This is

is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Bachelor.

I welcome Elbridge Colby, the author of the new book The Strategy of Denial, American Defense, in an age of great

power conflict. Elbridge Colby is co-founder and principal of the Marathon Initiative. He has served as Deputy

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development 2017 through

2018. And we turn to the condition at hand in the world as we know it.

The competition, great power competition involves the players from the 20th century plus China and Bridges book looks at all of

those possibilities but focuses on China so before we come to the examples of

China and the US in conflict in East Asia, we begin with definitions.

Bridge, a very good evening to you, congratulations, a military strategy for limited war. What is limited war and what does the

U.S. now know about its possible opponent China in a limited war.

Good evening to you.

Good evening, John.

It's wonderful to be back on with you.

It's a pleasure to be back on and an honor.

What is a limited war? A limited war is something that sounds

paradoxical but is very actually deeply rooted in basically human nature and

certainly military affairs which is the idea that, you know, even in wars that engage people's, you know, deepest emotions and, you know, aspirations and fears, there are almost always incentives to keep a war from from

spiraling to the kind of the very worst levels of violence I mean World War II

is in most respects a total war but the vast majority of other wars in human history have been limited, you know,

whether because of the choice of the participants for some reason or another, because they're

pursuing political objectives and they have other interests in the world, or a lack of capacity. In the context of China, there's these kind of old

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