www.ndu.edu/inss SF No. 278 1
A
s America ends its military commitment to Iraq and continues
its drawdown in Afghanistan, a lively discussion has emerged on
what future challenges the Nation faces. High on every list is the
requirement to deal with a rising China. In his remarks to the Australian
Parliament on November 17, 2011, President Barack Obama stated, “As we
end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our
presence and mission in the Asia Pacic a top priority.”
1
As part of this re-
balancing to Asia, the administration has stated that it seeks “to identify and
expand areas of common interest, to work with China to build mutual trust,
and to encourage China’s active eorts in global problem-solving.”
2
Clearly,
the United States seeks prudent and coordinated political, economic, and
military actions to further integrate China into the international system.
e Pentagon’s new strategic guidance, Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership:
Priorities for 21
st
Century Defense, reinforces this approach and states that the
United States and China “have a strong stake in peace and stability in East Asia
and an interest in building a cooperative bilateral relationship.”
3
At the same
time, the document acknowledges both China’s military buildup and the U.S.
commitment to maintaining regional access.
As expected, this strategic guidance has accelerated the ongoing discussion
of how America will allocate resources among the military Services. An integral
part of this discussion is the idea that the United States has focused on the Army
and Marine Corps for the last decade of conict and that now it is time to shift
spending to the Navy and Air Force. Proponents of this approach note the ris-
ing power of China and the fact that the Pacic theater is primarily a naval and
air theater. Reinforcing this perspective is the Air-Sea Battle concept recently
revealed at the Pentagon. According to Chief of Sta of the Air Force General
Offshore Control:
A Proposed Strategy for
an Unlikely Conict
by T.X. Hammes
Strategic Forum
National Defense University
About the Author
Dr. T.X. Hammes is a Senior Research
Fellow in the Center for Strategic
Research, Institute for National
Strategic Studies, at the National
Defense University.
Key Points
China’s antiaccess/area-denial ca-
pabilities resulted in the Pentagon
writing an Air-Sea Battle concept as
part of its Joint Operational Access
Concept. Missing is a discussion
of an appropriate strategy if the
entirely undesirable Sino-American
conict occurs.
Effective strategies include a coher-
ent ends-ways-means formulation.
Current budget issues place de-
nite limits on U.S. means. China’s
nuclear arsenal restricts the choice
of ways. Thus, to be achievable,
the ends must be modest.
This paper proposes Offshore Con-
trol as a military strategy. It recog-
nizes that any conict with China
will be measured in years, not
weeks or months. Offshore Control
aligns U.S. strategic requirements
with the resources available; takes
advantage of Pacic geography to
provide strategic, operational, and
tactical advantages for U.S. forces;
and provides a way for the conict
to end that is consistent with previ-
ous Communist Chinese behavior.
By reducing reliance on space and
cyber domains, Offshore Control is
designed to slow a crisis down and
reduce escalatory pressure in a cri-
sis and potential ensuing conict.
June 2012
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC RESEARCH
