This flawed aspect of Offshore Control raises many other questions that Hammes and Hooker do not attempt to answer. How many submarines and ISR aircraft would it take to patrol the huge expanse of sea-space inside the first island chain? Would the sinking of Chinese military vessels be considered proportional and nonescalatory? What about ships flying other nations’ flags? This approach calls for the U.S. to sink large numbers of ships. What would be the next step when the Chinese, understandably, focused their efforts on finding and destroying U.S. submarines?

This part of Offshore Control is void of realistic operational content. It glosses over the actual force structure required to enforce such an ambitious maritime exclusion zone. It completely neglects the likelihood that the Chinese would not tolerate the maritime interdiction campaign and would purposefully escalate their operations. It is simple to contend that the U.S. would take the necessary measures to make the maritime interdiction campaign successful. But Hammes’ and Hooker’s approach has the U.S. abandoning “offensive” land and sea basing at or inside the first island chain—the ability to respond to Chinese escalation would then be terminally hamstrung because of the Offshore Control approach. Perhaps Hammes and Hooker would not advocate responding to such an escalation at all. This would result in an even longer, far more painful war—one with much higher U.S. losses.

The second fatal flaw of Offshore Control is that it will greatly disrupt the entire world’s economy. The idea that China’s economy can be rapidly disrupted without also causing global economic disruption ignores the reality of China’s economy today and projected into the near future. Every large cargo ship and oil tanker is going to or coming from another nation’s ports, carrying other nations’ trade items, and pumping the lifeblood of the global economy. Trade with China is as indispensable to the global economy as trade with America or Europe. It cannot simply be cut or halted without inducing global chaos. This does not mean that this aspect of Offshore Control could not work; only that it is highly unlikely to be tried and even harder to sustain over the long haul, particularly without consensus or support in the international community. Further, China is unlikely to let their own economy be disrupted without taking measures against the U.S. and allied economies in unpredictable ways. Since the initiating source of conflict would almost certainly be limited and regionally focused, using the Offshore Control approach allows China to achieve its regional objective and then requires the U.S. and allies to continue the conflict—through the interdiction of raw materials and energy to strangle China. Since U.S. forces would not attempt to directly counter China’s resource or territorial claims, it would appear to the whole world that the U.S. had either been unwilling or unable to challenge China over the actual dispute, but was more than willing to escalate on a global scale. It would be subsequent U.S. actions (i.e. the blockade) that damage the global economy, not Chinese aggression. Neither U.S. or allied/partner leaders could tolerate this approach. It therefore becomes irrelevant whether Offshore Control might have worked in the long run—it would likely not be attempted, and if tried, could not be maintained. If the U.S. could not tolerate China achieving its limited objective, Offshore Control gives the allies no other option than to economically escalate and, over time, force the Chinese to “undo” what they had achieved. The U.S. would lose credibility and political support by employing such an approach—China could rightly accuse America of damaging the global economy and impoverishing millions over a regional dispute.

One of Hammes and Hooker’s assumptions is that any conflict with China will be a long war. The Offshore Control approach certainly guarantees that. In a more direct denial approach, trade could actually continue, at least on a limited scale because the U.S.’s objective would be to challenge China’s military objective itself or threaten some aspect of China’s military force and thereby make crisis stability and a brokered settlement far more likely. If China cannot achieve its regional objective there is nothing for them to give up in the process of ceasing hostilities. This will provide legitimate “face saving” conditions, unlike Offshore Control which requires China to succumb to economic pressure. With a more limited approach, China and the U.S. could face each other over a regional dispute without making the conflict economic in nature and global in scope. But, Hammes and Hooker recommend an approach that would necessitate a long war and directly induce massive economic disruption, while asserting that any war with China would be long and disruptive.

The final and most damning flaw in Offshore Control is that Hammes and Hooker fail to recognize that the real threat of escalation lies with existential threats to the Chinese Communist Party. Western thinkers make an error in mirror-imaging U.S. and allied reluctance to use force and take casualties in a limited war. It is impossible to economically exhaust China without significant damage to their national infrastructure and a direct threat to the regime. Attempts to attack China’s economy will be correctly perceived by the Chinese as an existential threat to the Chinese Communist Party itself—this will certainly result in Chinese escalation. China’s escalation will necessitate either an appropriate U.S. response or further U.S. retreat from the first island chain—basically leaving the theater. Assuming more withdrawal is not acceptable, the U.S. will have to respond to any Chinese escalation in an appropriate, but also effective manner. In order to respond effectively, the U.S. will need the access and ability to conduct such operations—access that Offshore Control cedes at the onset. This also makes Hammes’ and Hooker’s approach very risky strategically, because if it fails, the U.S. will have given up options it will need to take a different approach. This is not a minor point—regaining access after it has been ceded or lost will be far more difficult than keeping it in the first place. This is also true of operational initiative. By ceding the initiative and not even fighting for access at the outset of the campaign, the Offshore Control strategy absolutely requires that the exhaustion campaign work as predicted, and also retain the political support it will need to see it through. There are very good reasons to question whether either, or both, will be true.

A major problem is that Offshore Control seeks to coerce the China’s leadership to end a future conflict in the same way that China ended its previous conflicts with India, the United Nations in Korea, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. Hammes and Hooker believe it can produce conditions where China will declare that it “taught the enemy a lesson” and thus end the conflict. The differences between a future situation and the examples from China’s past are massive. First, the U.S. and nations in the region will not want China to keep the resource claims or the ability to engage in coercive behavior after conflict termination. After all, this is why the conflict began in the first place. Likewise, China will not be able to give up these claims or capabilities and simultaneously maintain the illusion that anyone “was taught a lesson.” For example, if China is still occupying disputed terrain or resources, they will have won the conflict; if the U.S. has forced them to give up their objective, they and the region will perceive that they have lost. If economic exhaustion forces modern, powerful China to concede to U.S. demands, everyone will know it. In none of China’s twentieth-century conflicts were China’s adversaries able or willing to threaten China’s livelihood. Further, China previously had nowhere near the resources and capabilities it has today. Now and in the future, China is an acknowledged global power, militarily, economically, and politically—a status China takes very seriously. The idea that China in 2015 or 2020 will behave like China in 1951 or 1979 is difficult to defend. China’s place in the world has changed in every conceivable way since those earlier conflicts. Offshore Control can only reach termination through massive economic damage to China and the subjugation of the Chinese Communist Party to the U.S. and allied will—while ignoring and discounting the probability of Chinese internal security problems and certain Chinese escalation. It is hard to imagine such an outcome.

Finally, a defensive interdiction campaign inherently lacks deterrent value. The U.S. and allies would need to blatantly tell China this is what the U.S. and allies will do, since China would not determine on its own that this would be the U.S. approach. Even if directly informed that this is the U.S. strategy, combined with obvious actions to develop capabilities to enact this approach, China is very unlikely to believe this is the real U.S. plan since it is so atypical of every campaign the U.S. has conducted since World War II. Therefore, this approach is unlikely to deter them. It would, however, make the U.S. look weak, not only to China but also to allies and partners; such U.S. weakness is inherently destabilizing and plays to China’s long-term strategy. No U.S. or allied national leader would ever tell the Chinese that if China chose to solve their disputes militarily, they will economically blockade China and destroy the Chinese economy. But, it is entirely reasonable for a leader to inform China that the U.S. and allies will strongly support international norms and the peaceful resolution of disputes. The Chinese would have many asymmetric responses to the Offshore Control approach. If Offshore Control became the U.S. official strategy for war against China, the Chinese could simply let the U.S. know that a blockade would make U.S. space and cyber capabilities, bases, and capital ships valid targets. The U.S. would have few options at that point, save further escalation or backing down.