Naval Power in Action: How to Stop Shooting Behind the Duck in the Rivalry with China

Naval Power in Action focuses attention to the United States’ current competition with China, laying out a case for acting in three areas: strengthen the homeland to economic coercion, modernize and reorganize institutions to successfully compete, and winning the positional fight with China over markets and military posture.

Amongst duck hunters there is a saying that describes our nation’s current predicament in the competition with China - shooting behind the duck. It means that the actions our leaders have been taking for many years have been reactive and ineffective, said another way, missing their mark. To correct this requires adjusting for the target’s - China’s - reaction and anticipating its course to aim for an interception point. This book aims to inform a near-term (within four years) approach to lead in this competition with China. And there is not much time to begin getting the aim right.

This book refines ideas in Brent Sadler’s first book, U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century, and focuses attention to the present, laying out a case for acting in three areas: strengthen the homeland to economic coercion, modernize and reorganize institutions to successfully compete, and winning the positional fight with China over markets and military posture. Achieving success in these three areas all requires urgent action with effects following in waves - increased maritime presence, followed by improvements in national industrial resiliency and capacities.

Doing this requires acting with what is at hand to deter China, while setting the conditions for a sustained competition well into the future. Bore-sighting on China while necessary can be dangerous if it blinds the nation to other dangers - our nation must be prepared and armed to be able to ＂chew gum and walk＂ as often eloquently stated by our political leaders. Top of the ’to-do’ list - bolstering our economy’s defense to coercion via a variety of vectors - cyber, sanctions, direct attacks. Most urgent is addressing the paucity of shipping on which the nation’s economy floats. This book is a roadmap for how to accomplish this complex task with urgency and effectiveness.

Brent Droste Sadler is a twenty-six-year Navy veteran with numerous operational tours on nuclear powered submarines. He has been a member of personal staffs of senior defense department leaders and was a military diplomat in Asia. He writes about great power competition, advanced technologies, and building the Navy the nation needs. Sadler is the author of U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century: A New Strategy for Facing the Chinese and Russian Threat.