This report provides a strategic assessment of the five most probable operational strategies that a commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) would employ in a high-intensity maritime confrontation with United States naval forces. For each Chinese strategy, a corresponding U.S. counter-strategy is detailed, grounded in an analysis of current military doctrines, technological capabilities, and the prevailing strategic balance in the Western Pacific.

The analysis reveals a fundamental dichotomy in operational philosophy. The PLAN’s strategies are overwhelmingly optimized for a decisive, system-dependent, and centrally controlled initial blow, designed to achieve a rapid fait accompli by shattering U.S. operational capability and political will. These strategies—ranging from a massive missile saturation strike to a multi-domain C5ISR blackout—rely on the seamless integration of a complex but potentially brittle system-of-systems. Conversely, U.S. counter-strategies, rooted in the doctrine of Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), are designed for systemic resilience, allied integration, and victory in a chaotic, degraded, and protracted conflict. U.S. responses prioritize dis-integrating the adversary’s kill web before launch, leveraging a superior command-and-control philosophy based on decentralized execution, and exploiting China’s grand strategic vulnerabilities.

The five core strategic interactions analyzed are:

1. The Saturation Strike: A multi-domain, massed missile attack aimed at overwhelming the defenses of a U.S. Carrier Strike Group (CSG). The U.S. response focuses on proactively degrading the PLAN’s C5ISR “kill web” through non-kinetic means while employing a layered, networked defense (NIFC-CA) and operational dispersal (DMO) to survive and retaliate.
2. The Gray-Zone Squeeze: The use of paramilitary and non-military assets (Maritime Militia and Coast Guard) to assert control over disputed waters below the threshold of war. The U.S. counter involves “assertive transparency” to strip away plausible deniability, a “like-for-like” response using law enforcement assets, and bolstering allied maritime domain awareness and resilience.
3. The Undersea Ambush: The deployment of a large and quiet conventional submarine force to interdict sea lanes and hold U.S. surface assets at risk within the First Island Chain. The U.S. response leverages its technologically superior nuclear submarine force and a coordinated, multi-domain Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) network to seize and maintain undersea dominance, which is the decisive enabling campaign for all other naval operations.
4. The C5ISR Blackout: A synchronized attack across the space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains to paralyze U.S. command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. The U.S. response is twofold: building technical resilience through hardened, redundant networks (Project Overmatch) and leveraging doctrinal resilience through a culture of mission command that empowers decentralized execution in a degraded environment.
5. The War of Attrition: A strategy to leverage China’s superior industrial capacity to absorb and replace combat losses at a rate the U.S. cannot sustain in a protracted conflict. The U.S. counter is to reject a war of attrition by targeting China’s grand strategic vulnerabilities—namely its dependence on seaborne trade—and integrating the formidable industrial and military power of its allies to offset the PLAN’s numerical advantage.

The overarching conclusion is that a naval conflict in the Western Pacific would be a contest between a Chinese force built for a perfect, centrally-scripted punch and a U.S. force designed to fight and win in the ensuing chaos. Victory for the U.S. commander will hinge on the successful implementation of DMO, enabled by resilient networking, and founded upon the U.S. Navy’s most durable asymmetric advantage: a command culture that trusts and empowers its people to take disciplined initiative in the face of uncertainty.

Introduction: The Contested Waters of the Western Pacific

The contemporary maritime environment, particularly in the Western Pacific, is defined by a direct and intensifying strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This is not merely a contest of naval platforms but a fundamental clash of national wills, technological trajectories, and operational doctrines. At the heart of this competition is the dramatic transformation of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Over the past three decades, the PLAN has evolved from a coastal “brown-water” navy, whose primary mission was to “resist invasions and defend the homeland” , into a formidable “blue-water” force with global ambitions. This shift, accelerated under Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” of national rejuvenation , represents a deliberate effort to project power, secure China’s maritime interests, and challenge the United States’ long-standing maritime supremacy. The PLAN’s growth is not just quantitative—it is now the world’s largest navy by number of ships—but also qualitative, with the introduction of advanced surface combatants, aircraft carriers, and a modernizing submarine force.

This naval build-up underpins a profound clash of operational philosophies, setting the stage for any potential confrontation. China’s military strategy is anchored in the concept of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD). This is a layered, defense-in-depth posture designed to deter, and if necessary, defeat U.S. military intervention within the First and Second Island Chains. By combining long-range precision-strike weapons, a dense network of sensors, and a growing fleet, China seeks to make military operations by foreign forces prohibitively costly and difficult in areas it considers vital to its national interests, such as the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. A2/AD is fundamentally the strategy of a continental power seeking to establish and enforce control over its maritime periphery, effectively turning its near seas into a strategic bastion.

In direct response to this challenge, the United States Navy has adopted Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) as its foundational operating concept. DMO is designed explicitly to counter peer adversaries in a contested A2/AD environment. It seeks to turn the adversary’s strength—a reliance on finding and targeting concentrated U.S. forces—into a critical weakness. DMO achieves this by dispersing U.S. naval forces over vast geographic areas, complicating the adversary’s targeting problem, while concentrating lethal and non-lethal effects from multiple domains and vectors through resilient, long-range networking. It is a conceptual shift away from the carrier-centric battle group of the post-Cold War era toward a more adaptable, resilient, and distributed fleet architecture capable of seizing the initiative and prevailing in a high-end fight.

This report will dissect this strategic competition by analyzing the five most likely operational strategies a PLAN commander will employ in a maritime confrontation. For each Chinese strategy, a corresponding U.S. counter-strategy will be presented, providing a comprehensive assessment for the U.S. commander tasked with maintaining maritime superiority and upholding the international rules-based order in the contested waters of the Western Pacific.

I. The Saturation Strike: Overwhelming the Shield

The kinetic culmination of decades of Chinese investment in A2/AD capabilities is the Saturation Strike. This strategy is not merely an attack but a highly synchronized, multi-domain, system-of-systems operation aimed at delivering a decisive and politically shattering blow against the centerpiece of U.S. naval power projection: the Carrier Strike Group (CSG).

The Chinese Commander’s Strategy

The PLAN commander’s primary strategic objective in executing a Saturation Strike is to achieve a mission-kill or hard-kill on a U.S. aircraft carrier and its principal escorts, such as its Aegis cruisers and destroyers. The intended effect is twofold: operationally, to eliminate the CSG’s ability to project air power, thereby establishing uncontested sea and air control within the A2/AD envelope; and strategically, to inflict a shocking loss that breaks U.S. political will to continue the conflict.

This strategy is not executed by simply launching missiles; it requires the activation of a complex and highly integrated C5ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) architecture that Chinese doctrine conceptualizes as a “kill web”. This architecture is designed to execute every step of the targeting process—Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, and Assess (F2T2EA)—against mobile, high-value U.S. naval assets. The sensor layer of this kill web is a multi-domain, redundant grid. It comprises space-based assets, including ISR satellites for imagery and electronic intelligence and the Beidou satellite navigation system for precision timing and location ; land-based over-the-horizon (OTH) radars to detect naval formations at long ranges; airborne platforms like Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft and long-endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs); and the organic sensors of the PLAN’s own surface ships and submarines. The purpose of this dense sensor network is to create a persistent, fused, and reliable picture of the battlespace, ensuring that a U.S. CSG can be continuously tracked once detected.

The kinetic effectors of this strategy are a diverse and numerous arsenal of missiles, designed to attack the CSG from multiple axes and at different altitudes simultaneously, thereby overwhelming its layered defenses through sheer volume and complexity. The primary threat to the aircraft carrier itself comes from Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs). These are road-mobile systems that can be hidden inland and launched on short notice. The key systems are the DF-21D, known as the “carrier-killer” with a range of approximately 1,500 km, and the DF-26, an intermediate-range ballistic missile dubbed the “Guam-killer” with a range of approximately 4,000 km, capable of striking both land bases and naval targets. These missiles attack from a near-space apogee at hypersonic speeds (estimated at up to Mach 10 upon reentry), and are believed to be equipped with Maneuverable Reentry Vehicles (MaRVs) that can make terminal adjustments to their trajectory, significantly complicating interception by U.S. defensive systems.

A more recent and sophisticated threat is posed by Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs), such as the DF-ZF HGV launched by the DF-17 missile. Unlike a ballistic missile, an HGV is released from its booster rocket and then “skips” along the upper atmosphere on a relatively flat, non-ballistic trajectory. This flight profile, combined with its ability to maneuver at speeds exceeding Mach 5, makes it exceptionally difficult for traditional ballistic missile defense radars and interceptors to track and engage.

To saturate the CSG’s mid- and inner-tier defenses, the ASBM and HGV attack will be synchronized with a massive volley of Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCMs). These will include both sea-skimming subsonic and supersonic variants, like the YJ-18, launched from a wide array of platforms to create a multi-axis threat picture that overloads the Aegis Combat System’s fire control channels. The platforms tasked with launching these weapons are themselves diverse. The PLAN’s modern surface combatants, particularly the formidable Type 055 (Renhai-class) cruiser and the capable Type 052D destroyers, serve as primary launch platforms. The Type 055, with its 112 Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells and advanced dual-band AESA radars, is a critical node in both the sensor and shooter network. Concurrently, PLAN Air Force H-6 bombers, armed with long-range ASCMs, will conduct standoff attacks from the periphery of the CSG’s air defense bubble. Finally, PLAN submarines, both conventional and nuclear, will be pre-positioned along expected U.S. approach vectors to launch submerged attacks, adding another, often unseen, axis of attack.

A deeper analysis of this strategy reveals that its immense power is predicated on the seamless functioning of a highly complex, centrally controlled C5ISR architecture. It is designed as a perfectly synchronized, overwhelming blow, but this optimization for a “best-case” scenario, where its network operates unimpeded, creates an inherent brittleness. The entire kill chain, from satellite detection to missile impact, depends on a series of critical nodes—a specific satellite, a data fusion center on the mainland, a secure communication link. The failure of any one of these nodes, whether through technical malfunction or enemy action, could cause the entire targeting solution to collapse, rendering the missiles ineffective. Furthermore, the nature of the primary threat systems suggests the attack will be “pulsed” rather than continuous. The logistical and C5ISR effort required to coordinate mobile land-based launchers and generate a high-fidelity targeting solution for a moving CSG means the PLAN cannot maintain a constant stream of ASBM fire. Instead, they will seek to create a “targeting window” and launch a massive, all-at-once strike to maximize the probability of success. This operational tempo, however, creates windows of opportunity for U.S. forces to act and disrupt the cycle between these offensive pulses.

The U.S. Commander’s Response

The U.S. commander’s strategic objective is to defeat the PLAN’s Saturation Strike by actively dis-integrating the Chinese kill web before missiles are launched, defending against any weapons that do get through, and maintaining the combat effectiveness of the CSG to retaliate decisively. This multi-phased response is the practical application of Distributed Maritime Operations.

The primary effort, designated here as Phase 0, is focused on non-kinetic warfare to prevent the PLAN from generating a clean targeting solution in the first place. This is a proactive campaign to attack the adversary’s C5ISR system. Coordinated through U.S. Cyber Command and theater assets, U.S. forces will conduct offensive cyber and Electronic Warfare (EW) operations targeting the nodes of the PLAN’s kill web. This includes jamming and spoofing ISR and navigation satellites, disrupting data links between platforms, attacking ground-based OTH radars, and penetrating the command and data networks that connect sensors to shooters. The goal is to sow friction, doubt, and blindness within the Chinese commander’s decision-making cycle, degrading their situational awareness and confidence in their targeting data. Simultaneously, the CSG will employ a sophisticated suite of deception tactics, including advanced electronic decoys that mimic the signature of high-value ships and strict emissions control (EMCON) procedures to reduce the CSG’s own electronic signature, thereby confusing PLAN sensors and creating a multitude of false targets.

Should the PLAN manage to launch a strike, Phase 1—the kinetic shield—is activated. This is a layered, hard-kill defense system designed to engage and destroy incoming threats at successively closer ranges. The heart of this defense is the Aegis Combat System, deployed on Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Aegis, with its powerful AN/SPY series radars, provides 360-degree, all-weather detection, tracking, and engagement capabilities against the full spectrum of aerial threats.

The critical enabler that extends this shield beyond the horizon is Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA). This revolutionary network allows different platforms to share sensor data and engage targets cooperatively. In a typical NIFC-CA engagement, an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft, acting as an elevated sensor and communications node, detects an incoming wave of cruise missiles or a terminally descending ASBM far beyond the ship’s own radar horizon. It then transmits this targeting data via a high-capacity data link to an Aegis ship, which can launch an SM-6 missile to intercept the threat, with the E-2D providing mid-course guidance updates. This “launch-on-remote” or “engage-on-remote” capability dramatically expands the CSG’s defensive battlespace and is a crucial counter to saturation tactics.

The CSG’s interceptor arsenal is multi-tiered to handle the diverse threat axis. The outer tier, focused on Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), employs the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) for exo-atmospheric “hit-to-kill” interception of ballistic missiles during their mid-course phase of flight. The mid-tier is the domain of the highly versatile Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), the workhorse of NIFC-CA. The SM-6 is capable of engaging ballistic missiles in their terminal phase (endo-atmospheric) as well as advanced air-breathing threats like cruise missiles and aircraft at extended ranges. The inner tier consists of the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) and the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM), providing high-volume defense against cruise missiles and aircraft at shorter ranges.

Crucially, the CSG will not operate in a tightly clustered, easily targetable formation that plays to the strengths of the PLAN’s A2/AD system. Instead, it will adopt a DMO posture. Assets will be geographically dispersed over hundreds of miles, forcing the PLAN to search a much larger area and expend significantly more ISR resources to find and identify high-value targets. The key technological enabler for this dispersal is Project Overmatch, the Navy’s contribution to the broader Department of Defense’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort. Project Overmatch is developing a suite of resilient networks, secure data architectures, and AI-powered decision aids designed to connect the dispersed fleet. This allows widely separated units to share sensor data and coordinate fires seamlessly, even in a heavily contested electromagnetic environment, creating a resilient and lethal U.S. “kill web” of its own.

This U.S. response is fundamentally proactive, not reactive. The primary effort is focused on the “left side of the kill chain”—degrading the enemy’s ability to target in the first place by attacking its vulnerable C2 and sensor networks. The kinetic shield of missiles is the final line of defense, not the first. DMO turns the tables on the A2/AD concept. The A2/AD strategy is predicated on holding a concentrated, high-value U.S. force at risk. By refusing to present a concentrated force, DMO breaks the fundamental logic of the PLAN’s targeting model. It disperses U.S. combat power across numerous manned and unmanned platforms, creating dozens of potential targets. This forces the Chinese commander into an untenable dilemma: either expend their limited inventory of high-end munitions, like ASBMs, on lower-value targets, or dedicate an enormous and unsustainable amount of ISR assets to correctly identify the high-value units within the distributed formation, making their sensor network even more vulnerable to U.S. non-kinetic attack.

II. The Gray-Zone Squeeze: Winning Without Fighting

Beyond high-end kinetic conflict, the PLAN commander will employ a sophisticated and persistent strategy of coercion in the “gray zone”—the contested space between peace and war. This strategy involves the calibrated use of non-military and paramilitary forces to achieve strategic objectives, such as asserting de facto sovereignty over disputed waters, without triggering a conventional military response from the United States or its allies.

The Chinese Commander’s Strategy

The strategic objective of the Gray-Zone Squeeze is to establish “facts on the water” that normalize Chinese administrative control and territorial claims, primarily in the South China Sea and East China Sea. This is achieved by harassing U.S. or allied vessels, intimidating regional claimants, and gradually eroding the international rules-based order, all while maintaining plausible deniability and carefully managing the escalation ladder to avoid open warfare.

The operational manifestation of this strategy is a layered, three-tiered force structure, often referred to as the “cabbage strategy,” where each layer provides a different level of coercion and deniability. The innermost layer, and the vanguard of any gray-zone operation, is the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM). This is a state-organized and controlled force composed of a large swarm of vessels, many of which are disguised as civilian fishing trawlers but are, in fact, purpose-built for paramilitary missions with reinforced hulls and powerful water cannons. The PAFMM is used for initial harassment, blockading strategic features like the Second Thomas Shoal, and employing “swarm” tactics to intimidate smaller vessels from nations like the Philippines or Vietnam. Their civilian appearance is the key to the strategy, as it makes a forceful, kinetic response from a professional navy politically risky and easy for Beijing to portray as an act of aggression against fishermen.

The middle layer consists of the China Coast Guard (CCG). The CCG operates larger, more capable, and often heavily armed cutters, many of which are former PLAN frigates. The CCG’s role is to escalate the pressure beyond what the militia can achieve. They employ dangerous but nominally non-lethal tactics, including ramming, shouldering, using high-pressure water cannons, and aiming military-grade lasers at the bridges of opposing ships to blind their crews. By operating under the guise of maritime law enforcement, the CCG further complicates the Rules of Engagement (ROE) for U.S. naval forces, creating a legal and diplomatic shield for their coercive actions.

The outermost layer is composed of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) itself. In a typical gray-zone scenario, PLAN warships will remain “over the horizon,” visible on radar but not directly involved in the immediate confrontation. Their presence serves as a powerful and unambiguous military backstop. It sends a clear signal to the U.S. commander that any attempt to escalate and use lethal force against the CCG or PAFMM will cross the threshold into a conventional military conflict with the full might of the PLAN.

The core of this entire strategy is to present the U.S. commander with an operational dilemma, a “lose-lose” scenario. The first option is to do nothing, which results in ceding the contested area, allowing China to achieve its objective, and signaling to regional allies that U.S. security guarantees are hollow. The second option is to escalate and use lethal force against the PAFMM or CCG. This would play directly into China’s hands, allowing Beijing to win the information and legal war (“lawfare”) by painting the U.S. as the aggressor attacking “civilians” or “law enforcement” personnel in waters China claims as its own.

These gray-zone operations are not random acts of maritime bullying; they are a form of pre-conflict battlefield shaping. They are a systematic, long-term campaign to establish positional advantage, test U.S. resolve, and normalize Chinese presence and control in strategically vital waterways. The militarized artificial islands in the South China Sea, for example, serve as forward operating bases that enable and sustain these gray-zone actions, extending China’s A2/AD bubble and limiting U.S. operational freedom long before any shots are fired. The strategy’s center of gravity is not firepower but ambiguity and narrative control. Its effectiveness hinges on China’s ability to control the international perception of events and exploit the legal and political seams in the international order. If this ambiguity is stripped away and the state-directed nature of the coercion is laid bare, the strategy loses much of its power, as it can no longer be credibly separated from an act of military aggression.

The U.S. Commander’s Response

The U.S. commander’s strategic objective is to effectively counter Chinese gray-zone coercion without escalating to armed conflict. This requires a multi-faceted approach aimed at exposing the state-directed nature of the PAFMM and CCG, neutralizing China’s narrative advantage, and reassuring allies of unwavering U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

The primary line of effort is “Assertive Transparency,” a strategy designed to win the information war by systematically stripping away the ambiguity upon which the Chinese strategy relies. This involves the use of a persistent and comprehensive ISR network—including satellites, long-endurance UAVs like the MQ-4C Triton and MQ-9 Reaper, and other intelligence platforms—to continuously monitor, document, and collect irrefutable evidence of PAFMM and CCG activities. This evidence, including imagery of unprofessional maneuvers, communications intercepts proving coordination with the PLAN, and data showing militia vessels disabling their automatic identification systems (AIS), must be rapidly declassified and publicly released. By publicizing Beijing’s malign behavior, the U.S. and its allies can impose significant reputational costs, forcing China to either accept international condemnation or disavow its own paramilitary forces.

The second line of effort is to employ a calibrated force posture that controls the escalation ladder. Instead of meeting paramilitary aggression with high-end naval combatants, the U.S. will pursue a “like-for-like” response. This involves deploying U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) cutters to the region to counter the CCG directly. This places the confrontation in a law-enforcement-versus-law-enforcement context, which neutralizes China’s narrative that it is being bullied by the U.S. Navy. It also leverages the USCG’s expertise in maritime law enforcement and professional conduct to highlight the unprofessional and dangerous behavior of the CCG. In this posture, U.S. Navy destroyers would be positioned in an overwatch role, similar to the PLAN’s own posture. This demonstrates military resolve and establishes clear red lines—for example, that lethal force used against a U.S. or allied vessel will be met with a decisive military response—without being the primary instrument of engagement in the gray-zone incident itself.

The third, and perhaps most critical, line of effort is building allied resilience. The primary targets of China’s gray-zone pressure are often U.S. allies and partners like the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The most effective long-term counter is to empower these nations to resist coercion themselves. This involves significant investment in capacity building, such as enhancing their maritime domain awareness, C5ISR capabilities, and coast guard forces so they can better monitor and respond to gray-zone threats within their own exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Furthermore, conducting joint naval and coast guard patrols with allies in disputed areas serves to demonstrate collective resolve, reinforce international law like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and show that China’s claims are not accepted by the international community.

This counter-strategy deliberately targets the adversary’s decision-making process, not just their physical assets. A purely physical response, such as trying to block militia boats with a destroyer, is tactically difficult and strategically unwise, as it plays directly into China’s escalation trap. The key is to create unacceptable political and reputational costs for the Chinese Communist Party leadership. By shifting the conflict from the physical domain, where China can leverage its numerical advantage in small vessels, to the information and political domains, the U.S. and its allies can leverage the power of truth, international law, and collective action. It must be understood that gray-zone challenges cannot be “solved” in a single engagement. China’s strategy is one of persistence and incrementalism. Therefore, the U.S. response must also be persistent. Transitory operations like Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), while necessary, are insufficient on their own to deter this long-term campaign. The ultimate winner in the gray zone will be the side that can most effectively and efficiently sustain its presence and its political will over time.

III. The Undersea Ambush: War for the Deeps

Leveraging the inherent stealth of the submarine, the PLAN commander’s third major strategy is to wage war from beneath the waves. The Undersea Ambush is designed to challenge U.S. sea control at its foundation, targeting not only high-value military assets but also the vulnerable logistical lifeline that sustains any forward-deployed U.S. force. This is a battle for the undersea domain, where victory or defeat can enable or cripple all other operations.

The Chinese Commander’s Strategy

The strategic objectives of the Undersea Ambush are multifaceted: to interdict U.S. and allied sea lines of communication (SLOCs), disrupting the flow of reinforcements and supplies into the theater; to conduct covert intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) deep within the U.S. defensive perimeter; to hold high-value surface assets like aircraft carriers and amphibious ships at risk; and to contest the undersea domain, denying U.S. submarines the sanctuary they have long enjoyed, particularly within the strategically critical waters of the first island chain.

To execute this strategy, the PLAN commander will employ a two-tiered submarine force, with different classes of submarines tailored for different operational environments and missions. The first tier, and arguably the most dangerous in a regional conflict, is the PLAN’s large and increasingly quiet fleet of conventional diesel-electric submarines (SSKs). This force includes Russian-built Kilo-class submarines and a growing number of indigenous Song- and Yuan-class boats. A significant and growing portion of the Yuan-class fleet is equipped with Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP), a technology that allows a non-nuclear submarine to operate without surfacing to snorkel for extended periods, potentially for weeks at a time. This capability makes AIP-equipped SSKs extremely difficult to detect in the noisy and acoustically complex littoral environments of the South and East China Seas, where they can lie in wait in ambush positions.

The second tier is the PLAN’s growing force of nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), primarily the Shang-class (Type 093) and its improved variants, with the next-generation Type 095 expected to be a significant leap in capability. While generally still considered acoustically inferior (i.e., louder) than their U.S. counterparts, the newest Shang-class variants show significant improvements in quieting and are equipped with vertical launch systems (VLS) capable of firing land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles. These SSNs provide the PLAN with a blue-water, long-endurance capability to threaten U.S. rear-area bases, strike targets on land, and hunt U.S. naval forces beyond the first island chain.

The key missions assigned to this submarine force will be diverse. The numerous SSKs will be deployed as “picket fences” across key maritime chokepoints, such as the Strait of Malacca, the Sunda Strait, and the Luzon Strait, with the primary mission of hunting for U.S. logistics shipping, amphibious vessels, and surface combatants transiting into the theater. Submarines are also the ideal platform for covertly deploying advanced sea mines near allied ports (e.g., in Japan or the Philippines) and along strategic waterways, creating no-go zones that can disrupt naval movements and bottle up surface fleets. Meanwhile, the quietest SSKs and the more capable SSNs will be tasked with the high-risk, high-reward mission of hunting High-Value Units (HVUs), specifically U.S. aircraft carriers, large-deck amphibious assault ships, and critical underway replenishment vessels.

The logic of this undersea strategy is fundamentally asymmetric and geographically focused. The PLAN leadership understands that it cannot currently compete with the U.S. Navy in a global, blue-water submarine-on-submarine conflict. Its strategy, therefore, is to leverage the numerical strength of its large SSK fleet in the defensive acoustic terrain of its near seas. The complex sound propagation, high shipping density, and variable water conditions of the East and South China Seas provide an ideal hiding ground for quiet conventional submarines. The most rational and dangerous approach for the PLAN commander is not to send their SSNs on duels in the open Pacific, but to use their SSK advantage to turn the first island chain into a lethal ambush zone.

However, this potent offensive strategy is undermined by a significant and acknowledged PLAN weakness: its own Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capabilities. For decades, the PLAN underinvested in the complex art of ASW, lacking the advanced platforms, integrated sensor networks, and, most importantly, the deep institutional experience that the U.S. Navy has cultivated since the Cold War. While China is now rapidly fielding more capable ASW platforms, such as the KQ-200 maritime patrol aircraft and surface ships with advanced sonars, mastering ASW is not a “turnkey” capability; it requires years of training and cultural integration. This creates a critical strategic dilemma for the PLAN commander: while their submarines pose a grave threat to U.S. surface ships, the waters in which they operate are not a sanctuary for them. They are, in fact, highly vulnerable to the apex predators of the undersea domain—U.S. nuclear attack submarines. Every PLAN submarine deployed on an offensive mission is simultaneously a high-value target for U.S. SSNs, forcing the Chinese commander to risk their own most potent asymmetric assets in a domain where their adversary remains superior.

The U.S. Commander’s Response

The U.S. commander’s strategic objective is to seize and maintain dominance in the undersea domain, neutralizing the PLAN submarine threat and thereby ensuring freedom of maneuver for all U.S. and allied forces. The undersea battle is the decisive enabling campaign of any maritime conflict in the Pacific.

The cornerstone of the U.S. response is its own profound asymmetric advantage: a technologically superior, all-nuclear attack submarine (SSN) force, composed of the Virginia-class and the exceptionally quiet Seawolf-class submarines. These platforms are the most capable submarines in the world, and their primary wartime mission will be to conduct hunter-killer operations against PLAN submarines. Their superior acoustic quieting, advanced sonar suites, and the exceptional training and proficiency of their crews give them a decisive advantage in submarine-on-submarine engagements. Beyond their hunter-killer role, U.S. SSNs are premier ISR platforms, capable of penetrating deep within the A2/AD bubble to conduct covert surveillance, collect critical intelligence, provide targeting data for the joint force, and deploy special operations forces (SOF).

U.S. SSNs, however, do not operate in isolation. They are the leading edge of a coordinated, multi-layered, theater-wide ASW network. This network includes Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft (MPRA), primarily the P-8A Poseidon. The P-8A is the world’s premier aerial ASW platform, capable of rapidly searching vast areas of ocean, deploying extensive fields of advanced sonobuoys to detect and track submarine contacts, and prosecuting those contacts with lightweight torpedoes. Surface combatants, including Aegis destroyers and cruisers, are also critical nodes in the ASW network. They are equipped with powerful hull-mounted and towed-array sonars and embark MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, which are themselves potent ASW platforms equipped with dipping sonars and torpedoes.

This network of kinetic platforms is cued and supported by a web of undersea surveillance systems. This includes fixed acoustic arrays laid on the seabed in strategic locations, mobile surveillance platforms like the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) ships, and a growing fleet of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). Together, these systems provide persistent, wide-area surveillance of key transit lanes and operating areas, detecting the faint acoustic signatures of PLAN submarines and passing that information to the hunter-killer platforms.

The U.S. response will also actively exploit the PLAN’s vulnerabilities. U.S. submarines are ideal platforms for offensive minelaying, capable of covertly deploying advanced mines in strategic locations, such as the approaches to PLAN naval bases, to bottle up the Chinese fleet and turn China’s geography into a liability. Furthermore, U.S. forces will employ tactics designed to impose uncertainty and disrupt the PLAN’s more rigid, top-down command and control structure. By creating unpredictable and complex tactical situations, U.S. forces can exploit the superior training and doctrinal empowerment of their own crews.

The undersea battle is arguably the decisive campaign in a potential conflict. If the U.S. can successfully neutralize the PLAN submarine threat, its surface fleet and critical logistics train can operate with much greater freedom of maneuver, making the entire DMO concept fully viable. Conversely, if PLAN submarines can successfully interdict U.S. forces and logistics, the U.S. will be unable to sustain a high-intensity fight in the Western Pacific. Therefore, the U.S. commander’s first and most critical priority must be to win the war for the deeps.

Beyond technology, the U.S. Navy’s most significant and durable advantage in the undersea domain is the human factor. U.S. submarine doctrine is built upon the philosophy of “mission command,” which grants unparalleled autonomy to commanding officers. They are expected to understand the commander’s intent and then exercise disciplined initiative to achieve it, even—and especially—when operating alone and out of communication. The PLAN, by contrast, is known for a more centralized, top-down C2 structure that can be rigid and slow to adapt in a dynamic environment. In the complex, uncertain, and communications-denied battlespace of undersea warfare, the ability of a U.S. submarine commander to make rapid, independent, and intent-driven decisions will be a decisive advantage over a PLAN counterpart who may be waiting for permission from a distant, and potentially unreachable, headquarters. This cultural and doctrinal difference is a true force multiplier.

IV. The C5ISR Blackout: The Multi-Domain Blitz

Preceding or concurrent with any major kinetic operation, the PLAN commander will almost certainly execute a multi-domain blitz aimed at achieving a “systemic paralysis” of U.S. forces. The C5ISR Blackout is a strategy that focuses on non-kinetic means to render U.S. forces deaf, dumb, and blind at the outset of a conflict, thereby severing the digital connective tissue that enables modern, networked warfare.

The Chinese Commander’s Strategy

The strategic objective of the C5ISR Blackout is to disrupt, degrade, and destroy U.S. command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities across the space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains. By attacking the nervous system of the U.S. military, the PLAN aims to prevent the U.S. from conducting effective, coordinated joint operations, thereby isolating individual units and making them vulnerable to follow-on kinetic attacks. This strategy is the direct embodiment of the PLA’s concept of “system destruction warfare,” which posits that victory in modern conflict is achieved not by destroying every enemy platform, but by causing a cascading collapse of the adversary’s operational system.

This mission falls primarily to the PLA’s specialized information warfare units, which were centralized under the Strategic Support Force (SSF) in 2015 and are now being reorganized into more focused entities like the Cyberspace Force and Aerospace Force. These forces are tasked with planning and executing a synchronized, multi-domain attack targeting the foundational pillars of U.S. networked operations.

The key attack vectors are threefold. The first is space warfare, which will target the critical U.S. satellite constellations that provide Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) via the Global Positioning System (GPS), global communications (SATCOM), and ISR. The PLA has developed a suite of anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities to achieve this, ranging from direct-ascent kinetic kill vehicles to co-orbital robotic satellites that can jam, spoof, or physically disable U.S. assets in orbit. They can also employ ground-based directed energy weapons (lasers) to dazzle or damage satellite sensors and conduct cyberattacks against satellite ground control stations.

The second vector is cyber warfare. The PLA will launch large-scale cyberattacks aimed at both military and civilian targets. Military targets will include command and control networks, logistics and maintenance databases, and weapon system software. The goal is to corrupt data, deny access to critical systems, inject malware, and generally sow chaos and confusion within the U.S. command structure. Civilian targets will include critical infrastructure in the U.S. homeland and at forward operating bases, such as power grids, transportation networks, and financial systems, with the aim of disrupting U.S. mobilization and creating domestic political pressure.

The third vector is Electronic Warfare (EW). The PLA will conduct widespread and intensive jamming of the electromagnetic spectrum. This will target critical U.S. military communications links, such as Link-16, which connects aircraft, ships, and ground forces. It will also involve broad-area jamming of GPS signals to disrupt navigation and the guidance of precision munitions. Additionally, PLA EW assets will target U.S. radar systems on ships and aircraft to degrade their ability to detect and track incoming threats. The PLA views the integration of cyber and EW, what it calls “integrated network electronic warfare,” as a core component of its information-centric strategy.

China views the achievement of information dominance as an essential prerequisite for kinetic success. A PLAN commander is highly unlikely to launch a major operation like the Saturation Strike (Strategy I) without first attempting to degrade U.S. defenses through a C5ISR Blackout. The two strategies are inextricably linked. The effectiveness of key U.S. defensive systems like NIFC-CA and the entire DMO concept depends absolutely on robust, resilient networking. PLA doctrine explicitly identifies these networks as a primary target, aiming to “paralyze the enemy’s operational system-of-systems” in the initial stages of a conflict. Therefore, the C5ISR attack is not an ancillary operation; it is the opening move of the campaign, designed to “soften up” the battlespace and create the conditions for the kinetic strike to succeed. This strategy is enabled by China’s policy of “Military-Civil Fusion,” which legally mandates that civilian entities, including tech companies, universities, and individual hackers, support the state’s national security objectives. This “whole-of-society” approach provides the PLA with a massive pool of talent, resources, and attack vectors for its cyber operations.

The U.S. Commander’s Response

The U.S. commander’s strategic objective is not merely to survive a C5ISR Blackout, but to fight through it and win in a degraded and contested information environment. This is achieved by building both technical and doctrinal resilience and by leveraging a superior command and control philosophy that thrives in chaos.

The first line of effort is building architectural resilience into the U.S. C5ISR infrastructure. A core goal of Project Overmatch is to create a resilient, self-healing network that is “transport agnostic,” meaning it can dynamically route data through multiple pathways—satellite, line-of-sight radio, mobile mesh networks, laser communications—to bypass jammed or destroyed links. The U.S. is also actively developing and deploying redundant systems to reduce single points of failure. This includes proliferating large constellations of smaller, cheaper satellites in low-earth orbit (LEO), which are more difficult for an adversary to target and destroy wholesale than a few large, exquisite satellites in higher orbits. It also involves developing alternative PNT sources to reduce the force’s critical dependency on GPS. In the cyber domain, the response is proactive. U.S. Cyber Command conducts “hunt forward” operations, where cyber defense teams work with allies to identify and neutralize adversary malware and tools within foreign networks before they can be used against the U.S..

However, technology alone is an insufficient defense. The U.S. Navy’s greatest strength in a blackout scenario is its doctrinal resilience, rooted in its command and control philosophy. Unlike the PLA’s highly centralized, top-down C2 structure, the U.S. Navy operates on the principle of mission command. Commanders are given the “what” (the objective and the commander’s intent) but are not micromanaged on the “how.” Subordinate commanders at the tactical edge—a ship’s captain, a squadron leader—are trusted and empowered to take disciplined initiative to achieve that intent, even when they are cut off from higher headquarters. This is not an ad-hoc response; it is a deeply ingrained cultural trait. U.S. forces regularly and rigorously train in communications-denied environments to practice decentralized operations. This builds the trust, confidence, and procedural knowledge necessary for the force to continue to function effectively even when the network fails.

Finally, the U.S. will not simply absorb information warfare attacks passively. It will retaliate in kind, imposing costs by targeting the critical nodes of China’s own C5ISR architecture and its deeply intertwined military-civilian infrastructure.

This confrontation is ultimately a clash of cultures and philosophies. China is betting on technology to enable and enforce centralized control. The United States is betting on its people to enable decentralized execution. In a successful C5ISR Blackout scenario, where networks are severely degraded, the Chinese system, which requires constant, high-bandwidth connectivity to function as designed, would likely grind to a halt. Tactical units would be left waiting for orders they cannot receive. The U.S. system, while also degraded, is designed to continue functioning. Individual ship and squadron commanders, operating on their last received commander’s intent, would continue to fight and make decisions. In such an environment, the force that can continue to observe, orient, decide, and act—even while “blind”—will win. This threat environment also accelerates the imperative to develop a “hybrid fleet” of manned and unmanned systems. Unmanned platforms can serve as resilient, low-cost, and attritable sensor and communication nodes, extending the network in a contested environment and conducting high-risk missions like EW or deception, thereby preserving more valuable manned platforms. Initiatives like Project Overmatch are explicitly designed to provide the robust command and control necessary for this future hybrid fleet. The response to the blackout threat is therefore not just to protect the current force, but to evolve into a more resilient, distributed, and ultimately more lethal force structure.

V. The War of Attrition: The Industrial Gambit

Should the initial, high-intensity phases of a conflict fail to produce a decisive outcome, the PLAN commander may pivot to a strategy designed to leverage China’s most profound and asymmetric advantage: its immense industrial capacity. The War of Attrition is a strategy that looks beyond the first battle to win a protracted conflict by replacing combat losses of ships, munitions, and personnel at a rate that the United States and its allies cannot match, ultimately grinding down the U.S. Navy’s material capacity and political will to continue the fight.

The Chinese Commander’s Strategy

The strategic objective of the War of Attrition is to win a long war by transforming the conflict from a contest of tactical and operational skill into a contest of industrial output and national resolve. The foundation of this strategy is China’s unparalleled dominance in global manufacturing and, specifically, shipbuilding. China possesses the world’s largest shipbuilding industry, with a capacity that is estimated to be over 230 times greater than that of the United States. In a protracted conflict, China’s numerous and massive shipyards could be fully mobilized for military purposes, allowing it to repair damaged warships and construct new ones at a pace that the strained U.S. industrial base simply cannot equal.

This industrial might underpins the PLAN’s numerical superiority. The PLAN is already the world’s largest navy by ship count and is rapidly closing the gap in high-end combatants and VLS cells. This larger force structure allows the PLAN to absorb combat losses that would be crippling for the smaller U.S. fleet. As one wargaming analysis concluded, even after suffering catastrophic losses, the PLAN could still have more surface warships remaining than the U.S. Navy and would be able to continue the naval battle.

The operational concept flowing from this reality is one of accepting, and even planning for, a high rate of attrition. The Chinese commander, backed by the political will of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), may have a much higher tolerance for combat losses than their U.S. counterpart. They may view their ships and sailors as expendable assets in service of the ultimate strategic goal of victory. Operationally, this could manifest as a willingness to “trade” assets—for example, sacrificing a Type 052D destroyer to create an opportunity to score a hit on a U.S. high-value asset like a carrier or a logistics ship, confident in their ability to replace their loss more easily. The overarching goal is to force a high rate of attrition on the smaller, more technologically complex, more expensive, and slower-to-replace U.S. fleet, particularly its limited number of forward-based assets and its vulnerable logistics and support ships.

This strategy effectively turns time into China’s greatest ally. In a short, decisive conflict, U.S. advantages in technology, training, and doctrine might carry the day. However, in a long, grinding war of industrial attrition, China’s manufacturing might becomes the decisive factor. The longer the conflict lasts, the more the material balance of power will shift in China’s favor. Therefore, the Chinese commander’s strategic imperative is to survive the initial U.S. blows and drag the conflict into a protracted struggle where their industrial advantage can be brought to bear.

However, there is a significant and untested variable in this calculus: China’s actual societal risk tolerance. While the authoritarian state can theoretically absorb massive losses, the modern PLA, largely composed of soldiers from single-child families, has no experience with the brutal realities of high-intensity combat. The CCP’s domestic legitimacy rests heavily on its projection of strength, competence, and national success. Unlike the U.S. military, which has been engaged in continuous combat operations for over two decades, the PLA has not fought a major war in over forty years. A series of humiliating naval defeats, with catastrophic casualties broadcast in the modern information age, could pose a significant threat to the CCP’s domestic stability. This could mean that Beijing’s actual tolerance for attrition is far lower than its industrial capacity might suggest.

The U.S. Commander’s Response

The U.S. commander’s response to the threat of a war of attrition must be to reject its premise entirely. The United States cannot win a war of industrial attrition against China; therefore, it must not fight one. The U.S. strategy must be designed to achieve decisive effects early in the conflict, targeting critical Chinese vulnerabilities and leveraging the full weight of allied power to prevent the conflict from devolving into a grinding slugging match.

The primary line of effort is to fight a decisive campaign that avoids a simple ship-for-ship exchange rate. This involves targeting China’s critical strategic vulnerabilities. Instead of trying to sink every PLAN warship, U.S. forces, particularly its stealthy submarine fleet, will be tasked with attacking China’s strategic Achilles’ heel: its profound dependence on seaborne imports of energy (oil and natural gas), food, and industrial raw materials. The U.S. Navy’s global reach and undersea dominance are perfectly suited to imposing a distant blockade on key maritime chokepoints far from China’s shores, such as the Strait of Malacca, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab el-Mandeb. Such a campaign could cripple the Chinese economy and its ability to sustain a war effort without having to fight through the heart of the heavily defended A2/AD bubble. This shifts the battlefield from the tactical and operational levels, where China has numerical advantages, to the grand strategic level, where the U.S. holds a decisive advantage.

The second critical component of the U.S. response is the full integration of its allies, who serve as a powerful force multiplier that negates China’s numerical advantage. The United States does not fight alone. The naval power of key allies like the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), and the Republic of Korea Navy is substantial. When integrated into a combined operational plan, this allied force helps to offset the PLAN’s numbers and presents the Chinese commander with a multi-front, multi-national threat that vastly complicates their strategic calculus. Furthermore, allies like Japan and the Philippines provide indispensable geographic access, allowing U.S. and allied forces to operate from dispersed land bases within the first island chain. This enables a more effective counter-A2/AD posture, including the use of land-based anti-ship missiles to contest key waterways.

Finally, the U.S. is beginning to counter China’s industrial mass with a different kind of mass: attritable, autonomous systems. The Department of Defense’s Replicator Initiative is a direct response to the attrition problem. This initiative aims to field thousands of low-cost, autonomous, and “attritable” systems—unmanned ships, submarines, and aircraft—that can be produced quickly and in large numbers. These systems can be used to absorb enemy fire, saturate defenses, conduct high-risk surveillance missions, and deliver ordnance, all while preserving the more valuable, and difficult to replace, high-end manned fleet.

The U.S. response, therefore, is profoundly asymmetric. It trades China’s tactical and operational strength (ship numbers and industrial capacity) for its grand strategic weakness (dependence on maritime trade). It recognizes that while the U.S. industrial base may be outmatched by China’s alone, the combined industrial and military power of the United States and its global network of allies is not. In a long war, the ability to draw on the shipbuilding, maintenance facilities, and combat power of allies like Japan and South Korea is a massive force multiplier that China, with few powerful military allies of its own, cannot match. The U.S. commander’s most critical task in preparing for a potential protracted conflict is not just managing U.S. forces, but effectively leading and integrating a multinational coalition. This alliance network is the United States’ true strategic center of gravity and the ultimate counter to China’s industrial gambit.

Conclusion: The Commander’s Imperatives for Maintaining Maritime Superiority

The analysis of these five strategic pairings reveals a clear and consistent pattern. The naval confrontation in the Western Pacific is fundamentally a contest between two opposing paradigms of warfare: a highly integrated, centrally controlled, but potentially brittle Chinese system designed to deliver a decisive first blow, and a U.S. operational model predicated on decentralized execution, systemic resilience, and allied integration, designed to absorb that initial blow and prevail in the ensuing chaos. The PLAN’s strategies rely on achieving information dominance and executing a perfectly synchronized plan. The U.S. Navy’s DMO concept assumes that information will be contested, networks will be degraded, and plans will be disrupted. The side that can more effectively operate and adapt within that chaotic reality will hold the decisive advantage.

Victory for the U.S. commander in such a conflict is not preordained. It will depend on achieving and maintaining superiority in three key, interrelated areas that form a triad of victory for modern naval warfare.

First is Superior Technology. This does not simply mean having better individual platforms, but rather fielding a superior network that enables the entire force. The full realization of a resilient, multi-pathway, and secure network, as envisioned by Project Overmatch, is the essential technical foundation for Distributed Maritime Operations. It is the digital backbone that will allow a dispersed force to concentrate its effects, share targeting data in a contested environment, and execute complex, multi-domain operations at a tempo the adversary cannot match.

Second is Superior Doctrine. Technology is only as effective as the concepts that govern its use. The complete operationalization of DMO across the fleet is paramount. This requires moving beyond theory and wargames to make decentralized, multi-domain operations the default mode of thinking and operating for every strike group, every ship, and every squadron. It demands a mastery of fighting as a networked but dispersed force, comfortable with ambiguity and empowered to act on mission intent.

Third, and most important, is Superior People. In the final analysis, the U.S. Navy’s most significant and durable asymmetric advantage is its command culture. The principle of mission command—of empowering sailors and junior officers, of trusting subordinate commanders to take disciplined initiative, and of fostering a culture of creative problem-solving at the tactical edge—is the ultimate counter to a rigid, top-down, and centrally controlled adversary. In a conflict characterized by C5ISR blackouts and the fog of war, the side that trusts its people will out-think, out-maneuver, and out-fight the side that does not.

From this analysis, three high-level imperatives emerge for the U.S. commander and the naval service as a whole:

1. Accelerate DMO Enablers: The highest priority for investment and fielding must be the technologies that make DMO a reality. This includes the rapid, fleet-wide deployment of Project Overmatch networking capabilities, the procurement and stockpiling of long-range precision munitions (such as the Maritime Strike Tomahawk and LRASM), and the large-scale integration of unmanned and autonomous systems to provide attritable mass and extend the reach of the manned fleet.
2. Deepen Allied Integration: U.S. alliances are its greatest strategic asset and the definitive counter to China’s numerical and industrial advantages. The U.S. Navy must move beyond simple interoperability—the ability for systems to exchange data—to true integration of command and control, operational planning, logistics, and targeting with key allies, particularly the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. This means training, planning, and operating as a single, combined fleet.
3. Double Down on Mission Command: The cultural advantage of decentralized command must be relentlessly reinforced. This requires investing in realistic, stressful, and large-scale training scenarios that force commanders to operate in communications-denied environments. The Navy must continue to select, train, and promote leaders who demonstrate the character, competence, and judgment to act decisively in the face of uncertainty. The side that can better harness the cognitive power of its people at every level of command will prevail.

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