Over the last several decades, the US military has developed one major flaw that is crippling it. No, it’s not any particular weapon system or lack thereof. It’s a mindset that no longer recognizes victory as a goal (see, “Ending War – True Victory”). The US military no longer wants to win a war. We have become a purely defensive military whose goals have become the maintenance of the status quo. The fact that so many naval analysts talk about containment as a strategy against China illustrates this defensive, status quo mindset which guarantees a repeat of any war and eventual defeat (see, “China War Strategy - Blockade”).
Victory is no longer in our ethos.
Consider the history of recent conflicts
- Korea – Gen. MacArthur aside, this was a war that had no victory condition and whose cease fire resulted in the creation of a continual threat – now including a nuclear threat – from North Korea.
- Vietnam – This was a half-hearted war with no desire for actual victory and only nebulous containment goals as objectives.
- Soviet Union – The collapse of the Soviet Union presented us with the opportunity to secure a lasting victory but our refusal to follow through resulted directly in the Russian threat we face today.
- Kosovo – The goal of this conflict – to the extent that there was a goal – was to simply return to the pre-war status quo which has left all the pre-conflict problems still festering.
- Desert Storm – While a brilliant tactical and logistical victory, our refusal to follow through and bring down Iraq/Hussein was a strategic failure that directly resulted in having to refight the war in Gulf 2.
- Gulf 2 – This was not so much a war as an armed raid to kill/capture Hussein and his followers. The aftermath led to the formation of various insurgency groups, such as ISIS, and many years of terrorism and conflict in the region.
- Afghanistan – We are now abandoning Afghanistan after two decades and the Taliban is in process of reclaiming it, as we speak because we had no goal of victory, just some nebulous nation building that had no hope of happening.
- China – Our current policy of appeasement speaks for itself as to the lack of any victory conditions.
- ISIS – Our main goal in combatting ISIS was avoidance of collateral damage which led to massive additional civilian casualties due to our reluctance to engage ISIS.
Some might attempt to argue that we achieved our goals in some of these conflicts but that’s exactly the point – that our goals did not include actual victory.
This refusal to make actual victory an objective has led directly to the formation of our current defensive military.
- The Marines are now a totally defensive force, having abandoned amphibious assault, armor, and firepower and substituted a defensive missile-shooting mission.
- The Navy is a floundering organization with no guiding strategy whatsoever except the pursuit of a greater budget slice.
We are at a crossroads. We desperately need to make a decision about our China strategy. Will we go for true victory or fight a defensive war until we can negotiate an unfavorable settlement that will allow China to secure its gains and build for the next go-around? This will determine whether we should construct an offensive or defensive military.
Some issues that need to be addressed if we want to build an offensive force that can achieve an actual victory:
What is our guiding strategy and what are our victory conditions?
How will we use the Navy in an offensive role and what fleet structure do we need to do so?
Will we use tactical nuclear weapons?
What offensive weapons does the Navy need?
What ground assault capabilities do we need?
Yep!
ReplyDeleteOur military in general has been focused for so long on waging limited war with below peer-level adversaries that they no longer have the weapons or mind-set to fight (and WIN) against a peer level foe.
Much ado is being made about 'hypersonics' just like there was about lasers, railguns, and UCAVs.....but what are they going to target?
If the PRC imposes an air and naval blockade around Tiawan what will our response be? Do we have the capability and the will to challenge PLAN?
Never fight a war that you don't intend to win.
ReplyDeleteHmm … And yet your preferred strategy for a military conflict with China is containment and status quo rather than victory. Bit of a disconnect there.
DeleteNo, because at this point I would plan to win without fighting a war, just like we did with the Soviets. I don't think a major land war on Chinese soil is winnable, so I would go after victory a different way.
DeleteThe fought wars aiming to win but most time, because of CANNOT, rather than cut loss and run (which bring shames to many), double down, then, mess.
DeleteGulf War I was a rare victory as Bush Sr. set a realistic goal, military achieved that goal and left. No mess!
"I would plan to win without fighting a war"
DeleteNo offense but I get a chuckle out of that. I think Chamberlain said much the same thing! China is not going to simply collapse as the Soviet Union did.
Setting that aside, it would be the height of folly not to have a backup plan for actual military victory just in the million to one chance that China doesn't just lay down and surrender.
"I would go after victory a different way."
That's a great bumper sticker but what's your actual plan aside from status quo containment which violates your own, "Never fight a war that you don't intend to win" statement?
"Gulf War I was a rare victory as Bush Sr. set a realistic goal, military achieved that goal and left."
DeleteYou fail to grasp the post. Desert Storm was a tactical and logistical triumph and a strategic failure due to lack of vision and political courage. The direct result of Desert Storm was Gulf 2. Because Bush didn't have the political courage to seize a decisive victory (utterly destroy Iraq's military and kill Hussein) we had to fight a second war. That's a failure.
We have a different view.
DeleteMy view is that Bush Sr. was purposely not to overthrow then Iraqi government so to keep that nation together to counter balance Iran. That goal was achieved beautifully. Bush Jr.'s Gulf War II made a strategic mistake and we see the mess. Then "smart" people like Rumsfeld are now deemed as ... don't want to write bad words.
While balancing Iraq against Iran may have been some small part of Bush's motivation for not pursuing total victory, the main consideration was a desire to not offend the sensibilities of the Arab portion of the coalition. This was short-sighted and resulted in Gulf War 2. History is clear that failure to achieve total victory has always led to more problems down the road.
DeleteOur conflict with China is more economic than military, and we are losing the economic battle. Unless we turn that around, we are in deep trouble. That would be my first priority, and try to contain them militarily in the meantime. I don't think a land war in China is winnable, and consistent with never fight a war you don't intend to win, that would not be my approach.
Delete"GW2 was unnecessary"
DeleteComment deleted. This is not a political blog.
Afghanistan originally had an easy to understand VC, get OBL and his minions, which was accomplished.
ReplyDeleteNot knowing what to after the military wins the war, is more a civil problem than a military. See GWII, Afghanistan.
(Surprising low amount of comments on this topic?)
ReplyDeletePoliticians and the public are kicking the can down the road on the discussion of total victory.
Ask the American down the street about the dismemberment of the PRC as a political entity and they will look at you crazy (and even call you racist). The less capabilities the military has to deliver total victory invites more aggression in the future. Why don't the brass and Beltway folks contemplate a land war in mainland China?
I'll probably won't see Marines landing in Hong Kong & Shanghai. -sigh- They been there before so it would not be unprecedented.
Where's the Halsey-like determination to win a total victory? :
Delete“Before we’re through with ’em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell!”
Curious to hear your thoughts on how to intend to prosecute a successful land war against a country with 1.4bn population. I think the prospect of Chinese marines storming Guam or Hawaii are a more likely scenario given the trends in power over the past 10 years.
DeleteBtw, The last time marines were stationed in China was a century ago when the country had effectively fractured controlled by warlords - it’s not comparable.
"Curious to hear your thoughts on how to intend to prosecute a successful land war against a country with 1.4bn population."
DeleteI'm not an advocate of a land war in China, by any means, however, it's not quite what your statement suggests. The population of 1.4B is not all military age, trained soldiers. Here's some wild population estimates: Half the population is female and 2/3 is over or under age for military duty. On top of that, significant ethnic factions are oppressed and would welcome an attack on the Chinese government. Other groups would view an attack in a neutral fashion. So, of the 1.4B, something on the order of maybe three hundred million are theoretically of military age but, of course, the vast, vast majority of those are untrained and many of those are unwilling/unsupportive. The Chinese active duty military is around 2.1M versus the US 1.4M or so.
So, it's not exactly as if we'd have to fight 1.4B highly trained, highly motivated soldiers. That said, again, I wouldn't recommend a land war in China.
I think land war in China must be an option if total victory = dismemberment of the PRC as an entity. Maybe it's not the first option but the military needs to have capability to be taken seriously by the world.
DeleteEven if we can achieve total victory w/o a land war on the mainland, how about their nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons? Do we let the ex-PLA general (soon to be warlord) take custody? Do we wait for the UN and the IAEA to form a task force? Chinese nukes would compel us to deploy ground forces in some fashion.
How about the ROC? We should consider giving them more military funding to reclaim portions of Southern China when the PRC is dismembered.
@Ned - if you insist that it’s an option, how do you prevent escalation to nuclear MAD? If both counties mobilized for war tomorrow, manpower, industrial capacity both favour China. In terms of technology, the playing field is mostly levelled and where US still holds an advantage, that advantage is rapidly closing by the day. Finally, you have to overcome the huge geographic challenge of getting our man and material half way around the world while they enjoy a home field advantage.
DeleteFor the reasons listed above, it’s not a realistic option to be entertained for any serious policy discussion
"how do you prevent escalation to nuclear MAD?"
DeleteSo many people seem to have a paralyzing fear of nuclear war. Hey, it's not something to be desired, I get that, but it's not the automatic occurrence that so many people seem to fear. What if we sneeze in China's direction and they launch a nuclear weapon? We're paralyzed. Anything could trigger a nuclear escalation!
The reality is that what prevents nuclear escalation is the knowledge that it will mean the certain nuclear death of those who initiate it. Is a Chinese leader going to start a nuclear war knowing that he will, with absolute certainty, die along with it? If he's insane, I guess he could but if he's even a bit rational he won't.
What's stopping the Chinese from escalating to nuclear war when we conduct one of our FONOPs? The answer is largely the same.
Nuclear capabilities are to be respected, accounted for, and dealt with but are not a reason for paralyzing fear.
Interesting related perspective: The Chinese seem to have no fear of causing us to escalate to nuclear war as the blithely seize territory, occupy oceans, build illegal islands and military bases, bribe their way across the world, seize US military assets in acts of war, etc. Why aren't they paralyzed by fear? Why is the onus on just us to prevent nuclear escalation? Why aren't you asking the Chinese about provoking escalation?
"No, because at this point I would plan to win without fighting a war, just like we did with the Soviets."
ReplyDeleteSo how exactly did we win the war with the Soviets? That's right, Reagan implemented Allan Dulles's "their economy is half as big as ours - let's spend them back into the stone age" plan from the 1940s. Since the Soviets were super-paranoid and insisted in matching us in anything we did, we just had to develop things in multiple areas (space race, computers, missile defense, navy, etc) and watch them bankrupt themselves trying to match us. Exactly what the Russians and Chinese are DOING TO US RIGHT NOW (5G wireless, hypersonics, space race, rail guns, navy, nuclear cruise missiles, etc) -- we go crazy and spend bazillions of dollars trying to match them because we are super-paranoid, also. Example - when Putin announced hypersonics , we immediately (1) said that they were worthless and (2) increased our defense budget request by MORE by than that of the entire Russian defense budget. Example, when Putin announced the Poseidon/Status-6 nuclear torpedo, the US reaction was the same but this time the Navy wanted less money than the entire Russian defense budget. (Aside - did you know that Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, author of DR ZHIVAGO (1918-2008), had worked on the ORIGINAL nuclear torpedo project in the 1950s before he split from the party?). Since the combined Russian and Chinese economies are functionally similar to or bigger than the US economy today AND it costs us so much more to develop weapons (many like the LCS with no useful purpose), we will see if THEY can get us to "spend ourselves back into the stone age".
On another note, "total war" has NEVER been a norm in world history with WW2 probably being the biggest OUTLIER of them all. You probably do not want to pattern your vision of "victory" and future history on this non-normal case.
"total war" has NEVER been a norm in world history"
DeleteIt most certainly has! At the lowest level, war is total for the two sides in it. At the historic level, Rome conquered the known world, Alexander conquered the known world, the Mongols conquered their known world, Napoleon conquered Europe, the US conquered North America, Persia/Xerxes conquered most of their known world, etc.
War is total for those involved and world-scale wars are quite common. History proves that partial victory always leads to more problems. WWII was simply one example among so many.
IMO, winning an economic conflict with China is not particularly complicated.
DeleteDecouple from them. End the $400+ billion in imports from China.
The CCP will not be able to maintain their grip without that economic activity.
It would hurt us economically, but the CCP would not survive.
My two cents.
Lutefisk
I had a very interesting discussion on this and America's proper goals in a Chinese war with a brilliant Italian observer, if I knew how to insert an image in the comments I'd add more.
ReplyDeleteMay you summarize it?
DeleteNot sure why anyone would go into a war without the deliberate intention of crushing the adversary into total annihilation to let it be known for generations that if you mess with US you will not survive. War is War. This whole proportionality bs and roe that restrict us from actually knocking the teeth out of the enemy is bs and why we end up as nothing more than a police force on the mil side and give those big mean demarche's on the pol side.
ReplyDeleteComNavOps, in a previous topic you discussed victory against China as requiring,
ReplyDelete"Military and Academic Annihilation – This results in the complete defeat of China’s military but does not require occupation of China. We simply, systematically, destroy China’s military and destroy China’s military industry. This, alone, however, is not enough. That end result would leave China’s leadership in place and the country intact. China would learn lessons and rebuild its industry and military and we’d have to eventually fight the war all over again at some point in the future. To prevent this, we need to go a step further and utterly destroy China’s academic capability. We need to destroy every university, every think tank, every study group, every research facility, every school. We need to eliminate China’s ability to produce new engineers and scientists that can eventually design new military factories and new weapons. That’s how you prevent a repeat, future war."
I'm curious, how do you expect to accomplish this without invading and occupying China, at least briefly?
They're all known, fixed targets. Ideal cruise/ballistic missile targets. Isn't that obvious?
DeleteOK, so you go shooting a bunch of cruise missiles into China at focused targets. First, you need something a lot better that Tomahawk to get many hits. Second, from what platforms do you launch such missiles? And third, exactly how do you expect China to respond?
DeleteTo be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I just don't think we have the missiles or platforms to do it, and the Navy doesn't seem to be interested in going that way.
DeleteWe'd need much better missiles than Tomahawks, a bunch more SSGNs (the primary strike platform IMO), a bunch of Virginia VPMs (secondary strike platform IMO), surface ships capable of launching a bunch of such missiles (my battlecarriers and cruisers, your battleships), and enough carriers to provide air superiority to protect them (your 15 CVN/12 CV or my 12 CVN/12 CV should do that). Other than the Virginia VPMs and maybe the missile part of that, the Navy doesn't seemed inclined to do any of that.
You seem not to grasp how a war works. The kind of academic targets I'm describing would not be day one targets. They're going to be year five or so targets, after we've beaten down the defenses, as we did to Germany. Once we've reduced the defenses, we can start addressing the academic targets. They're fixed and not going anywhere.
DeleteIf the defenses are beaten down, any cruise missile will work.
How do I expect China to respond? Well, after we've beaten down their defenses, I don't really care how they'll respond. It's a war! Was that a trick question?
So we're just going to shoot missiles into China for five years and China is just going to let us?
DeleteWe're going to beat down the defenses and shoot missiles whenever we need to for as long as we need to. China will do their best to prevent that. Whoever can accomplish their goals will win. You understand how war works, right?
DeleteOf course I understand how war works. I've been in one or two.
DeleteThen no need to ask questions with obvious answers!
DeleteWell, every war I've ever been in, the bad guys got to shoot back. And I don't see how you plan to deal with that.
DeleteI enjoy the discussions on here, and we agree about most of the stuff, particularly how screwed up the current Navy and Marine leaderships are. But we've just got some philosophical differences that I don't think we can resolve, so I'm just going to have to agree to disagree about some of them, and I hope you will do the same.
" the bad guys got to shoot back. And I don't see how you plan to deal with that."
DeleteAs I stated, repeatedly now, we'll beat down the defenses until we are in a position to conduct an anti-academic, missile campaign. That's how we'll deal with it.
Since you seem unable to grasp the concept, I'll offer an historical example. In WWII, we methodically beat down Germany's defenses until we were able to conduct an infrastructure bombing campaign into Germany itself.
I'm confident that there is no need to belabor this point any further.
" I'm just going to have to agree to disagree about some of them"
DeleteThat's fine. Note, however, that if you choose to post a comment, that comes with the inherent expectation of replies. If you don't wish to engage with contrary replies, your only recourse is to limit your comments to those you're willing to discuss. You have a tendency to offer the same comments repeatedly, which is fine, but you then have to expect the same replies on a regular basis. If you find that frustrating, consider limiting the frequency and scope of your comments to new thoughts. Just something to think about.
OK, I'll post my thoughts when I think they would be useful, and engage in follow-on conversation when I choose to.
DeleteI think your idea of we'll just beat down their defenses until we are able to do whatever we want glosses over the reality that they get to shoot back. Nelson said that a ship is a fool to attack a fort, and I would be very concerned about that reality. If you can make it work, more power to you.
The only thing that I would ask is that when I post something, please reply to what I post rather than conflating it with other stuff that I didn't post.
DeleteI will say that my thoughts have evolved a fair amount based on feedback I have gotten here, and I sometimes feel like my posts have gotten conflated with former posts from back when I had a different opinion.
DeleteFor example, several years ago, my thoughts on carriers were for a mix of CVNs and Lightning Carriers. I now lean toward a mix of CVNs and conventional CVs like Kitty Hawk (having to admit that I prefer Kitty's flight deck and elevator layout to that of my old ship Ranger). But we aren't going to get that conventional CV into the fleet for 10-15 years, so I would now use the Lightning Carriers as interims, and their useful lives would conveniently appear to expire about the time that we could get the Kittys into the fleet. And as before, I'd free up the LHA/Ds for the Lightning Carrier role by reconfiguring the amphibious fleet.
But I do, seriously, appreciate the feedback on a subject that is of interest to me.
This is the war we are losing to China.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/thekendallbaker/status/1416588823388168197?s=21
My "containment" approach to China is based upon containing China while we focus on turning this war around and winning it.
One way to win would be fight back. Paul Dibb was the Australian DOD chief public servant and an author of strategic reviews. He has published a piece https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/china-threatens-australia-with-missile-attack/ saying the US needs to give an explicit guarantee to Australia. He also makes the point if it goes nuclear that if the cold war goals still apply the US would kill 25% of the population and 50% of industry. But China's industry is all grouped together not spread out over the entire country. They would be stone ages.
ReplyDelete