by Carl Conetta. Originally published as “Will the QDR Pivot for Air-Sea Battle with China?” in Reset Defense Bulletin, 03 March 2014.
Will China come to pose a peer military threat to the United States? The Obama administration’s 2012 Strategic Defense Review and the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) turn on this eventuality. Both the so-called “Asia pivot” and the evolving Air-Sea Battle (ASB) operational concept are meant to preclude it. But they may serve to precipitate it, instead.