Managing the China Trade-Off

Department of Defense doctrine necessitates the expenditure of “minimum essential combat power on secondary efforts to allocate maximum combat power on primary efforts.”¹ Implicit in this guiding principle is the acknowledgement that the U.S. cannot effectively project force in every theater where a justifiable strategic interest exists. In practice in today’s strategic environment, a principle of economy of force translates to a prioritization of great power competition reflective of Cold War bipolarity. The U.S. national security and foreign policy establishments rightly acknowledge the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the one global superpower capable of usurping Western hegemony and defeating the United States in military conflict. We should expect this to remain the core U.S. government foreign policy focus for years to come. As Undersecretary of Defense for Policy nominee, Elbridge Colby, stated in his confirmation hearing on March 4, 2025, “the core American interest is in denying China regional hegemony,” further noting “the dramatic deterioration in the military balance.”² Thus, not only does China remain at the forefront of strategic military planning, but more trade-offs must take effect to adequately prepare.
At the same time, Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the Islamic Republic of Iran all remain determined to destabilize their respective regions; further nuclear weapons programs; threaten American citizens and assets; and perpetuate inhumane and repressive systems of governance.³ Beyond these global threats, and with the exception of transnational terror organizations, little consensus, appetite, or resourcing exists to project significant levels of military force elsewhere in the world. The result is a necessary shift away from theaters like South America and Africa – where vital U.S. interests certainly exist, but by necessity become the unfortunate byproduct of economy of force trade-offs. Valuable strategic assets like U.S. military basing operations; supplies of critical rare earth elements; and energy reserves all require some degree of engagement in these theaters.
All the while, our peer and near-peer competitors continue to make massive investments in regions relegated by the United States’ resourcing requirements – building host-nation capacity in dual use technologies like space and energy; investing (often predatorily, aimed at fostering regimes of dependency) in infrastructure; and bolstering military training and equipping.⁴ To date, experts estimate a Chinese investment of $1 trillion in global infrastructure and partner capacity-building, with a potential to reach up to $8 trillion. The largest recipients of this investment are primarily in the Central and Southeast Asian regions – a stark contrast to the United States’ detachment from the theater via the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan, a low-point in Pakistani relations, and rising tension with Iran.⁵ Additionally, China has invested nearly $300B and distributed over $138B in loans to South American countries, while increasing trade from $12B to $315B in the last 20 years.⁶ In Africa, we see similarly staggering figures with $2T in Chinese business assets and $300B in current investments, all while the continent surpasses Asia as the largest market for Chinese foreign construction projects.⁷ Part and parcel to these efforts are Chinese investments in military basing, ground-based space capabilities, intelligence collection facilities, and other key national security installations.
Thus, an efficient and cost-effective solution to buy down risk to U.S. blood and treasure in these economy of force theaters not only becomes favorable, but a strategic necessity. This is not a theoretical issue. Security assistance to Ukraine in recent years has posed a grave threat to our readiness for a China fight, with thousands of troops committed and significant air, space, and logistics forces dedicated to repelling the Russian invasion. As experts note, the capacity-building required for the defense of Taiwan (i.e. shipbuilding, ISR assets, and munitions, to name a few) are not simply achieved by a reprioritization from existing theaters, but necessitate a significant mobilization of our defense industrial base.⁸ As a result, in economy of force theaters like South American and Africa, there is virtually no resourcing available for deterrence activities, partnership capacity building, or projection of force mission sets. What remains is a regime of inadequacy in countering Chinese investment, securing access to critical regional assets, and ensuring readiness to respond in-theater conflict. Against this backdrop, letters of marque are perhaps the most suitable means of addressing this challenge and preserving U.S. power projection across the globe while maintaining the balance and prioritization required for a properly stratified national security strategy.

Letters of Marque as an Economy of Force Opportunity

Letters of marque historically granted private citizens and groups, and particularly sailors, special privileges associated with a “privateer” to conduct offensive action against state or non-state actors. In today’s parlance, this takes the form of authorizing private contractors to achieve certain discrete outcomes in the interest of U.S. national security and homeland defense.⁹ To those attuned to private security services in the Global War on Terror (GWOT), this is not a far leap from companies like Blackwater receiving defense and intelligence contracts to guard officials and installations; track high-value targets; or conduct search and rescue operations. In fact, some estimates suggest a 1:1 ratio of contracted personnel to state military personnel in the Iraq war at that time, indicating a sharp increase in these services as compared to the Gulf War and preceding conflicts.¹⁰ This increase in usage speaks to the benefits of this approach: (1) finite commitment of military assets for defined outcomes, with services terminated upon completion (i.e. less mission creep); (2) profit-driven entities tend to complete a mission set faster and more efficiently than governmental entities without financial incentive; and (3) a degree of distance from the state sponsor affords private military contractors greater covert access, deniability, and agency in ambiguous environments.

Letters of marque provide an effective vehicle to augment the private contractor model into a more clearly-defined “Outcomes-as-a-Service” model. When we seek to discern a modern day threat comparable to the piracy that letters of marque originally set out to address, there are clear examples ripe for private tasking and intervention: Mexican drug cartels, illegal Chinese fishing fleets, and perpetrators of cyber espionage – to name a few. However, more broadly, letters of marque can fold into the U.S. national security strategy as a critical remedy for the bloodletting of American influence in economy of force theaters.

We see this most evidently in China’s One Belt One Road Initiative, which seeks to codify a 21st Century Silk Road of global infrastructure development – spanning from Africa to Indonesia to Western Europe. Likely the greatest non-kinetic threat to America’s global soft power projection since our nation’s inception, the United States has lacked a cohesive, global approach to counter or supplant Chinese investment and influence through One Belt One Road.

Herein lies the most readily applicable test case for renewing letters of marque for power projection in economy of force environments. Critics argue that a robust foreign assistance regime is sufficient to displace Chinese inroads in U.S. economy of force locales, neglecting a historical body of evidence to the contrary. For example, the U.S. has dedicated billions of dollars of foreign assistance to Somalia (reaching a peak of nearly $1.2B in U.S. foreign assistance in 2023), all while the African nation remains a hotbed for violent extremism and terrorist activity, as well as an eager partner for Chinese investment, trade, and modernization support (the two nations recently announced a bilateral upgrade to “Strategic Partnership” in September 2024. In Western Hemisphere, Nicaragua has received around $60M annually in U.S. foreign assistance, but in 2021 severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan and upheld a “One China” policy in a glaring announcement of submission to Chinese pressure (and following similar announcements from El Salvador, Burkina Faso, and the Dominican Republic a few years prior).¹¹ The patent failure of U.S. foreign assistance to support our great power competition in these theaters necessitates the Letters of Marque approach.

For example, at present China is investing heavily in port infrastructure across Africa – a move that seeks to dramatically entrench their One Belt One Road Initiative and revamp their trade profile and economic influence across the continent.¹² While this registers with U.S. policymakers as a startling datapoint, there remains little appetite to shift focus and resourcing from partner capacity development in Southeast Asia, for example, to Africa to offset these inroads. Envision a scenario, then, in which letters of marque are issued for private fleets friendly to U.S. interests to conduct offensive, disruption action against Chinese-aligned vessels. The financial incentive of either an associated bounty or seized assets would catalyze U.S. private interests developing competitive port infrastructure on the continent and beginning to offset the Chinese naval presence. Private U.S. vessels and developers could fill space that infringes on Chinese sea- and land-based military exercises in the continent, and conduct de facto freedom of navigation operations in key shipping lanes that China seeks to dominate. While not to the scale of U.S. Naval activity in arenas like the Strait of Hormuz or South China Sea, private vessels can still serve a critical role in reporting on Chinese activity; detecting patterns of behavior; or identifying novel capabilities or schemes of maneuver. In essence, the U.S. government has the ability to dictate an outcome to private actors (disrupt and supplant Chinese naval infrastructure in Africa, in this example), and letters of marque deliver a far more cost-effective and efficient solution than any reallocation of Department of Defense or intelligence community assets could without serious jeopardization of American strategic direction.

Take another potential example: Chinese space cooperation in South America. For nearly 40 years, China has dedicated keen attention to its patronage of Latin American space programs and support for joint technology development and collaboration. This pragmatic approach achieved its intended effect in 2018 with the creation of Espacio Lejano Station in Argentina, China’s largest nondomestic space facility. Operated by entities reporting directly to the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (China’s Space Force-equivalent), the installation significantly augments China’s radar and SIGINT capability to hone in on American assets. Put simply, one could argue the Station is the direct result of America’s forfeiture of direct involvement in Latin American space cooperation, leaving a vacuum for the Chinese to fill – a critical and detrimental economy of force result.

However, envision a letter of marque issued for the disruption of foreign intelligence assets of great significance in the Western Hemisphere – echoing the Monroe Doctrine or, more directly, the Roosevelt Corollary which committed the U.S. to intervene against actions that invite “foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.”¹³ It certainly passes muster to say that a Chinese Signals Intelligence gathering apparatus of this magnitude qualifies as a detriment to American nations. Enterprising cyber privateers could address foreign signals intercepts in the Western Hemisphere for a fraction of the cost and risk profile of American intelligence agencies, or develop addressable alternatives for reciprocal impacts – all without the major resourcing trade-offs in play today.

While letters of marque wield an impressive power to deliver vital outcomes in nebulous economy of force environments, it is important to define certain situations the United States military must retain full operational control. Experts rightly point out that this vehicle is most effective in the “early days of great power war…buying time for the United States to properly scale up its conventional forces to meet the threat.”¹⁴ Defense of Taiwan is an instructive example to this end. The Department of Defense maintains a portfolio of rigorous and comprehensive operational planning guidance for conventional forces to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. While letters of marque could support a wide swath of activity ahead of this conflict (i.e. naval force projection in the South China Sea; building partnership capacity in the region; and security for Taiwanese officials and institutions), there exists little practical value in the operational chain for privateers in a conventional armed conflict with China. Doing so may introduce unacceptable risk to command and control systems. As such, letters of marque are far better suited for economy of force environments where the risk of conventional armed conflict remains low, but the stakes of absence present great risk to the United States and enormous military, cultural, and economic value to our adversaries.

Implementing Letters of Marque

Assuming congressional support to revitalize letters of marque as a vehicle for an
“Outcomes-as-a-Service” model for power projection, the command authorities for execution would remain in the hands of the executive branch. Letters of marque would be issued by Congress, with the President exercising “executive discretion” in implementing these orders.¹⁵ It is important to recognize that this would change the relationship between Congress and the President in matters of war. U.S. military action for the last two decades has relied heavily on broad-reaching and construable Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to combat threat groups – a mechanism that has allowed the Executive Branch to shirk congressional oversight and avoid formal declarations of war for splinter groups or affiliates of previously-authorized enemies. This presents its own issues. As an approach to great power competition and Chinese global influence, this model would still require a much closer coordination between the executive and legislative branches of US government unseen in recent years.

A possible workaround would be a scenario in which Congress vests the President himself with the broad authority to issue letters of marque addressing a given security challenge – as they did with President Lincoln in the Civil War.¹⁶

This may be the required approach: the necessity to maintain nimble prioritization in the great power competition era, with the urgent need to avoid cessation of U.S. influence and power projection in economy of force regions where China’s foothold grows, warrants providing the executive branch itself with the ability to begin issuing letters of marque and quickly creating an incentive regime for resultant action. Leaders on Capitol Hill ought to recognize this strategy’s alignment with national defense priorities and support, or at least not obstruct, enterprising privateers with the capability for productive offensive action. There are undoubtedly private entities aligned with U.S. national interests, sufficiently experienced and resourced based on their time in the GWOT, Iraq, and Afghanistan, for which letters of marque are an appropriate solution – perhaps more so than any other time and place in history. If the U.S. is to enact Clausewitz’s principles of war and avoid any “unnecessary detour” and “waste of strength” in furtherance of our strategic vision to preserve homeland defense, global hegemony, and the American way of life, we must explore creative solutions in the marginal theaters of the globe where battles will still be waged.¹⁷ To this end, U.S. planners, strategists, and policymakers owe careful consideration to letters of marque as a vehicle to employ American private ingenuity, creativity, and industry to global national security missions.