War by Timeframe: Responding to China’s Pacing Challenge
Michael C. Horowitz
November 19, 2021
Horowitz Nov 21
The Latin adage “si vis pacem, para bellum” states that if you want peace, prepare for war. But doing that successfully is much easier if you know when the war might occur.
As it drafts its new national defense strategy, the Biden administration has argued that China is the pacing challenge that should drive U.S. military planning moving forward. However, to plan for a conflict with China — most likely over Taiwan — Washington needs to think harder about the timeframe in which it is most likely to happen. The default U.S. defense strategy is to hedge against the risk of war in all timeframes. In a world of limited budgets, though, it is not possible to maximize U.S. capabilities in all time periods simultaneously. This means that, despite the uncertainty of even the best risk assessments, Washington will need to place bets to sustain its defense leadership in the Indo-Pacific. America may need “more” to deter and defeat China, but the right “more” depends on the timing.
If war over Taiwan is imminent in the next two years, the United States should emphasize readiness and posture over modernization and future investments. If war is most likely later in the 2020s, new warfighting concepts, modernization, adapting off-the-shelf technologies, and delaying retiring some older platforms should become the priorities. If war is most likely in the 2030s or beyond, longer-term defense investments, such as AI-enabled systems that require bigger changes to force structure, combined with innovative operational concepts, should be prioritized.
https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/war-by-timeframe-responding-to-chinas-pacing-challenge/#:~:text=War%20by%20Timeframe%3A%20Responding%20to%20China%E2%80%99s%20Pacing%20Challenge,if%20you%20know%20when%20the%20war%20might%20occur.
