Who holds the advantage? Three perspectives on the US-China military balance

Brookings Institution  |  John Culver, Bruce Jones, Michael E. O'Hanlon

Chinese precision-guided missile forces and massive defense industrial capacity threaten American power projection across the Western Pacific, even as the United States maintains critical edges in undersea warfare, nuclear deterrence, and global space operations. Advanced anti-ship ballistic missiles and expanding naval mass give Beijing operational dominance inside the First Island Chain, where unhardened U.S. regional airfieldsremain highly vulnerable to high-density saturation strikes.

Severe geographic distances and fragile maritime logistics corridors complicate long-distance American military sustainment, whereas China leverages short internal communications lines and commercial drone manufacturing supremacy. To counter these geographical and industrial asymmetries, Washington relies on its quiet attack submarine force, carrier strike expertise, and deep alliance networks, although low domestic ship construction rates threaten to narrow this undersea lead over time. Concurrently, unprecedented senior leadership purges within the People's Liberation Army introduce structural command instability, while Beijing's rapid nuclear forces expansion elevates broader conflict escalation risks.

Comment

Shipbuilding throughput at facilities like Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry and Jiangnan Shipyard reveals a structural shift in naval mass generation. While the United States Navy faces maintenance backlogs and retirement schedules for ageing Los Angeles-class submarines, Chinese yards maintain concurrent serial production across multiple nuclear platform classes. This capacity divergence dictates that block obsolescence will disproportionately erode Western fleet numbers during high-attrition maritime operations. Ultimately, defence industrial capacity functions as the primary determinant of long-term operational persistence in Western Pacific conflicts.

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