Irregular Influence: Combating Malign Chinese Communist Party Actions in Southeast Asia

As the United States seeks to reorient its foreign policy to effectively compete with China, it must gain a profound understanding of China’s ambitions. Uncovering the historical roots and driving forces behind Chinese actions is crucial for comprehending the underlying motivations fueling these ambitions. This research scrutinizes the global ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and assesses the strategic means by which it seeks to realize them. It critically examines the CCP’s pursuit of global hegemony and outlines its strategy, with a particular focus on its regional ambitions in Southeast Asia. Emphasis is placed on the CCP’s utilization of malign influence as a tool to achieve its objectives while carefully avoiding actions that might provoke a military response from the United States. This research is relevant to foreign relations experts and the operational military force alike.

Cost Imposition in Strategic Competition and PRC Views of U.S. Systems

Published April 13, 2026
By HAF/A5SM & CASI
HAF/A5SM Strategic Assessments

As part of the broader geopolitical rivalry, the Department of the Air Force (DAF) is in a long-term, strategic competition with great powers, especially China. As a competitor, the DAF’s investments—in programs, postures, and concepts—must consider PRC counter-investments. To gain advantage over time, the DAF should invest in ways that create sustainable positions of relative advantage, while seeking investments that could impose relative hardship or dilemmas upon the PRC. This approach of cost imposition could serve as a guiding principle in allocating DAF resources throughout its competition.

Central to this strategy is understanding how the PRC's internal view of U.S. weapon systems acts as the exact "sensitivity" that drives their military counter-investments. What are the PRC's views of specific U.S. military systems, what threat do they believe these systems pose, and what are their discussions regarding countering these systems? Linking what the PLA thinks about our hardware to how they spend money to defeat it, what enduring sensitivities or proclivities shape the PRC’s military investments? Furthermore, what role, if any, did USAF programs, postures, or concepts play in the changes to the PRC’s Strategic Guideline (zhanlue fangzhen)? To what extent did USAF investments in the Cold War impose costs on the PRC?

Baumeister, Maj. D. Harry, "Failure to Launch: Gray Zone Conflict in Space," AFGC thesis, 2026, 50 pgs.
- Baumeister recommends implementing a direct cost-imposition strategy through space acquisition and engineering. By intentionally designing, purchasing, and deploying cheaper, proliferated satellite systems rather than relying on a few exquisite, hyper-expensive satellites, the USSF can ensure that the financial and resource costs an adversary must expend to attack or jam US networks far outweigh any benefits they might gain.
Bellavia, CDR Andrea R., "Extending the Reach: How the Carrier Can Integrate the MQ-25A to Complement Distributed Maritime Operations," AFGC thesis, 2026.
- Answered by Bellavia’s explanation of how China's view of the U.S. aircraft carrier as a premier power projection asset has driven its massive military counter-investments, notably its layered Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) network. To turn this dynamic into a cost-imposing dilemma for China, she proposes implementing Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) to complicate the PLA's targeting calculations by dispersing naval forces while concentrating fires. This strategy forces China to commit high quantities of its most exquisite and expensive long-range anti-ship missiles, such as the DF-26, against highly mobile, distributed, and actively defending carrier strike groups rather than stationary land targets. Additionally, she advocates for the use of low-cost deceptive techniques, such as deploying cheaper unmanned decoy ships and drones that replicate carrier emissions and generate false tracks, to exploit the fragility of the Chinese targeting kill chain and waste their expensive missile inventor.
Wendelken, Col. Michael, "Short of War but More than Enough: Preventing Chinese Victory in Competition with Cost Imposition," AFF short paper, 2022, 2 pgs.
Kordus, Major Eric R., "The Future of US Air Force Air Dominance Fighters: Maintaining Air Superiority against China," GCPME/ACSC 2022, 60 pgs.
Wright, Major Taylor, "China Shoots USAF Fighters," AFF short paper, 2022, 3 pgs.