Photo By Matthew Schehl | An August 2024 classified tabletop exercise in functional economic deterrence...... read more read more
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When former Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Force Development (J7) director U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Stuart Munsch needed a cross-disciplinary team of regional and defense experts to examine in detail a full suite of integrated deterrence options for the Indo-Pacific theatre, he called upon the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) for support.
What commenced was a four-year, NPS-led study with more than 50 faculty, researchers, students, and subject matter experts from NPS, the Naval War College, federally funded research and development centers, and academia that has examined military and economic options to deter a China-Taiwan strait scenario.
Now, over the next three months, a select portion of the team will evaluate various combinations of military and economic options. This assessment will take place in several venues, including potential employment during a tabletop economic exercise being run in parallel to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s (INDOPACOM) 2025 Pacific Sentry exercise.
“The fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff J7 turned to NPS to provide the interdisciplinary, operationally informed, and critical thinking to apply to concepts for exercising economic options is a testament to the value of NPS as a long-standing institution,” observed retired U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Kline, a professor of practice in the NPS Department of Operations Research and a contributor to the study, providing theater and operational conflict context.
“The impact of our work was to advance the J7’s warfighting concept beyond the application of force,” he said. “That work continues.”
The initial tasking from J7 was to develop a host of military deterrence options. Specifically, to examine the effects of a range of operational variables—including authorities, military capabilities and posture, and indications and warnings that would have an impact on force design—on deterrence in a notional 2030 China-Taiwan straits scenario, and to quantify their relationships.
Led by retired U.S. Army Col. Andy Hernandez, associate professor and Associate Chair for Operations in the NPS Department of Systems Engineering, the team began work in April 2022.
The team’s effort combined problem structuring techniques, systems engineering and analysis, campaign analysis, computer simulation and experimentation, value modeling, statistical analysis, and geopolitical analysis to quantitatively determine the efficacy of different variables.
“For the military deterrence portion of the study, we used campaign analysis and wargames to inform simulation experiments,” Hernandez said. “We used computer simulation and experimentation to collect data that would support development of mathematical relationships between operational variables and deterrence.”
The team completed phase one (military deterrent options) of the work in October 2023 and briefed J7 and several other entities on the results of the study, which consisted of a set of equations and analytic models along with recommendations on the operational variables that would likely deter China from seizing control of Taiwan.
A February 2024 presentation at the INDOPACOM Posture Conference, Hernandez noted, informed key decisions regarding posture initiatives.
Also of note, Hernandez added, was an April 2024 briefing to U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Daniel Dwyer, deputy chief of naval operations, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations Warfighting Development directorate (OPNAV N7). As an outcome of this engagement, Dwyer directed the NPS team to conduct a study on the Navy’s future fleet design, beginning May 2024 and is ongoing.
The J7 briefing itself also compelled new questions for research. In fact, it prompted J7 to ask NPS to expand the study to include further development of economic deterrent options. Thus, in February 2024, phase two kicked off the development of functional economic deterrent options.
“The Joint Staff J7 said, now that you’ve had success in examining military deterrence, how might you investigate the other instruments of power?” Hernandez said. “What economic initiatives could be presented to China to alter their aggressive behavior toward Taiwan?”
The team developed more than 20 diverse economic initiatives, ranging from agricultural to technological sectors, and described how they might be employed. To screen these initiatives and gauge potential Chinese reactions, the team held a classified tabletop exercise (TTX) at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) facility in Chantilly, Virginia, August 12-16, 2024.
“The TTX allowed us to understand which of the 20 plus economic initiatives might move the needle, and that allowed us to filter down to a subset that really mattered,” Hernandez said. “Our work now is to fully define these. Each initiative will include a comprehensive description of the economic statecraft, required authorities and legal measures, established commercial and industrial partnerships, coordinated agreements with other nations, indications and warnings for employing the initiative, and supporting information operations.”
“NPS, with support from the Naval War College (NWC) at NPS, independently developed an innovative approach to an integrated deterrence strategy for the China-Taiwan issue,” added Dr. Yvonne Chiu, associate professor of strategy and policy with the NWC at NPS program, and its lead geopolitical advisor on China, Taiwan, and other Indo-Pacific considerations.
“The military deterrence effort yielded mathematical equations that express the relationship between operational variables and deterrence. These equations were used for trade-off analysis and to identify the conditions of the operational variables that could successfully deter,” she explained. “Current efforts to develop functional economic deterrent options layered on top of the military deterrence results are a creative and interdisciplinary approach to examining and offering solutions to the China-Taiwan problem. This work provides a roadmap for building viable threats or incentives in the 2030 timeframe, which could potentially be applied to other regions as well.”
These integrated deterrent options will be delivered to the J7 in July 2025 to be included in a larger study involving a whole-of-government approach to deterrence.
“We’re putting together a lot of different fields of study to answer one very critical question: how do you reduce China’s desire to seize and control Taiwan?” Hernandez said. “We know that economic deterrent options will not be the end all, be all. We just want to understand whether or not these economic initiatives would actually move the needle in the right direction.
“Our final analysis will inform the J7 and hopefully, the INDOPACOM Commander,” Hernandez continued. “In so doing, we can contribute to addressing one of the most difficult security issues that the U.S. and its allies face.”
| Date Taken: | 04.24.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.24.2025 13:29 |
| Story ID: | 496104 |
| Location: | MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 96 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NPS Helps Joint Chiefs Develop Integrated Military, Economic Deterrence Options to Chinese Aggression, by Matthew Schehl, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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