'Beating the Americans at Their Own Game: An Offset with Chinese Characteristics'.

• Author: Work, Robert O.
• Position: FURTHER READING

* "China is keenly focused on blunting the U.S. military's technological superiority, even as it strives to achieve technological parity, and eventually technological dominance," this Center for a New American Security report says.

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work and his co-author Greg Grant state bluntly that: "After considering what the Chinese military has accomplished technologically in little more than two decades and what they plan to do in the decades to come, any objective assessment must at least consider the possibility that the U.S. Joint Force is close to becoming the victim of a deliberate, patient and robustly resourced military-technical offset strategy."

Beijing's offset strategy has five pillars: conduct industrial and technical espionage and civil-military fusion to catch up with U.S. capabilities; develop the capabilities to disrupt or destroy U.S. battle networks; attack first using long-range precision fires; develop secret capabilities held in reserve until a war breaks out; and become a world leader in artificial intelligence and use it for military superiority.

Intriguing are the "secret" or black programs, what the Chinese call "Assassin's Mace," or Project 995 weapons, which have been in development for some two decades.

"U.S. military planners must assume Chinese weapons...