Free Republic

Despite commentary that China and the United States are moving closer together, the opposite is the case. In fact, China is mounting a direct, if subtle, challenge to the international order the United States created in the Far East after World War II. Most are aware that China is attempting to leverage growing military strength into a larger, dominating position by laying claims to islands in the East and South China Seas. Few realize that China is attempting to overturn the legal underpinnings of the US position in the western Pacific. Like the Chinese proverb "to point at the mulberry...

A specter has been haunting the Western Hemisphere since mid-summer 2012, the specter of China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) routinely patrolling the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. At first sight, it might seem that Beijing is truly laying the groundwork for its foothold in the Atlantic Rim. Not least, Chinese government signed a free-trade agreement with Iceland in April and PLAN vessels recently made a month-long trip in the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Atlantic. Even so, China's strategic projection in the Atlantic is still far from becoming reality. The whole psychodrama unfolded at the end of June 2012, when...

Earlier this week, on a flight back from Utah where I was visiting my ageing parents, I finished reading CSBA president Andrew Krepinevich’s new paper titled “Why AirSea Battle?” (.pdf) The evolving AirSea Battle concept is a spin on the Army’s 1980s AirLand Battle concept that aimed to rain punishing ground and air strikes on Soviet shock armies before they could steamroll NATO defenses. Today, AirSea Battle is targeting China’s rapidly growing arsenal of anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) weapons, such as aircraft carrier killing ballistic missiles, sea-skimming missiles, stealthy submarines, bristling air-defense networks, anti-satellite and cyber weaponry. Krepinevich writes that...