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Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century: Theory, History, and Practice
The U.S. today faces the most complex and challenging security environment in recent memory― even as it deals with growing constraints on its ability to respond to threats. Its most consequential challenge is the rise of China, which increasingly has the capability to deny the U.S. access to areas of vital national interest and to undermine alliances that have underpinned regional stability for over half a century. Thus, the time is right for the U.S. to adopt a long-term strategy for dealing with China; one that includes but is not limited to military means, and that fully includes U.S. allies in the region. This book uses the theory and practice of peacetime great-power strategic competition to derive recommendations for just such a strategy. After examining the theory of peacetime strategic competition, it assesses the U.S.-China military balance in depth, considers the role of America's allies in the region, and explores strategies that the U.S could adopt to improve its strategic position relative to China over the long term.
344 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 28, 2022
I first read this in 2012 when it came out, but I remember finding it only interesting, mainly for it recommendations of what do to. In so doing, I missed the best part.
Competitive strategies are a distinct strain of strategic thought, that emerged from the work of Andrew Marshall of the Office of Net Assessment in the US Pentagon. Mahnken and several of his co-authors are intellectual descendants of this approach. The essence of a competitive strategy for Marshall was to identify your enduring strengths, and your opponents enduring weaknesses and seek to harness that asymmetry to your advantage.
In Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century, Mahnken and authors take those insights much further. While staying true to the original foundations, there is a lot of very substantial strategic thought in the book. This is less a book of what to do as I first thought, and much more one devoted to the critical question of how do you use the various actions (of yourself and your adversary) to shape your desired outcomes. The use of the engagements for the purpose of the war, as Clausewitz put it.
To use an analogy, war can be thought of like a tennis game. Early on in the Cold War, Marshall worried that the US military was obsessing only with the quality of the US Serve - since that's a potential point winner in its own right. Or at most, it would worry about how to counter the Soviet's serve - their own strong hand. But just focusing on when and how you win tactical games isn't a good way to win a big competition. Instead, Marshall wanted to look at the deeper characteristics of our adversary. Maybe they don't have a lot of endurance. If so, the focus might shift to trying to extend every rally, to make the match a 5-set marathon. As such, when it counts the final set will be one where your strengths shine, while your adversary is weakened.
The shift is therefore a subtle one. Rather than trying to win by just 'dominating' each specifc point, how can you use the flow of points, (some of which you inevitably will lose), to achieve your goals? Some of the chapters are particularly rich, especially conceptual pieces by Stephen Peter Rosen's, Bradford Lee, and Thomas Mahnken, as well as the future policy piece by James P. Thomas and Evan Braden Montgomery.
For an edited book there's also a pleasing sense of integration and cross-chapter communication. Similar themes and arguments are woven through, supporting the value of the entire book as one contribution. I had planned only on skimming a few chapters on a long plane flight, but ended up reading it virtually cover to cover such was my sense of admiration and insight from the book.
A decade on, there is a lot to gain from revisiting this book. Like our tennis players of yore, the US still seems to obsess with its great serve or countering one powerful return of its adversary, rather than looking at the whole game. We do better today, but I'm still not sure the idea of competition as distinct from mere 'responsiveness' has broken through. Marshall's framework was also explicitly developed to support a Great Power state against a neer-peer. How can other states in alliance with the US support this approach (as two chapters begin to address). Or in a world where the US is smaller than its adversary. The game is only getting harder, and we need to get better.
It's refreshing just to see a book with the word 'strategy' in the title that is genuinely strategic in nature. I didn't realise that when I first read it a decade ago, so I missed out. But if you know what the word 'strategy' means, you'll find much to admire about this book. Recommended.
Competitive strategies are a distinct strain of strategic thought, that emerged from the work of Andrew Marshall of the Office of Net Assessment in the US Pentagon. Mahnken and several of his co-authors are intellectual descendants of this approach. The essence of a competitive strategy for Marshall was to identify your enduring strengths, and your opponents enduring weaknesses and seek to harness that asymmetry to your advantage.
In Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century, Mahnken and authors take those insights much further. While staying true to the original foundations, there is a lot of very substantial strategic thought in the book. This is less a book of what to do as I first thought, and much more one devoted to the critical question of how do you use the various actions (of yourself and your adversary) to shape your desired outcomes. The use of the engagements for the purpose of the war, as Clausewitz put it.
To use an analogy, war can be thought of like a tennis game. Early on in the Cold War, Marshall worried that the US military was obsessing only with the quality of the US Serve - since that's a potential point winner in its own right. Or at most, it would worry about how to counter the Soviet's serve - their own strong hand. But just focusing on when and how you win tactical games isn't a good way to win a big competition. Instead, Marshall wanted to look at the deeper characteristics of our adversary. Maybe they don't have a lot of endurance. If so, the focus might shift to trying to extend every rally, to make the match a 5-set marathon. As such, when it counts the final set will be one where your strengths shine, while your adversary is weakened.
The shift is therefore a subtle one. Rather than trying to win by just 'dominating' each specifc point, how can you use the flow of points, (some of which you inevitably will lose), to achieve your goals? Some of the chapters are particularly rich, especially conceptual pieces by Stephen Peter Rosen's, Bradford Lee, and Thomas Mahnken, as well as the future policy piece by James P. Thomas and Evan Braden Montgomery.
For an edited book there's also a pleasing sense of integration and cross-chapter communication. Similar themes and arguments are woven through, supporting the value of the entire book as one contribution. I had planned only on skimming a few chapters on a long plane flight, but ended up reading it virtually cover to cover such was my sense of admiration and insight from the book.
A decade on, there is a lot to gain from revisiting this book. Like our tennis players of yore, the US still seems to obsess with its great serve or countering one powerful return of its adversary, rather than looking at the whole game. We do better today, but I'm still not sure the idea of competition as distinct from mere 'responsiveness' has broken through. Marshall's framework was also explicitly developed to support a Great Power state against a neer-peer. How can other states in alliance with the US support this approach (as two chapters begin to address). Or in a world where the US is smaller than its adversary. The game is only getting harder, and we need to get better.
It's refreshing just to see a book with the word 'strategy' in the title that is genuinely strategic in nature. I didn't realise that when I first read it a decade ago, so I missed out. But if you know what the word 'strategy' means, you'll find much to admire about this book. Recommended.
February 26, 2024
A good read to understand the basic idea and foundational principles of what competitive strategies are, how we used them against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and how we could use them against the PRC. A must-read for future strategists.
May 18, 2025
A broad and deep examination of competitive strategies through the Cold War and then applied conceptually to China. Coté Jr’s chapter singularly makes it worth it, with everything else just a useful plus. A recommended read.
February 10, 2013
You'll need a little bit of Clausewitz, Mahan, Corbett, and Sun Tzu under your belt to appreciate this collection of essays, but you don't need to be an expert on any of them. I'm not, and I got quite a bit from this book. It is well-organized into sections devoted to theory, history, analysis of the current state of affairs (focusing on the Western Pacific), and then strategy options for the United States in the coming years. Each author is a true expert with several years of academic study on top of practical experience. This may not seem like your "thing," but if you want to be informed on the ongoing shift in US strategy, it is.
November 27, 2012
The chapters ranged in quality, but in general, the book provided some good policy prescriptions for the Obama administration's rebalance to the Indo-Pacific region.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews