Needless to say, these are expensive capabilities. Many are disproportionately costly (and vulnerable) relative to the platforms against which they’re being fielded. And in some cases, particularly anti-submarine warfare and ballistic missile defence, their prospective cost greatly exceeds the operational effect they can be expected to produce. All of this would be exacting for the United States in peak economic condition. In a new era of fiscal stringency, with US debt expanding and the Pentagon looking to save hundreds of billions over the next decade, expecting the US military to do more with less is at best unlikely, and at worst wholly untenable.
It also risks failing to learn from history. Strategic competition in the Western Pacific is beginning to echo the Cold War, only this time the United States is at risk of reprising the role of the Soviet Union. Washington has already repeated Moscow’s mistakes in Afghanistan. With AirSea Battle, Washington is trying to do too much with too little. It’s facing off against an opponent in better economic shape whose smarter, more asymmetric strategy will impose a disproportionate military burden. For Washington, adopting such a maximalist doctrine risks playing into China’s hands and, like the Soviet Union, spending itself into penury.
But cost factors are only part of the danger. An arms race is already underway in Asia. AirSea Battle will accelerate this process, with serious implications for regional stability and crisis management. First, by creating the need for a continued visible presence and more intrusive forms of surveillance in the Western Pacific, AirSea Battle will greatly increase the range of circumstances for maritime brinkmanship and dangerous naval incidents.
Second, AirSea Battle’s emphasis on pre-empting China by striking early against the PLA will continue to compress the time available to decision-makers in a crisis. As military plans become increasingly dependent on speed and escalation, and diplomacy fails to keep up, a dangerous ‘use it or lose it’ mentality is likely to take hold in the minds of military commanders. This risks building an automatic escalator to war into each crisis before diplomatic efforts at defusing the situation can get underway.
And finally, AirSea Battle calls for deep strikes on the Chinese mainland to blind and suppress PLA surveillance systems and degrade its long-range strike capabilities. Such an attack, even if it relied solely on conventional systems, could easily be misconstrued in Beijing as an attempt at pre-emptively destroying China’s retaliatory nuclear options. Under intense pressure, it would be hard to limit a dramatic escalation of such a conflict – including, in the worst case, up to and beyond the nuclear threshold.
Taken together, the costs and risks associated with AirSea Battle spell trouble for US primacy in Asia, and for the sea control and power projection capabilities on which it relies. Yet while Washington’s comfortable hegemonic habits will be hard to kick – especially after so many peaceful, prosperous decades – it’s not all doom and gloom. Primacy, after all, is only a means to an end, a way of preventing China from attaining regional dominance. There are other, more cost effective ways of doing that, including by playing China at its own game. That would involve developing a maritime denial strategy, focused mainly on the use of submarines, designed to inhibit China’s use of the sea for its own power projection. Indeed, the same capabilities that imperil US power projection in the Western Pacific would have an equally profound effect on China’s own fledgling efforts.
This strategy is no panacea for the region’s problems, of course. It wouldn’t be cheap or easy and it would involve Washington making some hard capability trade-offs as well as accepting greater limits on its capacity for intervention in the Western Pacific. But there are benefits as well. In particular, maritime denial would allow the US to continue to play a strong role in the region. It would enable Washington to fulfil its defensive commitments to regional allies, prevent Chinese dominance and, at the same time, by reducing its visible military footprint, give Beijing more political breathing room. To that end, a US maritime denial strategy would also help avoid the worst aspects of crisis instability that AirSea Battle would provoke. And all without breaking the bank.
Raoul Heinrichs is Sir Arthur Tange Scholar at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, and Deputy Editor of Pnyx.
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Memo
Frank, I would like to ask, rptfecseully, that you participate in serious discussion instead of deliberately trying to ruin the discussion with comments that you fully know are inane and illogical.
mark chan
Who is downfalling? America and China rely on each other with the former relying more on the latter as the years go by. America will be making the gravest mistake in its entire history if it target China as an enemy. China cannot knock out America but can exhaust it.
Doom
China relies on US and the West money for its financial survival as simply its own economy cannot support itself and its overeliant on manufacturing for its own good. It has a huge problems with over 20+ million umeployed and probably
even more homeless. So it has much internal problems…Its economy is fabricated
growth figures and some economist are telling people to leave it alone. Its property market is doomed and foreign investment in China is a lost cause
as its centrally planned economy does not allow any foreign influence and investment as the country is still living in a psycotic commie paranoia.
It may have a ‘capitalist’ visage on the outside yet it rule seems to
point to the opposite.
Its military has not been in any external conflict since the Korean War.
The US has a global presence not seen in warfare since the Roman Empire. China
can try and lead the US into many different problems it creates like supporting
dictators round the world and we have to mop up. If China was to go agressive
in the Pacific it has few if any friends and will be handed a defeat like Imperial Japan did. Its spies are its only saving grace and its people are violently nationalistic and share nazi-like idology in Han China. China has to
learn to live with the West or it will be its D O W N F A L L.
Tim
Not quite right… The Chinese had a small border war in the late 60’s I believe, with the Soviet Union. The Soviets even queried the US about its stance if the they were to attack nuclear facilites deep in China’s mainland. What’s more, even the Roman Empire fell. Not that I think that will happen to the US, that would be disastrous for all their allies and the entire world.