Much of U.S. global power has historically been based on the power and stability provided by the U.S. Dollar serving as the reserve currency for much of the world. However, to offset the effects of near-peer strategic competition—particularly the US-China rivalry—the military must increasingly leverage economic and financial instruments of power. What happens to U.S. nuclear deterrence strategies if Saudi Arabia, along with BRICS+ nations, vote later this year to abandon the Petrodollar? Will extended deterrence fall by the wayside during the climate of geopolitical isolationism that would invariably follow? Is this threat to U.S. economic hegemony a potential catalyst to open war between great power competitors?
In response to these macroeconomic shifts and potential strategic vulnerabilities, to what extent can combatant commands leverage fiscal preparation of the environment (FPE) to achieve economic effects and generate tangible operational and tactical military advantages in this competition? By analyzing the Asia-Pacific as a specific region, what capabilities and potential investments should the U.S. prioritize to counter adversary influence? Specifically, what varying levers of FPE and opportunities in the development of defense, technology, and infrastructure offer the greatest operational advantage? Ultimately, researchers should approach this analysis to understand how these investments translate into tactical readiness, what variables impact the success of FPE, and how this framework might be applied more broadly across other regions to ensure the U.S. can maintain its deterrence strategies.
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Adams, CCP Modernization, AWC 2026.
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Outlines how the U.S. should double-down on its enduring economic advantages—including world-leading GDP, a strong innovation ecosystem, and dominance in global finance and reserve currency status—to fund and sustain advanced military power. Adams notes that the U.S. dollar currently accounts for the majority of global foreign-exchange reserves, global export invoicing, and foreign-exchange transactions, while the U.S. holds systemic leverage through institutions like SWIFT, CHIPS, and Fedwire. To maintain credible deterrence against near-peer strategic competitors in a multipolar era, the author argues that the U.S. must resolve its own systemic fiscal vulnerabilities. Specifically, the study recommends paying down the significant U.S. national debt—which holds back productivity and saw interest payments exceed defense expenditures for the first time in modern history in 2024—as a controllable, necessary method of ensuring the U.S. dollar remains the strongest economic lever in the world.
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Alexander, Legacy to Lethal," AFGC 2026.
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Explores the strategic variables of extended deterrence in the Indo-Pacific theater, demonstrating that heavy strategic bombers provide a visible, recallable signaling mechanism to project resolve and fulfill alliance commitments to partners (such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia) during crises without triggering irreversible escalation. Under the stability-instability paradox, it notes that peer nuclear expansion can generate a belief that the U.S. will not escalate to the nuclear level, which can embolden conventional regional aggression (such as in the Taiwan Strait). This dynamic makes a highly credible, modernized strike force—achieved by accelerating B-52H radar and avionics upgrades alongside fielding the B-21—essential to deter conventional aggression during perceived windows of adversary advantage.
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This paper addresses the macroeconomic foundations of global reserve currency hegemony, explaining that the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference fixed global exchange rates against the U.S. dollar to establish it as the world's reserve currency. This status creates massive international demand for the dollar, strengthening its buying power and allowing the U.S. Treasury to finance national debt at favorable rates. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents a systematic effort to bypass this system by utilizing package financing and denominating trade with emerging economies in Chinese Renminbi (RMB). This geo-economic strategy is designed to supplant the established Western-led financial order and erode U.S. economic hegemony as China gradually moves into the "empty spaces" of the global board to gain long-term strategic advantages.
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Antognini, Adaptable Logistics Methods," AFGC 2026.
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Explains how peacetime infrastructure and logistics investments translate directly into tactical readiness and operational survivability under Agile Combat Employment (ACE). Antognini argues that because traditional centralized bases in the Indo-Pacific are increasingly vulnerable to peer missile threats, joint forces must disperse to networks of smaller, austere operating locations. However, because ACE is inherently "preparation intensive," distributed combat operations cannot be improvised after hostilities begin. Thus, prior FPE investments—such as runway improvements, distributed fuel architectures, munitions storage, and Regional Base Cluster Prepositioning (RBCP) kits in strategic clusters (such as Guam, Tinian, and the Philippines)—are essential enablers to complicate the adversary's targeting cycle and generate sustained combat power.
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Arias, "Chinese Economic Statecraft," AFGC 2026.
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Analyzes how asymmetric economic interdependence and commercially embedded influence networks gradually shape the decision-making environment of strategic states. Utilizing the Panama Canal as a case study, the paper establishes that strategic access risk at global maritime chokepoints is fundamentally a governance and policy-incentive challenge rather than a purely military problem. Sustained commercial integration, elite business relationships, and infrastructure investments by a competitor can shape the incentives of public-sector decision-makers, gradually narrowing their policy flexibility and sovereign decision-making space over time. It concludes that assessing long-term operational access and force mobility requires military planners to evaluate the economic and regulatory conditions that shape the environment in which future governance decisions will be made.
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As-Il, "Five Ring Model of Non-Kinetic Strategy," ACSC 2025.
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Reframes John Warden's concentric Five Ring Model into a modern non-kinetic strategy, identifying the economic base (Ring Two) as a primary center of gravity immediately adjacent to political authority. As-il details how combatant commands and policymakers can leverage non-kinetic FPE levers—such as targeted economic sanctions to restrict revenue, technology export controls to block critical systems, and capital-channel investment screenings—to systematically suffocate an adversary's economic foundation. By denying access to critical innovation pathways (such as extreme ultraviolet lithography systems), these non-kinetic instruments replicate the strategic effects of bombing industrial nodes, delaying high-tech military modernization and inducing strategic paralysis without incurring the severe political and escalatory costs of kinetic strikes.
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This study connects macroeconomic statecraft directly to military outcomes, demonstrating that simple economic acts, such as currency manipulation, function as active preludes to war. It argues that in an era of strategic competition, economic and financial instruments are increasingly substituting for traditional military power to project nationalistic agendas. By using coercive lending practices—such as resource-collateralized loan contracts—and manipulating the exchange rate between the dollar and the yuan, China leverages its economic clout to gain geostrategic footholds and influence foreign policies without immediately relying on conventional armed conflict.
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This study details how strategic defense priorities are translated into physical regional investments through the military construction (MILCON) budget. In the Indo-Pacific theater, the Air Force prioritizes its MILCON funding to construct ground-based space defense facilities at Schriever, consolidate nuclear facilities to improve security and readiness at Malmstrom, and develop and improve expeditionary runway and basing infrastructure on Tinian Island. This illustrates how strategic-level posture goals for nuclear and space deterrence are actualized through targeted infrastructure developments.
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Barranco AWC 2026 Countering A2AD Strategies.docx
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Examines the strategic implications of peer anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) architectures in the Indo-Pacific, demonstrating how these systems have evolved from defensive shields into offensive tools of strategic coercion. It notes that conventional deterrence models relying on uncontested theater access are outdated, as advanced missile systems and integrated defenses raise the risks of escalation, complicate intervention calculus, and introduce crisis instability. Rather than succumbing to A2/AD-induced paralysis, the study argues that NATO and U.S. forces must coordinate effects across all domains—including cyber, electromagnetic, and conventional operations—to generate episodic "control of the air" that enables maneuver and power projection from inside the contested bubble.
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Banez AFGC 2026 Air Commandos versus The Panda.docx
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Outlines how special operations forces can reorient their training and posture to counter the PRC's A2/AD strategy in the Pacific. To build tactical readiness, it details how special reconnaissance and tactical teams can find, fix, and target critical adversary centers of gravity, such as surface combatants and island bases. Furthermore, it argues that Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC) can leverage unique access and placement throughout the region by training partner nation militaries (such as the Philippines) through air advisor and foreign internal defense programs. These advisory efforts simultaneously expand U.S. influence, reduce regional reliance on adversary commercial-diplomatic partnerships, and secure critical forward basing and refueling networks.
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This paper outlines how military doctrine and acquisition priorities directly support economic statecraft by setting the foundation for cost-imposition strategies. Rather than purchasing hyper-expensive, exquisite systems, military planners can pursue cheaper, proliferated constellations (such as many small satellites) to undermine the cost-benefit calculations of an adversary considering aggressive actions. Additionally, the author shows that military planning must synchronize cross-government efforts so that economic coercion tools, such as sanctions and trade limitations, are legally and logistically in place before aggression occurs, preventing adversaries from exploiting gray zone ambiguity.
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Benjamin, "Pragmatic Deep Engagement," ACSC EL 2025.
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Addresses competitor-led macroeconomic shifts by analyzing how China utilizes alternative trade and finance frameworks—such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and its participation in BRICS+—to create asymmetric economic dependencies that bind states to its orbit. To manage this great power competition and deter revisionism without triggering a catastrophic war, the author proposes a grand strategy of "Pragmatic Deep Engagement". This strategy advocates leveraging legacy U.S. structural advantages, specifically the global reserve status of the U.S. dollar and the centrality of the U.S.-led financial system, to embed and tie competitors within reformed, pluralistic international institutions. By sustaining these structural benefits and updating global institutions, the U.S. can ensure that the benefits of rules-based cooperation exceed those of revisionism, thereby maintaining strategic deterrence across all domains.
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This paper evaluates how modern geopolitical fragmentation and the transition to a multipolar nuclear landscape challenge the credibility of U.S. strategic and extended deterrence commitments. America's nuclear umbrella is increasingly strained across multiple theaters by overlapping, simultaneous threats from a unified alignment of nuclear peers (Russia and China) and regional rivals (North Korea and Iran). Any perceived vulnerability in the U.S. extended deterrence posture could encourage opportunistic conventional attacks or limited nuclear use by adversaries who gamble that the U.S. will hesitate to escalate. To preserve strategic stability, the author recommends integrated deterrence that systematically blends military and non-military tools, paired with reinforced alliances maintained through joint wargaming and integrated defense planning.
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Analyzing the strategic requirements of the Indo-Pacific, this paper explains how combatant commands can utilize soft-power capabilities to generate tangible basing opportunities. It outlines how the U.S. military can leverage Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) training, research, and collaborative networks—such as the 35 distinct HADR centers across the region—to strengthen civil-military ties with host nations. In the disaster-prone Indo-Pacific, these robust relationships serve as critical tools to generate access and secure cooperative security locations or basing options needed to maintain the U.S. military footprint.
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Brantley, "India and Australia: How Do China's Economic Efforts Impact US Relations?" AFGC 2025.
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Examines how near-peer competitors deploy trade coercion and economic statecraft to test the durability of U.S. alliances. Brantley documents how China exploits structural dependencies in critical sectors—such as rare earths, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and digital infrastructure—to pressure key security partners like India and Australia to navigate the tension between economic dependence and defense commitments. The author warns that these trade entanglements generate strategic vulnerabilities, as asymmetric dependencies breed policy caution, create political friction, and risk undermining alliance cohesion during regional crises. To counter these pressures, the paper recommends that the U.S. coordinate with allies to build domestic capacity, diversify supply chains in critical sectors, and establish joint mechanisms for economic risk assessment to enhance alliance resilience.
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Casabar GCPME 2025 "Structuring USAF Cyber Units to Strengthen MDO in GPC.docx
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Explains that strategic deterrence in great power competition requires visible, integrated cyber capabilities embedded within Combat Wings alongside conventional assets to project both denial and cost imposition. It highlights the use of large-scale joint exercises (such as Valiant Shield and Cyber Flag) to demonstrate cyber readiness, rapid attribution, and cross-domain resilience in peacetime, thereby undercutting the perception of operational seams that adversaries exploit in gray-zone conflicts. By embedding cyber squadrons directly into Combat Wings, commanders can tighten decision loops, reduce strategic latency, and project a credible, multi-domain response to gray-zone coercion below the threshold of armed conflict.
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Donoho explores how controlling critical energy resource cycles translates directly into hard power, state wealth, and strategic deterrence in great power competition. In the nuclear realm, the U.S. can establish "producer leverage" and deter adversarial coercion by controlling the nuclear fuel cycle and exporting sophisticated technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs). By spearheading multilateral partnerships and international fuel banks, the U.S. can secure the energy needs of consumer states on the condition of nonproliferation compliance, reinforcing the civilian-weapon divide. This strategic integration of economic energy security and technology export serves as a crucial non-kinetic line of deterrence that prevents geopolitical isolation and reinforces the credibility of U.S. power.
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Dougherty outlines the transition to Integrated Deterrence, a strategy centered on coherently blending conventional, nuclear, and non-military instruments of power (including economic and diplomatic levers) across multiple domains and regions to deter peer competitors. Extended deterrence relies heavily on the U.S. maintaining a highly credible commitment to defend its allies and partners. However, to ensure this credibility remains viable against peer nuclear opponents with diverse global capabilities, Dougherty argues that the U.S. must pursue significant expenditures in domestic technology, space systems, and nuclear modernization, while actively encouraging allied nations to increase their own defense capabilities.
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This study evaluates U.S. strategic triad modernization options, analyzing ballistic missile defense, nuclear triad modernization, and nuclear diplomacy against safety and fiscal viability. The author notes that while strategic triad modernization is technically feasible within U.S. defense budgets, a peer-to-peer nuclear arms race with Russia and China is highly escalatory and may provoke the very conflict it seeks to prevent. The paper concludes that nuclear treaties and diplomatic engagement offer the most fiscally viable, low-cost solutions to limit peer adversaries' arsenals and ensure strategic predictability, allowing vital national resources to be preserved for other areas of competition.
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Gracia focuses on the Asia-Pacific to identify critical infrastructure and technology investments needed to neutralize China's advanced A2/AD systems and secure U.S. power projection. Due to the fragility of key hubs like Andersen Air Force Base, Gracia argues that the Pacific Deterrence Initiative must prioritize funding for hardened shelters, modular BEAR kits for rapid runway repair, and solar microgrids to ensure operational continuity. Furthermore, deploying next-generation capabilities like hypersonic missiles and XQ-58A collaborative combat aircraft enables agile combat employment (ACE). However, Gracia notes that these vital FPE and military construction (MILCON) projects are heavily constrained by rigid financial controls under the Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) program and the 2025 construction tariffs, highlighting the urgent need for a more flexible budgeting framework (such as a 10% inflation-adjusted contingency buffer) to rapidly reallocate funds and sustain theater readiness.
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This study examines how the Chinese Communist Party leverages military modernization and predatory economics, specifically "debt-trap diplomacy," to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to its advantage. A prime example of this coercive tactic is China foreclosing on a 99-year lease on the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka when the local government failed to repay its construction loans. To counter Beijing’s predatory financial grasp, the U.S. instituted the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, creating the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (USIDFC). This framework provides lower-GDP developing nations with highly flexible, financially sound, and transparent alternative financing to build critical infrastructure and maintain regional economic independence.
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Hall identifies a highly practical, tactical lever of Fiscal Preparation of the Environment (FPE), noting that the military's exclusive use of physical U.S. dollars for paying agents in deployed and austere environments carries high signature risks, fiscal liabilities, and heavy cash transport costs. To modernize these capabilities, Hall recommends transitioning to non-attributable debit cards in partnership with major corporate networks like Visa or Mastercard. This operational transition automatically converts transactions to local currency—making them traceable only to a corporate sponsor rather than the U.S. government—and eliminates fiscal liability by loading funds digitally only at the time of purchase, drastically reducing tactical vulnerability and footprint.
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Evaluates the strategic and technological variables that impact the success of U.S. nuclear deterrence and the stability of the nuclear triad. Harris warns that leading emerging dual-use technologies—such as cyberwarfare, hypersonic weapons, decision support systems, and autonomous robotics—compress decision-making timelines, alter adversaries' risk calculations, increase first-strike risks, and threaten to "blind" U.S. C4ISR networks. Specifically, hypersonic weapons compress warning times to as little as six minutes, reducing the space for deliberation and forcing rapid responses with less information. To counter these variables and maintain a stable mutual equilibrium, the study recommends that U.S. triad modernization efforts integrate advanced countermeasures, rapid decision networks, and continued visible operational testing to project combat readiness, reassure allies, and preserve strategic stability.
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Houk, "Midfield as a Strategy for the Philippines," AFGC 2025.
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Directly operationalizes how combatant commands can leverage Fiscal Preparation of the Environment (FPE) by introducing the "MIDFIELD" framework, which adds Financial, Intelligence, Legal, and Development ("FI_LD") instruments to traditional statecraft to counter gray-zone maritime coercion. Houk outlines specific FPE levers that planners can use, such as deploying Treasury Department personnel to help partner agencies track and disrupt illicit adversary-linked funding flows connected to fishing conglomerates or shadow banking networks. Additionally, combatant commands can utilize development finance institutions like the DFC and MCC to provide concessional, low-interest loans directly to coastal provinces (like Palawan and Zambales) for targeted maritime infrastructure. These targeted development efforts and local microgrants build partner resilience from the ground up, reducing strategic vulnerabilities and allowing the joint force to deny the adversary coercive leverage.
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Hulshizer argues that to adapt to great power competition, the U.S. military must transition from the traditional DIME framework to a modern MIDFIELD (military, information, diplomatic, financial, intelligence, economic, law, development) approach, fusing precise and subversive financial instruments with military power. While the economic instrument of power is broad and coercive (e.g., sanctions and tariffs), the financial instrument focuses on precision and subversion. Combatant commands can exploit these financial networks to gain an asymmetric advantage; specifically, counter threat finance (CTF) and financial intelligence (FININT) can be used to target a peer state's military through its salary payment system, track illicit funding webs, and identify host-government corruption to isolate corrupt officials and bolster regional stability.
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Lee emphasizes that the growing potential for near-peer conflict with nuclear-armed adversaries like China, Russia, and North Korea has renewed the urgency of strategic planning and modernization for the U.S. nuclear enterprise. The nuclear triad—comprising land-based ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers—remains a grim yet indispensable component of national security. Lee’s study highlights that public opinion and domestic support for nuclear capabilities are critical variables that significantly shape and constrain U.S. policy decisions regarding triad modernization and strategic deterrence.
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This paper details how combatant commands can utilize fiscal preparation of the environment (FPE) to achieve tangible military and tactical advantages in Oceania. Focus is placed on the Freely Associated States (Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands), where China utilizes tourism, infrastructure funding, and the BRI to expand its footprint and pressure regional governments to abandon diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. To counter this, the paper recommends utilizing Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI) defense spending to construct dual-use military-civilian infrastructure and auxiliary airfields. This tactical investment allows the U.S. Air Force to achieve calculated force dispersion to mitigate threats from Chinese weapons systems while simultaneously stimulating local jobs and economic growth to insulate these island nations from Chinese monetary influence.
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The U.S. Dollar's (USD) global reserve status originated under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, which established the de facto standard of global financial transfer networks like SWIFT. However, as geopolitical competitors seek to challenge this system, the perceived weaponization of SWIFT by the U.S. has prompted nations to seek decentralized, digital currency alternatives. If competitors successfully implement a Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (SHC) backed by a digital basket of reserve assets, it would trigger a severe devaluation shock and inflationary crisis within the U.S. financial system, permanently eroding the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions. To counter this, the paper argues that the U.S. must adopt cryptocurrency as an instrument of geoeconomic strategy, actively shaping blockchain protocols and standards to bypass sanctions-resistance and preserve its centralized financial power.
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Phillips examines the growing crisis of credibility surrounding U.S. extended nuclear deterrence guarantees in the Indo-Pacific, specifically on and around the Korean Peninsula. Driven by regional unease and doubts about the U.S. nuclear umbrella, South Korea has unofficially pursued a "nuclear hedging strategy" to acquire the technical capability to build independent nuclear weapons in short order. To restore allied confidence, deter North Korean and Chinese coercion, and prevent regional proliferation, Phillips argues for the redeployment of U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons (such as the B61-12) on dual-capable F-35 aircraft to Kunsan Air Base. This forward-deployed posture directly aligns with the 2023 Strategic Posture Commission's recommendations, providing a prompt, low-yield, and survivable theater deterrent within the critical 2027 to 2035 timeframe of concern.
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Randall demonstrates how China employs its Digital Silk Road (DSR) and "Standards 2035" initiatives under the Belt and Road framework to export technology-enabled authoritarianism and dominate global digital infrastructure, eroding U.S. influence. This technological expansion threatens U.S. critical networks and cedes control of global data. To counter this in the Asia-Pacific, Randall recommends that the U.S. aggressively prioritize global investment programs in strategic locations, providing developing nations with a trusted, values-driven alternative to PRC investments. Furthermore, expanding cyber partnerships acts as a critical force multiplier to secure maritime and transportation infrastructure, translating directly into enhanced joint force posture and tactical readiness.
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This monograph provides an operational framework for combatant commands to systematically prepare the operational environment by utilizing the PMESII-PT (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, Information, Physical, Time) tool to assess complex local conditions. The author proposes the Global Response Foreign Network (GRFN)—a joint interagency force design that unifies defense, state, justice, treasury, and intelligence stakeholders—to coordinate economic tools, such as managing sanctions and inducements through the Treasury, alongside military operations. The success of these regional investments translates into tactical readiness through the deployment of the Foreign Emergency Assessment Team (FEAT), which employs pre-planned, flexible rules of engagement to shape local perceptions of U.S. legitimacy and secure lasting strategic partnerships before crisis occurs.
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The United States has historically wielded immense power by leveraging the U.S. Dollar (USD) as the world's reserve currency since the 1945 Bretton Woods agreement, enabling the West to utilize SWIFT and the IMF to impose economic sanctions. However, the BRICS alliance (now BRICS+) is actively working to build an alternate financial ecosystem—including the New Development Bank and blockchain-based payment networks like BRICS Pay—to trade outside Western oversight. China and Russia are promoting de-dollarization, with Saudi Arabia considering the Chinese Yuan (CNY) for oil transactions and Russia heavily adopting the CNY. If the BRICS alliance successfully establishes a parallel system closed to U.S. influence, it would strip the U.S. of its sanction-based economic deterrence, ceding leverage to chief rivals and forcing U.S. leaders to rely on the far less desirable power of escalatory military force.
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Schnell addresses the threat to U.S. dollar hegemony and global stability by investigating the potential for the BRICS+ coalition to create a parallel, non-dollar-denominated economic system in response to the U.S. weaponizing the dollar through sanctions. Using the historical analogy of the Cold War—where the Soviet Union rejected the U.S.-led Marshall Plan and a bifurcated global economy emerged—he demonstrates the immense difficulty of establishing a separate economic order. Schnell concludes that while a complete economic decoupling is incredibly hard to sustain, heavy-handed U.S. sanctions fuel backlash and inadvertently encourage targeted states to build alternative financial mechanisms (such as alternatives to the SWIFT messaging system) to escape U.S. leverage. He advises modern policymakers to adopt a highly measured, pragmatic approach to economic statecraft to avoid triggering geopolitical fragmentation and isolating the U.S. economy.
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Smiley, "Adapting US Policy to Counter China's Belt and Road Initiative," AFGC 2025.
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Outlines how the U.S. can prioritize international infrastructure investments to counter competitor influence, advocating for viable, transparent alternatives such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). To guarantee the success of these FPE-style investments, the paper advises that projects must be strictly delimited with defined boundaries—including precise project scoping, established funding arrangements, clear timelines, and mandatory draw-down dates. Furthermore, it emphasizes the necessity of utilizing third-party financial assessors, rigorous auditing, and training the local populace to independently execute and sustain the projects, thereby preventing local corruption, managing costs, and building long-term partner self-sufficiency instead of endless dependency.
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This thesis demonstrates how setting the theater in the Indo-Pacific translates directly into tactical readiness and survivability against Chinese deep-strike missile salvos. Under the framework of Dynamic Force Employment (DFE), combatant commands must prioritize physical and technological investments to "set the theater"—including pre-positioning equipment, creating robust fuel and munitions stockpiles, and dramatically expanding access agreements with international partners. Building foreign airfield infrastructure across hundreds of hub-and-spoke locations and training Multi-Capable Airmen (MCA) are essential, resource-intensive investments required to sustain distributed operations and maintain a credible deterrence posture.
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This report evaluates how China uses the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a geo-economic tool in Southeast Asia to weaken U.S. alliances, create debt dependencies, and realign regional power structures. A shift in economic influence from the West to the East would trigger a cascading decline in political influence, military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and overall security partnerships. To counterbalance China's footprint, the United States must prioritize high-standard economic alternatives such as the G7's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF). The IPEF specifically aims to establish secure tax frameworks, resilient supply chains, and clean energy to provide a credible alternative to corrupt and environmentally disruptive BRI projects.
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This paper explains how Agile Combat Employment (ACE) optimizes the execution of Dynamic Force Employment (DFE) in the South China Sea to counter China's A2/AD advantages. To prevent China from concentrating strikes on major bases, ACE disperses fighter, bomber, and transport aircraft across a network of austere airfields and civilian airports in the region, such as Tinian International Airport and Palau's Koror Airport. These distributed operations rely on tactical innovations like hot-pit refueling and utilizing multi-capable airmen trained outside their primary specialties to rapidly refuel and rearm aircraft, thereby preserving operational agility and tactical readiness.
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This paper details how near-peer competitors utilize de-dollarization as a deliberate tool to challenge U.S. global influence and shift the financial balance of power. Since 2013, Russia has actively pushed for de-dollarization, culminating in a 2017 agreement with China to rely on the ruble and renminbi for bilateral trade and contract payments. The emergence of the BRICS grouping and these coordinated financial maneuvers indicate that the Western unipolar liberal order is reaching its limits, providing alternative economic structures that challenge U.S. hegemony and insulate these nations from Western financial coercion.
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Vander Does explains how annual budget delays and Continuing Resolutions (CRs) hamper funding, misalign billions of dollars, and degrade department readiness in the race for technological superiority. To build the necessary financial flexibility for great power competition, Vander Does proposes transitioning to a biennial budget and appropriations process, such as Senate Bill 3208. Providing a two-year cycle for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) funding gives commanders critical foreknowledge of resources. This longer execution timeline enables commanders to proactively plan travel for training, fund large-scale combat exercises, secure multi-year service contracts, and make risk-informed decisions that directly enhance tactical readiness.
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Vogel AWC 2026 Winning at Sea by Controlling the Air.docx
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Focuses on the critical intersection of airbase active defense and maritime control in the Western Pacific theater. It argues that while U.S. airpower is the decisive arbiter of maritime control, China's contemporary naval expansion relies on the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) to suppress forward American airfields and runways. It establishes that traditional passive dispersal concepts like Agile Combat Employment (ACE) are insufficient on their own against saturation missile attacks. Consequently, the paper recommends prioritizing organic, layered active defenses at forward installations—specifically Directed Energy (DE) weapons like high-energy lasers and high-power microwaves—to ensure sustained combat sortie generation, which undercuts China's anti-access strategy and restores American air dominance.
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This paper focuses on how the U.S. can systematically counteract China's geo-economic influence through targeted cost-imposition strategies short of war. China uses subsidized infrastructure networks like the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative as a multi-sided market platform that compounds political, economic, and military network value at a non-linear rate, eventually transitioning from a platform where state capital subsidizes commerce to one where commercial capital subsidizes state power. To disrupt this strategy, the U.S. must target OBOR's structural weaknesses to systematically erode Chinese leverage, introduce risk into their military-civil economic system, and pressurize policy and personnel dynamics.
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This analysis directly examines the geopolitical threat to the U.S. dollar (USD) as the reserve currency, explaining how China's efforts to internationalize the Renminbi (RMB) represent a strategic challenge to the Western-led financial system. Although a 2015 RMB devaluation scare temporarily stalled its internationalization, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is actively obtaining real-time observations to transact outside of the global SWIFT payment system, highlighted by Saudi Arabia entering talks to accept RMB for oil payments. Such shifts undermine the Western-led global financial system and free up scarce state capital for China to redirect toward military modernization and deep-water port infrastructure.
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This study highlights how the Chinese-led BRICS economic alliance is actively pursuing "de-dollarization" to insulate member nations from Western economic statecraft. Member nations are highly motivated by the U.S. Federal Reserve’s power to export inflation and accrue massive debt, leading to the development of alternative transaction mechanisms such as the "Petro-yuan". The loss of the dollar's global reserve status represents a critical strategic vulnerability that would degrade the U.S.'s ability to exercise economic statecraft and magnify national security threats during a great power conflict. To mitigate this, the author recommends that U.S. leaders prioritize diplomatic and economic trade arrangements with BRICS nations, offering favorable trade terms that discourage these countries from aiding China's military sustainment.