How will the military balance of power in East Asia evolve over the next decade amid tense competition between the United States and China? What would a stable balance of power that minimizes the risk of military conflict look like, and how might it emerge?

It has become difficult to imagine how Washington and Beijing might turn their relationship, which is so crucial to the future of world order, toward calmer waters. If there is to be any hope of doing so, however, policy experts need some realistic vision of what those calmer waters might look like.