Assuring Access in Key Strategic Regions: Toward a Long-term Strategy

The Army cannot effectively project power if it cannot get to where it needs to go to confront future adversaries. The authors of this report developed scenarios and conducted political-military games to determine what strategies, tactics, and capabilities potential adversaries might use to prevent or complicate U.S. access to key areas and how effective the U.S. counters to these tactics are. After their assessment, the authors were reasonably sanguine about the ability of the U.S. to prevail in the near term, but they also identified areas of future concern and suggested several improvements, including expanding the number of in-theater bases that might be available; enhancing the flexibility and deployability of U.S. forces to more austere bases; and upgrading detection, warning, and force protection measures.