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
-
Why China’s Amphibious ‘Invasion Platforms’ Are Troubling Sign for Taiwan
Video
Beijing’s new ships can land on beaches and link to form massive mobile piers. Analysts, including Tom Shugart from Center for a New American Security, say they’re intended to...
By Tom Shugart
-
"From Production Lines to Front Lines," with Becca Wasser and Philip Sheers of CNAS
Podcast
In this episode of Building the Base, Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula are joined by Becca Wasser and Philip Sheers from the Center for New American Security (CNAS) to discuss t...
By Becca Wasser & Philip Sheers
-
Lessons in Learning
Reports
Executive Summary Although claims of a revolution in military affairs may be overhyped, the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy to change warfare is growin...
By Josh Wallin
-
The Pentagon Push to Change an “Antiquated” System
Video
Carlton Haelig, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joined The Cipher Brief to discuss the systems in place in the Department of Defense and the challenges ass...
By Carlton Haelig
