The development of the Third Offset Strategy and the Defense Innovation Initiative indicates that the United States has taken the first steps towards involving China directly in defense technology competition. Mahnken, "The Strategy of the Reagan Administration toward the Soviet Union," in Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Ancient Times to the Present, ed. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States became the world's only superpower.
Although the previous two compensation strategies achieved what the United States had hoped for, the prospects for the success of the Third Compensation Strategy seem less certain for a number of reasons. With the end of the Cold War, the United States became the world leader, a position it has held for 25 years. The second compensation strategy is generally credited with having played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union's economy.
China (and Russia) will have learned from the study of previous US offset strategies and will not follow the "track of an overturned cart". Faced with the pressures posed by the Third Offset Strategy, China will try to avoid being drawn into a defense technology competition trap and may adopt a policy of. Li Jian and Lu Dehong, "Third Offset Strategy: US Competition Strategy to Seek Military Monopoly," World Military Review. US Department of Defense, “National Defense Strategy of the United States of America,” March 2005, 2–3.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of a more capable and innovative Chinese defense industry for increasing military technological competition with the United States. An important new trend is also emerging in the performance of the shipbuilding industry. Zhao Yang and Liu Na, “The Best Way to Predict the Future Is to Create the Future: An Analysis of the Technical Background of the United States' High-profile Presentation of the Third Offset Strategy,” Liberation Army Daily, May 6, 2016 .
This chapter examines competitive strategies between China and the United States in the fields of missiles, space, and counterspace through the lens of the security dilemma. Military aviation is the backbone of each of the United States Air Force's (USAF) core missions. Given this context, some, but not all, of the PLAAF's platform development can be seen as focused on competition with the United States.
Of the four types of competitive strategies—denial, cost imposition, inducing the adversary to engage in self-destructive behavior, and attacking the competitor's political system—the United States is primarily focused on cost imposition while China is using a strategy of the fourth. The United States is in the early stages of competition, while China has focused on this area for more than two decades. Andrew Tilghman, "The US military is moving to these five bases in the Philippines," Military Times, April 1, 2016.
Franz-Stefan Gady, "US Air Force Rotates Supersonic Strategic Bombers in the Asia-Pacific", The Diplomat, 11 februari 2017, http://thediplomat.
QDR 2014,
A coercive or demonstrative use of conventional missile firepower, such as the series of launches conducted by China during the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, may also be related to this type of campaign, and may escalate into a conventional missile attack campaign if intimidation does not do not pass achieve the desired goals. This campaign could be conducted as a stand-alone campaign, but it is more likely to be conducted if the PLA's execution of another campaign results in conventional airstrikes against Chinese territory. US Air Force, "USAF Force Structure Changes: Sustaining Readiness and Modernizing the Total Force," February 2012.
QDR 2014
Lee, “Strategic Interaction: Theory and History for Practitioners, in Mahnken, Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century.
QDR 2014, 38
Jeff Hagen, "Potential Effects of Chinese Aerospace Capabilities on US Air Force Operations," testimony presented at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing on China's aerospace and commercial aviation contingency capabilities , May. In the long term, China would like to expand the ability of the PLA, especially the PLAN, to protect China's overseas interests. The United States can complement its strategy of cost imposition and denial by directly attacking China's long-term strategy through an approach that puts Beijing's interests in the distant seas at risk.
This could broadly include the development of new operational concepts that indicate the willingness of the United States to threaten China's sea lines of communication and strategic bottlenecks in a conflict. The exact boundaries of the island chains vary among Chinese sources and have never been officially determined by China's government. Cole, China's Quest for Great Power: Ships, Oil, and Foreign Policy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2016), 93.
Craig Murray, Andrew Berglund, and Kimberly Hsu, “China's Naval Modernization and Implications for the United States,” US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Staff Research Backgrounder, August http://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/. Cooper, “New Historic PLA Navy Missions,” Testimony at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on the Implications of China's Navy Modernization for the United States, June 11, 2009. US Office of Naval Intelligence, PLA Navy: New Capabilities and Missions for the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Office of Naval Intelligence) Murray, Berglund and Hsu, “China's Naval Modernization,”.
Japan Times (Tokyo: National Institute of Defense Studies, 2016); Jesse Karotkin, “Trends in China's Naval Modernization,” testimony for a US-China Economic and Security Commission hearing on PLA modernization and its implications for the United States, January 10, 2014; O'Rourke, “China's Navy Modernization,” 6; James R. Liff, “Demystifying China's Defense Spending: Less Mysterious in the Aggregate,” US Department of Defense China Quarterly, Events Involving the People's Republic of China 2016, 77; Anthony H. Andrew Erickson, Testimony to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on China's Military Modernization and Its Implications for the United States, January 30, 2014.
US Department of Defense, Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2016, 80; Erickson, “China's Naval Shipbuilding: Progress and Challenges,” 4; Office of Naval Intelligence, The PLA Navy, 10, 11; USA-. Zhao Qinghai, "US Maritime Threats to China and Thoughts on China's Countermeasures," China International Studies (English) (March/April 2015): 92. Zhao Qinghai, "US Maritime Threats to China"; Zhou Yunheng and Yu Jiahao, “Security of maritime energy channels and the development.
Michael Pilger, “China's New YJ-18 Antiship Cruise Missile: Capabilities and Implications for US Forces in the Western Pacific,” US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Staff Research Report, October. Chinese media and researchers are closely following the spread of the third offset strategy and considering the implications for China's defense industry.
