{"id":1783728,"date":"2022-12-22T07:59:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T12:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1783728"},"modified":"2022-12-22T10:00:49","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T15:00:49","slug":"how-to-ensure-the-u-s-military-stays-ahead-of-russia-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-to-ensure-the-u-s-military-stays-ahead-of-russia-china\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Ensure the U.S. Military Stays Ahead of Russia &#038; China"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-to-ensure-the-u-s-military-stays-ahead-of-russia-china%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1783728&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" style=\"display: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/29854530225_917141bbf6_o.jpg\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Over at the <\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">Atlantic Monthly<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\"> earlier this month, big brains <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/05\/usmc-force-design-2030-threat-or-opportunity\/\">Robert Work<\/a> and Eric Schmidt <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2022\/12\/us-china-military-rivalry-great-power-war\/672345\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2022\/12\/us-china-military-rivalry-great-power-war\/672345\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321181000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1cB4xS9eAtPEy8xJ468xbg\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">recapped<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0a longer <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scsp.ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Defense-Panel-IPR.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.scsp.ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Defense-Panel-IPR.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3s3LRfN2KcWPvA9vSbtgKx\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">report<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0from the Special Competitive Studies Project detailing\u00a0\u201cOffset-X,\u201d an\u00a0aspirational effort aimed at \u201cachieving and maintaining military-technological superiority over all potential adversaries, thwarting China\u2019s theories of victory, restoring America\u2019s ability to more freely project power in the Indo-Pacific region, and positioning the United States to honor its commitments to the stability of the region.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">An ambitious agenda. Both entries are crisply written, manageable in length, and worth your time. Pick one, read the whole thing, and come right back!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Offset strategies aren\u2019t strategies in the classic sense of figuring\u00a0how to deploy economic or military resources on hand to achieve larger goals. They\u2019re more about foreseeing and leveraging the basic character of conflict. Offset-X, say the coauthors, is \u201ca technology-centered strategic approach\u201d to extending current U.S. technological advantages while redressing gains made by the red teams of the world in recent years. Nuclear weapons constituted an early offset strategy. U.S. forces fielded doomsday weaponry to counter the Soviet Union\u2019s conventional weight of numbers in Europe during the early Cold War. Precision-guided arms used in inventive ways constituted a second. The ability to launch deep strikes with precision helped the West keep pace with the Soviets and ultimately prevail during the late Cold War.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Work pioneered a \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/executivegov.com\/2016\/12\/robert-work-dods-3rd-offset-strategy-eyes-conventional-deterrence-against-state-powers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/executivegov.com\/2016\/12\/robert-work-dods-3rd-offset-strategy-eyes-conventional-deterrence-against-state-powers\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1oeqIS7MG5KTGT00EXgFzi\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">third offset strategy<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u201d while serving as deputy secretary of defense at the Pentagon during the Obama and early Trump years. In particular, he touted \u201chuman-machine teaming\u201d as a way to preserve U.S. martial supremacy. Teaming up man and machine, he proclaimed, would enable the U.S. military to field forces made up of swarms of inexpensive platforms and weapons that would work together in a cohesive and agile manner. U.S. forces would bring massed firepower to bear at the time and place of combat more nimbly than prospective foes, and thus would command a significant tactical and operational edge should America be forced to fight. In short, he exhorted the U.S. armed forces to go small, numerous, cheap, networked, and uptempo.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Human-machine teaming figures prominently in Offset-X as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Plainly, then, Work and Schmidt, a former chief of the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit, have a different quandary in mind than do most makers of military strategy. They peer into the future of warfare, discern troubling trends, and lay out a set of measures they believe will help the U.S. armed forces flip the script on antagonists such as China\u2014reinstating unquestioned American military primacy, and deterrence along with it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">In passing, the coauthors describe Offset-X as a \u201ccompetitive strategy.\u201d That\u2019s a telling choice of phrase in the field of military strategy, operations, and force design. It harks back to Andrew Marshall, the legendary director of the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment who in the early 1970s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sup.org\/books\/title\/?id=22068\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.sup.org\/books\/title\/?id%3D22068&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2p0ntRUBQvnhrWv1VfCpQh\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">fashioned<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0an approach to Cold War competition he dubbed \u201ccompetitive strategies.\u201d Marshall\u2019s big idea was to avoid competing with the Soviets on a brute ship-for-ship, plane-for-plane, tank-for-tank basis. Instead\u00a0the U.S. military should think asymmetrically, questing for areas of enduring competitive advantage over the Soviets and steering the competition toward them. Better yet, the military should hunt for areas in which it could compete not just effectively but at manageable expense to itself and extortionate expense to the adversary.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Do all that, said Marshall, and you can wrongfoot an opponent into competing both ineffectively <\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">and<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0unaffordably. Technical developments like precision arms and new doctrinal and strategic concepts like the U.S. Army\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.dtic.mil\/sti\/pdfs\/AD1119406.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/apps.dtic.mil\/sti\/pdfs\/AD1119406.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1y4iXh-GL7T-_5prWx10Dk\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">AirLand Battle Doctrine<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0or the U.S. Navy\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usni.org\/magazines\/proceedings\/1986\/january-supplement\/maritime-strategy-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.usni.org\/magazines\/proceedings\/1986\/january-supplement\/maritime-strategy-0&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw08utrHBaZY1Yg47hOLPyt1\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Maritime Strategy<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0were 1980s-era descendants of Marshall\u2019s vision of competitive strategies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">What do Work and Schmidt see when they gaze through a glass darkly into the future? Three of their observations deserve accenting. First and foremost, they gently debunk the oft-heard\u2014including in these pixels\u2014concept of \u201cgreat-power competition.\u201d Rather than peacetime competition, they maintain, the United States already finds itself in a \u201cstate of persistent <\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">conflict<\/span><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0with Russia and China,\u201d typified by constant cyberattacks, disinformation, thievery of intellectual property, and sabotage.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Although the coauthors don\u2019t mention it, Chinese strategists\u2019 phrase \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usni.org\/magazines\/proceedings\/2022\/november\/prevailing-without-gunsmoke-south-china-sea\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.usni.org\/magazines\/proceedings\/2022\/november\/prevailing-without-gunsmoke-south-china-sea&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3Jw0zn3tJjIq3Sa2O-wmsh\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">war without gunsmoke<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u201d neatly encapsulates the red teams\u2019 erasure of the war-peace boundary. As founding Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/reference\/archive\/mao\/works\/red-book\/ch05.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/reference\/archive\/mao\/works\/red-book\/ch05.htm&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1671637321182000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1MxNyDhOkp8UzcprfK_Azj\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">noted<\/span><\/a><span lang=\"EN-US\">, politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed. Fired by this Maoist outlook, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/chinas-ballistic-missile-arsenal-is-a-clear-threat-to-the-u-s-military\/\">China<\/a> wages war 24\/7\/365.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Second, and closely related, the coauthors point to the \u201cindividualization of war.\u201d Sensors are ubiquitous nowadays, while most every individual leaves a \u201cdata exhaust\u201d on the internet \u201cthrough everyday searching, reading, watching, shopping, and dating habits.\u201d Also worrisome is \u201cthe bulk collection of DNA and biometrics.\u201d In short, systems enabled by artificial intelligence can vacuum up vast quantities of data, process them, and enable hostile militaries to \u201cmicro-target\u201d individual citizens in the United States or friendly countries. Micro-targeting could involve intimidation or blackmail; it could go as far as targeted assassination.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Third, and, again, closely related, Work and Schmidt warn that this could all happen among us. This is a disorienting prospect. Since World War II, Americans have grown accustomed to believing that all wars are away games, fought in such faraway precincts as Korea, Vietnam, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/when-will-washington-realize-personality-driven-diplomacy-is-poison-for-iraq\/\">Iraq<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/the-20-year-descent-to-the-predictably-ugly-afghanistan-withdrawal\/\">Afghanistan<\/a>. To this way of thinking, the chief challenge before the U.S. armed forces isn\u2019t defending North America; it\u2019s amassing the wherewithal, doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures necessary to build up superior combat power on some distant foe\u2019s home ground and prevail.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">That\u2019s less and less true in an age when new technologies, warfare domains, and methods empower visiting teams\u2014adversaries\u2014to reach out into the American heartland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Sobering stuff. But despite their bleak tone, and despite their healthy respect for antagonists, Work and Schmidt entreat America to answer the challenge of future deterrence and warfare \u201cneither with despair nor hubris.\u201d (You have to salute the Aristotelian emphasis on finding the \u201cgolden mean\u201d between extremes, in this case between hopelessness and unbridled arrogance.) They catalog enduring American advantages and urge U.S. leaders to put them to work.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">No one should lose heart.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Still, potential danger lurks within Offset-X. Past offset strategies fielded technology to counter technology. It was relatively easy to forecast the competitive-strategies impact of nukes or precision conventional arms. By contrast, Work and Schmidt highlight diplomatic, political, and social advantages that go with being a free society in fellowship with other free societies. Such advantages are vaguer and harder to harness than those on display during the first three offset strategies.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">What\u2019s the concrete military deliverable from openness, and what results will it yield in persistent low-level conflict with China and Russia?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">To be clear, Bob Work and Eric Schmidt are correct about the United States\u2019 and the West\u2019s roster of innate advantages. Think about it. Who\u2019s the better and more innovative competitor, the one that empowers junior people to exercise their judgment, or the one that stifles military folk through the ideological control-freakism of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/12\/does-chinas-xi-jinping-suffer-from-ptsd\/\">Xi Jinping<\/a>? The former, without a doubt. Dynamism typifies an open society confronting an authoritarian rival that by its nature is vulnerable to stasis. Dynamism is good in a dynamic strategic environment.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">All of that being said, proponents of Offset-X do have to figure out how to transform abstractions like political, social, and intellectual openness into tangible military gain. This is the challenge of our time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em><span lang=\"EN-US\"><a href=\"https:\/\/usnwc.edu\/Faculty-and-Departments\/Directory\/James-R-Holmes\">Dr. James Holmes<\/a> is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Nonresident Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation &amp; Future Warfare, Marine Corps University. The views voiced here are his alone.<\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over at the Atlantic Monthly earlier this month, big brains Robert Work and Eric Schmidt recapped\u00a0a longer report\u00a0from the Special Competitive Studies Project detailing\u00a0\u201cOffset-X,\u201d an\u00a0aspirational effort aimed at \u201cachieving<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1898273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"How To Ensure the U.S. Military Stays Ahead of Russia &#038; China","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[6962,4712,5458,4501,11134,10998,4505,3819,4280,11135,7238],"class_list":["post-1783728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-the","tag-ahead","tag-bongino","tag-china","tag-ensure","tag-how","tag-military","tag-report","tag-russia","tag-stays","tag-u-s"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"How To Ensure the U.S. Military Stays Ahead of Russia &#038; China","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1783728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1898273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1783728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1783728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1783728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}