Despite having thoroughly discredited the notion of
deterrence (see, “Forward Presence Deterrent EffectDisproved”), there is a faction of naval observers who continue to
insist that deterrence is real and works despite the overwhelming evidence of
China, Russia, Iran, and NKorea’s expansionism, terrorism, and general
disregard for international laws, treaties, and norms which more than disproves
the validity of deterrence. In fact,
many of these people believe that the only thing wrong with the Navy’s approach
to deterrence – if there is anything wrong – is that we aren’t devoting enough
ships to it. If only we’d use even more
ships our deterrence would be even more effective, they say.
Well, it’s time to take an analytical approach to the Navy
and deterrence as regards our main enemy, China. Is deterrence working? What assets are we devoting to
deterrence? Do we need more?
Is deterrence
working? - Well, this one is easy to answer. China has, for all practical purposes,
annexed the entire South and East China Seas despite them being mainly
international waters. They’ve built
illegal artificial islands and militarized them. They’re continually encroaching on the
territorial waters and air space of Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other
countries in the region. They’ve made
public claims about ownership of Japanese territories and most or all of the
second island chain. There are even
reports stating that China has made claims on a third island chain which
includes Hawaii and most of the Pacific.[2]
In addition to territorial expansion, China has also engaged
in the seizure of US military assets and ignores the UNCLOS treaty to which it
is a signatory (demonstrating that China’s word is worthless).
What assets are we
devoting to deterrence? - The US Navy’s entire 7th Fleet is
devoted to deterring China. As a
reminder,
Seventh Fleet includes a permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier, currently the USS George Washington, CVN-73. Yokosuka, alone, typically includes a command ship, an aircraft carrier, Ticonderoga class cruisers, and a dozen or so Burke class destroyers.
In addition to the 7th Fleet, numerous other
carriers, ARG/MEUs, and aircraft regularly rotate into the 7th Fleet’s
control.
We are devoting an enormous number of ships, aircraft, and
personnel to deterring China.
Do we need more? -
The facts are crystal clear.
If the 50 to 70 ships, 150 aircraft and 27,000 sailors and marines
aren’t deterring China, no additional forces will suddenly, magically alter the
situation. Think about it, though,
that’s a lot of ships, aircraft, and personnel.
Why isn’t China deterred? Why
aren’t they behaving very cautiously, in not cowering? The answer is simple and painfully
obvious: China does not believe we’ll
use our forces. If your enemy does not
believe you have the will to act, no amount of forces in the region will alter
their thinking. We could pack the entire
US Navy into the South China Sea and it wouldn’t deter China for one second. They believe, correctly, that we won’t use
our force so any gathering of naval forces is a hollow, empty gesture.
The only force we’ve ever used in peacetime is against third
rate countries and China does not see themselves as a third rate country. In fact, history proves their view of things
is correct. China has seized US military
aircraft and drones while they were in use, disrupted naval operations,
successfully threatened and chased away US ships in international waters,
established and militarized illegal islands while the US Navy stood back and
watched, enforced illegal territorial water claims, violated the air space of
Taiwan, etc. All the while, the US Navy
did nothing. Ironically, the only
substantive action the US Navy has taken, Freedom of Navigation exercises
according to the conditions of UNCLOS Innocent Passage, has only reinforced the
validity of China’s illegal territorial water claims!
No will to act means no deterrence and no amount of
additional forces will change that.
______________________________
It is headquartered at U.S. Fleet Activities Yokosuka, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It is part of the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with 50 to 70 ships, 150 aircraft and 27,000 sailors and marines.[1]
Seventh Fleet includes a permanently forward deployed aircraft carrier, currently the USS George Washington, CVN-73. Yokosuka, alone, typically includes a command ship, an aircraft carrier, Ticonderoga class cruisers, and a dozen or so Burke class destroyers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Seventh_Fleet
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/chinas-next-territorial-claim-hawaii-almost-the-entire-17658
The bizarre part is given China's thousands of theater missiles, our wise wartime plan should hope to get the carrier near Tokyo out of port and the amphibs out of Sasebo and sail to the safety of Hawaii, leaving the families behind. It will take a few months until our Navy masses enough carriers to consider fighting China in WestPac.
ReplyDeleteChina knows the exact GPS location of these ships in port. If it fires just 50 of its missiles at once, most will get through air defenses and some will hit the big flattops. Here is something I wrote long-ago.
https://g2mil.com/sasebo.htm
And here's something I wrote on the subject: USS Ronald Reagan and Force Z
DeleteI think that we're actually talking about two different things here.
DeleteThe first is having an effective deterrence. I agree wholeheartedly that we are far too passive in regards to China.
We should be willing to take on some risk when interacting with them.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that we have the wrong ships for that.
We basically have Burkes, Ticos, and Nimitz's, not the ships best suited for playing bumper boats with the Chinese in the South China Sea.
Instead we would be better served to have modern Fletchers (Gearings actually, with thicker hulls) and Des Moines class cruisers, and use them aggressively.
We all know that you need to stand up to a bully, it's just that our political and military leadership don't seem to be willing to recognize the obvious fact that China is a bully.
Lutefisk
The second thing is where to position our ships during peacetime.
DeleteI agree strongly in CNO's concept that the navy should end deployments and train for combat by sending task forces on simulated wartime types of missions. CNO also feels that a carrier battle group should be 4 full sized carriers. I would settle for three, but the point is that they shouldn't be working singly during wartime.
But if that is the practice, where do you station your fighting ships?
The safest place would be away from the western Pacific.
But if you homeport them in Hawaii, that's 3800 miles from Tokyo (just to pick a destination). That is a week of sailing at 20 knots simply to get across the Pacific.
If it's San Diego instead, that is 5600 miles, or a week and a half at 20 knots.
That is spending a lot of precious training time simply plowing furrows in the ocean.
So where to put them?
Guam appears to be too small to homeport significant naval forces.
I wouldn't mind having a naval base on Mindanao, but that would require a LOT of infrastructure build out to keep a quantity of capital ships and their escorts.
Australia? They might as well be at Pearl Harbor.
Japan is the obvious choice.
They are one of our closest allies and they have phenomenal ship maintenance infrastructure. The Japanese also have a deep seated tradition of despising the Chinese, and the Chinese reciprocate.
If diplomatically possible, I would station three aircraft carriers and their escorts in Japan.
Of course they wouldn't be sitting in 'aircraft carrier row' like 1941 Pearl Harbor battleships. They would be in separate locations, places like Yokosuka, Osaka, Nagoya and Sendai.
This kind of forward deployment is not unprecedented to meet a threat.
We seem to forget that in the 1980s we had approximately 300,000 troops stationed in West Germany right across the border from the Warsaw Pact forces, and their families were PCS'd there as well.
The three aircraft carriers would be well positioned to do mission style training in the area of operations without wasting enormous amounts of time transiting the breadth of the Pacific Ocean.
It would also be beneficial to cementing our alliance and training with the Japanese forces and specifically their navy.
Lutefisk
So what about war with China?
DeleteA good peace time practice would be to have at least one of the carriers on a training mission the majority of the time. The forward deployed forces should be on a higher state of readiness, just like our forces were that were stationed in cold war West Germany.
That would take away some of the risk of all three of the carriers getting caught in port.
The far and away most likely scenario that we would face in a naval war with China would be an invasion of Taiwan.
The analysis that I've seen estimate that it would take 30 days for the Chinese to pull together their assets for an amphibious assault on Taiwan.
To me that seems a little bit short. A cross-strait invasion would be on a scale very similar to Normandy. Think about the size of that operation, 30 days would be a herculean logistical accomplishment to stage an operation of that size.
But suppose the 30 days number is accurate. That is plenty of lead-time for the carriers in Japan to assume a wartime footing.
What if the Chinese launch a surprise attack, a ballistic missile Pearl Harbor, against our carriers in Japan?
Well, the first consequence is that they will have launched a surprise attack against three separate Japanese cities. That is all-out war, and they are not likely to get an empathetic response from the rest of the world (which they need to support their export driven economy).
But what if they hit a grand-slam homerun and knock out three American aircraft carriers in Japanese ports?
Well, then they can possibly break out of the first island chain and then....and then....what?
I suppose they could start putting together their Taiwan invasion without the nuisance of any local American aircraft carriers.
Maybe attack the Philippines? Okinawa? Singapore? None of those seem all that plausible.
But losing those three aircraft carriers, while it would hurt mightily, would not cripple our military or those of our allies.
And the surprise nature of the attack would galvanize both the American people and the world at large against China in the upcoming war.
It would be the very definition of a pyrrhic victory for the CCP.
Lutefisk
The end result of Pearl Harbor was to galvanise the American people, giving a clear cut causus belli for war (which War Plan Orange identified as a clear and uncertain prerequisite to a sucessful Pacific war). Cynically speaking, I can't help but wonder if forward basing 7th Fleet in Japan is meant to garner us our causus belli.
DeleteThere's a lot of skepticism about the American people's willingness for war, but as Pearl Harbor and 9/11 showed us, the American people are willing to support a war when we have clearly been attacked and we are retaliating at the aggressor.
As China's military parade (celebrate WWII victory) is on Sep. 3 local time, let's see what missiles and other weapons they display. Through these weapons, we can analyze how they think about how to fight future wars. We can then compare with what Pentagon's thought on how to fight in future.
DeletePrecision weapons heavily depend on GPS (China on Beiduo) have one big problem - if GPS (or Beidou) is jammed.
And this carrier mostly relies on MSC ships from Sasebo for sustainment in WestPac, and that will not happen during a war. This support needs to move out further, like to eastern Australia. I was happy to see the US Army is finally waking up and doing so.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.militarytimes.com/land/2025/07/02/setting-the-scene-army-to-test-new-hub-for-stockpiling-in-australia/
Deterrence works only if:
ReplyDelete1. You have far stronger power
2. You will use without hesitation
If the other side has more advanced weapons but you still think as 20 years ago what you had, then, you fool yourself. Face the reality - China has better high tech weapons today. SOD Hegseth said in last April that ALL Pentagon war games with China ended as US lose. The nation needs to work hard on military related technologies.
Nothing to add besides agreeing that the will to use the gun is what is important, not the gun itself. Obama proved that way back when the Philippines asked him for help when China had started it's campaign and he did nothing. China knew it could get away with anything besides outright war.
ReplyDeleteAndrew
But...when your opponent's gun is more powerful than yours, your strong will and value then mean nothing.
DeleteExactly. America has a long track record of abandoning its allies whenever it suits its purpose.
DeleteWho would trust us, and why?
"when your opponent's gun is more powerful than yours"
DeleteThis is not even remotely true as a general statement. We thoroughly demonstrated this here" "Asymmetric Warfare"
War, is an extreme form of diplomacy. If Taiwan remains the casus belli, then from Beijing’s view, it’s a spectrum of diplomatic efforts ( to regain Taiwan), from war on one extreme to win-without-war on the other extreme. Right now, ( from Beijing’s pov)the cost of bloody war still far outstrips waiting it out ( for Taiwan to fall to eventual geopolitical consequence of China’s rise), and Trump is doing the heavy work as far as Beijing is concerned. First, by moving TSMC from Taiwan to Arizona arm-twist-by-arm-twist, and second, by enacting 20% additional tariff on Taiwan’s other export industries. Both acts together will rob Taiwan’s economic vitality. Weaker Taiwan’s economy gets, harder for Taiwan to escape China’s gravity pull. That’s China’s long game on Taiwan.
ReplyDelete