The Fourth Offset: A Dragon Named ‘Capacity’

Originally published by RealClear Defense

America does not lack advanced weapons. We lack enough of them.

That distinction may determine whether we deter the next war - or lose it. And this is not a problem created by today’s conflicts. America’s capacity challenge has been more than a decade in the making, driven by underinvestment, unpredictable budgets, and procurement policies that weakened our defense industrial base while China expanded its own.

For 70 years, America has used “offset strategies” to overcome peer adversaries’ advantages. The First relied on nuclear deterrence. The Second combined precision weapons, stealth, and surveillance. The Third pursued artificial intelligence and unmanned systems.

Each followed the same principle: America should never fight a peer adversary on the enemy’s terms.

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