The U.S. defense establishment faces a new strategic reckoning as China’s rapidly expanding defense-industrial base and long-range strike arsenal reshape the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, according to a feature published in Foreign Affairs that calls for a modernized “offset” strategy to regain advantage.
The piece, drawing on Pentagon assessments from the mid-2010s through today, recounts how then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work warned that China was seeking technological parity with the United States. Beijing’s development of systems such as the DF-21D antiship ballistic missile — the so-called “carrier killer” with a range approaching 1,000 miles — convinced U.S. planners that Washington must imagine what a war in the Pacific would look like and prepare accordingly, the article says. Foreign Affairs is the source for that reporting.
Work proposed a “third offset” — an approach modeled on Cold War-era offsets that combined technology, new operational concepts, and organizational change — to blunt China’s advantages. The Pentagon subsequently drafted new warfighting concepts, including the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations, increased investments in space and sensor capabilities, and experimentation with long-range and unmanned systems. But, as the Foreign Affairs analysis notes, the original third-offset effort never achieved full coherence or urgency when the United States still enjoyed clear military preeminence.
Today the article warns, the gap has narrowed. It quotes Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo describing Chinese production of military platforms as proceeding at “an alarming pace.” The piece highlights dramatic growth in China’s shipbuilding and missile inventories and argues that U.S. forces stationed across the first and second island chains — from Japan to Guam — would be vulnerable to strikes early in any high-intensity conflict over Taiwan or other flashpoints.
Although Beijing has amassed capabilities, Foreign Affairs stresses that China is not without weaknesses. The magazine calls on the Pentagon to design a new offset in two phases: first, develop a clear operational concept for how to defeat a particular threat (for example, preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan); second, acquire and deploy the weapons and systems that concept requires. Historical precedent — the Eisenhower administration’s New Look and the Carter/Reagan-era second offset that produced concepts like AirLand Battle and precision weapons — is cited as evidence that such strategies can work when operational thinking leads equipment choices.
Operational recommendations in the piece range from posture changes and logistics preparation to force-structure shifts. Suggested moves include forward-positioning more bombers and hardening regional bases, stockpiling fuel and munitions across the Indo-Pacific, and dramatically increasing inventories of precision, long-range antiship missiles and cheaper attritable systems such as runway-independent drones. The analysis also urges Washington to preserve and expand advantages in the undersea domain — notably nuclear-powered attack submarines and underwater unmanned systems — where the People’s Liberation Army remains comparatively weak.
Importantly, Foreign Affairs cautions that technology alone will not win future wars. Quoting long-time Pentagon strategist Andrew Marshall, the piece emphasizes that “technology makes possible the revolution, but the revolution itself takes place only when new concepts of operation develop.” The article therefore calls for a joint concept of operations tailored to the Indo-Pacific and followed by the investments necessary to sustain it — otherwise, it argues, the United States risks being outmatched in a future conflict.
The Foreign Affairs analysis concludes that Washington must prioritize defeating and deterring China in the Indo-Pacific even while retaining the ability to respond to contingencies elsewhere. That, the magazine argues, requires focused strategic thinking, concrete operational plans, and a sustained industrial and procurement effort to translate concept into combat power.
