The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict

by Elbridge A. Colby

Why and how America’s defense strategy must change in light of China’s power and ambitionElbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America’s defense must change to address China’s growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America’s goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests.The most informed and in-depth reappraisal of America’s defense strategy in decades, this book outlines a rigorous but practical approach, showing how the United States can prepare to win a war with China that we cannot afford to lose—precisely in order to deter that war from happening.

Genres: Politics, China, History, Nonfiction, International Relations, Military Fiction, War

381 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 14, 2021

Reviews

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is easier to defend a territory than to conquer one. This truism is at the heart of this book focused on U.S. strategies for preventing from consolidating a hegemonic superstate in Asia. Existing U.S. allies in the region should have their defenses built up as much as possible to deny China the opportunity to coerce them. They should also be linked together in some kind of alliance structure, either a hub-and-spoke model or a full blown Asian NATO if possible, in order to prevent China from picking them off one at a time. The arguments contained here go very deep into different scenarios that could play out. I will not recount all of them but only say that this is clearly going to be a huge task for Americans if they genuinely do commit to preventing Chinese hegemony.

[Mihai Zodian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recommend The Strategy of Denial to anyone curious about how a second Trump administration may think and act in security affairs. The rest of the review is a critique of E. Colby`s argument, but going beyond my opinions, it`s an acceptable reading. It`s also good to state my biases: I think that Russia is one of the traditional enemies of political freedom in Eastern Europe because of its imperial identity, that Ukraine should win the ongoing war, that the Republican party is too much Russia-leaning, and therefore I tend to distrust its policies and leaders about these subjects. Now, my impressions.

It was good to see someone from Team Trump acknowledging that COVID-19 and pandemics, in general, are threats and that they should be dealt with. In the US, the number of deaths exceeded 1.2 million people, which is the double of people who died during the US Civil War and more than the double of American deaths in both world wars combined (Worldometer, Statista). The pandemic was underrated during the essential initial stages, the highest increases happened during the Republican management (see the scales on Worldometer), the US lost credibility, its reputation of scientific mastery, some of its ability to lead and, while the Republicans deserve praise for pushing vaccine research, many of their followers became anti-vaxxers. The pandemics also showed that the main threat from China may not be military aggression as argued by E. Colby in The Strategy of Denial, but the incapacity of Chinese decision-makers to handle complex events in the context of globalization, so the premise of The Strategy of Denial may be entirely wrong.

But any book deserves a hearing on its terms. E. Colby argues that it`s in the US interest to prevent China`s domination of something called “the Indo-Pacific region,” which turns out to be East and South-East Asia, and to do that, the best strategy is that of denial, a fancy name for territorial defense. There are goods and bads in The Strategy of Denial. The author recommends to militaries to do what militaries do anyway and is reasonable to argue that, if China is the second great power, the US should be concerned with defending against an aggression against its interests or allies.

The Strategy of Denial has several weak points. First, any talk of general, global, major, hegemonic war in a nuclear age is strategic fiction, because these weapons block the possibility of decisive “strategic” defeat thus making all defeats local and limited. Of course, defeats can have major consequences in some political contexts, but that is a different logic than the one of the classical hegemonic wars, in which the dominant power conquers or at least, forces the defeated one into capitulation and imposes a world order. Beyond this, the main argument relies on E. Colby`s imagination, who first constructs China`s best strategy and then, offers his ideas on how to defeat it.

Second, China`s supposed ideal strategy was the one followed by Japan during WWII, and the US won that war. At that time, the former Empire of the Rising Sun was waging a genocidal war in China for several years, without having a clear perspective of winning. Its best forces were smashed by the Soviet Union in Mongolia, in two months of fighting. Nevertheless, needing oil and other resources, and facing a US embargo, Japanese leaders decided to attack America and all European empires in the region, hoping to do exactly what Colby assumes in The Strategy of Denial that it`s the best option for China, to attempt a fait accompli after blitz aggression (see this great book of H. A. Gailey War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay).

Japan was having something like 10% of US manufacturing capacity in capital weapon systems and its military strategy was an attempt to compensate for it, see the same War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. So much for the historical analogies in E. Colby`s The Strategy of Denial. China isn`t in Japan`s place, it`s a demographic and economic giant, and Japan`s postwar history shows that imperialism is an option of the elites, not a necessity to survive in a tough world. China may invade Taiwan but doing that will expose its most developed regions and its capital to the risk of retaliation. In this case, as it was during the Cold War in Europe, deterrence by punishment must complement and subordinate deterrence by denial.

Third, Colby underestimates China, which has better strategic options than imitating Japan and he overestimates Russia. The Strategy of Denial argued that Moscow was having significant conventional forces, and that NATO may be vulnerable to a limited blitz attack. But exactly those elite forces failed in their most important objectives and sustained heavy losses in 2022, and Russia`s fleet hides in harbors from missiles and drones (which are more difficult to deny anyway), see The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History. I think that China`s partnership with Russia may prove to be more of a burden than a gain for Beijing leaders, that Russia may prove to be a burden also in the anti-China coalition that E. Colby recommends (think Austro-Hungary close to 1914), and that US strategists tend to hyperbolize Russia`s military competence while underrating its ideology of imperialism.

Fourth, The Strategy of Denial exaggerates the issue of credibility in the case of US allies and ignores the problem of America`s credibility in Asia. There are many times when Colby's book seems a rehash, the reader easily notices Donald Trump`s statements about burden sharing and profiteering from America. That is the book's weakest point. Alongside the tendency to ignore the drawbacks of US power, at least in terms of the security dilemma, the ingroup bias is a general human problem.

Fifth, there are some bizarre concepts in The Strategy of Denial. The author tends to think that the goal of strategy is to defeat the enemy's theory of victory instead of defeating the enemy. From time to time, I wondered if E. Colby was aware that Taiwan was an island or that Estonia`s border was close to St. Petersburg. A bit worrying considering that the author is marketed as a strategy mastermind and the son of a former CIA director. The language and style were not among the strong points of this book.

To wrap up, The Strategy of Denial offers some reasonable arguments, but it paints a picture too bleak. It relies too much on E. Colby`s strategic imagination and bad analogies with World War II. It overestimates Russia and underestimates both China and the US. I would still recommend it, especially now, when many people are expecting a second Trump administration.

Sources:

Harry A. Gailey, The War in Pacific. From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay, Presidio Press, 1995.
Serhii Plokhy, The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History, W.W. Norton, and Company, 2023.
Statista, United States, War fatalities: 1775-2024.
Worldometer, Coronavirus US Statistics.

[Chee Hau · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am really upset with this book. We are in the 21st century but here we are beating the drums of war. This book is firmly planted in US’ self interest and western perspective. I find this book isfundamentally flawed.

First, the argument that the reunification of Taiwan as a mythical origin is a very simplistic view to justify war. Let’s switch it a little. If China is ruled by a democratic government and Taiwan on the other hand, is ruled by the communist, would you not think that China will still be threatening to invade Taiwan if it declares independence? The Chinese and in general for all other nations, what is once part of a nation will forever be part of that nation. To declare independence amounts to seceding. If California would like to form a nationhood, why does the US constitution forbids it? And if they did, would US go to war? Why? After all, isn’t it just a mythical dream of a united America?

The second flawed thinking is the view that democracy in Taiwan is China’s problem. Do you think for a second that if Taiwan is another communist state or authoritarian leader, they will cozy up and reunify? Democracy is not the issue here. This issue has a long historical baggage and this book has totally not done any justice to it. It is my believe that the Chinese people view the land and people that live in all of China as part of one nationhood going back millennium and to be together is to be stronger.

Stronger not to bully but stronger so as not to be bullied. Why you may ask. Well, I think the humiliation of World War 2 has not exactly healed especially when your country has been carved up by foreign powers as they see fit. If this were to happen to your country, what would you be feeling? It was many years ago but why is the wound still raw? It is because the aggressors have not been fully taken to justice unlike Germany and the Holocaust. It is a US legacy issue of taking care of their own interest with regards to Japan and this has ultimately left a gaping wound. Since that time, China has viewed the world on the prism of ‘no one will help you and no one has your interest at heart if you do not help yourself’.

There needs to be less of this type of books and rhetoric and more understanding.

[Peter Tillman]

WSJ's take is that China's challenge to the US in Asia is likely to be a full-scale invasion of Taiwan:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-stra...
(Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
Excerpt:
"Mr. Colby makes a persuasive case that if the U.S. does not rapidly address its military shortfalls, China can successfully invade and occupy the neighboring island. An invasion is Beijing’s “best strategy”—better than a lower-intensity military campaign, which would likely fail. Mr. Colby marshals an impressive command of military history to explain why Beijing will need to occupy the island to achieve its goals and how such an invasion might be conducted. It is particularly significant that Mr. Colby, a former Department of Defense official, details how the U.S. and Taiwan could prevail in such a conflict while avoiding nuclear catastrophe. "

I'm sure the Taiwanese are reading this book, and worried about whether Pres. Biden would really stand up to the PRC if/when they invade.

I'm sure Taiwan's govt is thinking hard about building nuclear arms for themselves. Which would give even the PRC Army pause! If Pakistan and North Korea can become nuclear powers in a very few years (as they both did) -- how long could it take a technically-advanced nation to meet & exceed their armaments? No nuclear-armed state has ever attacked another (yet). Credible deterrence is by far the best way to avoid armed combat!

[Jeffrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was planning on hate-reading this, but mentally I'm just not at the point where I can read a 300-page book about why it's totally necessary for my family to die in yet another senseless American war.

[Scott Crowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview on the logical employment of military force in modern American statecraft. Whether you agree with Colby (and Mearsheimer's Offshore Balancing to counter the PRC's Offensive Realism / Primacy) may be irrelevant, this is likely the shape of things to come in US foreign policy.

[Ernst · Rating 5 out of 5]

The key sentence comes near the end of the book -- "That [best defense policy] standard will be hard and costly to attain, and it will require sustained focus and discipline -- but the alternatives are worse." One could say the same about fixing crime, poverty, the environment, racial injustice, economic inequality, and a host of other problems, but this book focuses on defense. The author states that ideas like having Asian Georgia in NATO or defending Mongolia are hopeless -- they are too far away and too hard to defend. Afghanistan he classes as a country we can abandon without harming other alliances -- if we abandon Taiwan or The Philippines other allies are not going to rely on us. He believes that Laos is indefensible, and with its fall Thailand and Vietnam would be likely to fall as well.
Iran and Russia he finds less dangerous, and he comes out squarely in favor of defending the small Baltic NATO members if they are attacked. Most frightening, his strategy assumes that a defense of Taiwan may fail, and worries about the US sustaining focus and discipline, or even enthusiasm. He calls for not defending Taiwan's civilian sites -- if China attacks those, it will rouse the world against China, which a simple conquest might not accomplish.
The book is a tough minded attempt to grapple with our current defense needs and capabilities, fascinating and turbulent. Well worth reading.

[Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book outlines the critical need to shore up the democracy in Taiwan and thwart the attempts by the CCP on the mainland to subjugate Taiwan. Once upon a time the CCP could accurately claim that Taiwan was merely a breakaway pod of nationalists still fighting the Chinese civil war. No longer. Taiwan has a robust democracy in place and acts as a reminder of the importance of a free and open Asian order just as the CCP insists upon regional hegemony. The US needs to do the work of deterring the ambitions of the CCP to turn Taiwan into another Tibet, Hong Kong, or Xinjiang. Deterrence and denial now prevents defeat and decline later. Well written and timely.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know next to nothing about global politics, but I enjoyed learning from this book. It is academic, but very clear. Colby strives to support every point of his argument, and his fastidious style of writing helped me grasp his train of thought. I learned about the reasons for U.S. concern over a Chinese hegemony, the importance of defending Taiwan, and, in general, the current state of power in the world—issues that I have seen in headlines and heard in passing conversation but never really understood how to weigh in my own mind. I also learned about war, peace, and power, which is by itself fascinating. I know Colby's is one point of view that not everyone agrees with, but this is a well-argued, thoughtful, and thoroughly written book.

Strangely enough, this became my relaxing before-bed book. I can't promise it is that kind of book for everyone, but there was something nice about reading purely for the sake of learning. If you're interested, I highly recommend.

[Chad Manske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bridge Colby has delivered a long overdue and analytical realist approach to current defense strategy in the era of great power competition. Focused primarily at counterbalancing China’s regional hegemony ambitions (because who else out there is really a US competitor in all IOPs?), this in depth approach covers the necessary elements of competition and (potential) conflict with China militarily, over Taiwan, economically, etc. Each strategy and argument is carefully crafted along the lines of plausibility, feasibility and reality—and he makes a no nonsense case that the pain/risk threshold is too high (currently) for China to enter into hostilities directly with the US now, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, as the risk at present is much too high. This fresh and realistic appraisal reflects Colby’s time as the chief defense strategist for DoD, as well as his hand in crafting the existing Defense strategy pending publication of the current Administration’s. This should be required reading for all defense and military strategists, regardless of whether you agree or not, as Colby’s credibility to pen it is undeniable.

[Sparky Shelton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear eyed and well written. A bit too comfortable with the prospect of a limited nuclear exchange for my taste. The section on the Binding Strategy was particularly elucidating.

Takes for granted two major assertions:
1. China is an aspiring hegemon; if they achieve hegemony, it would be catastrophic for the US
2. China has territorial ambitions beyond Taiwan.

The points aren't made to completion in the book, imo, but they clearly aren't the point of the book.

Also, TOTALLY writes off allying with Mongolia even though they're the only ones that have caused a total Chinese capitulation. (Sure, it happened in the 14th century but still.)

[Robert Callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nerd ish - realism meets the real world

[Kaitlyn Hou · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was all right but not impressed b/c this book was hyped up.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The surest path to an uncontrolled confrontation between the United States and China is willful ignorance or haphazard disengagement on the part of the U.S. Insofar as that basic premise is the core idea of this book it’s worthwhile. That bumped my review up from a 1 or 2 star to 3. But on the whole the book is just a hawkish ramble that struggles from the start to make sense of how to get to a broadly meritorious conclusion - that strategic clear sightedness on the part of America and her allies is the best way to approach the more challenging aspects of China’s aim of at least an
Asian hegemony.

Colby falls short in almost countless ways. His argument is riven by internal inconsistencies and intellectual shortcuts. His narrative is light on facts and specifics and he hand waves huge strategic assumptions (apparently China won’t escalate a conflict vertically “because it won’t”). Some of these shortcomings or gaps either underwrite his own or promote for the reader dangerously broad but poorly supported conclusions. And when that fails he just warms up some functionally unproven defense and foreign policy thought from the Cold War. And when he’s not doing that he uses a World History 201 level of knowledge to namecheck a grab-bag of well known examples to (one guesses) try to make his reader feel sharp - despite the fact that the examples are almost uniformly either not germane or flat silly. Roll all of that into a wrapper of what feels like reflexive hawkishness without a very precise sense of its own goal and you have Mr. Colby’s book.

But the real value (and danger) in this book is that it gets some big things right and has bits sprinkled throughout a mass of bad arguments and 2AM dorm room level analysis that will “sound right” to a variety of view points - even if they collectively don’t all fit together. In a sense it’s a perfect and mildly frightening core sample of just how hapless the US foreign policy and defense establishment is at the moment. Not that we needed any particular refreshers in the wake of America’s tragically executed Afghan withdrawal.

It is a good thing that books about how the US should consider and cope with an aggressive PRC are being written. It’s a better thing that those books are being published and read. This just isn’t where I’d suggest that anyone start reading.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

In testimony before Congress in 2021, the soon-to-retire commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Davidson, surprised many in the commentariat when he noted of China, “I worry that [China is] accelerating their ambitions to supplant the United States and our leadership role in the rules-based international order, which they’ve long said that they want to do that by 2050. I’m worried about them moving that target closer…Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions before then. And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact in the next six years.”

Davidson was not the first person to note a timeline for Chinese regional and global ambitions, nor was he the first to describe Taiwan as being under threat. But it was the proximity that shocked many, as it has required a very real conversation of why China would possess these ambitions, how they would seek to first secure global influence through true regional hegemony in Asia, and how the United States’ leadership not only can or should, but *must* seek to stop this from happening if that leadership cares at all for the security, freedom, and prosperity of all Americans. In short, such a timeline requires us to now, not in 2025 or 2030, consider how and why the United States should commit itself and its people and economy to a conflict in Asia to stop China from achieving regional hegemony.

This what Elbridge Colby attempts to do this in book. It is first and foremost a defense strategy grounded in international relations theory and practice. It is extremely logical: Asia, especially maritime Asia, is the most important global region; China, being not only the most powerful state in the region but a global leader, will seek to dominate it, to achieve regional hegemony; this will lead it to capture neighboring states in its hegemonic coalition as pawns, vassals, or useful idiots; it will seek to achieve this through coercion or capture; because these will be its best tools, military power will undergird its regional ambitions; eventually, this military capacity will be brought to bear on a recalcitrant, valuable regional state; and finally, because of the aforementioned
importance of Asia, the United States should seek to stop this hegemony, serve as a military counterweight *within the region*, put its credibility on the line, and, if necessary, provides material, military support to a state experiencing military coercion or capture by China.

Now, there are obviously innumerable assumptions baked into this logic, but the structure is probably sound. What Colby describes are the conditions under which a conflict in the Western Pacific against China will begin. Said less passively, Colby describes why China will serve as a regional aggressor and seek war, even with the United States if it believes the ends will justify the pain. Questions of state capacity, will, power, and alliances do and will influence how China moves and how the U.S. seeks to respond.

However, this is not a book describing how the United States should fight a war with China. Colby, even if he never explicitly says this, rightfully leaves that to the individuals tasked with waging war on America’s behalf. Colby instead seeks to make such a serious possibility real for the reader and to convince the reader that Chinese regional hegemony over Asia will have dire consequences for America and is thus worth committing valuable blood and treasure to stop. Colby is not fatalist though, nor does he desire a conflict with China. The title of the book alludes to denial, that is to make the likely first and most important target of Chinese aggression, Taiwan, strong enough that it can withstand Chinese military aggression, including a possible fait accompli. Alongside that, Colby envisions an anti-hegemonic coalition that will assist Taiwan in some material way, to include becoming an active party to the conflict. Together, Taiwan’s defensive capability and regional commitments hopefully serve as a sufficient deterrent to Chinese ambitions and she instead pursues a non-violent, non-coercive future of security, freedom, and prosperity for her own people. The desire, as Colby titles his last chapter, is a decent peace.

As the saying goes, however, hope is not a strategy. Colby provides some reflections on what such a framework entails, but he purposefully does not delve into the minutiae of defense planning that will ensure such a stable outcome. Given his past (two decades of experience at the Pentagon, think tanks, and the Intelligence Community, including serving as lead author of the 2018 National Defense Strategy under Secretary Mattis), these insights would have been valuable. At the same time, he was written extensively outside of this book on similar topics. In short, the United States is nowhere close to actually deterring China in the Western Pacific. Our forces are overstretched, under-protected, and ill-placed to rapidly respond to a regional contingency. Worse, these theater challenges are backed up by a global posture that is imbalanced and a domestic acquisition policy that is sclerotic and out of sync with the proximity of the challenge. For years now, defense officials have admitted that China is the pacing threat and the Indo-Pacific the critical theater, but the commitment of men, materiel, and construction to actually deter and win continues to be sorely lacking. Not a dime of support in billions of (rightful) emergency military support for Ukraine has been sent to the region in the past year. Likewise, the department continues to seek to build a capable military for 2035-2040, failing to see the roaring lion right in front of their face. The difference between words and actions is becoming an unbridgeable gulf.

Similar to not providing real takeaways, Colby could also have opened up the Chinese literature on strategy and planning. He has been critiqued for that elsewhere, but it is a salient complaint. Colby essentially uses the tenets of realist thought in place of actual Chinese documents to explain why China will have regional ambitions and how she will act upon them. There is also the issue of the logic described above. It is so straight-forward that one could accuse Colby of starting from his desired outcome and working backward, reverse engineering the process he then describes in forward motion. I do not believe that is fair, but it is worth reflection.

In some circles, this book has captured the zeitgeist, and the conversation surrounding it, while being popularly lauded, has shown how insular security thinkers can be. In general, for the layman, I would seek out Colby’s writings in the popular press, including the Wall Street Journal, where AEI’s Dan Blumenthal has a good review of this book. As someone who carries immense sway with many natsec thinkers and practitioners on the right, especially in the national conservative movement, and who could be a secretary of defense or national security advisor one day, Colby’s thinking is worth reading.

[Sarah Palmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book fundamentally misunderstands China's foreign policy dilemma. Reads like a dissertation.

MY COMPLETE THOUGHTS:
In his capacity as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, Elbridge Colby was one of the lead figures involved in the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy. This document pivoted American focus to revisionist powers, specifically China and Russia, declaring “inter-state strategic competiton, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S national security.” Elbridge Colby further elaborates on the logic and substance of the defense strategy required in such a world; however, his argument relies on several potentially fatal assumptions that make his argument less than compelling. Whether or not future US administrations adopt this strategy depends on the individual inclinations of the chosen leader, domestic society’s response, ideological motivations, and balance of power dimensions.

Elbridge Colby’s strategy of denial involves consolidating an anti-hegemonic coalition among Southern and Eastern Asian, and Oceania, with the United States as its cornerstone, in order to deny regional hegemony to China. This coalition would then counteract China’s focused and sequential use of fait accompli, a strategy where the revisionist state seeks to “seize and consolidate its hold on the target state’s key territory before the defense can respond effectively,” by denying either the state’s ability to seize or hold the target state (160). Critical to Colby’s strategy is a complete pivot to China, unlike the partial pivot Obama made in the early 2000s. Colby argues China’s pursuit of regional hegemony is the national security issue of our time, and “because the United States can singlehandedly or with impromptu coalitions defeat any plausible challenger to regional hegemony anywhere outside Asia and Europe, it should seek to avoid, reduce, or eliminate costly, or demanding commitments in other parts of the world, so that it can concentrate on the most demanding theatre” (72). Even Russian intervention against NATO Colby considers insufficient to distract from focus on China. Colby writes that the US should not take the greatest burden in a NATO-Russia war, if European states do not increase there defense efforts adequately in the event of Russian aggression, “the United States should not plug these gaps” because he deems the outcome of Chinese regional hegemony more critical than an outcome that “call[s] NATO into question and open[s] the East to Moscow’s predominance” (276).

There are several critical assumptions underlying this “prioritzer” strategy that could prove fatal. For one, whether China is actually seeking regional hegemony is debatable. While he acknowledges this, and concludes “the United states should err on the side of caution by seeking to prevent such a state from establishing predominance rather than waiting to be sure” (14), a strategy that risks a oft frequented era of overcompensation after underpreparation, he never questions whether the continued Chinese growth necessary for it to consolidate hegemony is even possible. Colby relies on evidence of increased Chinese aggression, which coupled with increased authoritarianism and a less-market-oriented economy, suggests China has diverged from the liberal internationalist plan to encourage economic growth as the mechanism for eventual favorable political reform. However, this fundamentally misunderstands the Chinese dilemma: while our liberal domestic situation is sometimes incompatible with our centralized and coercive foreign policy, for China a liberal foreign policy is incompatible with its authoritarian domestic structure, critical to preventing domestic unrest, the biggest threat, domestic or international, to the regime. Without a constitution like the United States, China has two sources of legitimacy, economic and nationalist, and the regime needs to fulfill at least one obligation to prevent domestic revolution. There is evidence China’s growth is stagnating, and that due to a multitude of factors, it will not be able to escape the middle-income trap to become the high-income economy necessary for it to match the United States. Therefore, an alternative explanation to Colby’s for increase Chinese aggression is that China has had to pivot to nationalist sources of legitimacy, a rally around the flag effort aimed at distracting citizens from internal issues. If this second rationale is correct, current efforts Trump and Biden started to contain China economically could be more dangerous than helpful.

Furthermore, Colby states, while his strategy “risks exacerbating a security dilemma with China … so long as US efforts are clearly directed at denying Beijing hegemony rather than dismembering China, occupying it, or forcibly changing its government, the security dilemma should be manageable” (15). This perspective ignores a fundamental tenet of foreign policy, that we live in a relative gains world where defense is offense, and therefore, again risks pushing China into exactly the foreign policy position we hope to contain.

Although this foreign policy is unadvisable given its reliance on a narrow Western lens that fails to account for China’s unique historically-grounded political position, the threat the strategy would pose to China and its consequences, and overestimates China’s potential, there are several features that could drive USFP in the future. For one, Colby emphasizes military coercion and believes alliances with authoritarian countries are acceptable, a neoconservative view that will appeal more readily to a Republican president. Yet, Biden is willing to implement a similar aggressive containment strategy based on ideological motivations: invoking an authoritarian-democratic struggle. Finally, domestic opposition to a war fought for uncertain and peripheral interests could limit US engagement, and although unlikely, China’s successful exit of the middle-income trap could engage the balance of power dynamics Colby stresses.

[Rebecca Turner · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book, written by an insider in the Trump government, provides an opportunity to concretely observe how the monopoly capitalist ruling class is preparing the people of the United States for what could be a catastrophic world war. Its purpose appears to be to magnify external threats and increase public fears in order to build support among attentive publics and capitalist ruling class leaders for a possible war, this time with China. Its focus is the perceived danger to U.S. world and regional hegemony that China poses in Asia and, to a much lesser extent, Russia in Europe. It offers policy recommendations on how to stop both powers from becoming regionally dominant through U.S. preparation for and willingness to engage in wars, both limited and, if necessary, nuclear. So, if you are happy to see global thermonuclear holocaust in the name of US capitalist hegemony, this is your book.

[Craig Fiebig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very academic, wonky but critically important for students of the contested (or not) hegemony in front of us.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interest-driven (vice values-driven) argument for why Taiwan is fundamental to US policy.

[Jakub Dovcik · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting and I would like to believe useful book to read in March 2025, during the early months of the second Trump presidency. At the time of the writing of this review the author, Elbridge Colby, is being nominated to be the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He previously served in the Pentagon as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, where he led the development of the National Defense Strategy in 2018, during the first Trump presidency.

The primary argument of this book is that East Asia is the most important area for 21st-century geopolitics and at risk of Chinese hegemonic domination. It argues for the US' role as the US as a strategic hegemony balancer, or an ‘external cornerstone balancer’ for a coalition against Chinese growth and an attempt at hegemony in East Asia. This should be the main priority of the US defence strategy - a denial and cost imposition strategy. This approach has been baked in the 2018 National Defense Strategy that Colby worked on and has been a driving force for a lot of the Pentagon's thinking in the past decade.

Most of the book is spent on building a largely theoretical argument for this - analysing the situation in individual regions, the potential best strategy for China (a fait accompli-styled attack on Taiwan as part of a sequential attack on the American anti-hegemonic coalition) and then how the US should react to it. Along the way, there are interesting points to illuminate Colby's thinking, like a short line that 'it is better for the US to maintain a less coordinated and thus less hegemonic Europe', or 'Moscow is the potential natural cooperator against Chinese hegemony'.

The defence of Taiwan is important for the US not because of the 'silicone shield' (as the most advanced TSMC chips are now made in Taiwan but the production is shifting to Texas and Germany), but rather to safeguard the perception of reliability - differentiated credibility - of the US within the anti-China coalition. It is the extreme importance of credibility for US alliances that is the primary reason, why the US needs to defend its allies - and it should then, as Colby argues - inform how it chooses its allies and partners. If the US is unable to defend a country, it should not make an alliance with it.

This is a work of an extremely realist position, one that analyses US interests coldly and methodically. Alliances do not have any intrinsic value and only serve to further US hegemonic interests.

I must admit, however, that I am quite unsure about what is the overall case for the anti-hegemonic coalition. Colby does not explain Chinese motivation or the actual threat it would pose if it established some form of regional hegemony. He also sees the Chinese conquering of Taiwan as the first - and rather instrumental - step in breaking the first island chain the US has created around it so that it can later attack the Philippines and not in its intrinsic value that it serves for the Chinese 'national rejuvenation'. Similarly, it is not clear why is the US' largely aggressive posture against China so necessary for defending its interests, when books like this might actually contribute to causing an overreaction on the Chinese side. This is not to underestimate the threat of Chinese invasion of Taiwan, just to say that the premise of this book is not explained fully.

Overall, the book is a work of IR theory and is mostly quite academic. It analyses the issue from the first principles and only in the very latter parts of the book there are actual examples from the past - largely from the American Civil War, the First World War and the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. It is, however, questionable to what extent will the US defense policy be actually driven by Colby's thinking, despite his prominent position in the second Trump administration, and not President Trump's rather erratic behaviour.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by US war planner Eldridge Colby, this book contemplates how the US maintains the global balance of power in a world where the fast rise of China threatens US dominance. With China's military spending growing at 10% annually, much faster than that of the US, the power gap can only continue to close. Yet, as of 2021, US defense spending still amounted to as much as the next seven countries combined, several of which are US allies.

So, what should the US do, short of simply trying to grow military spending as fast as the Chinese? Says the author: Build a coalition against China involving the key Asian countries with the combined power to defeat China's best expansionist strategies.

That best strategy for China is to invade Taiwan: it's close (80 miles across the strait), it's small, there is widespread foreign acceptance in some countries of China having some sort of "right" to it, and the two countries are culturally similar even if their systems are wildly different. That's the strategy for the US to"deny".

The strategy for the US, then, faced with this reality, is to line up a coalition with Taiwan, along with key allies Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia, plus use its own forces, to make a Chinese invasion very expensive militarily to the attacker. Sink the invasion fleet, shoot down the aircraft and missiles, and repel any landing force. Piece of cake? The failed Russian invasion of Ukraine has probably given pause to the autocrats in Beijing about undertaking this adventure, which even in the best case for them would leave China isolated, without much foreign trade, and facing the task of holding a hostile piece of conquered territory whose economy might well have collapsed. This is pretty much where Russia finds itself today.

The above is what Colby says is the "strategy of denial", the title of his book.

All this seems pretty self-evident, but it is not so long ago that the US squandered its blood and weaponry and wealth and a good piece of its international standing to go to war in strategically inconsequential countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia and the like. So, not so self-evident to the occupants of the White House, nor maybe to the Pentagon either.

Hope they read the book, especially if there's an abridged version. But really, you can get 80% of the benefit of reading the book just by reading its very good 8-page preface!

[Michael Gormley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoughtful, if aggressive and slightly outdated, defense proposal for American national security. Author Elbridge Colby, primarily known for his contribution to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, argues for a U.S. defense that prioritizes countering China. The book is structured in a bottom-up manner, beginning with first principles of defense policy and culminating in the specific recommendations befitting present circumstances. This keeps the writing accessible and its ideas streamlined, making this book a solid entry point into the morass of U.S. defense strategy.

The author is clearly both a China hawk and a realist, leaving no doubt with the primacy he places on U.S. interests contra those of allies and the clear centrality of China’s looming threat to his argument. The book’s weak link is the lack of justification for the imminence of the Chinese threat, especially given developments in recent years of stunted economic growth and botched “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy that’s driven key regional states further into the U.S. orbit. The prominence of China herein contrasts with the underestimation of Russia, which is only afforded a single chapter of focus despite actually coming to embody the China depicted in the book (ground invasion of U.S. ally aimed at territorial expansion, albeit not producing a hegemony). While this book’s publication in September 2021 precedes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Colby cannot be faulted for failing to predict the future, it does call to question the gravity of the situation as told in the book.

Otherwise, this strategy guide is not particularly innovative. Colby promotes leveraging mutual interest among states to counter China’s ambitions to form an anti-hegemonic coalition consisting of formal or de facto U.S. defense agreements. He prioritizes the defense of Taiwan from a Chinese first strike above all, advises moderating defense spending to not hamper the U.S. economy, and offers some suggestions for how to frame political maneuvering with China to generate the most buy-in from the American public. None of these particularly diverge from The Blob’s consensus or the U.S. policy status quo. If they do, in some unrecognizable way, then that’s an issue of Colby failing to explain it. But this book does offer a firm ideological justification for defensive strength in the face of Chinese military maneuvering, and serves as a worthwhile entry point to the U.S. foreign policy strategy dialogue.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elbridge Colby has written an outstanding book. For anyone interested in understanding what a possible war between China and the United States might look like, The Strategy of Denial is the place to start. It is analytically rigorous, well-informed, and filled with interesting and smart insights.
John Mearsheimer

........

Colby gives us an original and provocative approach to containing adversaries, especially China. . . . [D]istinguished by its moving seamlessly from international relations theory to detailed questions of diplomacy and force deployment.
Robert Jervis, author of How Statesmen Think

There are many ways to lose wars or win them, but only one way to avoid them: to envision closely enough the dangers to be averted by deterrence or defense. This book brings together pure intellect, wide knowledge, and practical experience to show how U.S. defense strategy must change—and fast.
Edward Luttwak, author of The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy

This is an incredibly important book. . . . The definitive work on U.S. defense strategy that should guide our strategic competition with China for the years to come.
Christian Brose, author of The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare

Succeeds brilliantly in the task of building a broad strategic framework—one that is actually new—for how to think about America’s defense in the face of a rising China. . . . The Chinese military are going to translate and classify this book—if they haven’t already.
Michael Pillsbury, senior fellow and director for Chinese Strategy, Hudson Institute

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The Strategy of Denial is an excellent book and a very important one. Fundamentally, it’s not an argument about ‘global stability’ . . . but rather that we need to think about defense strategy in terms of regions in order to achieve political objectives.
Nadia Schadlow, senior fellow, Hudson Institute


.........

Interestingly, i've liked five of the six people with their writings, but Schadlow, i've had some significant issues with.

[Mike Kanner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colby says it best in the final chapter. "This is a book about war; what it would look like and how to wage it to prevail." (282)

Starting from the realist school of international relations theory (https://www.britannica.com/topic/real...), Colby focuses on China and how the United States can deal with hegemonic competition from China. It follows twenty years after Ross Munro and Richard Bernstein first raised the issue with their book The Coming Conflict With China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Com...). It also owes some of its history to John Mearsheimer's The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tra...).

The audience for this book is those who are serious about American national security. Colby starts with an excellent chapter on the purpose of national security as defending territorial integrity and security from foreign attack. He then argues that the best strategy to achieve this is a balance of power.

The remainder of the book is devoted to a detailed discussion of the options the United States has in defending its position as hegemon, primarily from China. He presents several US strategies and possible Chinese counter-strategies. His arguments are backed up with examples from World War 1 and 2 and the Napoleonic period.

As a former Defense Department analyst and a lecturer in security studies, I found his arguments compelling and well-organized. Even though I have argued that China's internal problems are a constraint on its pursuit of hegemony, I was obliged to concede on many of his points. I also found that his options were the result of a realistic and not hopeful assessment of the capabilities of states around the world. While he does not spend much time on any adversary besides China, he explains why in two chapters.

I will be recommending this book to my seminar on national security.

[Dennis Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict by Elbridge Colby is a very good advocacy piece for a strategic framework for the United States. The principal thesis is that the United States has been stretched too thin, therefore it needs to decide what its priorities are. Where we have obligations, we must enunciate and safeguard them. Where we do not have obligations, we should not pretend that we do. For any regions and nations where there is ambiguity, that ambiguity must be set aside. Then, once we know exactly who we must protect and maintain our partnerships with, we can then settle on the real challenge of the twenty-first century: containing Russia and China, with China being by far the most important rival. How to contain these strategic competitions is the heart of this book, which is why it is entitled "The Strategy of Denial." This point is made more plain when we come to understand that it is our allies and partners that China and Russia are most likely to invade, coerce, and intimidate. The chapter on escalation traps and fait accomplis is perhaps the best in the book, and very nearly captured what happened with Russia and Ukraine, only it was about China and Taiwan.

There are a couple of gaps in this book though. It is unapologetically martial in orientation, which means that it becomes dramatically less useful for alternative forms of great power competition. Furthermore, I am rather tired of policy makers demanding we double down on our allies and, for lack of a better phrase, leave non-aligned countries to the wolves. We can, and should, do so much more.

88/100

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cogent argument for thwarting Chinese hegemony in Asia by building a coalition of lesser powers such as India, Japan, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, and possibly even Russia backstopped by US power. Colby builds his argument logically and if you accept the underlying assumptions about American interests, his prescription for a strategy of denial makes a lot of sense. If one accepts that China has active hegemonic designs on Asia, it follows that the United States has at least some interest in countering China in that goal. Colby sees the threat as real and calls for building a broad coalition of nations with shared interest in countering China and a narrower alliance of nations ready to commit to mutual military defense. Colby argues that although it would be nice if the United States could be a bystander, any coalition of this nature, given China's power, would need to be supported by a cornerstone nation with greater power than even China and Japan can individually muster. The other nations are no match for China absent the United States commitment to backstop the coalition, he argues.

For an effective strategy of the kind he proposes, America's commitment would have to be more solid than it appears to be now. The doves and isolationists in both parties make it difficult to argue that a commitment to support allies with military force against China is credible. Thus this book seeks to convince those who might prefer isolationism or distrust military solutions to foreign policy that the threat from China is sufficient to support such a strategy of denial with its risk of military confrontation with China.

[Zak Glade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not horrendous by any means, just far from compelling. It says nothing that decades of liberal/neocon/globalist pundits have not already said ten times over. Just more of the usual Realpolitik with little regard for anything other than winning the "game". One could even consider it an extension of "Thucydides Trap" by Graham Allison, just more interested in the minutia of geopolitical maneuvering.

My one primary gripe is that the entire book is about the denial of Chinese dominance in the far east, and the many different ways the US could accomplish such a feat, but the book neglects to tell us why it is so important that we should deny Chinese regional hegemony. I don't necessarily disagree, but the book says little other than,"If they get hegemony there they could be mean 🥺". This in and of itself is not nearly compelling enough considering the cost and effort such a denial strategy will entail. Really it is just another example of the American Empire no longer knowing why it exists, should we really continue to benevolently oversee the world just because thats what we do? I think there is role for the American Empire to continue, it just needs to evolve(we should have a Hong Kong equivalent in every major economy and use our superior military and economy to exploit global trade to our advantage, think a much leaned British Empire, but this is all besides the point.)but getting ourselves stuck in every quagmire around the globe helps no one.

All that being said, this book is bit boring of a read, doesn't really introduce anything novel, and says we should exhaust ourselves in an effort to dominate the orientals....just because we should.

DNF ~80%

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very much prepared to not like this book. I had been told that the author was an ideologue and a MAGA/America First nutter. Having read it however, I have to report that it is excellent. A very cogent and coherent argument for an American national defense strategy in a multipolar world where the United States faces very real resource constraints. The thesis of the book is basically that the United States overarching national security interest is to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemon in any of the key regions of the world: Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf. At the moment, and the forseeable future, neither Iran nor Russia are capable of pursuing hegemony in the Gulf or in Europe so the main threat to American national security is the potential for Chinese hegemony in Asia.

Given American constraints, this means that the US absolutely must subordinate all other needs to the prevention of this outcome, including our commitments in other, less threatened regions. He then goes through the different strategies China might enact, and potential strategies the US might try to counter but he arrives at the optimal Chinese strategy to be the serial isolation of US aligned countries in the region. Thus it is incumbent on the US to form and sustain a counter-hegemonic coalition in East, South and South-East Asia and he lays out, very cogently, a combined diplomatic and military strategy for doing this.

[Robert Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elbridge Colby's "Strategy of Denial" is an insightful read - one which comes at an important time as the strategic competition between the United States and China ramps up. It's a strong book, and I feel better informed having read it.

I have some deviating views on the danger of Chinese regional hegemony, and the real dangers of conflict over states like Taiwan or the Philippines (not to mention a differing overall view of whether or not the United States should expend considerable blood and treasure in such wars for distant interests) - but were one to take the dangers as inherent and the concept of Chinese hegemony in South East Asia as fundamentally threatening, the strategy that Colby lays out in this book is both well reasoned and prudent. The book itself makes those assumptions, and focuses on how to deny Beijing a path towards any such aspirations.

There's no denying that China is a rapidly rising peer challenger to the United States. As tensions inevitably grow in this changing dynamic, considering strategies like Colby's denial approach will be important in ensuring Americans have a robust array of options to pursue in our national discourse.

[Yeti_2_read · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a read, but lacks evidence and over focuses on China at the expense of realities that can’t be ignored by the United States.

Colby is an obvious student of Mearsheimer and sees the world (here) through the lens of Offensive Realism. He proposes this strategy of denial for America based on Offensive Realist assumptions, but his book merely presents an application of Mearsheimer’s ideas to a face-value analysis of current China-US relationship.

Why China chose particular ambitions? How long will China continue to rise? How do events in Europe intertwine with Chinese strategy? These questions go unanswered in Colby’s analysis.

His introduction chapter, however, I found outlined a simple and elegant definition for strategy and why having a strategy matters. Colby’s explanation of strategy as a “simplifying framework” that guide unavoidable choices in statecraft makes a concise and memorable explanation.

Overall, a worthwhile read that dives deeper into making practical application of the US 2022 National Security Strategy.