How the United States Would Fight China

Franz-Stefan Gady examines how the United States envisions a potential conflict with China, particularly over Taiwan, and argues that the US military's reliance on rapid information superiority and decisive victory is unlikely to succeed.

He warns that this approach could lead to a prolonged war of attrition across multiple domains—land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace—for which the US is ill-prepared due to a focus on advanced technology over mass, and a lack of public or political will for the necessary sacrifices.

Gady's research, based on US doctrine and force structure, highlights the significant risks of strategic defeat and nuclear escalation in a US-China conflict, whether in the 2020s or 2030s.