American Deterrence Unpacked

The United States is at a crossroads in terms of its ability to employ the most fundamental, yet immensely important, weapon in its foreign policy arsenal: deterrence. Thanks to rosy assumptions that clear intelligence, conventional military superiority, and nuclear escalation dominance will enable victory on condensed timelines, the United States has seen its hard power capabilities erode, and in turn, this has chipped away at its ability to deter. American hard power once allowed the U.S. military to stand high above the rest, but it has since become akin to a mansion with pristine gardens yet vacant rooms and a decaying foundation. 

At this crossroads, the United States has two paths ahead: either continued neglect of the underpinnings of deterrence, or a recognition that time is not on America’s side and that the country must restore its deterrent capabilities. It should go without saying, but increasingly must be said, that the basis of deterrence is the ability to actually win a war. And that is exactly why the United States faces more challenges now than ever. 

The U.S. military must quickly perform repairs and make itself whole again.

Late to recognize the great power challenge posed by China and slow to confront the rise of revanchist powers worldwide, the United States no longer has time to tear things down completely and rebuild. Instead, the U.S. military must quickly perform repairs and make itself whole again. This restoration rests on the nation’s ability to recognize the shortfalls between deterrence and four crucial policy areas: domestic consensus, escalation management, intelligence challenges, and defense budgets. Success in these four areas would not only bolster efforts to prepare for perhaps the top deterrence challenge of the times, a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan; such success would also provide the United States with the strength it needs to deter and defeat any nefarious challenge to international peace and stability. 

A Time When Deterrence Succeeded

Before delving into the status of American deterrence efforts today, it is important to consider a time when such efforts succeeded: the Cold War.^[1] While there were certainly setbacks, and indeed failures, during this period, the United States was generally able to align the four aforementioned policy areas to reinforce deterrence. Understanding why the United States was successful in each of these areas then offers valuable lessons for deterrence today and provides an example for how the United States should approach deterring its current adversaries. 

During the Cold War, the American public had a shared general understanding on the nature of the Soviet Union.

During the Cold War, the American public had a shared general understanding on the nature of the Soviet Union.^[2] This domestic consensus was not an accident. National political leaders deliberately cultivated it on a bipartisan basis consistently for decades—infusing the geopolitical competition into the mainstream of not just American politics, but American life. 

A public opinion poll conducted between October 1953 and March 1982 by Gallup and NORC (formerly the National Opinion Research Center) called the General Social Survey shows that the American public held broadly unfavorable or mixed views of the Soviet Union over that nearly three decade span. While negative opinions waxed and waned during that period, it is a testament to the overall U.S. consensus that “favorable” ratings of the Soviet Union never reached one-fifth of the U.S. population.^[3] 

Simultaneously, there was also an abiding faith in an increase in both American and Soviet power during a similar timeframe. For example, in a poll run by Gallup intermittently between 1959 and 1979, there were only two years, 1974 and 1976, when a majority or plurality of the American public anticipated a decrease in American power. That same survey recorded that a solid majority or plurality of Americans believed that Soviet power was increasing worldwide throughout the Cold War, with 1963 being the only year when a plurality of Americans thought that Soviet power would decrease.^[4] 

Despite this domestic consensus, there were still certainly disagreements over how the United States should approach the Soviet Union and what actions should or should not be taken to counter it.^[5] Disagreements and discontent were indeed a key part of the U.S. domestic debate during the Cold War, as they have been throughout the country’s democratic history, with draft riots and anti-war protests serving as potent examples of these political divides.^[6] Disagreements over which approach to take also extended to the country’s leadership, with different administrations pursuing different policies toward the Soviet Union.

One of the first presidents to lead during the Cold War, president Dwight D. Eisenhower, employed “New Look,” a strategy that emphasized nuclear weapons for both deterrence and actual warfighting, hypothesizing that the use of tactical nuclear weapons could overwhelm the Soviet Union in the event of conflict. Under this strategy, resources were shifted away from conventional land and naval assets and poured into an air-atomic force. By focusing on strategic bombers and nuclear weapons, Eisenhower’s New Look strategy aimed to build a credible deterrent of massive nuclear retaliation.^[7]

His successors, presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, largely rejected the New Look strategy. It only maintained credible deterrence if the United States held clear superiority in nuclear forces, and growing Soviet capabilities underscored by the successful launch of Sputnik in 1957 led many to challenge the strategy.^[8] Rather than rely on nuclear retaliation to deter the Soviet Union, Kennedy and his staff looked to a wide range of capabilities and strategies, formulating a strategy known as “flexible response” to counter the growing number of challenges presented by the Soviet threat. Nuclear retaliation was still a possibility, but it could not address every problem. For example, policymakers were quick to realize that nuclear annihilation would be unable to stop the growing number of communist-aligned guerrilla groups across Southeast Asia. As part of the strategy, resources were reallocated toward land and naval forces as these forces adapted to their new role of advising and directly fighting in conflicts.^[9]

Changes in the United States’ approach to the Soviet Union continued after the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, as president Richard Nixon and his administration sought to lower tensions following decades of high-stakes confrontation and the United States’ withdrawal from the Vietnam War. Thus came détente, pioneered by then secretary of state Henry Kissinger. While competition was still fierce between Washington and Moscow, détente contrasted with previous strategies by seeking to cool tensions through limited cooperation with the Soviet Union. Détente gave way to key treaties in areas of agreement, such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) negotiations.^[10]

While limited cooperation produced benefits, a perceived Soviet military advantage in the 1980s brought about yet another shift in strategy. The Soviet Union’s aggression in Afghanistan highlighted a growing trend that détente was failing to deter Moscow. Critics of the strategy, such as president Ronald Reagan, noted that détente seemed to be benefiting the Soviet Union at a cost to the United States. To once again deter Soviet aggression, Reagan successfully campaigned on a much firmer, anti-Soviet foreign policy. Rather than look for areas of cooperation, Reagan decried the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” in reference to Moscow’s totalitarian human rights abuses and perceived goals of global domination.^[11] In further contrast to the drawdowns of the détente era, U.S. military budgets increased to build credible combat power to deter potential Soviet aggression.^[12]

Although there were differences between these approaches, a constant was that American leadership and the public did not view the Soviet Union with a positive lens. This overall consensus did not waver, thereby providing effective support for U.S. deterrence efforts in both a conventional and nuclear sense. As this lesson from the Cold War shows, the United States’ ability to deter depends as much on the agreement of the public as the military capabilities and other forms of power that provide the cornerstones of deterrence. 

Influenced by their leaders, American voters sometimes misjudged the particulars of the Soviet threat, such as with the so-called bomber gap, and later, the missile gap.^[13] But this public consensus remained directionally correct on the nature of the Soviet threat. Moscow and its Communist ideology was indeed the United States’ foremost strategic challenge, as evidenced in strategist George Kennan’s “Long Telegram.”^[14] Moreover, the Soviet Union had both the capabilities and the will to challenge the United States on a global scale. 

This public consensus about the Soviet threat did not preclude cooperation or responsible management of the relationship. Indeed, it provided a backstop for U.S. leaders to pursue a dual-track approach of countering the Soviet Union (sometimes through ambitious or risky policies) while also engaging in constructive dialogue. Arms control agreements were dominant in the latter category, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty being a prime example.^[15] But dialogue between the United States and the Soviet Union went beyond weapons and extended to other areas as well, such as global public health. Starting in 1966, Washington and Moscow co-led efforts through the World Health Organization to stamp out smallpox, efforts that succeeded in eradicating the disease in 1980.^[16] Meanwhile, during these and other bouts of cooperation, the United States was still vigorously countering the Soviet Union’s influence worldwide. For instance, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed in 1968 amid the Vietnam War, in which the Soviets supplied military aid to North Vietnam; one of America’s principal aims during the war was stopping the spread of communism.^[17] 

When it came to escalation management, the United States effectively managed to not breach the threshold of full-scale, direct war with the Soviets, despite episodes like the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, crises like these led leaders from both superpowers to recognize the importance of rapid communication in times of crisis, as evidenced by the establishment of hotlines between Moscow and Washington.^[18] That is not to say that conflict and war did not occur. Nonetheless, the United States stopped the Soviet Union from engaging in the most provocative of actions: a strategic nuclear attack against the United States or members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).^[19] Washington also managed to deter still heavily destabilizing actions like a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe. The American military presence in the region was too weak to protect against a full-scale Soviet attack. But deterrence succeeded because the Soviet Union knew such an attack would amount to a large-scale war that might involve a nuclear exchange.^[20]

And, most importantly, the United States never wavered in its position in Europe. That commitment to the continent was evident from the large number of troops that the U.S. military maintained there throughout much of the Cold War: more than 300,000.^[21] It was also evident from the large-scale training exercises that the United States carried out on the continent in coordination with NATO allies. This includes the roughly 100,000 troops from the United States and other NATO nations that participated in the Return of Forces to Germany exercises, conducted from the late 1960s up until the 1990s. It served as a prime example of the American commitment to the region, as it displayed the capabilities that the U.S. military was willing and able to deploy in the event of open conflict.^[22]

Intelligence, meanwhile, served a few different key functions related to deterrence during the Cold War. First, it educated the American public on the actions of the country’s primary adversary, with the Cuban Missile Crisis presenting one such example of this function. Although there were intelligence failures in determining that the Soviets had moved medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Cuba, their eventual identification through the work of a U-2 spy plane ensured that ordinary Americans were informed within days of their presence and let them fully understand the threat they posed.^[23] Moreover, in this case, intelligence educated the rest of the world about the actions of the Soviets in Cuba, as photographs of the missiles were presented at the United Nations.^[24]

Intelligence also helped increase alliance cohesion. The most enduring example of this is the Five Eyes intelligence alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom (UK), Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Born after World War II, Five Eyes proved to be useful for the duration of the Cold War and has continued until today, as it continues to facilitate intelligence sharing on present-day adversaries.^[25] The final function that intelligence (especially overhead intelligence) served during the Cold War was letting U.S. adversaries know that they were being watched. The growth in the use of reconnaissance satellites (and other so-called national technical means of verification) enabled this development and allowed for the United States and the Soviet Union to understand each other’s nuclear arsenals.^[26] That understanding in turn allowed for verification of arms control treaties and unlocked a source of further cooperation between Washington and Moscow.^[27] 

Finally, throughout the Cold War, deterrence was buttressed by hard power, both conventional and nuclear. The United States maintained relatively high levels of defense spending with the ultimate goal of deterring the Soviet Union, even as presidents, congresses, conflicts, and strategies varied during the decades-long competition. That spending bought a force commensurate with the threat facing it, which was postured to deter, and if necessary, fight a full-scale war against the Soviet Union.^[28] 

The proof is in the numbers. Between 1947 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, U.S. defense spending held at an average of 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), with spending dipping below 4 percent of GDP only once during that time frame.^[29] This is a far cry from today as President Joe Biden’s defense budget request for fiscal year 2024 is estimated to just barely remain at 3 percent.^[30] Taking a smaller snapshot of defense spending during the Cold War, spending on national defense between 1962 and 1991 accounted for an average of 32 percent of federal spending (both discretionary and mandatory).^[31] Again, comparisons demonstrate the current paltry state of defense spending, with military spending anticipated to be about 12 percent of federal budget outlays in the coming fiscal year.^[32] 

Although America’s defense spending is declining relative to other types of government spending and the strength of the U.S. economy, critics are often quick to highlight that the size of the United States’ defense budget is higher than those of many of its closest military rivals combined. However, this analysis of publicly available nominal budget toplines is simplistic and significantly flawed, as it fails to consider how America’s adversaries account for their militaries.

The Chinese military budget, for instance, is likely far higher than publicly available statistics reveal. According to U.S. officials, the real size of China’s military budget could be two or three times larger than publicly reported.^[33] This figure is approximated by accounting for purchasing power parity, as China is able to purchase far more with far less. For example, entry-level soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) earn only $108 a month, roughly seventeen times less than the $1,900 their American counterparts earn.^[34] Furthermore, not all of China’s hard power is directly classified under the military. Beijing’s policy of military-civil fusion increasingly has blurred the lines between commercial enterprises and dual-purpose investments and has made it unclear where a dollar spent on civilian purposes ends and a dollar spent on military purposes begins.^[35]

Lastly, China’s military budget has been consistently increasing for the last decade, while U.S. military spending, when accounting for inflation, has been stagnant or shrinking.^[36] This negative trend stresses the capacity of the U.S. military, which is expected to carry out multiple missions at once in multiple theaters. According to the 2020 National Defense Strategy, these missions include deterring adversaries like Russia and China, fighting terrorism globally, deterring a variety of threats to the U.S. homeland, and maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent.^[37] The U.S. military requires significant and costly power projection capabilities to complete all of these missions at once, and these numerous priorities spread U.S. capabilities thin across the globe. Accounting for the whole, the U.S. military does outmatch the Chinese military, but in the Indo-Pacific, the power balance is far less clear. 

Through a mix of hard power, a clear-eyed recognition of relevant threats, and a domestic consensus on the nature of those threats, the United States effectively deterred the Soviet Union from direct conflict during the Cold War.

In sum, through a mix of hard power, a clear-eyed recognition of relevant threats, and a domestic consensus on the nature of those threats, the United States effectively deterred the Soviet Union from direct conflict during the Cold War. Just as importantly, each of these elements helped the United States outlast the Soviet Union during the decades-long competition. This state of affairs was much different from today, when America seemingly lacks a domestic consensus and may have deluded itself into believing it is more powerful than U.S. adversaries, failing to see the need for the sort of rapid and robust military buildup that would backstop deterrence. As the following sections show, the United States is in urgent need of deterrence done well, and it would be wise for the country to take these lessons from the Cold War and apply them today. 

Deterrence and a Domestic Consensus

Why does reaching a domestic consensus matter for deterrence? U.S. adversaries must believe that America’s political leaders will be able to achieve and sustain a political consensus for taking action in a crisis or conflict.

Historically, U.S. adversaries have repeatedly underestimated America’s will to fight. Disordered democracy, decadent prosperity, divisive multiculturalism, and distant geography: all of these reasons and more have been offered as evidence of American weakness that adversaries have tried to exploit. Such auguries have not only been faulty but often have proven fatal for their augurs. Examples are numerous, with one of the most prominent being Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, which Tokyo believed would scare the United States and keep it from intervening in Japan’s conquest of Asia. However, as is well known, the attack had the opposite effect, galvanizing the American public to join World War II and eventually defeat Japan.^[38] 

Today, U.S. adversaries’ theories of victory rely on targeting American political will. A common thread between Russia’s concept of “new generation warfare” and China’s concept of “system destruction warfare” is the centrality of the information domain and an emphasis on sapping the political will of an opponent to begin or sustain a fight.^[39]

U.S. adversaries’ perceptions of American political will are not entirely within the United States’ control. Indeed, the pathologies of authoritarians, nationalists, and ideologues often warp others’ appreciation of America’s power, both material and spiritual. But to the extent that it is within America’s power, the country must demonstrate that U.S. political leaders can still tap a deep reservoir of material strength and fighting spirit. 

Is American domestic politics driving toward a consensus that favors deterrence? When it comes to thwarting a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the polls paint a mixed picture. The 2023 Reagan Institute’s Summer Survey found that approximately 54 percent of Americans support measures to deter such an invasion, such as an increased military presence or arms sales to Taiwan.^[40] Additionally, the 2022 Reagan National Defense Survey showed that while 70 percent of Americans are concerned about a Chinese invasion in the next five years, that concern does not directly translate into support for an American military intervention to repel such an invasion.^[41] Indeed, Americans heavily favor responses short of war. Still, they remain open to persuasion by their political leaders. Context about Taiwan’s democratic government and its role in the global economy tends to increase backing for U.S. military support, even among skeptics. For instance, that same 2022 survey found that initially only 43 percent of Americans would support U.S. ground troops defending Taiwan, but after respondents learned about Taiwan’s democracy and its economic importance, that number rose to 65 percent.^[42]

This is a reminder for the president and Congress that one element of deterrence is explicitly making the case to the American people concerning the dire—and still underappreciated—military and economic consequences of great power conflict. The focus should especially be on explaining the likely catastrophic consequences of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. While today’s circumstances are different from decades or centuries past, presidents and members of Congress have a history of appealing to Americans and citizens of other countries for their support in committing American forces to protect the United States and secure its interests. 

Consider the Gulf War, for instance. When Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the American public was divided on whether the United States should intervene. Initially, only 47 percent of Americans thought it was worth going to war over. Then president George H.W. Bush and his administration set out to create an international coalition to jettison the Iraqi military from Kuwait, causing public support for intervention to rise to 80 percent by the time American military operations began.^[43] 

While it is true that a conflict with China would likely be far costlier and more protracted than the rapid success of coalition forces in the Gulf War, it is important to remember that the success of the coalition was not assumed before military operations began in Iraq. Many experts predicted that the war could be particularly long and costly for the United States—with some such as former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski predicting upward of 20,000 American casualties.^[44] The American public was aware of the potential cost and still supported military intervention. And, while the case for waging war is different from that of deterrence, the need for a strong domestic consensus is all the same. 

Looking to the examples and lessons of the past would allow Congress and the executive branch to more convincingly warn American voters of the immense perils of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. As they do, U.S. political leaders should endeavor to establish a domestic political consensus whose depth and durability produces a deterrent effect.

China must never look at shifting control of the White House or Congress as an indication that it has a freer hand for action against Taiwan.

Above all, that means a political consensus that is bipartisan. Some elements of competition between Republicans and Democrats to be seen as tough on China can be healthy. Indeed, this has been a critical element in helping China-related legislation overcome gridlock on Capitol Hill. The bipartisan establishment of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party so far presents hope that this challenge can bring legislators and leadership together. However, a widening gulf between the parties would present opportunities for the Chinese Communist Party to exploit. China must never look at shifting control of the White House or Congress as an indication that it has a freer hand for action against Taiwan. All eyes will be on the 2024 election cycle with ballots being cast in both Taiwan and the United States capable of generating uncertainty and turmoil and likely to entice attempts at interference by the Chinese Communist Party and its agents. Moreover, to the extent that China becomes a partisan cudgel, the more that political posturing will come at the expense of policy substance and, potentially, credible deterrence.

This also means it is necessary to try to shape a political consensus around a positive vision of American interests in the Indo-Pacific, not merely around a negative vision of how China threatens those interests. The political foundation of a deterrence policy in the Indo-Pacific would be strongest when the American people not only oppose the designs of the Chinese Communist Party but also support the shared vision of America and its Indo-Pacific allies and partners.

Consider how perceptions of the economy and trade affect this calculus. The negative consequences of China’s economic practices arguably alerted American voters to the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party even before their political leaders, with a 2021 Gallup poll finding that 63 percent of Americans considered China’s rising economic power a “critical threat.”^[45] On the other hand, these perceptions also sapped public support for trade and other forms of economic engagement with Indo-Pacific allies and partners that would help strengthen America’s strategic position.^[46] Indeed, U.S. political leaders in both parties are still struggling to craft a positive Indo-Pacific economic agenda, with the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity being the latest example.^[47] 

More broadly, a political consensus for bolstering deterrence would be stronger when the American people not only oppose U.S. adversaries, but also support America’s friends. Prior to World War II, U.S. isolationism weakened not only because of American scorn for Nazi Germany, but also because of the American people’s admiration and affinity for the UK and its principled resistance. Today, public support for U.S. policy concerning Russia’s war against Ukraine is strong not only because Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely reviled but also because Americans identify with the plight and courage of the Ukrainian people.

American political leaders can help build a similar base of support for Taiwan and U.S. allies like Japan and Australia by deepening diplomatic, educational, cultural, and economic ties with these partners and by placing the Indo-Pacific more explicitly at the center of America’s foreign policy consciousness. Aside from current diplomatic and military efforts, such as the AUKUS pact for the United States and the UK to share nuclear submarines and advanced technologies with Australia and recent defense agreements between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, the next most impactful way to do that is through deepening economic ties.^[48] The United States should consider expanding market access to U.S. partners and allies in the region, providing what many there are clamoring for and signaling a commitment that goes beyond military and diplomatic dimensions.^[49]
 

Additionally, American leaders can build a consensus around the threats U.S. adversaries pose by being clear-eyed in their perceptions of these foes’ material power, the tendencies of their leadership, their hierarchy of interests, and more. On the one hand, overestimating U.S. adversaries could lead to the erroneous conclusion that American deterrence is weak. In the worst case, steps to correct perceived weakness could be misinterpreted by American adversaries and provoke the very crisis or conflict these steps would be designed to prevent. On the other hand, underestimating U.S. adversaries (in some cases by overestimating America’s own strengths) can result in taking the strength of American deterrence for granted. Over time, such strategic complacency can prompt neglect of the foundations of deterrence, especially military power. 

To a large extent, U.S. policymakers have been caught in the latter trap for the last 30 years, with the foremost example being that they have underestimated the challenge posed by China. Assured of American superiority, U.S. policymakers have underinvested in military power, specifically undervaluing the military capabilities required for protracted conflict with a peer adversary.^[50] Consequently, the U.S.-China conventional military balance has deteriorated, and the credibility of American deterrence has eroded in turn. 

U.S. policymakers have taken technological superiority in the military sphere for granted, deluding themselves into believing that U.S. adversaries’ advantages lie in mass and sheer numbers alone. They dismiss the quality of quantity at their own peril. For example, a recent historical analysis in Proceedings found that larger fleets were victorious in 25 of 28 naval wars. The analysis found, “When professional naval competence and strategic acumen were equal, the larger fleet usually won, even when the smaller fleet possessed technological advantages at the start of the conflict. A primary reason is that technological advantages were inevitably short-lived. In a war between equally competent technological near peers—absent a series of amazing strokes of luck—the larger fleet always won.”^[51] 

Moreover, policymakers are at risk not only of dismissing the quantity of China’s military forces but also at risk of underestimating the increasing quality of China’s military and its ability to develop and field advanced technologies—a tendency perhaps most vividly demonstrated by American officials’ surprise at the pace of China’s hypersonic weapons program.^[52] 

Policymakers tend to denigrate China’s ability to close the gap in military technologies by assuming its capabilities are limited to reverse engineering rather than genuine innovation.^[53] China has indeed copied Western technology and stolen data and designs for American weapons like the F-35, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, and the Littoral Combat Ship. But it is increasingly demonstrating its ability to innovate and field indigenously developed advanced technology, like the DF-17, a medium-range ballistic missile fitted to a hypersonic glide vehicle.^[54] Even in cases where stolen technology was used to advance Chinese capabilities, such as the J-20 stealth fighter, Chinese innovators are rapidly moving to build indigenous capabilities for developing key weapon systems.^[55]

Policymakers frequently assure themselves and the public that China would shrink from a fight or fare poorly because it lacks recent combat experience. For example, former undersecretary of defense for policy Colin Kahl recently said that conflict over Taiwan is not imminent in part because China recognizes that its military is untested, stating, “It’s kind of like saying you got the two teams in the preseason that look like they should be in the Super Bowl, except one team has never played a single game. And the other team has been playing season after season after season for decades.”^[56] This is a common, but misplaced, view in Washington policy circles. 

It is true that China has not fought a war since its 1979 conflict with Vietnam. And the United States does have plenty of recent combat experience from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the United States has not fought a conventional naval war with a near-peer adversary in 80 years. Since World War II, the U.S. Navy has fought just one surface battle in which the USS Simpson sank an Iranian gunboat in 1988.^[57] The only ship currently in the Navy’s fleet that has sunk an enemy vessel in action is the USS Constitution in the War of 1812.^[58] The last time U.S. aircraft engaged in strikes against enemy ships was against the Iraqi Navy at the start of the 1991 Gulf War.^[59] The U.S. Army and Marine Corps that fought for two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq do not have recent combat experience operating as an inside force in contested environments providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and fires against maritime targets at range. To be sure, the U.S. military is battle-tested, and that experience is reflected across the spectrum of doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities. But U.S. policymakers should be clear about the limits of that experience as applied to the context of a potential U.S.-China conflict. 

U.S. policymakers need to exhibit clarity, candor, and a sense of humility to explain the challenge China poses, where its advantages lie, and where the United States is falling behind or still has a lead. Policymakers should do the same for other U.S. adversaries, helping to make resourcing decisions that will enable better deterrence.

Deterrence and Escalation Management

Escalation management is part and parcel of deterrence in terms of how to keep a crisis from turning into a conflict and how to keep a limited war from turning into a nuclear exchange. This task has been a constant in U.S. defense policy and military planning since the end of World War II. Indeed, it was the dominant theme of the long nuclear standoff during the Cold War.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States enjoyed a quarter century in which it confronted rogue states and terrorist adversaries, confident in its ability to achieve escalation dominance. The fleeting experience of the unipolar moment atrophied American muscle memory for escalation management, particularly among its political leaders.

However, intensifying competition with China and Russia has forced the United States to grapple anew with the challenge of escalation management. During this period of readjustment, the U.S. approach has shown concerning tendencies that must be overcome to maintain credible deterrence against adversaries and successfully manage escalation in a crisis or a conflict.

The United States has yet to come to grips with the renewed salience of nuclear weapons, while U.S. adversaries, especially China and Russia, have done the opposite.

First, the United States has yet to come to grips with the renewed salience of nuclear weapons, while U.S. adversaries, especially China and Russia, have done the opposite. For its part, China has sought to build up its nuclear arsenal, creating a nuclear shadow that can be extended over any attempts by the United States to deter aggression toward Taiwan.^[60] As observers have seen in Ukraine, there are limits to what nuclear brinksmanship can and cannot do, especially when one side has foresworn certain military options.^[61] Nevertheless, such a shadow could be used to dissuade U.S. involvement in the opening salvos of a conflict over Taiwan.^[62] Additionally, it could increase their willingness to use conventional means to take Taiwan.^[63] 

This nuclear shadow has grown through an expansion of China’s arsenal, which has risen to 500 operational nuclear warheads as of early summer 2023.^[64] Growth is expected to continue, with the Pentagon assessing that the country is probably on track to possess about 1,000 operational nuclear warheads by the start of the next decade, most of which are expected to be fielded on systems capable of reaching the continental United States.^[65] Last year, the Pentagon stated that China would likely accumulate an arsenal of 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 if it continues on its current pace of nuclear expansion.^[66]

China is also pouring funds into a nuclear triad that can deploy those warheads. According to a letter sent by U.S. Strategic Command to Congress earlier this year, China now possesses more land-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers than the United States.^[67] Its capabilities in the airborne leg of its nuclear triad are also increasing, with the country fielding in 2019 the H-6N bomber, an in-air refuellable bomber that is nuclear-capable.^[68] China also maintains a viable nuclear deterrent with the seaborne leg of its nuclear triad, consisting of Jin-class nuclear submarines. 

China’s strategic shift toward more weapons and delivery options and its move to more than double or even triple the Chinese stockpile has led U.S. officials to speculate that “China no longer intends to field a minimal deterrent” and that Beijing now seeks a “a form of nuclear parity with the United States and Russia.”^[69]

Meanwhile, Russia has unveiled new and escalatory weapons, seeking to modernize its aging Soviet-era arsenal. Such weapons include nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles and a variety of new cruise and ballistic missiles.^[70] This modernized arsenal, combined with Russian nuclear threats and an apparent movement of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus during the bloody war in Ukraine, presents a dangerous new reality, one where nuclear weapons are no longer seen as a last resort weapon or one to be used only in a doomsday scenario.^[71] 

The United States’ continued treatment of nuclear weapons as an anachronism of the Cold War has left the country ill-equipped to deal with the threat of coercive nuclear escalation from U.S. adversaries. Despite ongoing modernization efforts and the maintenance of a still-vast weapons stockpile, the Biden administration has still not fully come to grips with the potential use of nuclear weapons.^[72] That can be seen from its failure to publicly articulate clear consequences should Russia use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.^[73] It can also be seen in the administration’s underinvestment in tactical nuclear weapons, which would provide greater options in response to nuclear attacks short of strategic.^[74] By the end of the decade, less than 3 percent of the money to be spent on U.S. nuclear forces will be dedicated to tactical nuclear weapons.^[75]

Moreover, American political leaders have publicly expressed concerns about limited nuclear use, but they have yet to articulate clear strategies to deter it.^[76] Indeed, excessive eagerness to avoid nuclear escalation may have the unintended consequence of inviting it. During the Cold War, deterring conventional and nuclear war required U.S. strategists to think the unthinkable. At that time, American strategists considered conventional and nuclear forces as part of an integrated continuum of deterrence and warfighting.^[77] That is what American policymakers must do today.

Second, U.S. thinking about escalation management has been solipsistic. American policymakers tend to assume that escalation is most likely to result from their own actions. Thus, they focus too much on how to avoid provoking U.S. adversaries rather than how to deter them. Indeed, there has been a false equivalence between avoiding provocation, preventing escalation, and maintaining deterrence. This tendency has been especially visible during Russia’s war against Ukraine. By taking military options off the table early in the conflict, delaying the delivery of M1 Abrams tanks, and slow-rolling decisions on the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the Biden administration has prioritized exhibitions of restraint over injections of uncertainty into Putin’s strategic calculus.^[78] And, each time, those fears of escalation have proved unwarranted as Putin’s red lines have been crossed and Russia has not retaliated in the ways feared.^[79]

Escalation is inherently interactive, and the actions and perceptions of all parties to a conflict affect the escalation dynamics. The United States should, of course, consider its adversaries’ escalatory thresholds and responsibly manage its forces to avoid crossing them inadvertently. But equally important, the United States needs to focus on clarifying its own escalatory thresholds and effectively shaping adversary perceptions to deter actions that would violate them.

Third, the United States is too focused on avoiding inadvertent escalation rather than deterring deliberate escalation. Escalation thresholds, like deterrence itself, live in the mind of the adversary. They are subjective perceptions, not objective realities. Thus, inadvertent escalation is a perennial problem of war. Likewise, the possibility that military accidents could trigger escalation is a real concern.

These are risks that cannot be eliminated entirely but can be mitigated. Avoiding inadvertent escalation is largely a function of transparency: on the one hand, it involves collecting and analyzing intelligence to assess an adversary’s escalation thresholds and, on the other hand, it means clarifying U.S. escalation thresholds and communicating the consequences for violating them. Preventing an accident from becoming a crisis or conflict requires disciplined command of properly trained forces and appropriate rules of engagement. Bilateral or multilateral confidence-building measures also play an important role.

In contrast, deliberate escalation may not only be a more likely risk but also one that could prove more difficult to mitigate. Given Beijing’s temporal and geographic advantages, advancing military capabilities, and the existential stakes of such a conflict, it is at least plausible that China might conclude it can achieve escalation dominance in a Taiwan scenario. In other words, it is not difficult to imagine why China could be tempted to escalate in a conflict. That should be a much greater concern than Beijing escalating for reasons currently beyond U.S. policymakers’ comprehension. U.S. leaders should build upon current efforts and focus with urgency on how to present a credible American deterrent that convinces China otherwise and deters a choice for deliberate escalation.^[80]

Deterrence and Intelligence Challenges

At its best, intelligence illuminates the mind of the adversary, in which deterrence ultimately succeeds or fails. Through collection, analysis, and covert operations, intelligence provides indispensable means of understanding and shaping adversary perceptions. As Mike Mazarr of the RAND Corporation has noted, it is these perceptions—not objective measures of the probability of victory or the consequences of defeat—that are the dominant variable in determining the success or failure of deterrence.^[81]

However, American political leaders’ expectations about the degree to which intelligence can reliably inform their decisionmaking in a crisis or conflict could ultimately undermine credible deterrence. An overestimation or overreliance on insights derived from intelligence risks paralysis by analysis, whereby decisions for action are postponed in the hope that additional data or further analysis will resolve complexity or eliminate uncertainty.

As an illustrative comparison, consider the prelude to Russia’s most recent war against Ukraine and a potential scenario involving Taiwan. In the crisis that preceded the war in Ukraine, the United States possessed a quality of information and an amount of time to support its decisionmaking that it should not assume would be available in a Taiwan crisis.

Starting in October 2021, commercial satellite imagery and other open-source intelligence, to say nothing of national intelligence assets, began documenting Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine. Meanwhile, media reports detailed U.S. and Western intelligence revealing plans for false flag operations to create a pretext for war, a phased invasion of Ukraine, efforts to overthrow the Ukrainian government and install a Kremlin quisling, a post-invasion campaign of arrests and assassinations of Kremlin opponents, and more.^[82] Biden asserted in televised remarks on February 18, 2022, that he was convinced Putin had decided to invade Ukraine, an assessment later revealed to have been prompted by intelligence that Russian commanders had received orders to proceed with an invasion of Ukraine.^[83]

As Russia’s buildup progressed, months of high-stakes diplomacy took place: phone calls between Biden and Putin, a parade of U.S. and European visits to Moscow and Kyiv, a meeting of Russian and Ukrainian officials in Paris under the so-called Normandy format, multiple meetings of NATO ministers, a session at the UN Security Council, discussions at the Munich Security Conference, and more.^[84] 

A future American president confronting a crisis in the Taiwan Strait may well demand more information and more time to make decisions but receive less of both—posing a risk of paralysis at a moment of maximum danger.

In a Taiwan scenario, China would be more interested in achieving military surprise than Russia was in Ukraine, given the myriad of military, political, and economic indicators that such an undertaking would display.^[85] And unlike in Ukraine, a war over Taiwan would force the United States to directly confront the possibility of committing its own forces to a war between great powers—the first of its kind since 1950, but this time with nuclear weapons on both sides.^[86] In sum, a future American president confronting a crisis in the Taiwan Strait may well demand more information and more time to make decisions but receive less of both—posing a risk of paralysis at a moment of maximum danger.

There are real limits to China’s ability to achieve surprise against Taiwan or the United States. Indeed, the more ambitious China’s military goals, the more difficult its preparations would be to conceal. A sudden and massive amphibious invasion, for example, would be nearly impossible to hide entirely—especially as maritime domain awareness options continuously grow. But even if military indications and warnings alerted the United States to the possibility of an invasion, the challenge would be to match that intelligence with evidence of Chinese leadership’s intentions to give U.S. policymakers the confidence to take political and military actions quickly enough to successfully deter or, if necessary, defeat such aggression.

If China aims to achieve surprise, it will not be absolute—a bolt out of the blue. Instead, it will be relative—the cumulative effect produced by consistently outpacing America’s ability to understand, decide, and act effectively. The question is not whether China can achieve total surprise, but enough surprise. Can China move with sufficient speed and secrecy to delay and degrade American decisionmaking to the point that U.S. policymakers lose the ability—or even the will—to resist? The challenge for America and its intelligence community is essentially the reverse. Can America demonstrate the ability to act quickly, effectively, and decisively even in the face of uncertainty? Can U.S. leaders use intelligence to shape China’s perceptions for deterrent effect while also recognizing that perfect intelligence must not be a prerequisite for action in a crisis or conflict?

On this score, two additional reflections on the war in Ukraine are worthwhile. First, the war has demonstrated the utility of intelligence sharing for deterrence. Following the outbreak of hostilities, the United States and its NATO allies have run nonstop intelligence gathering efforts from outside Ukraine, including eavesdropping on communications and collecting satellite imagery. While the extent of what intelligence is passed on to the Ukrainian military is not public, U.S. intelligence has been used to inflict losses on Russian forces.^[87] By undermining the Russian military and bolstering Ukrainian forces, intelligence sharing has contributed to deterring Russia from widening the scope of the war. 

This demonstrated ability and willingness to provide actionable intelligence to friendly countries actively involved in conflicts against American rivals could prove to be of use in future deterrence efforts as well. In particular, the United States and allies like Japan should look to increase intelligence sharing with Taiwan. The primary objective would be not only to inject doubt into China’s strategic calculus, but to sort signal from noise as it relates to Beijing’s intent during periods of heightened military activity. Especially in the aftermath of former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022, there is concern that the PLA could use the expanded scale and scope of its operations in the vicinity of Taiwan to establish a new normal that would make it difficult to distinguish an exercise from an invasion. Recent reporting by the Washington Post summarized U.S. intelligence assessments, finding that “China’s intensifying military activity around Taiwan is undermining the intelligence community’s ability to accurately track what is normal and what is escalatory, raising the risk of accidents and miscalculation.”^[88] Increased collaboration between the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and others is essential for mitigating this challenge. 

Second, the war in Ukraine should encourage U.S. policymakers to approach intelligence with humility. In the case of Ukraine, U.S. intelligence about Russia’s behavior and intent was relatively plentiful. Yet the assessments derived in part from that intelligence were inaccurate. An overestimation of Russian military capabilities and pessimism about Ukraine’s political and military cohesion led the intelligence community to believe that Russian forces would capture large portions of Ukraine within days, potentially causing support for the government in Kyiv to collapse.^[89] Washington’s national security class largely thought the same. Obviously, this did not come to pass. But in this case, the surprise was positive and buoyed political support to assist Ukraine. 

In a Taiwan scenario, intelligence assessments could very well be wrong again, but this time in a negative direction. U.S. policymakers must prepare themselves for that eventuality and weather ensuing political headwinds in order to sustain actions that could deter aggression, de-escalate a crisis, or prevail in a conflict.

Deterrence and Defense Budgets

U.S. assumptions about America’s relative strengths compared to those of China and other adversaries have undergirded serial underestimations of the need for sufficient military capacity. Talking down U.S. adversaries and minimizing their capabilities has helped justify decades of “capability over capacity” defense budgets, leaving the U.S. military in the position it is today: perpetually shrinking, strained to deter adversaries in multiple theaters, and potentially unable to weather and win a prolonged, high-end fight.^[90] 

American forces need the capacity not just to throw punches but to absorb them as well.

Capacity is a key element of a comprehensive and credible deterrent.^[91] No matter how advanced a next-generation platform may be or how many domains in which it can operate in conflict, wars are still largely won and lost by how many munitions, weapons, and personnel each side can muster. Attrition is real, and that is what makes capacity all the more important. To deter China or other adversaries, the U.S. military requires the capacity to absorb attrition early in a conflict and remain in the fight. It needs the capacity to fight a protracted conflict and deny adversary forces that cannot defeat American forces in detail the ability to win by simply outlasting them. American forces need the capacity not just to throw punches but to absorb them as well.

But simply put, the U.S. military does not have this capacity today. Should a great power competition turn into a great power conflict, there is little chance for a decisive victory.^[92] War games run by the Pentagon and think tanks in Washington have consistently documented the immense costs of a conflict with China over Taiwan, including those rare instances in which the U.S. side prevails. In a simulation run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, American losses were the highest in any conflict since World War II, with “hundreds of aircraft” lost and “dozens of ships” sunk.^[93] Other scenarios demonstrate the rapid expense of long-range missiles, with American forces facing shortages of key munitions as the simulation dragged on.^[94] As former deputy secretary of defense Robert Work has described, when it comes to classified war games involving a fight with China, “In the first five days of the campaign, we are looking good. After the second five days, it’s not looking so hot. That is what the war games show over and over and over.”^[95] While outcomes vary across simulations, high attrition for all parties is a persistent factor. 

Across the joint force, the services have all seen rapidly declining numbers as measured in people, weapons, and platforms since the height of the Reagan administration buildup in the late 1980s.

Pyrrhic U.S. victories or flat-out U.S. defeats in these tabletop exercises point to falling military capacity at sea, in the air, and on the ground. The current deficit in size is not a result of one decision or official; rather it is the consequence of a string of decisions, from equipment divestment during the so-called procurement holiday following the Cold War to today’s push for ever higher research and development (R&D) budgets rather than investing in bringing successfully prototyped products to scale.^[96] Across the joint force, the services have all seen rapidly declining numbers as measured in people, weapons, and platforms since the height of the Reagan administration buildup in the late 1980s.

At sea, the U.S. Navy’s inventory has dropped to just 291 battle force ships as of October 2023, a far cry from when the service maintained a fleet of 568 battle force ships in the late 1980s; the current U.S. fleet has nearly eighty fewer ships than China’s current inventory of 370.^[97] Under all three of the U.S. Navy’s latest proposed shipbuilding plans, the service would not reach an inventory of greater than 300 battle force ships until the 2030s, with 2032 being the earliest that milestone would be reached.^[98] Moreover, the U.S. Navy would not reach the current fleet size of the PLA Navy under any of these shipbuilding plans. 

Airpower has also fallen victim to capacity cuts over the past few decades, resulting in a U.S. Air Force that, like the Navy, may be too small to deter and defeat great power competitors while simultaneously executing all of the extraneous missions assigned to it.^[99] For instance, the number of Air Force bombers has dropped by nearly 66 percent from 1989, falling from 411 to just 141 today, while its fighter jets have dropped from 4,321 to 1,420 over that same time frame, a roughly 67 percent decline.^[100] Ground forces have been a victim of precipitous losses too, with the Army’s active duty forces sliding by 42 percent, from 781,000 soldiers in 1986 to 452,000 in the service’s fiscal year 2024 request.^[101] 

Despite the obvious slide in numbers and the increasingly urgent threat of China, the Biden administration’s most recent budget request fails to provide the funding needed for a great power conflict. Assuming that the administration’s 2.4 percent inflation rate used to formulate its request is correct, growth is limited to under 2 percent across major appropriations accounts, including procurement as well as research, development, test, and evaluation, two critical factors for developing and fielding the weapons that would be used in a potential conflict with China.^[102] Even worse, the inflation assumption underpinning the administration’s request will almost certainly be wrong, further cutting into the department’s buying power.^[103]

The meager real growth, if any, in the budget request for fiscal year 2024 would not be enough to buy the capacity needed to deter, fight, and prevail in a prolonged, full-scale conflict. Airpower would be critical in a fight in the Indo-Pacific, and yet, as one example, the Air Force’s and Navy’s proposed purchases of new aircraft is not commensurate with the threat facing the services in the region. The Air Force is seeking to purchase just 95 new aircraft (excluding target drones), including 48 F-35A and 24 F-15EX fighters, 15 KC-46A tankers, and a single E-11 airborne communication aircraft. At the same time, it is planning on divesting 310 aircraft. Among that total are 57 F-15C/D and 32 F-22 fighters, as well as 24 KC-10 tankers.^[104] Naval aviation is also poised to take a hit in the budget request, with the Navy seeking to purchase only 88 new aircraft, 26 of which are trainers, while divesting itself of 130 aircraft.^[105] No matter the capabilities of the F-35, the F-15EX, or any of the other aircraft that the Air Force or Navy is seeking to purchase in the next fiscal year, none of these planes can be in the same place at the same time. In an area as vast as the Indo-Pacific, that hard truth would certainly be brought to bear with aircraft spread thin across the conflict zone. 

Examples of falling capacity across the joint force and insufficient budgets all point to a common problem: America’s theory of deterrence rests on the hope of technological breakthroughs on longer timelines. The United States is divesting of equipment and platforms now in the hopes of fielding game-changing technologies in the future, even when production capacity for those advanced technologies does not yet exist. But U.S. adversaries do not operate on American timelines. They can strike and wreak havoc at will on their own timeframes. That is why building back capacity, and doing so fast, is so critical. 

Despite the truth in this, Congress often acts as if hard power can be sustained without sufficient and timely funding. The frequency with which the Department of Defense operates under continuing resolutions exemplifies this fact. For the past two decades, the Pentagon has operated under a continuing resolution for all but five fiscal years, with the length varying from 22 days on the low end to 217 days on the high end.^[106] The use of continuing resolutions signals a fundamental lack of seriousness from Congress on fulfilling one of their most essential duties: providing for the military and properly funding the government on time. That projects weakness to U.S. adversaries as the military goes without adequate funding for each day it operates under a continuing resolution—and further incentivizes American adversaries to inflame U.S. domestic turmoil to their advantage.

By freezing spending levels at those determined for the prior fiscal year, continuing resolutions slash the department’s purchasing power. Take, for example, the passage of appropriations for fiscal year 2023. Legislation that funded the government for the fiscal year became law 90 days after the fiscal year’s start, resulting in a loss of over $18 billion in buying power, or over $200 million per day.^[107] In other words, that is $18 billion the Pentagon could have spent in that time window to advance new programs, fund ongoing sustainment needs, and keep the armed services afloat. Continuing resolutions also wreak havoc on the Pentagon’s ability to transition programs as they restrict funding by appropriations account.^[108] For instance, should a program be scheduled to move from R&D into procurement (and has funding over the course of the Future Years Defense Program to reflect this), a continuing resolution would stop the transition as it would not allow for the needed procurement funding and force the R&D money to fall flat. 

In preventing the transition and movement of programs, continuing resolutions lead to hundreds of those programs being misaligned. That in turn causes instability for the defense industrial base, which depends on consistent funding increases to keep their weapons systems, platforms, and technologies on schedule for delivery.^[109] In short, continuing resolutions are a department-wide disruption and an entirely avoidable one if Congress fulfills its most fundamental role and passes appropriations on time. 

To provide the U.S. military with on-time funding, Congress could agree to multiyear budget deals.

To provide the U.S. military with on-time funding, Congress could agree to multiyear budget deals, which as history showed in the case of a two-year budget deal inked in 2018, can help lead to Defense Department appropriations being passed on time.^[110] Next, Congress should turn its attention to buying more capacity, specifically by expanding the use of block buy contracting beyond the Navy and extending it across the joint force. Aside from potentially saving on unit procurement costs, block buys signal to industry players that the Pentagon is in it for the long-haul, keeping production lines hot.^[111] Congress should also allow for the use of multiyear procurement contracts for similar reasons.^[112] These tools to build capacity in the U.S. military would be of use not only in peacetime but, should deterrence fail, in wartime too. 

Additionally, the president and the Department of Defense must build a realistic budget to meet their strategic needs—rather than bowing out and expecting Congress to make the additions themselves, something that is not always guaranteed. And as Congress seeks to alter and improve acquisitions processes that delay modernization and capacity shoring, the issue lies in the department itself and requires a culture shift not only in the department’s leadership but at the program manager level. To make investments worthwhile and find cost savings when programs do not need to mature, the department and armed services need to accept a certain amount of risk, be willing to cut programs with confidence when they fall short and make the case to Congress why, and also employ rapid acquisition authorities such as other transaction authority and middle tier of acquisition that would save time and money. 

In this area of deterrence, it is up to Congress (and the executive branch) to ensure that deterrence remains intact. Obviously, the political will to supply those needed funds is another, much more difficult challenge. But, in simple terms, if the United States spends the right amount of money on the right mix of capabilities and does it fast, deterrence becomes a matter of operating and posturing capability rather than demonstrating a failure to fund and field it. 

A Failure of Deterrence May Be Catastrophic

The consequences that would unfold if great power competition became a great power conflict, and the failure of deterrence leading up to such an outcome, would be immense.^[113] The likely military losses in terms of equipment and platforms in such a conflict, particularly a war with China, are well-chronicled. This kind of full-scale conflict between near-peer adversaries would have devastating economic and human costs as well. RAND Corporation experts have estimated that, aside from dramatic losses in bilateral trade, a prolonged, high-intensity war between the United States and China would lead to a 5 to 10 percent fall in U.S. GDP and a drop of 25 to 35 percent in China’s GDP.^[114] The human costs would be high too, with estimates for a conflict over Taiwan putting the number of American casualties in the first three weeks of fighting at nearly “half as many” as those suffered in the two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.^[115] And that is not even accounting for the casualties of Chinese, Taiwanese, and other allied nations’ service members in addition to the civilians that would be inevitably be killed or injured in the conflict. 

Because of the economic foundation on which China’s military power rests, deterring an invasion of Taiwan will be one of the most difficult security challenges undertaken by the United States in its history. And it must rise to master this challenge while defending its interests in other theaters against hostile states and actors. Recognizing the urgency and scale of this challenge is essential to repairing America’s ability to deter. 

Grasping this urgent need for deterrence is the easy part; the hard part is actually deterring U.S. adversaries.

Grasping this urgent need for deterrence is the easy part; the hard part is actually deterring U.S. adversaries. Critically, the United States must undergo those repairs across the four policy areas outlined in this paper. When it comes to a domestic consensus, U.S. leaders must prioritize the competition with China consistently across all areas of national policy while also pursuing dialogue and cooperation when it is possible and consistent with U.S. interests. Moreover, American leaders need to speak honestly about the scale and threat from U.S. adversaries, especially China, and do away with the complacency that has helped justify underinvestment in the hard power foundations of deterrence. Second, in terms of escalation management, as the United States navigates a world with two nuclear peers, it is time to stop reacting to the dilemmas that U.S. adversaries seek to impose and instead focus on imposing escalatory dilemmas on them. Third, the United States must be humble about the ability of intelligence to clear the fog of war while aggressively using intelligence cooperation to bind allies and partners together to strengthen deterrence. And, lastly, regarding defense budgets, the United States must close the yawning gap between ends and means at the heart of the U.S. approach to great power competition.^[116] American defense funding must be sufficient, timely, and predictable, unshackled from the constraints of petty politics and responsive to the urgency, ambition, and imagination that the present moment demands. 

These actions, and many more, represent the beginning of a program to maintain and increase American might as the backstop of deterrence. Should Washington fail to take these steps, deterrence would fail too, and with it, the relative international peace and stability that the world has enjoyed for over seven decades.

About the Authors

Mackenzie Eaglen is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness. She is also a regular guest lecturer at universities, a member of the board of advisers of the Alexander Hamilton Society, and a member of the steering committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security. In 2023, she became a member of the Commission on the Future of the Navy, established by Congress to study the strategy, budget, and policy concerning the future strength of the U.S. Navy fleet.

Dustin Walker is a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on U.S. defense policy and strategic affairs in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Concurrently, Mr. Walker is working in the private sector on applications in high-end warfighting environments and software solutions for Joint All-Domain Command and Control. Earlier, Mr. Walker served as a professional staff member on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, where he ended up as the lead adviser to Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) on the Indo-Pacific region, Europe, and NATO, including operations of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and U.S. European Command.

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