The US military has options against China
By James R. Holmes, opinion contributor — 08/06/20 09:00 AM EDT
The US military has options against China
Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) is worried — worried about the U.S. Navy’s prospects during a war against Communist China in the Western Pacific. Last week, Sen. Gardner, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, told the Washington Examiner that Chinese ballistic missiles could compel “all of our planning, all of our equipment, all of our systems†to “basically vacate†the region at outset of fighting. Both large bases and ships riding the waves, he noted, are vulnerable to missile attack.
Sen. Gardner joined a group of Republican lawmakers to coauthor the “STRATEGIC Act,†a bill aimed at restoring deterrence and U.S. combat supremacy. To oversimplify, the act’s framers envision spreading out U.S. bases across the region, deploying new weaponry to make things tough on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and rejuvenating U.S. alliances and partnerships around the exterior crescent that sweeps from Japan westward around the Asian periphery toward India. Their goal: to convince Chinese Communist Party (CCP) potentates that attacking America’s friends and allies would be a hopeless cause or, failing that, that the effort would cost China more than the gains were worth to Xi Jinping & Co.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/510466-the-us-military-has-options-against-china
