Why China's Anti-Access Strategy Matters

For over the past decade, China's military has developed capabilities that, broadly stated, attempt to slow, limit or deny a superior armed force from conducting threatening military operations. Termed Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD), such a strategy attempts to place a superior opponent on "the wrong side of physics." The combined military capabilities of diesel and nuclear submarines, mines, cyberwarfare, anti-satellite weapons and swarm attacks by ballistic and cruise missiles would be utilized in an advanced form of layered defense. Chinese strategists in most scenarios assume United States military forces would be the intended target.