Robert Greenway, Anna Gustafson, and Jim Fein

Problems and solutions are ever present and have been identified at length in this report. This chapter is intended to introduce them to one another.

Conclusions

Tidalwave has identified gaps and deficiencies and corresponding solutions to resolve anticipated shortfalls in our ability to project and sustain forces and exploit adversary vulnerabilities in order to conduct military operations in a protracted conflict between the U.S. and the PRC. Our modeling and simulation have provided unparalleled analysis of the most pressing questions regarding a potential conflict with China from which we have derived the following conclusions:

1. Our inability to project and sustain the Joint Force successfully in a potential conflict with the PRC invites aggression and erodes deterrence, making the conflict for which we are unprepared more likely. High Confidence.
2. Regardless of the outcome in each scenario, the United States is highly unlikely to achieve its strategic objective of preventing the severe and widespread economic consequences (global recession or depression) of a PRC invasion of Taiwan and would almost certainly fail to do so in a protracted U.S.–PRC conflict. This reinforces the conclusion that deterrence may be the only viable path to preserve our vital national security interests. Moderate Confidence.1
3. Several U.S. requirements for a protracted conflict were insufficiently defined, limiting actionable remediation plans and resourcing decisions. Moreover, correcting the deficiencies identified may take longer than the plausible warning window for PRC preparations. Conversely, aggressively addressing our deficiencies with the identified measures would strengthen deterrence and improve the probability if conflict occurs. High Confidence.
4. The critical capabilities of the PRC’s fuel and ammunition systems are vital to sustaining the PLA in conflict, but the PRC is vulnerable to a range of U.S. tools before and during conflict and more visible or exposed than the forces they support. Allowing the systems that support the PLA to operate with impunity before and during conflict would carry grave strategic consequences. High Confidence.
5. Our failure to recognize and address our own vulnerabilities and those of our adversary sufficiently reflects a systemic challenge that must be understood and resolved to prevent a recurrence. High Confidence.
6. Tidalwave’s simulation results yield high attrition that is very likely to significantly degrade or preclude adequate response to a second major regional contingency (MRC), constituting unacceptable risk to our vital national security interests and providing adversaries with a compelling opportunity for provocation. High Confidence.
7. The absence of sufficient forward deployed capabilities and prepositioned critical materials and the challenges constraining the employment of the Joint Force also contribute to limitations on our ability to control escalation. Moderate Confidence.
8. The potential inability of the U.S. to prevail in a conflict or to manage escalation once initiated, whether protracted or otherwise, diminishes the probability of successful deterrence given the massive vulnerabilities identified. Moderate Confidence.
9. The more complex a problem or system is, the more valuable the contribution of computational power and associated methodologies—including artificial intelligence—can be in understanding, anticipating, and resolving it. The availability of data and accelerating developments in computational power and methods—including artificial intelligence—has demonstrated the potential to assess vulnerabilities within complex systems supporting a range of applications of instruments of national power both rapidly and continually. The tools and methods (including sound research methodology, rigorous validation, and subject-matter expert evaluation throughout) must be rapidly exploited to preclude adversary competitive advantage. High Confidence.
10. The U.S. government requires a comprehensive, systemic, and defendable basis for judging defense requirements. It is insufficient merely to evaluate individual appropriations requests absent an understanding of the full requirements necessary to deter and, if required, prevail in conflict. Specifically, without a reliable estimate of the fuel and munitions required, it is impossible to ascertain the appropriate procurement, inventory, transfer, or disposition required both for U.S. forces and for those of our partners and allies. High Confidence.
11. Our military strategy and supporting economic and diplomatic efforts should be guided and informed by a strategy that addresses the infrastructure supporting our adversary’s armed forces. The resources required by our enemies to initiate and sustain conflict are of paramount importance and largely determine the scope, scale, and outcome of a conflict. High Confidence.
12. The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) must prioritize our adversary’s source of strength (commonly referred to as its center of gravity), derivative critical requirements, and critical vulnerabilities at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war to ensure that our strategy and the forces required to conduct it successfully are properly enabled. We cannot afford to focus the preponderance of our resources on our potential adversaries’ military forces without a corresponding emphasis on the systems that support their growth and employment. High Confidence.
13. While Tidalwave did not include the full spectrum of partner and allied capacity and capabilities, we judge that they would not dramatically alter the trajectory or outcome of a potential U.S.–PRC conflict. This is largely a function of limited platforms and/or magazine depth. Low Confidence.1
14. For thousands of years, logistics and resource constraints have dictated how armies are raised, organized, and deployed alongside determining the capacity of populations to maintain the will to sustain a conflict. The historical pattern reflects that wars are won and lost in the systems that sustain forces in conflict. In contemporary terms, this means refineries, distribution centers, manufacturing plants, and transportation networks—all of which are integral to sustainment. Culmination does not occur merely from battlefield defeat but through logistical and economic strangulation. Fuel and ammunition, the lifeblood of modern militaries, were central targets for economic warfare, blockades, and strategic bombing in the last world war, and the greater record of war affirms that control of sustainment determines victory or defeat. High Confidence.

These conclusions encompass both challenges and opportunities that require immediate attention. The possibility of a theater or global conflict with a peer adversary whose capacity and capability are projected to challenge or exceed our own and the grave economic consequences that constitute a significant threat to our vital national security interests have informed the following recommendations. It is vital to recall the grave consequences of looming conflict, appreciate the rapidly expanding Chinese threat that threatens to eclipse our own capacity and capabilities, recognize their accelerated preparations, and assess our declining capacity and lack of preparation when considering the urgency of the hour and cost of redress.

Recommendations

Our aim is to correct deficiencies encountered during the production of this report based on as unassailable a demonstration of facts as we are able to muster given the urgency of the hour, the alarming intentions and growing capabilities of our adversary, and the neglect of our military since the end of the last Cold War in 1991.2

Specific recommendations are woven throughout the report and connected to the rationale from which they are derived. There are several, however, that are more circumspect and are drawn from the report’s content more broadly. We have appended some of the former along with the latter for ease of implementation.

Responsibility. We have applied the following abbreviations for implementation throughout. Where other departments, agencies, or activities are appropriate, we have elaborated accordingly.

1. Executive Branch
   1. Department of State (DOS)
   2. Department of War (DOW)
   3. Intelligence Community (IC)
   4. Department of Commerce
   5. Department of Treasury
2. Legislative Branch
   1. Armed Services (Senate Armed Services Committee, SASC/ House Armed Services Committee, HASC)
   2. Appropriations (Senate Appropriations Committee—Defense, SAC-D, House Appropriations Committee—Defense, HAC-D)
   3. Commerce (Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, SCS&T, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, HCE&C)
   4. Intelligence (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI)
   5. Homeland Security (Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, HSGA, House Homeland Security Committee, HSC)

Priority. We have also established the below categories intended to guide and inform the implementation of our recommendations based on the assessed impact.

1. Imperative. Immediate corrective action required to ensure our ability to successfully deter and if required, prevail in a potential conflict with the PRC.
2. Urgent. Failure to take corrective action with the next 6–12 months will significantly degrade our ability to successfully deter and if required, prevail in a potential conflict with the PRC.
3. Important. Failure to take corrective action with the next 13–18 months will degrade our ability to successfully deter and if required, prevail in a potential conflict with the PRC.

Recommendations are listed in descending order of priority with the most vital listed first.

1. Disrupt, degrade, and deny the PRC’s access to critical resources that sustain the military’s growth and operations. The ability to establish, maintain, project, and sustain armed forces constitutes a strategic source of strength. The vast complexity of its systems is vital to the PRC’s military capacity and capability. Yet these systems are visible to the broadest array of collection methods and vulnerable to disruption by all our instruments of national power including during the critical period before a conflict could occur. If we successfully constrain the ability of these systems to function, we contribute to strategic deterrence, limit the scope and scale of a potential conflict and its impact, and accelerate conflict termination on favorable terms if conflict should occur. It is necessary to focus on the PRC’s resources in addition to the forces it employs in order to prevent force regeneration or expansion; strategic advantage therefore lies in the systemic disruption of PRC infrastructure and critical resources.

   We have identified a wide range of critical vulnerabilities within the PLA’s supporting fuel and munitions systems that are exposed to a wide range of U.S. options and those of partners and allies and that therefore should be evaluated and—as appropriate—impacted. For example, the PRC has been aggressively addressing its shortfalls while we have not. If we do not begin to degrade the PRC’s strategic petroleum reserve and long-range precision fires capacity now and prioritize disruption at the outset of aggression, we will not be able to prevent the invasion of Taiwan or the fall of others in the First Island Chain—including Japan. Moreover, if we do not radically expand U.S. and partner long-range precision munition production and expand the Merchant Marine, we will not be able to project and sustain forces in the Indo-Pacific. The former is possible; the latter is unlikely by 2027.

   We therefore believe it is imperative that Congress (II.b.) expand the scope and scale of available authorities and resources3 to incentivize the executive actions4 required to constrain PRC access to critical resources with corresponding reporting requirements similar to the Terrorist Asset Report.5 We recommend that the Administration organize and execute a coordinated effort across departments and agencies and that the President direct the Department of Justice to establish a task force supported by State, Treasury, Commerce, and Homeland Security as well as the Intelligence Community with appropriate partners and allies to coordinate enforcement.

   We further recommend private agreements with U.S. allies that export petrochemicals including oil and gas as well as other critical resources to China that, in the case of conflict and using a predetermined pricing mechanism, divert all energy and critical resource exports to the U.S. or other agreed upon destinations, thereby achieving 100 percent interdiction from sources with agreements in place without the use of military or other assets. In addition to completing such agreements, we recommend that the Executive (I.a.–e.) develop a list of leverage points that China may have over each country, and measures to mitigate or overcome Chinese coercive options, including options that leverage the dominance of dollar-based financial transactions.6 Cross References: See Chapters 3 and 4. Tier: I (Imperative).

2. Establish a strategic ammunition reserve required to sustain the Joint Force. Across simulation scenarios, key munitions ran out rapidly, and those that did not maintained inventory only due to substantial attrition of the platforms that employ such munitions. For example, in Scenario B, U.S. forces demand 880 LRASMs in five days of major operations, which is likely between three and four times estimated existing LRASM inventory. These grave discrepancies exist in a similar manner for PAC-3 MSE interceptors, THAAD interceptors, and AMRAAMs among other munitions. This lack of sufficient critical munitions significantly degrades the ability to sustain the U.S. Joint Force’s combat power in one Major Regional Contingency—much less two MRCs—with the PRC. We have systematically depleted the arsenal accrued during the Cold War and have done little to replenish it since then. Additionally, the evolving nature of conflict has inevitably produced new capabilities that are exquisite in their performance but prohibitively expensive at scale.

   Without question, we must retain the best capabilities providing decisive advantage to the warfighter, but we must also do so at the scale and pace required to prevail against peer competitors like the PRC and Russia, potentially at the same time. This challenge is distributed across partners and allies and meeting it will require a concerted effort as supply chains become increasingly complex and interdependent. Moreover, this effort has been complicated by the lack of a definitive quantity and type of munitions required, and it is difficult to discern how Congress is expected to respond to incomplete information from the Department of War (DOW).

   We therefore recommend that Congress (II.a.–b.) mandate the calculations of critical munitions required by the DOW to conclude two simultaneous major regional conflicts successfully while preserving a sufficient contingency supply along with regular reports on the status of the reserve’s production, storage, and consumption. This should include existing and projected requirements for similarly armed partners and allies that depend on our systems and associated munitions.

   We further recommend that Congress (II.a.–b.) authorize and appropriate the funds needed to establish the required inventory based on a rigorous assessment such as the kind undertaken by Tidalwave including drawdown thresholds and authority, reporting requirements, role of partners and allies with munitions stockpiles, distributed storage including war reserve stock, and prepositioned assets abroad. Cross References: See Chapter 6. Tier: I (Imperative).

3. Purchase the lift and sustainment required to project and sustain the Joint Force. The vast distances of the Indo-Pacific and the pace of high-intensity operations require a maritime sustainment force that is larger and more resilient than the force that exists today. Absent sufficient lift and protected replenishment, the Joint Force will be incapable of decisive maneuver at best or largely unavailable at worst—especially under the strain of a single MRC and the credible risk of early attrition.

   We recommend that Congress (II.a.–b.) authorize and appropriate funds to (1) protect and shorten the Combat Logistics Force (CLF) reload cycle—including predecided allied and commercial berth access, defended reload windows, and dispersed CONSOL geometry—and (2) expand last-mile at-sea delivery capacity by accelerating procurement of T-AO-205 oilers and CONSOL-capable connectors and procuring 10–15 ammunition-capable transport ships, or T-AKE. The cost of 15 T-AKE cargo vessels would be $8.5 billion at $570 million per hull.7 This includes funding for a total oiler force of ~35–40 hulls (≈15–20 additional over today’s inventory, inclusive of the program of record); the mariner end strength required to keep both oilers and transport ships persistently crewed and surge-available (≈3,500 additional personnel); and the escorts, connectors, and protection needed to keep realized underway replenishment (UNREP) throughput well above the ~200 kbpd crisis band under wartime conditions.8 At a cost of $900 million per hull, an additional 40 fuelers would cost approximately $36 billion.9 With the above portfolio enablers—and with key munitions stockpiled forward at or near the point of need prior to peak combat (Day 30)—this force sustains fuel and munitions flow after initial attrition and supports reconstitution once the opening surge passes. Without protected reload windows, assured access, demand management, and forward stockpiles, the requirement rises sharply toward ~55–60 total oilers and additional transport hulls but still fails to meet time-to-need during peak demand, illustrating why lift expansion must be paired with flow protection and prepositioning rather than pursued in isolation.

   We also recommend that the Administration (I.a., b.) expand our shipbuilding capacity and agreements with partners and allies sufficiently to provide ships capable of transporting an additional ~300,000 bpd (combined JP-8/F-76)10 as well as munitions and other critical supplies in contested environments in a contingency. We further recommend that the Administration and DOW (I.b.) direct the Joint Staff, U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), and Military Sealift Command (MSC) to validate this single-MRC sustainment requirement, certify inventory shortfalls against it, and program to close the delta so that any remaining gap is an explicitly JCS-acknowledged risk rather than an implicit assumption. This lift package must explicitly account for Pacific Air Forces aviation fuel requirements by funding dispersed forward JP-8 stocks, securing allied and commercial berth and pump access, and enabling alternate intake and offload options (OPDS/JLOTS) to sustain airbase operations under strike and congestion constraints. Cross References: See Chapters 5 and 6 and Appendices B, D, H, and I. Tier: II (Urgent).

4. Expand, fill, and distribute the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). As our analysis indicates, we lack sufficient fuel storage and distribution to project and sustain the Joint Force in an MRC with the PRC, let alone simultaneous conflicts. Congress (II.b.–c.) should increase the U.S. SPR11 to 1.5 billion barrels distributed in storage locations including those along the West Coast, which better support power projection into the Indo-Pacific. In addition, Congress should establish a minimum threshold at 50 percent capacity, the withdrawal below which would require congressional approval based on a validly declared national emergency (as defined in IEEPA) and/or national security imperative as well as an automatic trigger to replenish with immediate funding at predetermined price levels. The cost to refill the SPR at current depleted levels, at $60 per barrel, would be approximately $20 billion, approximately $45 billion more to reach a total reserve of 1.5 billion barrels, plus the cost of infrastructure. The President may choose to reinforce the replenishment procedures and circumstances in an executive order insofar as allowed by law, and the Secretaries of Energy and Interior may wish to provide implementation guidance. Cross References: See Chapter 5 (U.S. Fuel). Tier: II (Urgent).
5. Establish the theater-critical infrastructure required to preposition the fuel and ammunition required to sustain the Joint Force. The lack of critical supplies, specifically fuel and ammunition, and supporting infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific prevents flexible response, deters effective deployment of the Joint Force, and restricts freedom of action, which erodes deterrence and significantly reduces the probability of successful employment if conflict should occur. The significant distances required to sustain lines of communication that allow for the movement of critical resources in the Pacific complicate solutions and required significant adaptation in the Second World War.

   We therefore recommend that Congress (II.a.–c.) authorize and appropriate sufficient funds to establish a secure, distributed constellation of critical fuel and ammunition. We further recommend that the Administration (I.a., b., d.) should encourage the expansion of partner and allied contributions to this architecture to a level that is sufficient to provide uninterrupted access to a projected demand of ~970,000 bpd. Cross References: See Chapters 5 and 6 and Appendices B and H. Tier: II (Urgent).

6. Elevate the responsibility for the PRC/Chinese Communist Party (CCP) threat to the Joint Staff. The PRC threat exceeds the threat from the former Soviet Union in both scope and scale. China’s economy, conventional military, and soon its nuclear weapons inventory, as well as its military-eligible population, dramatically eclipses those of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the responsibility for synchronizing all military efforts related to the Soviet threat fell to the Joint Staff in the Unified Command Plan (UCP)12 with specified responsibilities distributed to the various functional and geographic Combatant Commands (COCOMs). The same logic applies to the current circumstances.

   We therefore recommend that the President (I.) direct the DOW (I.b.) to modify the next UCP (or modify out of cycle) accordingly. Delegating responsibility for the PRC threat to a COCOM risks an artificial constraint in our response. Tier: II (Urgent).

7. Restrict the critical commodities and components that the PRC requires to sustain the expansion of its offensive platforms, munitions, and sustaining infrastructure. While the PRC has the advantage of significant processing and refining capacity for natural resources, it currently lacks various externally supplied commodities and many of the sophisticated advanced technology components, such as those that provide missile guidance and telemetry, that are often sourced from U.S. and partner and allied providers with little or no restriction.13 The same can be said for China’s industrial manufacturing facilities ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████14 The vast and growing PRC petroleum infrastructure depends on external supply and critical commodities that are often Western-sourced.

   We therefore recommend that, recognizing the threatening trajectory and lack of restrictions, Congress (II.c.) enable broad export enforcement and sufficient controls on critical commodities, goods, and services that provide China with a strategic advantage as the Administration (I.a., c., d.) expands enforcement and cooperation with partners and allies to deny the CCP the resources required to grow and sustain the PRC threat to our vital interests.15 To this end, Congress, in coordination with the executive branch (I.a.–e.), should review and modify the Arms Export Control Act (AECA); International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA); and Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA) as well as the Export Administration Regulations (EAR); International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR);16 Commerce Control List; and U.S. Munitions List.17 Cross References: See Chapters 3 and 4 and Appendices A, F, and G. Tier: II (Urgent).

8. Support partner and ally contributions. Our partners and allies provide vital contributions to collective security in pursuit of shared national interests and increasingly are taking steps to bolster their capacity and capability to deter and engage in combat if required. While not an explicit objective of this effort, a review of existing capacity was undertaken wherein we concluded that partners and allies18 do not currently alter the strategic trajectory in any substantial way given significant limitations of platforms, munitions, and sustainment capacity. We judge that the DOW’s (I.b.) requests including INDOPACOM’s Unfunded Priorities List (UPL) are necessary to establish a more resilient theater constellation but still insufficient.

   We intend to expand on this effort and simulation platform to encompass a broader assessment of partners and allies in the coming year. Meanwhile, we recommend that Congress (II.b., d.) authorize and accelerate DOW requests for critical partner FMF/FMS and EDA as well as COCOM UPL. Tier: II (Urgent).

9. Model systems that comprise adversary critical requirements to expose critical vulnerabilities using all available information enabling effective targeting to deter and, if necessary, prevail during a conflict. Tidalwave successfully built models of PRC fuel and ammunition systems as well as our own. This is critical to allowing the identification of vulnerabilities that could alter the trajectory of conflict and to exposing the variety of instruments of national power to be employed before and during a potential conflict.

   We therefore recommend that Congress (II.b., d.) authorize and accelerate the construction and appropriate the necessary funds to leverage emerging technology and data19 at all levels of classification required to support the Executive (I.a.–e.) update to the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF)20 and establish a dynamic environment across the policy silos of departments and agencies as soon as practical to identify adversary critical vulnerabilities and evaluate its utility continuously. Cross References: See Chapter 2. Tier: III (Important).

10. Prioritize strategic analysis over the tactical or operational. Since the conclusion of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, we have prioritized the operational and tactical requirements related to the forces our adversary would employ at the expense of the systems upon which they depend. The war on terrorism exacerbated this proclivity and incentivized a system designed to provide the incredibly precise information required to support tactical decisions such as the capture or kill of an enemy combatant, often neglecting the infrastructure that would sustain the adversary. The lack of a peer competitor for so long further incentivized this trend, which has produced organizational preferences that have resulted in the atrophy of vital collection and analysis across the Intelligence Community. This includes the diminishing capability and capacity to conduct economic analysis as well as analysis of critical infrastructure such as transportation, industry, and telecommunications. About 80 percent of the IC remains within the DOW and as a result has understandably focused on the adversary’s armed forces. We have become expert at the analysis of trees but often cannot see the forest.

    We therefore recommend that Congress incentivize the restoration of proportional strategic analysis focused on the systems that support and sustain an adversary’s military in order to ensure that the IC resumes the analysis required to exploit adversary vulnerabilities through the prudent and timely application of all instruments of national power. Tier: III (Important).

11. Reduce the policy obstacles that impede the exploitation of emerging technology. The scope and scale of Tidalwave were enabled and supported by emerging technology that can be used to answer other complex problems. This exercise has provided numerous examples of the benefits of AI and related technologies properly employed to provide the unique ability to model complex systems continuously encompassing the spectrum of variables. The more complex the system and its interactions, the greater the need and utility for new methods to derive the required value. While application ranges from tactical to strategic, the greatest utility resides where the complexity is greatest: at the strategic level. Our experience with distributed computational power, artificial intelligence, and large language models, consistent with established research methodology and tradecraft, has provided the ability to discern clearly the critical requirements and vulnerabilities of extremely complicated systems that would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate without new technologies on a dynamic basis. Once constructed, capabilities like those of Tidalwave can be repeated at scale and at speed with reliable results that are not replicable by personnel without them.

    Too often, policy impediments, not technological obstacles, prevent the adoption of new methods, tools, platforms, and available data to enhance the capabilities of government employees who are required to wrestle with staggering challenges like those envisioned in Tidalwave. The process for adoption and employment of a new capability on government systems is far longer than the utility conferred, constituting a “doom loop.” In our experience, the contact with AI increases its utility as it “learns” from the interactions, improving its ability to provide iteratively. This implies that the greatest benefit is not deployment on scaled systems with limited access but providing broad access to users on necessarily graduated classification levels consistent with Executive Order 1352621 and ICD 503, 703 and 710.

    We therefore recommend that the Administration (I.a.–d.) dramatically expand the authority of departments and agencies to overcome obstacles that prevent accelerated adoption of exploitive technologies on existing architectures as Congress (II.a.–c.) authorizes the adoption of new and more flexible systems to provide greater capability to government users who are responsible for understanding and responding to the range of growing threats to our security. This could include the migration of essential data and tools to environments optimally suited to effective disposition like the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Tier: III (Important).

12. Prepare for a protracted conflict. History is replete with cautionary tales of the consequences of false assumptions regarding conflict duration. The real and perceived lack of sufficient preparation and the inability to ensure that we can thwart PRC aggression also imply corresponding challenges in controlling escalation. As Newton observed of the governing laws of physics, a force in motion tends to stay in motion. So, too, the PLA may continue escalation until compelled to stop if for no other reason than to consolidate gains and safeguard its freedom of action in the First Island Chain. The Japanese made similar calculations at the onset of hostilities in 1941 for similar reasons.22 It is also clear that the PLA is preparing for military operations on a larger scale than an invasion of Taiwan would require. The implications are profound. This requires a reexamination not only of integrated deterrence, forward deployed force posture, and end strength, but also of the feasibility of pursuing the time and space required to address our shortfalls and prepare for potential conflict without incentivizing PLA action in a closing window of opportunity.

    We therefore recommend that Congress (II.a., b.) rapidly restore our critical capabilities as we expressed in our NDAA priorities23 and will express in forthcoming works while the DOW (I.b.) reevaluates the requirements for successful deterrence and theater force posture, accounting for the possibility of theater-wide conflict that begins in Taiwan but rapidly escalates. Given the risk of potential conflict, we can no longer afford to ignore the potential of mass mobilization and should immediately resurrect the responsibilities, plans, resources, and infrastructure that would be needed in the event of such a conflict. Mass mobilization began to fade from view in the 1980s and disappeared from view after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991.24 Similarly, it was broadly viewed as no more likely or necessary in 1940 than in 1914, as a result of which the War Plans Department had only months to develop an adequate plan in the summer of 1941.25 Though the department judged that it would not be possible to complete until 1943, we found ourselves compelled to engage in 1942.26 The understandable hope that it may never be necessary ignores the probability and resulting risk, and there is no excuse for ignoring the contingency. The visible plans and preparations would also contribute to the broader range of deterrent measures and signal that the U.S. does in fact have the resolve to protect and defend itself and its interests. Tier: III (Important).

    Through extensive data collection, modeling, and systems analysis, Tidalwave identified the critical vulnerabilities, opportunities, and decision points that shape the ability of the United States and the People’s Republic of China to project and sustain forces over the course of a protracted conflict. The conclusions and recommendations presented herein are grounded in the full breadth of that work—drawing on quantitative modeling, qualitative analysis, and the lessons and precedents of history. If implemented, these recommendations would significantly improve our strategic sustainment capacity, reduce risks to our endurance, and increase the likelihood of a positive outcome in a U.S.–China conflict.