Developing Effective Deterrence—from the War Fighters’ Perspective

At the political level, there was no doubt that China had to be deterred from shaping the Indo-Pacific to suit its strategic priorities. But a common theme was the ambiguity regarding US and allied deterrence objectives, and a focus on the need to prioritize which People’s Republic of China (PRC) activities to deter. Provocative actions by the PRC including its illegal territorial claims, airspace violations, construction and militarization of artificial islands, establishment of administrative structures to exert political pressure, and deployment of militia vessels to gradually cement its presence in contested waters, were key areas of concern. However, deterring these coercive ‘grey zone’ activities, which occur below the threshold of kinetic warfare, requires a different approach to how US allies and partners challenge Beijing’s territorial claims over Taiwan, Japan’s Senkaku islands, or India’s state of Arunachal Pradesh.

China’s moves are beyond a gradual accumulation of small salami-slicing actions that add up to a significant strategic change. A more accurate way of characterizing China’s behavior is that it reflects a revisionist surge strategy that is multipronged, accelerating, and designed to overwhelm and disrupt the strategic environment to help it ultimately become the preponderant power. This strategic challenge is not one that the US can confront alone but it can be counterbalanced through a collective effort involving allies and partners. A joint effort is needed to push back against China’s goal to assert dominance and reshape the Indo-Pacific strategic environment to align with its interests.

Although US policymakers are increasingly cognizant of China’s multidomain coercive toolkit, there’s an absence of clear political messaging that articulates why safeguarding the Indo-Pacific from Chinese influence is essential for both US and global strategic interests. Making the case for maintaining mare liberum, the free sea, and demonstrating the political will to build and sustain deterrence is vital to reassure allies and partners and to temper China’s revisionist activities.

Articulating this case is fundamentally important given that China is in the strategic competition for the long haul and its geographic location gives it significant advantages over the US. This geographic reality, as well as the politicization of aid to Ukraine in Washington and the withdrawal from Afghanistan, has created the impression in Beijing that the US lacks the political will to stay the course. Even if this perception among Beijing’s US watchers is inaccurate, it nonetheless acts to the detriment of US credibility and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, which encourages China to pursue its revisionist surge strategy with greater vigor.

To be clear, none of the service members we spoke with advocated for a conflict with China. Instead, their argument was that to deter China, the US and its allies and partners must engage in a range of activities that collectively act as guardrails to arrest escalation dynamics from boiling over to a hot war. These activities include military and security compacts such as AUKUS and building foreign and domestic supply chains and ensuring their resilience. As China’s revisionist surge strategy is advancing its agenda, the US-led security architecture needs to articulate and implement a cohesive response that contests China’s perception of extended sovereignty and its strategic vision of exacting compliance from neighboring states and peoples in the Indo-Pacific.

Nishank Motwani is a senior analyst on the US-Australia defense and security alliance with a focus on AUKUS. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).