Question: If the People's Liberation Army fires missiles from the Chinese mainland targeted at American ships at sea or at American forward bases in places such as Guam or Japan, what should be the American response?
- Launch counterstrikes on the Chinese mainland aimed at blinding battle networks, disabling long-range strike systems, and destroying intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities
- Impose a blockade on China's military and merchant fleets and thereby strangle China's economy by cutting off its energy imports and trading exports
- Both 1 and 2
Let us first stipulate that the very premise of this question—that China would ever attack American naval vessels or forward military bases—is deeply unsettling. However, if you have read all of the previous chapters in this detective story, you may have reasonably concluded that the probability of such an event is considerably higher than the high level of economic interdependence between China and the US would suggest.
Because this scenario is possible—if not, as some would argue, probable—the US Pentagon has necessarily had to confront our lead question in this chapter. In the process, Pentagon strategists have proposed two radically different strategies to the threat China's growing military arsenal poses to America's forward posture in Asia.
The first strategy, embodied in answer no. 1 above, has been dubbed “Air-Sea Battle.” Emanating from the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, it does indeed involve counterstrikes on the Chinese mainland in response to a conventional attack on US naval vessels and forward bases—a response that opponents of Air-Sea Battle like Professor Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University have immediately branded as an escalatory invitation to nuclear war between China and the United States.1
The second strategy, embodied in answer no. 2, goes by various names that include the bland “Offshore Control” and the far more evocative “War-at-Sea.” As proposed by American advocates such as Colonel T. X. Hammes of National Defense University and Captains Jeffrey Kline and Wayne Hughes of the Naval Postgraduate School, this approach would simultaneously turn the waters within the First Island Chain into a “no-go zone” for Chinese merchant and military ships—America's own version of area denial—while choking off China's global trade routes through a more distant blockade.
The central premises of this strategy—for simplicity, we will hereinafter call it Offshore Control—are that the threat of economic strangulation may be sufficient to deter Chinese aggression while actual economic strangulation in the event of Chinese aggression should be sufficient to force China to surrender any territorial gains it might initially achieve.
Of course, just as with Air-Sea Battle, Offshore Control has its own host of critics. Claiming “blockades never work” and warning of Chinese faits accomplis, they have decried it as a weak and ineffective strategy that will turn China into a sanctuary from which it can pummel American military assets with missile salvo after missile salvo without fear of direct reprisal.2
Still a third “hybrid” strategy, embodied in answer no. 3, involves some combination of Air-Sea Battle and Offshore Control, raising the question as to whether this approach combines the best—or perhaps worst—of the Air-Sea Battle and Offshore Control worlds.
Because this debate is so central to our “will there be war” question, it is important that we systematically work our way through the pros and cons of each of the strategic responses. In the remainder of this chapter, we will therefore focus on the rationale for, mechanics of, and potential problems with Air-Sea Battle. In the next chapter, we will give Offshore Control a similar treatment and then try to come to some conclusion as to which, if either, might be the best approach and whether a hybrid strategy combining features of both may ultimately be the more feasible or desirable.
WHY AIR-SEA BATTLE?
The rationale for Air-Sea Battle flows from three fundamental premises. The first is captured in these words by one of the lead architects of Air-Sea Battle, former Pentagon analyst Andrew Krepinevich. In the Pentagon report that started the whole debate, he and several coauthors write:
For well over half a century, the United States has been a global power with global interests. These interests include…extending and defending democratic rule, maintaining access to key trading partners and resources, and reassuring those allies and partners who cooperate with the United States in defending common interests. The United States’ ability to project and sustain military power on a large scale has been, and remains, essential to this endeavor.3
One can, of course, argue with the need for the United States to continue its role as a global superpower “cop” defending everything from democracy and free trade to its many regional alliances. In fact, we will explore the neoisolationist counterarguments later when we discuss possible pathways to peace.
For now, however, let's assume Krepinevich is right about the need for the United States to play this global policeman's role. What, then, is the second premise of his argument? Again, in the words of him and his coauthors, we have:
[T]he US military's ability to operate in an area of vital interest, the Western Pacific, is being increasingly challenged…. Currently there is little indication that China intends to alter its efforts to create “no-go zones” out to the Second Island Chain, which extends as far as Guam and New Guinea. Unless Beijing diverts from its current course of action…the cost incurred by the US military to operate in the Western Pacific will likely rise sharply, perhaps to prohibitive levels, and much sooner than many expect.4
In this scenario, Krepinevich assumes the Chinese are preparing to chase the US military out of the Western Pacific. In fact, there should be little debate about this premise. As we saw when we inventoried China's growing military capabilities in previous chapters, the People's Liberation Army is clearly building an impressive asymmetric arsenal of anti-access, area-denial weapons that range from missiles, subs, and mines to cyber- and space-based capabilities. Moreover, Chinese leaders themselves dating back to the days of Admiral Liu Huaqing openly acknowledge that China is building up its military explicitly to deny the US access to the Western Pacific—or at least dramatically increase the costs and risks of the United States to operate freely in the region.
Of course, Krepinevich's third premise immediately follows from the first two. Specifically, Krepinevich et al. claim that America's strategic choice is:
[Either] to risk a loss of military access to areas vital to its security and those of key allies and partners to whom it is committed by treaty or law OR to explore options that can preserve the stable military balance that has seen the region enjoy a period of unparalleled peace and prosperity.5
At least to Krepinevich, Air-Sea Battle provides the best option available to the Pentagon. Conceptually, it consists of two distinct parts—one eminently sensible, the other as controversial as it is logical.
The sensible aspect of Air-Sea Battle simply involves much greater coordination and integration between the US Navy and Air Force in theater. If you are tempted to say “oh duh” at this point, feel free, but please know that traditional interservice rivalries amongst the four major branches of the US military have been endemic since at least World War II and therefore have always made such integration difficult.
As for just what kinds of coordination and integration Krepinevich has in mind, here's a typical Krepinevich quid pro quo:
The Air Force conducts counter-space operations to blind China's space-based ocean surveillance systems and thereby prevents China from targeting high-value Navy ships like aircraft carriers. In return, the US Navy uses its Aegis radar ships to help defend Air Force forward bases in Japan against Chinese missile attacks.6
As for the second component of Air-Sea Battle—the one that is both logical and controversial—this involves direct nonnuclear strikes on the Chinese mainland in response to any nonnuclear attack from that mainland on American ships or bases in the region. Specifically, Air-Sea Battle calls for a sequence of counterstrikes that commence as soon as China launches any first strike.
Here's how a leading critic of Air-Sea Battle, Professor Amitai Etzioni has described what he sees as the fatal and cataclysmic logic of the process:
In the opening “blinding campaign,” the United States attacks China's reconnaissance and command-and-control networks to degrade the PLA's ability to target US and allied forces. Next, the military takes the fight to the Chinese mainland, striking long-range anti-ship missile launchers. Given that this is where the anti-ship missiles are located, it is only logical that the United States would target land-based platforms. And to go after them, one of course needs to take out China's air defense systems, command and control centers, and other anti-access weapons. In short, AirSea Battle requires a total war with China.7
Lest anyone be confused about whether Air-Sea Battle actually incorporates American precision strikes on the Chinese mainland, Krepinevich includes in his Pentagon report a very handy map of many of the targets envisioned. These targets, which span the full length and breadth of China, include the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, the large phased-array radar and antisatellite weapons facilities in Xinjiang Province, additional antisatellite weapons facilities in Hefei and Mianyang, and all five of China's major satellite launch and monitoring facilities in Hainan, Jiuquan, Taiyuan, Xian, and Xichang.
This is “Old Testament” strategy at its purest—an eye for an eye and a counterstrike for any strike; and at least from a purely military perspective, such counterstrikes on the mainland are eminently sensible. Indeed, absent such counterstrikes, China would be shooting at US ships and bases like fish in the proverbial barrel and doing so from a heavily armed sanctuary. At least to Air-Sea Battle proponents, the existence of such a sanctuary would make it virtually impossible for the United States to defend its interests in the region. Notes Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg on this vexing problem:
We are not going to initiate a war by attacking China. If China initiates a conflict by attacking our forces and bases or our allies who we are sworn to defend, I don't think we can afford to allow them a sanctuary or to let them believe that they would have a sanctuary in which they could continue to carry out those kinds of attacks.8
Indeed, to Friedberg, such a sanctuary would also likely increase the probability of a Chinese attack given that the United States is providing China with a “free pass” to do so.
Of course, the problem with Air-Sea Battle is that what looks sensible, simple, and logical on battle maps becomes much more complex upon a second and deeper glance. The overarching problem—and the biggest hurdle any American president would ever have to leap over in ordering implementation of an Air-Sea Battle plan in the event of war—is the possibility (critics say the high probability) of a nuclear response by the Chinese. Of course, once China drops nukes on US soil—or sends a tactical nuke at an American forward base or aircraft carrier—the United States would likely have to respond with nukes of its own.
This textbook case in escalation is even further complicated by the close integration on the Chinese mainland between China's conventional- and nuclear-missile arsenals. The abiding fact here is that both programs are run by China's vaunted Second Artillery Corps, and there appears to be little evidence that the Second Artillery Corps segregates China's missiles by location according to conventional versus nuclear warhead types.
Why is this observation relevant to our detective story? Simply because a conventional attack by US forces on the Chinese mainland which has the limited goal of destroying China's ability to launch conventional warheads at American ships and forward bases may wind up also, and quite accidentally, taking out some or all of China's nuclear capabilities. Thus, when faced with the prospect of Air-Sea Battle, the Chinese may rightly fear the loss of their own second-strike nuclear deterrent.
And here's the escalatory rub: The entire rationale for the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction,” which is supposed to guarantee the nuclear peace, rests on the ability of each country with nuclear weapons to respond with a second strike if another country hits it with a first strike. Thus, if a country like China were to lose its second-strike capability—or even fear that it might because of an attack by an America planning an Air-Sea Battle campaign—the temptation might be to launch a preemptive first strike.
It follows—at least to critics– that even planning for Air-Sea Battle is highly escalatory, while actually launching an Air-Sea Battle campaign itself would be an open invitation to a fearful China to respond with nuclear weapons.
As a final critique of Air-Sea Battle, there is also the hardly inconsequential matter of whether it would even be effective. According to Professor T. X. Hammes of National Defense University—a leading proponent of the competing Offshore Control strategy—Air-Sea Battle fails the effectiveness test in at least two dimensions.
First, the probability that America can blind China's battle networks—the most essential part of the plan—is extremely low. The problem here is that even if the United States were able to knock out China's conventional satellites and command and control centers—a very tall order in a country as large as China—new technologies such as drones produced in massive numbers, high-altitude aerostat balloons, and cheap, microsized satellites known as “CubeSats” make it extremely difficult to achieve the necessary level of blinding.9
Second, Hammes believes the probability that the United States can hit China's mobile missile systems is even lower than that for blinding China's battle networks. He bases this assessment partly on the sobering fact that during the 1991 Gulf War, the United States was unable to hit a single Iraqi Scud missile on the ground before launch despite repeated attempts.10
Here, it must be noted that this Scud failure occurred long ago and targeting technologies have improved dramatically. Nonetheless, if China's Underground Great Wall can truly move missiles around with the speed and agility that we discussed in an earlier chapter, Hammes is likely to be right on this point—calling into question the viability of the entire strategy.
Given all of these various possible drawbacks with Air-Sea Battle, our next question necessarily must be whether Offshore Control fares any better as a battle plan when it comes to responding to the rise of China's anti-access, area-denial threat to America's presence in the Asia-Pacific. It is to this task we now turn to in our next chapter.