As the Pentagon has begun to reorient its focus back toward conventional warfare after more than a decade of fighting counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has become apparent that the U.S. ability to project military power is increasingly under threat. Since the end of World War II, the United States has relied on its ability to sustain military operations far from its shores in support of its national interests. However, the proliferation of advanced “anti-access/area denial” (A2/AD) capabilities by potential adversaries has cast growing doubt on the U.S. military’s ability to deploy to, and operate effectively in, distant regions. Such capabilities include, but are not limited to, extended range cruise and ballistic missiles, strike aircraft, anti-satellite weapons, long-range air defenses, and cyber weapons. The lethality of kinetic weapons systems has been enormously enhanced by the spread of precisionstrike technology, originally pioneered by the U.S., that allows munitions to hit their targets with great accuracy, even from long distances. The growing ability of potential adversaries to mount long range precision strikes against U.S. ships, bases, and aircraft has put the nation’s ability to project power to strategically vital regions in peril.
U.S. concerns about the A2/D2 threat are largely driven largely by China’s acquisition of such capabilities. To be sure, other potential adversaries such as Iran and North Korea have A2/AD weapons systems, but it is the growing strength of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that has caught the attention of the U.S. national security community. Over the past decade, China has increased its military spending at an average annual rate of over nine percent. According to Ronald O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service, the focus of this buildup has been the development of military capabilities that will allow China to “deter U.S. intervention in a conflict in China’s near-seas region over Taiwan or some other issue, or failing that, delay the arrival or reduce the effectiveness of intervening U.S. forces.” China has built an arsenal of approximately 1,100 short range ballistic missiles that are targeted at Taiwan. It has also developed longer range ballistic missiles that can strike fixed targets over 1,000 miles away with great accuracy, putting at risk U.S. forces located in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and possibly Guam. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also recently fielded the DF-21D, an anti-ship ballistic missile that is intended to attack naval forces at sea, such as a U.S. carrier battle group – a development that has generated considerable concern among U.S. defense experts.