The first approach, a robust forward-presence strategy, is likely to intensify a regional arms race and exacerbate escalation in a crisis. It also would be difficult to implement. In particular, the deep strikes at critical targets on the Chinese mainland envisioned in the publicly articulated versions of Air Sea Battle raise questions of strategic nuclear stability, as much of the infrastructure China would utilize for guiding conventional missiles is also used for controlling its nuclear weapons. While less escalatory in this regard, a doctrinal commitment to Offshore Control would nonetheless prove intensely provocative to the Chinese—in many ways, representing the operational incarnation of their fears of “encirclement”—and its actual implementation would do deep harm to the global economy. Offshore Control in particular would probably require much more of allies (including, but not only, Japan) in terms of blockade support than they would be willing and able to provide. Moreover, the provocative military elements of this approach would almost certainly greatly undermine if not nullify any parallel diplomatic and economic efforts to strengthen cooperative engagement with Beijing.

Although the second approach, a conditional offense/defense strategy that builds upon the status quo, is likely to prove more feasible and stabilizing than the first approach, it also could prove economically and diplomatically difficult. Efforts to more broadly disperse U.S. air bases in countries across the Western Pacific, such as Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and Australia, would almost certainly be at least partially stymied by cost constraints and resistance within those countries to a new or expanded U.S. military presence, especially if this were to involve permanent bases and personnel. Moreover, technologies and strategies intended to defend forward-deployed air and naval assets could prove incapable of weathering or countering sustained barrages of Chinese missiles coming from the mainland—and could also prove prohibitively expensive.

We believe (and we do not necessarily speak for the other report authors in this regard) that, in principle, the third approach, defensive balancing, provides the most attractive long-term mechanism for securing the interests of the United States, Japan and China, and for ensuring regional stability. A military posture centered on the creation of a mutual denial capability would improve real deterrence capacity by moving the most vulnerable U.S. military assets (such as short-range tactical aircraft and large naval surface vessels) outside of the reach of most Chinese asymmetric capabilities (including ballistic and cruise missiles) and shifting the force posture toward more viable weapons platforms (such as submarines and long-range precision-guided weapons). These platforms would continue to rely upon Japan-based logistics and support facilities, and their successful operation would place a premium on a more fully integrated U.S.-Japan C4ISR infrastructure.

This more survivable and enduring posture would better enable the United States to ensure Japanese security and deter any potential Chinese aggression against Japan. At the same time, in pulling back offense-oriented assets from the waters nearest China, it would also provide China with the security it seeks and thereby make efforts to deepen cooperation more viable. It would also likely prove more affordable, as it would require fewer, if any, major increases in the level and function of most U.S. military capabilities, and it would significantly decrease costs associated with forward bases, tactical aircraft and carrier groups.

Despite these advantages, several bureaucratic and diplomatic realities would make this approach highly difficult to implement. On the bureaucratic side, it would require a sea change in the cultural mindset of the U.S. military, which favors offensive, preemptive and forward-deployed strategies. It would necessitate fundamental shifts in American approaches to air and naval power—including moving away from a reliance on short-range tactical aircraft in a China contingency in favor of long-range standoff missiles and unmanned aircraft. It also would prioritize undersea capabilities over carrier-based surface assets.

Diplomatically, it would also need to be well articulated in advance to Japan and other allies, to reassure them that even as the more visible and high-profile components of the U.S. military presence in Asia were being withdrawn, the broader U.S. military presence in the region was in fact being repositioned in a more viable and sustainable way. Equally important, this approach would almost certainly require deeper levels of mutual reassurance regarding the most likely catalysts of future crises—for example, over Chinese military deployments and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan; Sino-Japanese military and paramilitary deployments near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands; and U.S. intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance activities along China’s coastline. These measures would be necessary to compensate for the reduced U.S. capacity to intervene early in conflicts near the Chinese mainland.

Such conditions and requirements could prove prohibitive. At the very least, their realization would require extremely far-sighted and bold leadership and highly effective diplomacy in Washington and Beijing, based on a clear recognition of the likely dangers presented by the deepening contradiction between U.S. efforts to sustain, and Chinese efforts to undermine, America’s historical military primacy in the Western Pacific. The next most preferable alternative, a variant of the conditional offense/defense approach outlined above, would likely prove more bureaucratically and politically feasible within the United States. However, Chinese acceptance of a continued (albeit lower level of) U.S. primacy would also likely require an even greater degree of the kind of diplomatic mutual assurances deemed necessary in the defensive-balancing approach. That would be no easy task.

Ultimately, there are no easy answers to the current strategic dilemma confronting Washington and Beijing. But before struggling with possible solutions, the two sides first need to recognize the nature and seriousness of the problem. Only by doing so can there be any hope for the successful emergence of “a new type of great power relationship.” As a first step, Presidents Obama and Xi should seize the opportunity of their forthcoming summit to begin a serious dialogue on this subject. Time is running out.

Michael D. Swaine is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of the book America’s Challenge: Engaging a Rising China in the Twenty-First Century. Rachel Esplin Odell is a research analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.