CSIS Proposes Offensive Carrier Strategy Against PLA Navy
The report's logic rests on an asymmetry: China has nine carriers planned by 2035 but cannot afford to lose even one without domestic political fallout, whereas the U.S. has 11 Nimitz-class carriers and can absorb losses as operational attrition. That math only holds if the U.S. can credibly threaten Chinese carriers with the same precision China brings to anti-ship missiles—and that requires pre-positioned allied submarines and missiles in the Western Pacific, which means hardening those bases against Chinese strikes and securing basing agreements that are politically fragile.
INDOPACOM now has a doctrine framework that inverts the Taiwan strait calculus: instead of defending carriers against Chinese anti-ship missiles, the Navy can credibly threaten Chinese capital ships, which carry far greater political weight in Beijing than their military value justifies.
China's carrier-building program is driven as much by great-power prestige as by warfighting logic—sinking even one Fujian-class carrier would be a strategic humiliation that ballistic-missile losses never inflict on Washington. The CSIS proposal names specific chokepoints (Japan to Philippines) and allied assets (Australian diesel-electric boats, South Korean subs) that transform a theoretical threat into an operational constraint: Beijing must now account for continuous undersea and land-based strike coverage just to move carriers beyond home waters. Watch PACOM's next Integrated Deterrence Strategy update (due Q1 2027) for whether this offensive framing enters official doctrine, signaling a shift from carrier defense to carrier denial.
Does the CSIS report specify which allied bases would host the land-based missile batteries, or is that left to PACOM to designate?
Fault Lines
Strategic intelligence, synthesized daily — with a public track record. Every call graded against what actually happened.