The U.S. military needs to “offset” the investments that adversaries are making in anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities—particularly their expanding missile inventories—by leveraging U.S. advantages in unmanned systems and automation, extended-range and low-observable air operations, undersea warfare, and complex system engineering and integration. Doing so would allow the United States to maintain its ability to project power, albeit in novel forms, despite the possession of A2/AD capabilities by hostile forces. This is the central argument of a new CSBA report by Senior Fellow Robert Martinage, Toward a Third Offset Strategy—Exploiting U.S. Long-Term Advantages to Restore U.S. Global Power Projection Capability.
On December 8, 2014, Mr. Martinage was joined by Rep. Randy Forbes and Rep. Derek Kilmer to discuss an offset strategy that exploits and builds upon enduring U.S. capability advantages to restore and maintain U.S. global power projection capability. The presentation was followed by an extensive Q&A session with the audience. CSBA President Andrew Krepinevich moderated the discussion.