Thomas Mahnken delivered remarks on China’s military strength and U.S. defense strategy in Asia-Pacific. Mr. Mahnken previously served as the deputy assistant defense secretary for policy planning in the George W. Bush administration. Other topics addressed included South China Sea military security and the future of U.S.-China relations.

Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told VOA that while there is an effort by the Chinese to exert control over the South China Sea and treat it like Chinese airspace, it's important to acknowledge that pilots do sometimes make mistakes

Thomas Mahnken, the president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, agreed that readiness and modernization have suffered in recent years, but counseled against opening a floodgate of new funds before it was clear how the Pentagon would effectively spend them. “Improving readiness and modernizing the force will require additional resources beyond those permitted by the Budget Control Act, but we need to keep in mind that the Defense Department’s capacity to absorb an infusion of resources is limited,” he said. “The Pentagon today is a lot like a person who has been slowly starving for years; there are limits to how effectively it can spend a large infusion of cash. One byproduct of our neglect of modernization over the past decade and a half is that there are few programs that are ready right now to accept new funds. Rebuilding the American military will take time.”

Thomas Mahnken, head of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says both conventional and nuclear forces need to be rebuilt instead of favoring one over the other. The U.S. has historically relied more on strategic nuclear weapons during periods of lower defense spending and spent less on those systems during conventional buildups. But after 15 years of counterinsurgency warfare in the Middle East and recent drawdowns at a time of heightened conflict in Iraq and Syria, both forces need rebuilding, Mahnken says, particularly because Russia and China have gained ground militarily. “We are now in a period characterized by the reality of great‐power competition and the increasing possibility of great‐power conflict,” he says. “The ‘wars of the future’ may no longer lie that far in the future.”

"Trying to bring in cyber expertise through the reserve component is part of it," responded Thomas Mahnken, a former DOD official and current president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "I think more broadly, military...tends to accord rank with seniority with pay, and in the cyber world, certainly in the private industry, those things don't always align."Mahnken said that Congress must think about granting more authorities to the services that would increase the flexibility to attract talented people from the private sector.

The irony is “our drawdown has occurred when we’re at war,” Thomas Mahnken, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said. Now, in high-end warfare and in a time of increased great power competition, he added, “We’ve given [Russia and China] a decade and a half to catch up” and “that includes our nuclear deterrent.” At the same time by not investing in the future, there “are few programs ready right now to accept funds.” He specifically mentioned growing the size of the fleet to at least 350 ships as one of those programs that “cannot be accomplished in four or eight years” and will required sustained investment. Mahnken, in answer to a later question, called for a return to a strategy of being able to fight and win two major regional conflicts at nearly the same time. “We always want to have that margin of security.” During the campaign, President Donald Trump said expanding the size of the fleet and increasing defense spending were among his top national security priorities. While both Russia and China are seeking to become regional hegemons, they are pursuing that goal in different ways. Wood said Russia is using a more militaristic approach — backing separatists in Georgia and eastern Ukraine and seizing Crimea. Beijing’s leaders “see China as a rising power” economically, diplomatically and militarily. China poses “a much greater challenge” than Russia whose economy is hurting, Mahnken added. China’s leaders “believe [disputed territory] already belongs to them” in eastern India, islands near Japan and artificial islands in the South China Sea and Taiwan and believe they can get their way through economic intimidation.