Although the Department of Defense has embraced the concept of "great power competition" as a planning and investment guide, it has yet to fully adapt its processes and priorities to maximize U.S. advantages in this environment. As the United States develops new defense technologies and concepts, policy planners should consider which ones to reveal, as well as the timing and extent to which they are revealed. As evidenced by Chinese and Russian disclosures, these considerations include not only concealing systems to delay an adversary’s response, but also disclosing information for strategic effect, such as provoking competitors to expend resources on defensive countermeasures based upon an incomplete grasp of a perceived capability.

In an era of renewed great power competition, one of the most significant challenges the United States and its allies face is the need to deny China or Russia the ability to launch opportunistic acts of aggression against an ally or partner in the Western Pacific or Eastern Europe. There is increasing concern among defense policymakers in the United States and its allies and partners that China and Russia are developing the ability to launch aggression rapidly against states on their periphery under the cover of increasingly capable reconnaissance-strike networks.

The U.S. national security community has, in recent years, begun to focus its attention on the need to compete with China and Russia. The move to embrace the reality of great power competition, and with it the prospect of great power war, comes after a three-decade respite from serious thinking about what it means to face an economically powerful and technologically sophisticated adversary in peace and in war. How can our governmental organizations, our defense planning premises and priorities, and the linkages among diverse elements of national power be revamped to focus our collective energies on a more demanding set of security challenges than has been the case since the end of the Cold War?

On February 11, 2020, CSBA President and CEO Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services (HASC).  Dr. Mahnken was invited to appear before the HASC to deliver his observations on current Defense Department (DoD) priorities, the National Defense Strategy Commission, and the investments and other requirements to enable the United States to succeed in the current era of Great Power competition.

Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in a hearing on “A ‘World-Class' Military: Assessing China’s Global Military Ambitions” on June 20, 2019.

CSBA describes the strategy, operational concepts, and resource investments needed to counter Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific. The report is the latest CSBA effort to describe the operational concepts the United States and its allies will need if they are to compete and win in an era of great power competition.