This book explores the question of how the United States should respond to China’s military modernization effort, including its naval modernization effort, which has emerged as a key issue in U.S. defense planning. China’s naval modernization effort, which began in the 1990s, encompasses a broad array of weapon acquisition programs, including anti-ship ballistic missiles, submarines, and surface ships. Observers believe that the near-term focus of China’s military modernization effort has been to develop military options for addressing the situation with Taiwan. Potential oversight issues for Congress include whether the U.S. Navy in coming years will be large enough to adequately counter improve Chinese maritime anti-access forces while also adequately performing other missions of interest to U.S. policymakers around the world; the Navy’s ability to counter Chinese anti-ship ballistic missiles and submarines; and whether the Navy, in response to China’s maritime anti-access capabilities, should rift over time to a more distributed fleet architecture.