Thinking through protracted war with China : nine scenarios / Joel B. Predd, Paul DeLuca, Scott Savitz, Edward Geist, Caitlin Lee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Predd, Joel Benjamin, 1979- author.

DeLuca, Paul, author.

Savitz, Scott, author.

Geist, Edward, author.

Lee, Caitlin, author.

Contributor:

Rand Corporation. National Security Research Division.

Rand Corporation.

United States. Department of Defense. Director of Net Assessment.

Series:

Research report (Rand Corporation) ; A1475-1.

Research Report ; RR-A1475-1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War--Forecasting.

War.

Military planning--United States.

Military planning.

United States--Foreign relations--China.

United States.

China--Foreign relations--United States.

China.

Physical Description:

x, 55 pages : illustrations, maps ; 28 cm.

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, CA : RAND, National Defense Research Institute, [2025]

Summary:

The United States has acknowledged its long-term strategic competition with China. As ample wargaming and analysis have shown, any war with China would be economically and strategically costly, as well as fraught with the risk of escalation to nuclear war. In addition, there is growing interest in the hypothesis that U.S.-China competition plausibly could lead to wars that endure longer than envisioned by traditional force planning scenarios, which often are designed around relatively limited objectives and optimistically presuppose U.S. forces and capabilities that could bring a war to a quick, decisive conclusion. This report describes a set of scenarios through which the authors explore this hypothesis and provide what could be a foundation for more-detailed planning or analysis. To allow free creative scope for the scenario development process, the authors did not place a priori constraints on the meaning of "protracted," and therefore the resulting scenarios feature a variety of circumstances in which the United States and China could be required to sustain military operations on a potentially open-ended time frame.

Contents:

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

CHAPTER 2: How the United States Got Into and Out of the Business of Planning for Protracted War

CHAPTER 3: Great Game Redux

CHAPTER 4: Under African Skies

CHAPTER 5: Economic and Political Warfare at Scale (a Fight for Information)

CHAPTER 6: Lost in Space

CHAPTER 7: Russia Nukes Itself

CHAPTER 8: Global (Non-Nuclear) Missile Duel

CHAPTER 9: Dueling Blockades (and Taipei Airlift)

CHAPTER 10: Power Grab in the Indian Ocean

CHAPTER 11: Proxy War in Southeast Asia

CHAPTER 12: Conclusion

Notes:

Title from PDF document (title page; viewed February 27, 2025).

"Prepared for the Office of Net Assessment"

Includes bibliographical references (page 55).

Description from electronic resource.

ISBN:

1977414923

9781977414922

OCLC:

1503961068