Balance of power in the western Pacific (Hugh White ANU video)

More Hugh White (see The Pivot and American Statecraft in Asia). In the first video below @38min: he gives what I consider a realistic assessment of the current and near future military balance of power in the Pacific, including the fact that both sides have significant uncertainty in their evaluation of opponent capability. If you just have a few minutes that part is worth a listen.

Defeating A2AD (Anti-Access Area Denial) requires ASB (Air Sea Battle), which is highly escalatory. See also A2AD fait accompli?

Hugh White AO is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University. His work focuses primarily on Australian strategic and defence policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, and global strategic affairs especially as they influence Australia and the Asia-Pacific. He has served as an intelligence analyst with the Office of National Assessments, as a journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, as a senior adviser on the staffs of Defence Minister Kim Beazley and Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and as a senior official in the Department of Defence, where from 1995 to 2000 he was Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence, and as the first Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). In the 1970s he studied philosophy at Melbourne and Oxford Universities.

In the second video, see the syllogism expressed @25 min. @44min: surface ships are toast.