By contrast, a strategy employing both denial and cost imposition would be more tailorable and controllable, and more likely to fail gracefully. Such a campaign would be less prone to spiral into a catastrophic conflict against a China possessed of survivable nuclear forces. Imposing costs would simply require the infliction of harm rather than eliminating China’s ability to take action, although the former might sometimes entail the latter. Thus targets could be selected to mitigate Chinese fears that the defenders’ attacks represented a prelude to invasion, forcible change of government, or
...more
