The specter of a protracted, grinding war of attrition has captured the imagination of analysts, planners, and policymakers, who caution that the United States is not well-positioned to fight a long and costly war, and warn that “Washington is preparing for the wrong war with China.”
This raises the question: What is the “right” kind of war to plan for, and how exactly should the U.S. defense establishment be going about that process? The reality that few of these discussions explicitly acknowledge is that planning for protracted conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not a single, monolithic exercise, nor is “protraction” a single state of conflict.