December 10, 2020
Finding Strength in Decline
The U.S. Military Needs a Plan to Compete Without the Advantages of the Past
President-elect Joe Biden will enter office at a crucial time for the U.S. military. After decades of focusing on minor powers and substate actors, the United States must prepare for a new era of great-power competition with China and, to a lesser extent, with Russia. That realization makes the new administration’s review of U.S. defense strategy the most important of its kind since the end of the Cold War.
The United States must prepare for a new era of great-power competition with China and, to a lesser extent, with Russia.
Russia is a shadow of its Cold War self, but it retains its nuclear arsenal and has developed formidable cyberwarfare capabilities. Its conventional forces remain more than a match for those of NATO’s frontline states, stretching from Estonia to Bulgaria. China poses a much greater threat as a burgeoning economic, technological, and military superpower. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) appears intent on constructing an Orwellian state even as it presents its political and economic model as superior to that of the United States. In recent years, it has flexed economic and military muscle in pursuit of its ambitions, expanding territorial claims along its land and maritime borders and seeking to establish a hegemonic position in the western Pacific.
Read the full article in Foreign Affairs.
More from CNAS
-
Tariffs & and the Defense Industrial Base with Becca Wasser, plus what’s new in the U.S.-China trade war
Geoff and Emily debrief on the latest news in the U.S.-China trade talks. Becca Wasser, senior fellow and deputy director of the CNAS defense program, joins to talk about what...
By Emily Kilcrease, Geoffrey Gertz & Becca Wasser
-
Production Power: The Revitalisation of the U.S. Defence Industrial Base and the Consequences for Europe
In episode 15 of Strategy Speaks, Becca Wasser from CNAS speaks with Daniel Fiott about the US defence industrial base and how its revitalisation could affect Europe. The conv...
By Becca Wasser
-
MWI Podcast: The U.S. Defense Industrial Base, from Steel to Software
Mobilizing the U.S. defense industrial base. for a future large-scale conflict, however, will look very different than it has in the past. In the information age, data and sof...
By Becca Wasser
-
‘Spider’s Web’ Warning: The U.S. Must Prioritize Drone Defense to Avoid Russia’s Fate
This attack is wake-up call for US military: its counter-drone efforts are inadequate and are not keeping pace with the threat....
By Stacie Pettyjohn & Molly Campbell