The U.S. faces the same basic dilemma today: China can deploy more ships and planes than the U.S., especially in theaters that matter, like the Taiwan Strait. “We will never try to match our opponents or our competitors tank for tank, plane for plane, person for person,” declared Bob Work, the former deputy defense secretary who is the intellectual godfather of this new offset, in a clear echo of the logic of the late 1970s. The U.S. military will only succeed, in other words, if it has a decisive technological advantage.
