The United States will have to act more firmly and quickly, in more tactics and in more areas.
This is the main conclusion of a circular table focused on the reaction to the Chinese threat. Titled “New Forms of Warfare,” the occasion in Denver was hosted Tuesday by the Washington Examiner and the Colorado Thirty Group. The panel included retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Bradford Shwedo and Brig. David Stilwell, who now teaches at the Air Force Academy, Jamie McIntyre, senior defense editor of the Washington Examiner, and Michael Sobolik of the American Foreign Policy Council. I moderated the discussion.
One of the main problems is wanting to better combat the political war waged by the Chinese Communist Party against the United States. Sobolik, whose e-book Countering China’s Great Game highlights this concern, pointed out how the social media platform TikTok manipulates its more than 150 million US dollars. users to adopt pro-Beijing perspectives. This includes peddling antipathy toward Israel and disinterest in anti-Communist Party perspectives on issues like the Uyghur genocide and Taiwan and making an attempt to widen cultural fissures in American society. TikTok through the Harris and Trump presidential campaigns underscores how difficult this tool is to influence American opinion in favor of China. In fact, former President Donald Trump has changed his position on the app and now says that he would not ban it if he is re-elected. president. The panel also addressed the absurdity of TikTok’s suggestion that it would protect American users’ knowledge from access by the Chinese government.
The panelists also discussed China’s cyber infiltration of US application networks. These intrusions are intended to give Chinese hackers the means to cut off civilian services, such as water and electrical power supplies, in the event of war. The goal would be to take advantage of these closures to try to convince Americans that the costs of war against Taiwan are much greater than the possible benefits.
The complexity of dealing with the Chinese military buildup is another important detail of the debate.
The panel highlighted the very significant development of the functions of the People’s Liberation Army, especially in terms of warships and ammunition. While attention was paid to the United States’ mutual desire regarding its military posture, panelists emphasized that the United States deserves to use its own interoperability and technical capability benefits to prepare for any long-term war with China.
Panelists called for plans and resources to be developed that would enable the U. S. military to engage Chinese forces with simultaneous effects in the cyber, space, air, land, and maritime domains. A point of reflection here has focused on whether classic prestige military platforms such as aircraft carriers would be as useful in a Chinese confrontation as thousands of combat drones with kill sensors. The US military’s “Replicator” program is designed to supply exactly that drone force. The challenge with aircraft carriers is that China’s vast arsenal of long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles could be flying them so far from mainland China that they would have difficulty achieving a hit.
The challenge of confronting China in the area was also highlighted in reference to the presence of the Air Force Academy and Space Command in Colorado Springs. Shwedo expressed confidence that Air Force cadets increasingly view the Space Force as a positive career choice. This is because China and Russia are moving aggressively to destroy America’s command satellites and its space. This threatens not only America’s ability to fight, but also the viskill of the American economy.
The panel’s consensus is that the United States faces a major challenge from China. But there is also optimism about the spaces in which the United States could do much more to exert its own pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime.
The panel focused more on global and regional tension over China’s vast territorial claims, as opposed to almost all of its neighbors, for example. He noted, rightly, that China has very few true friends in the Pacific region. The United States may not be perfect, but unlike China, it values respectful diplomatic exchanges.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The panel then argued that, in the event of an imminent war with China, the United States would offer debt relief to countries that China in the past ruled with greater debt. Beijing uses this debt burden to extract resources and political obedience from failing countries. But this strategy has sparked growing popular anger and the resulting opportunity for the United States to isolate Beijing as it moves toward conflict.
The panel can be summarized as follows: China represents a challenge to the security of the United States and to the democratic foreign order founded on the rule of law, a challenge that has not been noticed since 1945. But courageous leaders and potentially ambitious choices can turn things around. The United States sent before a Dongfeng ballistic missile sank it.