A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times – An Instant New York Times Bestseller: A Pentagon Insider's Tumultuous Years Under President Trump

by Mark T. Esper

When it came to the conventional balance of power between the United States and the PRC in Asia, China had made enormous gains over the previous two decades, though we still had clear overmatch in most areas. Two particular areas stood out, however. One was the PLA’s development of land-based ballistic and cruise missiles with conventional warheads. The Chinese had more than 1,200 of these weapons, many with ranges of well over two thousand miles. This gave them the ability to strike U.S. and allied forces and bases throughout the western Pacific. The numbers they had produced, and continued to build, gave them an advantage in capacity as well that could overwhelm our air defenses. And with the United States constrained from developing comparable systems in the intermediate range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers because of our obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, we were unable to offset their capabilities with our own equivalent forces. In short, the PLA’s missile systems were integral to China’s anti-access/area-denial strategy for the western Pacific, and constituted a major obstacle for the United States to overcome if we ended up in a conflict with them.10 I supported the U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty in 2019, but not because I’m reflexively opposed to arms control. I had worked these issues for years. Arms control has a role to play in our national security tool kit. In fact, the Department’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review po...