RAND Project AIR FORCE Annual Report 2007 - RAND Corporation

For more than a decade, U.S. defense analysts have debated howChina would approach closing the gap between its militarycapabilities and those of the United States. The country’s remarkableeconomic expansion and heavy investment in modern militaryequipment suggest that China has developed options that would makeit a formidable adversary, particularly in a conflict over Taiwan, whichthe United States remains committed to defending should China attemptto unify the island to the mainland by force.As part of that debate, analysts have been concerned that Chinamight attempt to circumvent a force-on-force confrontation with theUnited States and instead try to achieve victory by preventing the U.S.military from getting to the fight. Antiaccess strategies involve seeking toslow the deployment of opposing forces into a theater, to prevent themfrom operating in certain locations in the theater, or to cause them tooperate from further away than they would prefer.Instead of trying to deduce from known capabilities and the writingsof Western analysts what the Chinese might be thinking or doing on thismatter, the team instead went directly to the source. Chinese-literatePAF researchers read and analyzed the publications of the Chinesemilitary to determine what they have to say about this matter.China Sees Antiaccess Strategies as a Wayto Exploit U.S. VulnerabilitiesChinese analysts are keenly aware that the People’s Liberation Army(PLA) still lags the U.S. military in terms of technology, doctrine,training, and experience and that any conflict with the U.S. militarywill pose extreme challenges. To defeat a technologically superior enemy,the PLA has focused on devising strategies that maximize its relativestrengths and create opportunities to exploit an opponent’s perceivedvulnerabilities. In terms of antiaccess measures, this means attackingthe facilities and resources that the United States relies on for rapiddeployment and sustainment of military forces.Information systems. PLA analysts believe that attacks against informationsystems can delay the deployment of U.S. military forces byChinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reservists attend a military exercise marking the80th anniversary of the founding of the PLA in Taiyuan, capital of north China’s Shanxiprovince, on Wednesday, August 1, 2007.Annual Report 2007 23