COLBY MUCH IN THE DEFENSE NEWS RE UKRAINE, NATO, JAPAN, AUSTRALIA AND AUKUS. 6/8 The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, by Elbridge A. Colby.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America’s defense must change to address China’s growing power and ambition. Based firmly in the realist tradition but deeply engaged in current policy, this book offers a clear framework for what America’s goals in confronting China must be, how its military strategy must change, and how it must prioritize these goals over its lesser interests.
The most informed and in-depth reappraisal of America’s defense strategy in decades, this book outlines a rigorous but practical approach, showing how the United States can prepare to win a war with China that we cannot afford to lose—precisely in order to deter that war from happening.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Boutterworth, Elbridge Colby. |
| 0:06.0 | His new book is The Strategy of Denial, American Defense in an Age of Great Power conflict. |
| 0:12.0 | The PLA, theoretically, the supposition, has invaded Taiwan and taken control of Taiwan. The coalition has not yet dislodged or recaptured |
| 0:25.6 | or driven back the invasion force. In other words, the denial defense has failed. There |
| 0:32.5 | follows a limited war. What is to be done? Bridge, what is horizontal escalation? What is vertical escalation? |
| 0:41.3 | Horizontal escalation is basically the idea that instead of contesting the kind of the direct battle that |
| 0:46.3 | you're thinking about. So think Taiwan here or an earlier era, I think of, say, Korea in 1950. Instead, |
| 0:52.1 | you attack your enemy in some other geographic location or some other area |
| 0:57.2 | that's not, you know, militarily connected to the direct theater. So, you know, if we, in the case of |
| 1:02.5 | Taiwan, if we, let's say, attack the Chinese in Xinjiang or we attack their base in Djibouti, |
| 1:08.2 | vertical escalation is basically increasing the intensity of the conflict. |
| 1:12.1 | So at the highest end, it's the use of nuclear weapons at scale, but it could be, you know, |
| 1:16.7 | terror bombing or large-scale conventional bombing or attacks designed to impose more costs |
| 1:22.4 | and increase the intensity of conflict. The China horizontal escalation choices, from your list, they don't look attracted to me. |
| 1:32.1 | Market gains? |
| 1:33.2 | Yeah, we got them right now. |
| 1:34.8 | We got failures out of China routine. |
| 1:36.9 | And people advising don't invest there. |
| 1:39.5 | So set that aside, China can push past the first island chain. |
| 1:46.4 | Taiwan's in the first island chain. |
| 1:48.3 | But again, you're talking about overbodies of water, and you're talking about the Philippines |
| 1:53.8 | or into the South Pacific. |
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