Is the U.S. Military Ready for War With China?

Imagine that China launches an invasion of Taiwan, and the United States decides to defend the island. Following the Pentagon’s doctrine and operational concepts for fighting such a war, the US Navy and Air Force are launching thousands of long-range missiles against Chinese ships, command centers, and logistics centers. In the opening strikes alone, more than 33,000 precision-guided munitions targeted more than 8,500 sites. Cyber ​​attacks destroy Chinese military networks and paralyze leadership. Beijing is forced to retreat or face defeat in what appears to be a quick and decisive American success. Few lives were lost in the United States in this rapid, technology-led victory.

If this sounds like an ideal scenario, you’re wrong. As precision strikes destroy Chinese missile launchers, command centers and communications networks, Beijing’s military leaders face successive military failures even as they are isolated by deteriorating communications. In a moment of panic over its adversary’s rapid success, the Chinese leadership might consider vertical escalation—the use of nuclear weapons—before eliminating its remaining capabilities. Beijing may authorize a demonstration nuclear strike over open waters as a signal of resolve and an attempt to halt US operations. It is then unclear whether Washington would interpret such an offer as a justification for launching pre-emptive nuclear strikes against remaining Chinese capabilities.

Imagine that China launches an invasion of Taiwan, and the United States decides to defend the island. Following the Pentagon’s doctrine and operational concepts for fighting such a war, the US Navy and Air Force are launching thousands of long-range missiles against Chinese ships, command centers, and logistics centers. In the opening strikes alone, more than 33,000 precision-guided munitions targeted more than 8,500 sites. Cyber ​​attacks destroy Chinese military networks and paralyze leadership. Beijing is forced to retreat or face defeat in what appears to be a quick and decisive American success. Few lives were lost in the United States in this rapid, technology-led victory.

If this sounds like an ideal scenario, you’re wrong. As precision strikes destroy Chinese missile launchers, command centers and communications networks, Beijing’s military leaders face successive military failures even as they are isolated by deteriorating communications. In a moment of panic over its adversary’s rapid success, the Chinese leadership might consider vertical escalation—the use of nuclear weapons—before eliminating its remaining capabilities. Beijing may authorize a demonstration nuclear strike over open waters as a signal of resolve and an attempt to halt US operations. It is then unclear whether Washington would interpret such an offer as a justification for launching pre-emptive nuclear strikes against remaining Chinese capabilities.

It is not Chinese nuclear doctrine per se that creates this dangerous escalation dynamic, but rather the United States’ preferred combative approach. Unlike Russia and the United States, with their much larger nuclear arsenals, Beijing may not yet believe it can withstand a U.S. nuclear first strike and still have the ability to respond — the crucial deterrent against a nuclear first strike to begin with. China’s nuclear arsenal is expanding rapidly, but it is still small compared to the United States’ arsenal. (China had approximately 600 operational warheads as of 2024 compared to the United States’ 3,700.) This weakness may force Chinese leaders to use nuclear weapons early in a conflict rather than risk losing them to sustained U.S. strikes.

The risk of escalation is exacerbated by a particular aspect of China’s armament: its military possesses dual-capable missile systems and facilities that can launch conventional and nuclear warheads. Beijing could interpret US strikes against DF-21 conventional intermediate-range ballistic missile sites or DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missile sites and their command centers as attacks on its nuclear deterrent, which could lead to Chinese nuclear retaliation.

DF-26 presents a particularly severe entanglement problem. These bombers come with conventional and nuclear warheads, which are often located on the same military bases. The brigades are training to launch conventional attacks before reloading the launch pads with nuclear warheads. If the United States targets these missile sites to prevent conventional attacks on U.S. forces, the Chinese leadership may interpret the attacks as targeting China’s nuclear deterrent and in preparation for a U.S. nuclear first strike. In the heat of battle, this is a dangerous ambiguity that could inadvertently lead to nuclear escalation.

American military planners find themselves in an impossible dilemma. By remaining focused on the kind of war they have always planned for — a rapid, decisive military campaign to cripple Chinese forces and their leadership — they increase the risk that that leadership will see no way out but escalation. At the same time, resource constraints make these American war plans unlikely to succeed in the first place.

The warlike approach favored by U.S. operational concepts—targeting Chinese command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems with long-range missiles and cyber effects—may actually prolong rather than reduce the potential for long, destructive wars. These systems include everything from military communications networks to intelligence-gathering satellites and command headquarters that coordinate military operations.

Even if commanders are killed and command systems are destroyed in a barrage of mass attacks, planners should not assume that this translates into quick victory. History suggests that troops often continue fighting until they are physically destroyed. Let us consider here that large numbers of Russian generals were killed in the first year of the Russian war in Ukraine, yet the forces under their command continue their operations to this day. Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State remained effective military forces despite targeted beheadings – until their forces were systematically destroyed in devastating military campaigns.

However, the uncomfortable truth is that the United States is not prepared for anything close to a grinding war of attrition in East Asia. In recent war games, the US military was expected to exhaust its stockpile of sea-attack missiles within just three days, and its entire stockpile of land-attack weapons within 10 to 14 days. Other classes of munitions fared no better. The war games showed that Taiwan, with the help of the United States and Japan, defeated a Chinese amphibious invasion in most scenarios, but that victory came at a devastating cost: dozens of American ships sunk, hundreds of aircraft destroyed, and tens of thousands of American service members killed. Recent news that the Pentagon is urgently pressuring missile suppliers to double or even quadruple production of critical weapons, including long-range anti-ship missiles and precision strike missiles, should be welcomed. But it does not solve the problem of escalation: the United States’ preferred concept of war makes a nuclear exchange more likely, not less.

Given Washington’s long and significant influence on military thinking within NATO, these risks extend far beyond the Pacific. During recent workshops I attended with NATO war planners and high-ranking German military officers, both groups acknowledged a troubling gap between their own plans for a potential war with Russia and how political leaders in capitals like Berlin envision such confrontations unfolding. The escalation mechanisms embedded in the US Army’s operational concepts are not well understood outside military circles – and sometimes not well understood within them.

Nuclear strategists often ignore concerns about escalation and adopt bold measures under the banner of deterrence. They echo Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s warning to his officers during the Overland Campaign of 1864, who feared what Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee might have up his sleeve. Grant reportedly said: “Go back to your command and try to think of what we would do to ourselves, rather than what he would do to me.”

To some extent, strategists who underestimate the risks of escalation are right. The mere possibility of nuclear escalation should not prevent the United States from fighting China; that would amount to self-deterrence, which could mean losing the war before it is fought. But if the United States is preparing for the possibility of having to fight, it must be clear about the ultimate goals, acceptable risks, and ways to mitigate those risks.

The best way forward is what I call the “smart attrition approach.” This would adapt the Pentagon’s deterrence-by-denial strategy by focusing on repelling a Chinese invasion without necessarily causing vertical escalation. This approach deliberately avoids launching large-scale strikes on command and control assets potentially linked to China’s nuclear deterrent, while recognizing that such attacks could be viewed by Beijing as existential threats to the survival of the Communist Party regime.

Such an adapted strategy accepts that modern warfare between great powers is likely to be characterized by conventional attrition. It prioritizes investments in weapons systems that provide greater firepower in close combat: expanding torpedo production for warfare at sea, short-range unmanned systems operating widely, and medium- to long-range air and missile defense systems positioned to repel invasion forces.

This does not mean abandoning existing deep strike capabilities entirely, but rather returning to their original role as tools to shape the battlefield rather than as decisive shortcuts to victory or defeat. It means accepting the fact that technological superiority alone cannot guarantee rapid success against a peer competitor.

Unfortunately, adopting a smart attrition approach may not be possible due to the United States’ continued inability to allocate the necessary resources, which in turn stems from the lack of political and social consensus about the need to confront China militarily over Taiwan in the first place. Indeed, losing between one-half and two-thirds of US Air Force and Navy assets, not to mention thousands of military service members, in order to preserve an independent Taiwan, as some war games suggest, may not represent the best long-term strategy for a global power like the United States.

Thus, the foundation of any strategy is an honest dialogue about what Americans are willing to sacrifice for Taiwan’s independence. As military historian Michael Howard noted, the West was “navigating through the fog of peace.” The further away we are from the last great power war, the greater the chance of something going catastrophically wrong.

The way forward requires abandoning comfortable illusions. If the United States chooses to defend Taiwan, it must build industrial capacity for a protracted conflict, adopt operational concepts that reduce the risks of escalation, and honestly communicate to the American people what such a war would cost and why it is being fought. What the US military cannot do is continue to navigate through the fog of peace and pretend that technological superiority guarantees rapid success, that the risks of escalation can be controlled, and that the realities of war will align with peacetime assumptions. To borrow from the great Athenian strategist Thucydides: The coming great power war will be a stark landmark.