The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict

by Elbridge A. Colby

A punishment approach would mean a larger and more violent war because the engaged allies and partners would have to impose sufficient costs on China to induce it to give up the subordinated state. Given that Beijing would have manifold reasons to resist disgorging such a prized gain, and with so much riding on the resolution of the conflict, these costs would have to be very high even to prompt Beijing to consider giving up the held state. Such a punishment approach would be very unlikely to work, however, for the same reasons that it would very likely not work to deny China’s acquisition of the target in the first place. As in that instance, horizontal escalation alone would be unlikely to be effective because China is unlikely to possess anything beyond its borders that the coalition could threaten that is as important to it as prevailing in a war critical to its establishment of hegemony in Asia.