Philippines Strategy

You’ve probably noticed that several of ComNavOps’ fictional stories revolve around the Philippines.  This is not by random chance.  The strategic value of the Philippines cannot be overstated.  The country, along with Taiwan, forms two gigantic ‘forts’ that China must deal with in any war.
 
From China’s perspective, those two countries act as forward enemy bases that dominate the surrounding seas and impact any operations the Chinese would attempt.  Their removal from the strategic equations is imperative.  Ideally, China would turn the tables by seizing both countries and using them as forts against any American response.
 
Taiwan’s seizure (or ‘reunification’ as the Chinese would euphemistically put it) is absolutely mandatory for both strategic and cultural reasons.  Wisely or foolishly, China’s leadership has linked themselves to the seizure of Taiwan as a national and cultural imperative.  For those reasons, Taiwan will be the first operation in any war.
 
The Philippines present a somewhat different situation for China.  The Philippines cannot be allowed to become a US forward base but it is not necessarily a requirement that the country be physically seized and occupied.  Forcing Philippines to declare neutrality is almost as good as seizing it.  A declaration of neutrality would eliminate Philippines as a forward base for the US and would have the added benefit of not tying up any Chinese forces in an occupation. 
 
Ideally, of course, China would like the Philippines to enter a war as an ally of China, thereby allowing China to use it as a base without the difficulties of an invasion and occupation.
 
By far, the most likely course of action is that Philippines would declare neutrality rather than place themselves as a target between the US and China.
 
Neutrality, however, will not prevent China, which cares nothing for international laws, from occupying areas of the Philippines that it finds advantageous in its war efforts against the US.  This, of course, leaves Philippines in a bit of a no-win situation.
 
All of this is fairly obvious so where is this going?  Let’s consider scenarios in which the US has access to the use of the Philippines, either because the Philippines enters the war as an ally of the US or because Philippines declares neutrality and China ignores that and attempts to seize or operate from the country, thereby negating Philippines’ neutrality. 
 
In this case, the US would attempt to set up bases and, perhaps more importantly, surveillance assets (radar, elevated optical sensors, etc.).   Obviously, China is not going to sit back and allow that to occur without hindrance. This raises the scenario of the US having to fight to establish and operate a base – something that we haven’t had to do since Guadalcanal.  Do we have the capability to seize suitable land, set up a base while under fire, and defend that base well enough to keep it operational?
 
The answer is no and certainly not with the equipment, units, and training we have currently.  This strongly suggests that we should be developing – quickly! – the capability to seize, set up, and defend a major base.  I’ve often suggested that the Marine’s core mission should be port seizure and this type of operation would be a logical extension of that.  Note that the Army does have existing units dedicated to the seizure of existing airbases.
 
Seizure of land for a not yet existing base could range from ‘walk in unopposed’ to a full fledged, contested, amphibious assault depending on how extensively the Chinese manage to get established.  As we’ve thoroughly discussed, our ability to conduct an opposed landing is extremely limited as we lack naval gun support, sufficient ship-to-shore connectors to allow for attrition, armor, logistic support, sea bases (if we don’t seize a port), mines to protect our sea flanks, and mobile anti-air defenses to protect forces ashore.  In addition, our ability to establish local air superiority is highly suspect and would be largely limited to the understrength air wings of our carriers which would be hard pressed to conduct simultaneous air-to-air and ground support operations with just thirty or so combat aircraft per air wing.
 
 
As we contemplate seizing land and establishing a base, consider these questions:
 

• Do we have the ability to transport and very quickly (instantly!) set up anti-cruise and anti-ballistic missile defenses to protect a base?
• Do we have ground forces who have been trained for base defense?
• Can we transport armor to the Philippines for base defense.  Yes, we’ll certainly be facing Chinese armored forces.
• Do we have sufficient numbers of C-RAM (counter rocket, artillery, and mortar) weapons to defend a base against constant, high volume attacks?
• Do we have sufficient portable, mobile sensors to establish effective surveillance and early warning systems?
• Are we doctrinally willing, and trained, to move our Aegis ships in close to land to provide anti-air protection for the ground forces until they can establish their own defenses?
• Are we capable of quickly constructing hardened and/or underground hangars and fuel/weapons storage?
• Do we sufficient airbase repair equipment that can be transported to the site?
• Do we have sufficient engineering units to build a base under fire, continuously repair it, and keep it operational under fire?
• Can we operate modern, finicky aircraft under primitive conditions with few spare parts, computers, and no modern state of the art repair facilities?  That’s what a forward, contested base would be, after all.  Our abysmal aircraft readiness rates during peacetime suggest that this, alone, almost rules out establishing an airbase in the Philippines.  If you can’t keep aircraft operational, there’s little point having an airbase.  If you recall, we were only able to sporadically operate F4F Wildcats from Guadalcanal and they were robust, easy to maintain aircraft by comparison, requiring only a wrench and duct tape to repair!

 
This kind of thought exercise is exactly what the US military should be doing all day, every day and yet we’re not.  Not even a little bit.  Instead we’re engaged in all manner of social programs, diversity, gender issues, environmental issues, climate concerns, etc.
 
We must start planning for the China war.  If the war never comes, that’s fine but failure to plan for it is dereliction of duty at its most extreme.