13 June 2012

PRC Area-Denial Capabilities and American Power Projection, Part 2

Taylor Marvin, PRC Area-Denial Capabilities and American Power Projection, Part 2,” Prospect Blog, 12 June 2012.

Anti-access/area-denial capabilities are the core strategic challenge facing the United States. Proliferating weapons technologies have democratized lethal force, giving unsophisticated opponents the ability to deny superior opponents the ability to project power. The Pentagon’s challenge is to overcome anti-access/area-denial systems “no matter where they are or how they’re presented,” a Department of Defense briefer recently remarked. “To that end, for example, we see state actors with well-funded militaries that possess the most advanced kinds of anti-access/area-denial capabilities and technologies—in some cases, multilayered across all of the war-fighting domains.” Of course, recognizing the challenge of anti-access/area-denial capabilities is not the same as actually finding a way around them. Surviving in an A2/AD environment is an unaddressed strategic challenge, and one that will only grow more difficult as the lethality and proliferation of anti-access/area-denial platforms increases. …

Click here for details on some of the works cited:

Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, William S. Murray, and Andrew R. Wilson, eds., China’s Future Nuclear Submarine Force (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2007).

Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, [Xu Qi], “21世纪初海上地缘战略与中国海军的发展” [Maritime Geostrategy and the Development of the Chinese Navy in the Early 21st Century], 中国军事科学 [China Military Science] (Vol. 17, No. 4) 2004, pp. 75-81, Naval War College Review 59.4 (Autumn 2006): 46-67.