Lieutenant General Michael Dana
Over the past decade, tensions with China have ebbed and flowed. If these tensions escalate into conflict, what will a war with China look like? First, it is important to note that a war with China today will not be a replay of the war against Japan in WW II. In WW II, our industrial might overcame many obstacles, both foreign (the enemy) and domestic (our bureaucracy). Our industrial capacity dwarfed that of Japan, and it also overcame US government inefficiency. In World War II, we built a mass-enabled military for a conventional, relatively low-tech global conflict. Today our military is a blend of both old and new systems, and we are not fully embracing the promise of the ongoing technological revolution. As events in the Ukraine illustrate, we in the US keep preparing for the last war, while the Ukrainians, Houthis, and Hamas are tossing Clausewitz into the trash bin, while embracing their inner Sun Tzu. Said a different way, they are purposely ripping up the conventional warfare playbook and designing, innovating, and creating new and incredibly brilliant ways to kill their enemies. The current scale and scope of emerging technology is without historical precedent.
The proliferation of drones and anti-ship missiles provide low cost, high-payoff kinetic capabilities. Advancements in cyber, electronic warfare, and space based ISR round out the non-kinetic, yet highly impactful means to optimize the kill chain. Artificial Intelligence and man-machine teaming will provide forces cognitive overmatch against adversaries. These developments should give us pause. We as a nation are vulnerable to asymmetric threats across the threat spectrum, especially those targeting our digital commons, electric grid, food supply, and transportation networks. Complicating matters is the anemic condition of our industrial base in certain sectors, such as conventional and precision munitions. Our true center of gravity in WWII was our ability to generate mass at unprecedented scale. No serious threat ever disrupted or hampered this production capability. Today, our tech-enabled industry, both legacy and modern, is very efficient, but not very resilient, regenerative or secure. Rebuilding that resilience will require expanding the Defense Industrial Base to include America’s most innovative commercial companies, not just the traditional primes, and removing the procurement barriers that keep them out.
Conflict with China could manifest itself in one of two ways. One view is the Communist Central Party (CCP) does not want, nor are they planning, for a protracted fight against the United States. They realize Great Power peers do not fight limited wars against each other; as these wars are usually protracted. The CCP also fears the domestic ramifications of an extended conflict and they know starting a conflict is much easier than ending it. The CCP also recognizes that conflict is tremendously costly in terms of resources, manpower, international reputation, and domestic stability. Their preference may be to achieve their strategic objectives via minimal kinetic and non-kinetic means.
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