Maheera Munir is a Researcher at the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS), Lahore.
How the United States Would Fight China: The Risks of Pursuing a Rapid Victory by Franz-Stefan Gady sits at the center of the most profound debate of the 21st century, i.e., the US-China strategic competition and the risks of military escalation in one of the most conflictual theaters: the Taiwan Strait. The author has served as an advisor to European and US militaries on structural reforms and the future of heavy combat operations. Based on his expertise, Gady attempts to uncover how a direct military confrontation between the US and China might unfold, as well as the strategies and risks that would come attached with it. In his view, the US is most likely to adopt a strategy that offers rapid, decisive outcomes but notes that it would inevitably involve several methodological, operational, and normative risks.
Context
How the United States Would Fight China draws on a much-asked question in military and political circles: how does the US envision the future of high-intensity warfare in this age of cyber and space? And more importantly, how would the US prevent a military confrontation with China from escalating into a nuclear conflict? In a war over Taiwan, one of the major challenges to the US would be preventing China from resorting to its ultimate deterrent to secure its war objectives and deter the US.
The author highlights that despite factors like geographical non-proximity, high resource and human cost, and an equally capable adversary, the US military is still preparing for a direct war with China. This, then, urges the policymakers to deliberate on the strategy that the US should adopt in order to secure a victory.
Picturing a Direct Military War Between the US and China
The author paints a picture of a direct military war between the US and China. Each side resorts to information dominance in order to out-think and out-act the adversary in a real-time, multidomain combat environment. Each side attempts to be the first to defeat the other in space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. It raises the risks of a hot war between adversaries. If China loses information dominance, the war escalates both horizontally and vertically. To force the US into de-escalation, China resorts to tactical nuclear weapons or non-strategic nuclear use, which leaves the US with two options: vertical escalation or a protracted war, neither of which awards the US victory but instead increases the risks of strategic defeat.
Central Argument
Based on the above scenario, the central argument of How the United States Would Fight China is that all current warfare strategies, built on the systems warfare approach, are fundamentally flawed because the US-China war will not be limited to space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum but will also expand into the traditional land, air, and maritime domains.
However, the author’s objective is not just to map hypothetical battle sequences but to highlight the structural flaws associated with the rapid-victory approach and warn the military planners against the assumption that a war with a nuclear-capable adversary can be contained, controlled, or concluded in victory within a limited time frame.
Strengths of the Book
One of the principal strengths of the book is its operational realism. The author elaborates on the US’s contemporary force structure, advanced weapon systems, and geographical realities of the Indo-Pacific. His book urges the shift of focus from the abstract/theoretical problem of deterrence to a practical question: how would amphibious operations, island denial campaigns, and integrated air defenses actually interact in a Taiwan crisis? This concrete focus underpins the gap between strategic theory and operational reality. By connecting technological capabilities to the real problems of logistics, intelligence gaps, command and control, and political constraints, the book shows why some options that look attractive on paper are almost impractical in reality.
The book also investigates psychological and military factors driving military decision-making. The author underscores that domestic politics, political signaling, and bureaucratic incentives often compel the military planners to adopt rapid victory approaches, eliminating the element of rational decision-making from political-military environments. The book calls for a re-evaluation of US war strategy on operational and tactical levels. On the operational level, the author suggests reframing the idea of close, deep operations. On the tactical level, the US forces should be transformed into more dispersed force structures in order to be able to defeat the adversary in real-time, close combat.
Limitations of the Book
Nevertheless, How the United States Would Fight China has several notable limitations. Firstly, the author places significant weight on open-source intelligence when discussing the technical capabilities of weapon systems. No country, neither the US nor China, publicly unveils the real capabilities of their weapon systems, which might lead to an inherent bias, especially when noting an adversary’s capabilities.
Secondly, the operational scenarios sketched in the book seem schematic. The tactical friction points are extensively explained; however, the discussion on what grand strategic outcomes those friction points would eventually translate into is lacking. Therefore, it is difficult to map how the tactical engagements in an integrated, multidomain environment would affect political decisions and outcomes.
Thirdly, while the book extensively discusses US capabilities and decision-making, the deliberation on Chinese decision-making appears biased. In sketching the picture of US-China direct military confrontation, the author rapidly jumps to the assumption of China resorting to nuclear weapons, portraying China as an impulsive, non-rational power. Studying how Chinese military-political decision-making functions with respect to risk perception, timelines, and red lines is essential to fully understand the escalation dynamics and assess credible risks.
The book only partly refers to China’s retaliatory and asymmetric approaches (such as anti-access area-denial capabilities). Delving deeper into Chinese strategic culture, civil-military integration, and the significance of domestic narratives in crisis scenarios would provide a holistic understanding.
Another significant limitation is insufficient focus on non-military factors, including economic interdependence, the role of allies, and third-party domestic pressures, as equally important factors in shaping military strategy. Bombs and missiles alone do not govern contemporary conflicts between great powers; hybrid instruments now play a greater role in shaping political will and societal responses. A better integration of these factors, along with how they can be instrumentalised into deterring and de-escalating a conflict, can significantly contribute to the book’s policy outlook.
Structurally, How the United States Would Fight China follows a clear organization and framework, flowing from conceptual to operational discussion. The author avoids unnecessary jargon while providing sufficient technical understanding for an informed audience. The book provides a balance between narrative cases and analytical arguments; however, the central argument about the risks of pursuing a rapid victory approach appears repetitive, sometimes undermining the forward momentum of the book.
Conclusion
Overall, How the United States Would Fight China makes a compelling and interesting read for policymakers, defense planners, analysts, and students to examine US-China direct war scenarios, understand risks of systems warfare approaches, study operational and tactical challenges, and analyze the broader consequences of a US-China military confrontation. It serves as a handbook for detailed war simulations and military planning that inculcates complex political dynamics with high-stakes decisions.
In conclusion, How the United States Would Fight China makes a significant contribution to contemporary strategic literature. The author has successfully perforated the notion surrounding rapid, decisive victory by compelling the readers to examine the wider realities of an integrated, multidomain combat environment. While the book could do more in offering operational alternatives to the rapid victory approach, it uncovers the profound and inherent risks of great power rivalries in a strategic and timely manner.
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