Ever since Richard Nixon opened relations with Communist China, Chinese intentions have been a matter of incessant and often fevered speculation in this country. In particular, national security and regional experts, non-governmental organizations and office-holders alike have endlessly debated whether the People’s Republic of China could be brought into a U.S.-dominated international order and world economy in a manner consistent with American interests.

The Center for Security Policy commissioned Warning Order: China Prepares for Conflict and Why We Must Do the Same to address these urgent questions. This book explains how, under successive regimes – and most especially that of the incumbent Chinese ruler, Xi Jinping – the Chinese have relentlessly strived to put themselves in a position to challenge, and ultimately to displace, the post-World War II Pax Americana with a new order that would return China to what they considered to be its rightful place as the Middle Kingdom, the preeminent global power strategically and economically.

This series of essays by 10 leading U.S. national security experts documents from their various perspectives and fields of expertise a reality that can no longer be safely ignored: China is putting itself in a position to engage in conflict with the United States across a broad front and potentially with decisively devastating results. Our hope is that this book will move our nation past a now-irrelevant debate about Chinese intentions and onto a footing rooted in a focus on capabilities, one that enables us to deter the PRC’s future use of existing, and anticipated, threats to our security and vital interests.