 

in a complex, changing and unpredictable security environment. 

Invariably, this would induce considerable uncertainty in the 

calculations of Chinese commanders who appear to be striving for 

conditions that would permit them to disable (or keep at bay) U.S. 

maritime forces as they execute a well-scripted offensive operations 

limited in scope and time. They would certainly be of value in 

maintaining American maritime dominance in the Western Pacific.

149 

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. 

David C. Gompert is a Senior Fellow at the RAND Corporation. Prior 

to this, he was Distinguished Research Professor at CTNSP. Mr. 

Gompert’s career in government includes serving as Senior Advisor for 

National Security and Defense, Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq 

(2003-2004), and as Special Assistant to President George H. W. Bush 

and Senior Director for Europe and Eurasia on the National Security 

Council staff (1990-1993). He holds a bachelor of science degree in 

engineering from the United States Naval Academy and a master of 

public affairs degree from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton 

University. 
150 • Coping With the Dragon 

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. 
Contributors • 151 

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.