DENIAL IS THE WORST EXCEPT FOR ALL THE OTHERS: GETTING THE U.S. THEORY OF VICTORY RIGHT FOR A WAR WITH CHINA
JACOB HEIM, NATHAN BEAUCHAMP-MUSTAFAGA, AND ZACHARY BURDETTE
JUNE 11, 2024
While Washington continues to debate its Ukraine policy, everyone can be relieved that no side has employed any nuclear weapons yet. When the United States and its partners intervened after Russia’s full-scale invasion, there were serious and well-reasoned concerns about the extent to which the conflict could escalate. These worst-case scenarios never unfolded partly because the United States and its partners calibrated their intervention, rejecting proposals like a no-fly zone that could have brought the U.S. and coalition militaries into direct contact with Russian forces. This proxy warfare strategy helped the United States manage escalation in a similar fashion to various proxy conflicts throughout the Cold War.
In contrast to this indirect defense of Ukraine, President Joe Biden has repeatedly threatened to defend Taiwan directly with U.S. forces. A direct conflict with a nuclear-armed great power like China would push the United States into untested waters that it managed to avoid during the Cold War and create escalation risks comparable to worst-case fears about the war in Ukraine. The protracted conflict in Ukraine should serve as a stark reminder that wars are easier to start than to end and that fighting a nuclear-armed great power requires a fundamentally different mindset than what the United States and its allies became accustomed to over the past three decades.
The United States should enter any conflict with a nuclear-armed great power like China with a theory of victory that outlines how the war will end and how it will manage escalation. Theories of victory are causal stories about how to defeat an adversary. They are the principal tenets of a strategy rather than strategies themselves, and U.S. presidents have historically crated them with their most senior military advisors. Developing a theory of victory requires identifying the conditions under which an enemy will stop fighting and then outlining how to shape the conflict in a way that creates those conditions. China’s burgeoning nuclear arsenal, long-range conventional strike capabilities, and cyber exploits against U.S. critical infrastructure are strengthening its ability to escalate in diverse ways, including striking the U.S. homeland. To avoid a Pyrrhic victory, theories of victory against nuclear powers must consider how to keep the war limited.
https://warontherocks.com/2024/06/denial-is-the-worst-except-for-all-the-others-getting-the-u-s-theory-of-victory-right-for-a-war-with-china/
