The Chinese military of today is a completely different animal to the PLA of just ten years ago. Stealing advanced US blueprints for stealth fighters, bombers, hypersonic missies, ships, subs and ICBMs, the PLA has built a ‘knock-off’ conventional order of battle that may not be technologically perfect but has sufficient mass to check-mate the US military in the first island chain. Traditional third offset strategy thinking is all about technology as the solution to mass. After all, the second offset strategy used exactly this model to corral the soviets. This 1980s thinking completely misses the point. No one gains from a shooting war. Unlike the Cold War Soviet economy, the US and Chinese economies are deeply intertwined.
So what advantage does the US have to mitigate, if not defeat, the growing preponderance of Chinese power? Special Operations Forces. Over the past twenty years, US SOF has perfected human network centric warfare against non state actors. The brilliance of low profile, small footprint, high tech, clandestine forces, arrayed against vulnerable long term human networks that service Xi’s top priority, the Belt and Road Initiative, provides the US with a cost effective, long term, durable means with which to keep the PRC in check. Not to defeat them. That would create more problems than it would solve. We just want to disrupt them so that they focus inward and remain under the threshold of major conventional warfare. This book explains how to achieve this.
About the author
Adam served as a Principal Strategist for USSOCOM where he was involved in designing clandestine war plans for special mission units. He is now Director General of Contexr, a national security upstart start-up based in Washington DC. Adam has lived, studied and worked all over the world including as a Special Director of Strategic Programs for an allied DoD in the Indo-Pacific. He earned a PhD under Sir Harry Hinsley (wartime codebreaker and official historian of British Intelligence in WWII) at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he researched the rise of non-state actors as challengers to the power of the state. Over the course of more than a decade he served with distinction as a professor of strategy at the United States Air War College, the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the United States Naval War College. At Newport, Adam was Director of a classified US Navy intel-planning-ops cell dedicated to assessing future enemy WMD concepts of operations and charged with devising innovative ways of deterring and defeating such threats. This organization was unique in the US Government in that it combined activities across the J2, J3, and J5, for US Strategic Command, US Special Operations Command and US Pacific Command (primarily), and worked closely with the IC and the NSC in assessing, developing and shaping America’s nuclear war plans. Contexr’s mission is helping US DOD (and related organizations) prepare for major great power conflict in Asia by providing much needed context to operational and strategic design.
How did you arrive at this topic?
I have been working in this field for some time now. It presents an interesting challenge: How do you prevent war between two great powers, one a revisionist and the other, status quo, who have a symbiotic relationship that defines the central production-financial relationship in the world economy?
Xi Jinping has made a judgement that “Hide your strength, bide your time” has worked. He has become impatient to revise the world order so that China becomes the dominant power. Xi believes China offers the world a superior system of governance compared to American democracy. A number of Americans seem to agree if the drive toward authoritarianism is any indication.
The last of Deng’s four modernizations is now in full swing. China’s military capability is unrivaled in Asia. In global terms, US forces are superior. However, when comparing US forces deployed to the region, China has the edge in mass and is rapidly gaining in quality. China has built an impenetrable shield deep into the Pacific. The shift in the balance of military power is reflected in a much more nationalistic and increasingly belligerent Chinese foreign policy. The entire Indo-Pacific region is bandwagoning to counterbalance China’s new provocative policies. Conflict is not inevitable but its trajectory is bending towards war.
The only way to avoid a massive conventional war that will almost certainly escalate into a nuclear conflict, is not to fight. The only way to win without fighting is to use cloaked power. Thats the solution that I arrived at after years of studying all parties to the challenge and exploring all other options.
It is a controversial position and that is not helped by the natural antagonism between the Pentagon and special operating forces. The Pentagon desires large scale, set piece battles, where its technological superiority delivers decisive outcomes. The fact that has rarely happened is not relevant. The vast majority of America’s experience of war has been the kind it really does not like and rarely wins - small war. Indeed, it is an interesting cultural artifact that America has rejected the kind of war that founded the country. I still cant understand that!
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Authors comment policy
Hopefully this will not be necessary for substack. Nevertheless, I recognize this is a highly contentious subject and passions are raging. I come to this from a national security policy expert position.
So it might be worthwhile to set the ground rules up front.
Substantive, evidence based, well formulated discussion and disagreement are welcome.
Sources: If you make a point please include a quality source to help the reader check the facts claimed. A quality source is one the adheres to high journalistic standards, including multiple independent source verification, and a clear distinction between factual reporting and editorial/opinion. All media is biased to one degree or another. It is impossible to avoid. Being aware of these biases and the issue of quality is important.
Enlarge this fascinating media bias chart by ad fonts media.
Dismissing a point based on a source can be justified if it is an obviously poor source. However, I would prefer that a quality counter source is supplied to make a point and I endeavor to do this myself.
Partisanship. I have been highly critical of the current and past administrations. Criticizing one side does not automatically equate to support for the other.
An argument is a connected series of evidence-based statements to establish a definite proposition. This may form the basis of a hypothesis. These should then be tested against competing hypotheses. This is a dialectical process (debate) where differences are identified, mutual concessions made and joint resolutions are agreed upon (hypothesis, antithesis, synthesis).
Unacceptable responses include
‘What about’ ism. Example "Well what about [totally random unconnected propaganda with no evidence"]. That is not an answer to a well formulated proposition. Only an equally well formulated and explained proposition can be used as a counter.
Ad hominem attacks - name calling, rudeness, all caps, attacks based on identity or assumed identity.
It is important to try and be aware of cognitive biases. We all do it. Awareness helps avoid it.
List of 50 Cognitive biases.
List iof 30 logical fallacies.
List of 15 common data fallacies.
I reserve the right to delete a contribution or ban anyone I believe is trolling, being rude, will not make a substantive counter argument or routinely ignores these basic guidelines.
