What’s at Stake in the Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific region is the central front in the new Sino-American cold war. What started 30 years ago as a slowly evolving and comparatively low-key peacetime military competition centered on Taiwan has grown in intensity and scope and is now playing out across the vast arc that extends from the Japanese home islands, down through the narrow straits of Southeast Asia, and then west to the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa. If war comes, this is where it is likely to break out and where it will be fought. With land-based forces in supporting roles, the outcome of such a struggle will be determined by what happens on, over, and under the surface of these waters.

Geopolitically, the United States finds itself in the familiar position of trying to rally a coalition of mostly democratic nations along the Eurasian periphery to counterbalance the growing strength of an aggressive, authoritarian, continental power. There are some obvious differences with the past, however. In contrast to the Cold War, most current and likely future U.S. partners in this new rivalry are insulated either by water or by significant terrestrial barriers from the territory of their potential opponent. In the event of war, such circumstances should favor the defense—but they also may complicate efforts to organize and hold together a countervailing coalition that might be able to deter war. When thousands of miles of open ocean separate the potential members of such a grouping, it can be harder to persuade the members to agree in advance that an attack on one should be regarded as an attack on all.

Now that I have finished secretary/treasurer work for my ship’s association and my Christmas season has not begun in earnest, I decided to catch up on my Naval Institute Proceedings (USNI) magazines and articles. There was a lot about China overall, and especially in the July issue of the magazine.

It sure has changed in the 50 years since I worried about typhoons, monsoon gales, Taiwanese fishing fleets, merchant ships using “iron mike”, and small arms fire, RPG’s, and those rockets the NVA aimed with a Michelin road map and a child’s protractor.

Well, here is the latest from the Western Pacific that we Vietnam era sailors considered pretty much our own pond. Who would have thought then a US warship transiting the Taiwan Straits would become a newsworthy event?

China has become the main enemy currently engaging in maritime intimidation and mugging. As a result, I plan to periodically post articles from USNI covering the subject.The article titled You Have to Be There first got my attention and can be linked to at:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/july/you-have-be-there?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=B1B2E452E0E1460BB730D51ABC22D2CA

It says such things as:

“Let’s start by surveying the Chinese challenge. China’s political aim is to abolish the settled legal principle that no one owns the sea, and to replace it with the principle that China can own bodies of water it claims. Beijing has repeatedly proclaimed “indisputable sovereignty”—state ownership—over the vast bulk of the South China Sea.3 Chinese leaders claim this expansive patch of water as “blue national soil,” the equivalent to land, as the phrase suggests.4 The sovereign over a parcel of territory makes the laws dictating what happens there. If the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gets its way, in other words, it will make the rules in the South China Sea and other expanses Beijing might claim. Others will obey. Freedom of the sea will be no more in those expanses. Neighboring states will lose their rights to harvest natural resources from the offshore exclusive economic zones apportioned to them by the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”

“In practice, China now acts as though it is already the sovereign in disputed waters where it asserts control. Chinese commercial craft fan out across the sea to reap natural riches from it, and law-enforcement ships act as their protector should a coastal state try to defend its prerogatives under the internationally recognized law of the sea. Meanwhile heavy PLA forces remain on call over the horizon, amplifying the coercive and deterrent element of China’s gray-zone strategy while minimizing the appearance of bullying.”

Next is a current Congressional Research Service report on the Chinese Navy. I specially liked Table 1 on page 11 for a summary.

Report to Congress on Chinese Naval Modernization

https://news.usni.org/2022/11/14/report-to-congress-on-chinese-naval-modernization-15?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=C02F04A7DF88474EBFC1FDFF8ADCE531

China’s navy is, by far, the largest of any country in East Asia, and sometime between 2015 and 2020 it surpassed the U.S. Navy in numbers of battle force ships (meaning the types of ships that count toward the quoted size of the U.S. Navy). DOD states that China’s navy “is the largest navy in the world with a battle force of approximately 355 platforms, including major surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, and fleet auxiliaries. This figure does not include 85 patrol combatants and craft that carry anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs). The… overall battle force [of China’s navy] is expected to grow to 420 ships by 2025 and 460 ships by 2030.” The U.S. Navy, by comparison, included 294 battle force ships at the end of FY2021, and the Navy’s FY2023 budget submission projects that the Navy will include 290 or 291 battle force ships by the end of FY2030. U.S. military officials and other observers are expressing concern or alarm regarding the pace of China’s naval shipbuilding effort and resulting trend lines regarding the relative sizes and capabilities of China’s navy and the U.S. Navy.

The magazine then goes on to present articles covering a maritime Counterinsurgency (COIN). That is worrisome because USNI usually presents articles about things to consider in the future and not current capabilities. The articles with excerpts are:

Build a Fleet That Contests Every Inch

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/july/build-fleet-contests-every-inch#:~:text=Build%20a%20Fleet%20that%20Contests%20Every%20Inch%20Disaggregated,2022%20Proceedings%20Vol.%20148%2F7%2F1%2C433%20Maritime%20COIN%20View%20Issue?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=9C0B2204B5DD4F0F844F918C00A4F9CD

Disaggregated forces would provide U.S. Navy commanders with more options to deter China. Navy leaders should evolve the fleet and its C2 processes and enable it to persistently engage adversaries across the range of likely scenarios. The resulting naval force may sacrifice some capabilities in the unlikely worst-case scenario, but it will be better able to confront great powers across the full spectrum of threats they pose instead of mounting a goal-line defense against major power war and ceding the field against every other play.

The Role of Stand-In Forces in Maritime

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/july/role-stand-forces-maritime-coin?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=F046DB2B71BB4E6A897F56A6F58C877B

An effective maritime COIN strategy demands a force posture that provides a sustainable, persistent, dynamic, and physical presence to deter insurgent activities and reassure local forces and populations. Some may suggest that “virtual presence,” enabled by emerging technologies, is just as effective as physical presence. But with insurgents physically present to threaten, harass, intimidate, and coerce civilian compliance with Beijing’s will, allies and partners reasonably consider U.S. virtual presence to be actual absence. The SIF concept provides details for a force posture well-suited to address this challenge.

Win the Contest for a Maritime Rules Based Order

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/july/win-contest-maritime-rules-based-order?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=2CF24012167349788C6434D557FA430D

When the U.S. military vacated its Philippine bases in 1992, it left a power vacuum that enabled China to employ a gradualist approach to impose its diktat across the South China Sea. Until recently, China has operated from a militarily weak position and pursued a gray-zone strategy that avoided direct confrontation with the U.S. military. Unfortunately, the threat is metastasizing as China’s fishing fleets, coast guard, and navy grow and venture to distant seas.

A new approach is needed to arrest and potentially reverse Chinese encroachment on and cowing of Southeast Asian maritime states, one that recognizes the nature of the contest as an insurgency against the existing maritime rules-based order. This has utility in other contested maritime regions. Actualizing it requires institutional adjustments—the country-centered approach executed to date along independent military, economic, and diplomatic lines has not worked. Maritime contests are by nature regional, requiring U.S. actions to be similarly conceptualized and executed while navigating a mosaic of competing local interests. This necessitates a pragmatic approach blending naval, economic, and diplomatic instruments into a cohesive and adaptable framework. If applied effectively, this form of “naval statecraft” offers a way ahead to restore confidence in the rules-based maritime order without escalation to armed conflict.

Responding to Drone Swarms at Sea

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/december/responding-drone-swarms-sea#:~:text=Responding%20to%20Drone%20Swarms%20at%20Sea%201%20South,...%208%20Scenario%20D%3A%20CounterSwarm%20...%20More%20items?adlt=strict&toWww=1&redig=8319C100FD2E451D81AA4E47CEE84C5A

Small unmanned aerial systems (sUASs) are carving an ever-widening niche within military maritime operations. From hand-launched scouts to ship-based surveillance platforms, sUASs show increasing utility in today’s military operations. As processing power grows, sUASs continue to increase their utility as powerful tools of observation or coordinated target saturation.

These small systems come in many forms, from tiny quadcopters to larger, lightweight fixed-wing systems. Most have camera systems. Payloads generally are restricted by size, weight, and power constraints. However, sensor and processing technology continues to advance, reducing the demands of each dimension and increasing the trade-off for offensive payloads such as explosives or short-burst directed-energy weapons. Deployment methods also vary from flight-deck launches to hand-tossed, catapult launchers, and compressed air tubes.

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