Planning for Protraction

<p>As Sino-US relations have deteriorated concerns have grown in Washington over its ability to defeat China in a major conflict. A conflict between such peer competitors would likely become a protracted war of attrition drawing on all dimensions of national power but this reality has yet to receive a sufficient degree of analytical attention.</p><p>In this <i>Adelphi</i> book Iskander Rehman provides a historically informed and empirically grounded study of protracted great-power war its core drivers and characteristics and an examination of the elements that have most often determined a competitor’s long-term strategic performance. Final victory in a protracted conflict this book argues rests on a combination of three core factors: a state’s military effectiveness and adaptability its socio-economic power and resiliency and the soundness of its alliance management and grand strategy. A detailed analysis of the contemporary Sino-US rivalry assesses how both parties might fare in the event of a protracted war while highlighting some of its key differentiating aspects – most notably its nuclear and cyber dimensions.</p>