https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/10/how-the-united-states-could-lose-a-great-power-war.html
U.S. armed forces are now preparing for an age of great-power competition and rightly so. The 2018 National Defense Strategy (PDF) shows the Defense Department is focused on the threats posed by Russia and especially China to U.S. interests, allies, and established partners such as Taiwan.
For now, U.S. forces appear poorly postured to meet these challenges. That's because both Russia and China have developed formidable networks of missiles, radars, electronic warfare systems, and the like to degrade and potentially even block U.S. forces' ability to operate in the Western Pacific and Eastern Europe to defend allies and partners in those regions. China in particular is developing increasingly impressive capabilities to project military farther afield, including through systems such as aircraft carriers, long-range aviation, and nuclear-powered submarines. Together, these forces have tilted the military balance over places such as Taiwan and the Baltic states from unquestioned U.S. dominance to something much more competitive.
The question is what to do about it. Left unchecked, China or Russia may seek to exploit these advantages to coerce or even conquer U.S. allies or Taiwan. In response, some influential voices in the government are suggesting strategies of horizontal escalation or cost imposition—approaches that would enlarge the battlefield to go after things the other side values beyond the original zone of fighting. Indeed, there are strains of such arguments in some (PDF) official documents coming from quarters of the Pentagon, motivated by hopes of fending off proposals that would threaten their Command's place in the packing order or disrupt their Service's carefully crafted investment plans or ways of operating. Likewise, some theorists with influence in parts of the defense establishment promote such strategies in the form of proposals for “offshore balancing” or “offshore control (PDF).”