Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs Nick Anderson's most recent article, "Access Denied? The Sino-American Contest for Military Primacy in Asia," appears in the 2025 Summer issue of International Security. Co-authored with Daryl G. Press, the piece asks two fundamental questions: How has the balance of power shifted in maritime East Asia, and what does this change mean for the U.S.-China military competition in the region?
It answers those questions by focusing on a central pillar of U.S. military might—land-based air power—in the context of a war over Taiwan. The authors create a new, unclassified, and transparent model of a Taiwan conflict, which allows users to explore multiple scenarios, alternative U.S. basing options, various People's Liberation Army attack strategies, and a range of potential U.S. defensive enhancements to see how those alternatives influence outcomes. The model reveals that: (1) the United States' current approach to defend Taiwan exposes U.S. forces to significant risk of catastrophic defeat; (2) the U.S. Air Force's answer to this problem is both unlikely to work and escalatory; and (3) a combination of hardening air bases and enhancing missile defenses and local jamming at U.S. facilities is a better option.
More broadly, Anderson and Press find that U.S. national security policy toward China is approaching an inflection point. The authors argue that the United States can lean in and significantly enhance the resilience of its forces in East Asia; lean back and rely more on instruments of military power that are less vulnerable to China's regional defense systems; or reconsider its broader geopolitical goals in the region. They further caution that the current path, seeking to deter Chinese attacks with a vulnerable forward-based military posture, courts disaster.
To learn more consult the complete article online.