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Historically, infectious disease has been one of the most significant threats to U.S. Servicemembers on the battlefield, constituting the largest source of mortality through World War I and a significant source of casualties and nonbattle injury through the present day. During World War II, General Douglas MacArthur famously expressed his frustration with malaria’s operational impact: “It’s going to be a very long war if for every division I have facing the enemy, I have one sick in hospital and another recovering from this dreadful disease.” More recently, David Matson, an infectious disease clinician, vividly described the impact of diarrheal disease: “I expect that our imaginations cannot fathom the problems attendant from the absolute urgency for relief from explosive vomiting and diarrhea when experienced within an armored vehicle under fire and at ambient temperature of >40°C.”

This article discusses China’s strategy for achieving its global ambitions and how it is driven as much by bankers and bribes as bombs and bullets. It looks into how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to take every step imaginable to appropriate dual-use technologies—those with both civil and military applications—from the United States and its allies, while attracting billions of dollars in Western capital used to finance a modernization program for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Taiwan’s defense has always been precarious, and the dangers are only likely to grow as China’s power increases. Looking at Taiwan’s defense through a competitive strategy lens suggests different options for confronting the PLA in wartime. China’s military structure is built on the notion that the PLA must be prepared to fight in many theaters at once. By necessity, it contains a centralized command and control and logistics system designed to manage and reallocate forces in a war. Targeting those critical links would complicate Chinese decisionmaking, reduce the PLA’s capacity to mass forces, and support U.S. and Taiwan operations in the main theater.

In the United States’ effort to outcompete China, Russia, and other rivals, its ideas are likely to play a defining role in determining the strength of alliances and the vulnerability of foes. The more its ideas have an inherent appeal based on their universality—transcending culture and context—the more likely the United States will be able to leverage them to forge a coalition that can withstand geopolitical threats and apply pressure for reform in places like China.