PLA Strike Strategies in Westpac HIC

For a regime, political objectives are based on 1. its own strength (external pressure) and 2. the vested interests of interest groups (internal pressure).

1. If strength is insufficient and political objectives are set too high, even with excellent grand strategy and strategy, the goals may remain unattainable and lead to impaired interests.
   If strength is excessive but political objectives are set too low, then the country will fail to gain potential benefits and easily lose internal support. Present conservatism will also increase the burden on future decision-makers. Interests are still impaired.
2. The vested interests of interest groups refer to the existing interests of the powerful interest groups within a country. Sometimes, even within a new interest paradigm and framework where the country as a whole could gain more benefits, this does not align with the rulers' interests. Therefore, they will still set a less-than-wise political objective.

After determining the political objective, the regime integrates strategies across different dimensions to formulate its grand strategy.

I personally believe that from the mid-2010s to the present, the United States' grand strategy has been to maintain and moderately retract its sphere of influence and world order, in exchange for enhancing its hard power and suppressing China's development. Through this grand strategy, it aims to achieve its political objective, which is to maintain superpower status and the world order most favorable to itself.
Meanwhile, China's grand strategy has been to gradually expand its sphere of influence and reform the world order. Through this grand strategy, it aims to achieve its political objective, which is the faster and higher-ceilinged development of its own comprehensive national power and the enhancement of its position within the world order.

For example, imagine the world as many basketball courts, nations as players, each with different physical abilities and scoring records. The order is the rules of the game, formulated by all players, but players with better scoring records have a greater ability to shape and influence the rules. Different courts have different rules of the game, and every player hopes the rules are as advantageous as possible to themselves, while also having as many courts as possible adopt the rules most beneficial to them. The world order, namely free trade and globalization, is like the rules of the court. It's not a single set of rules, but a term referring to a collection of fragmented, discontinuous rules.
Overall, the stronger the comprehensive national power, the more a country can:

1. Make the order it operates within more favorable to itself.
2. Maximize the reach of the order most beneficial to itself.
3. Make the world order more advantageous to itself.
   And achieving these three points allows a country to gain more benefits and enhance its comprehensive national power.

From the end of the Cold War to the mid-2010s, the US had extremely strong comprehensive national power, being the sole super star player. Naturally, it attempted to push all three points mentioned above more deeply. By the mid-2010s, the US gradually realized that China's hard power had become strong enough to even win within the very order the US itself had built.
After the mid-2010s, what the US has tried to do is: abandon promoting its favorable rules in some less important courts, divert resources from its own club members to buy protein powder (i.e., enhance its own capabilities), and strengthen the adoption rate of its preferred rules in the Indo-Pacific court. And, it seeks to disrupt the Chinese player's daily training and the promotion of the Chinese Super League's rules as much as possible.

From the end of the Cold War to the mid-2010s, China primarily focused on honing its own skills. Around the mid-2010s and beyond, China realized its skill level had become exceptionally high. Consequently, it naturally hopes that the rules of the game will better suit its techniques and style, and that the courts around it will adopt rules more favorable to itself. Only in this way can it maximize its own benefits and further improve its skills.

tamsen_ikard said:

我觉得你在这种分析方面有点像新手。就像一个刚开始的人，就以为自己比经验丰富的老手懂得更多。

几十年来，我一直关注中美之争。我可以告诉你，美国没有宏大的战略。美国内部四分五裂、分散，被太多事情分散注意力，根本无法制定任何战略。

它有各种各样的权力掮客，他们有各种各样的想法。其中一些人在某个时期有一定的影响力，并采取行动。然后其他人的影响力更大，他们开始实施自己的想法。

事情就这样一直持续下去。

Click to expand...

I understand that:
1. You think my lack of knowledge about American practical politics will cause me to make too many mistakes, even "not even wrong" level errors.
I completely agree, I indeed lack relevant knowledge. Perhaps this method of mine is inherently meaningless, but I failed to recognize it.
My improvement measure is: I will stop writing and spend more time reading existing posts to learn.

2. The United States does not have a continuous strategy. Therefore, analysis itself is meaningless.

I partially agree.
But even though American politicians act as they wish, they are still subject to various internal and external constraints - internally, if their propositions don't represent certain public opinions and the interests of certain US interest groups, or aren't appreciated by those representing these things, then no matter how lucky they are, they're unlikely to hold important positions and truly influence policy. For example, the "America First" slogan.

Externally, their ideas don't completely form out of thin air either - they are also constrained by reality.

My improvement measure is: perhaps what's more valuable to attempt analyzing and expressing isn't any strategy they themselves plan and choose, but rather the strategic trends and extensions that observers summarize from what they have done in the past, or what many people have attempted to do.