November 18, 2014

Cost-Imposing Strategies: A Brief Primer

In this fourth paper in the Maritime Strategy Series, Dr. Thomas Mahnken – Senior Research Professor at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced and International Studies and Jerome Levy Chair of Economic Geography and National Security at the U.S. Naval War College – delivers a general but thorough framework for thinking about cost-imposing strategies, a critical step in understanding how such strategies can be used to support an open, inclusive, rules-based system in Asia. Dr. Mahnken situates cost imposition within the broader family of competitive strategies and lays out a number of considerations attending their use. This framework will provide assistance to scholars and policy makers engaged with the critical questions of CNAS’ Maritime Strategy Project: about regional order, U.S.-China relations, and the use of a broad spectrum of tools to further peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.

Author

  • Thomas G. Mahnken

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