Island Naval Warfare

Pre-WWII, naval analysts envisioned open ocean clashes between mammoth battle lines of opposing battleships.  Cruisers with float planes were designed to operate as far ranging scouts for the battle line, seeking out the enemy’s battle fleet.  Destroyers would support the battle line by launching torpedo attacks and defending against the enemy’s torpedo attacks.  The vision was well understood, doctrine was well established, and the concept was extensively practiced.
 
Of course, reality came and none of that materialized.  Instead, the Navy found themselves fighting as small, disjointed units amongst the Solomon Islands, lost in the darkness, blinded by the mass of the islands, utterly confused, and unable to form a battle line that lasted more than a minute when combat began.
 
What were a few of the relevant factors that rendered the pre-war vision and scenarios irrelevant?
 
Detection – Detection of the enemy, whether visual or radar, was reduced to very short ranges by darkness and by the blocking mass of the islands.  Visual detection of enemy ships was severely hindered by the blocking mass of nearby islands with ships either hidden behind the islands or obscured on the near side by the background of the dark mass of the islands.  Similarly, the islands cast concealing radar shadows and returned clutter which hid or obscured targets and rendered radar far less effective than was hoped.
 
In one notable example, US ships were fired on by Japanese destroyers and the US returned fire against a nearby island, believing that the flashes from the Japanese ship’s guns were actually land artillery batteries!
 
Range – The impaired detection meant that engagement ranges were incredibly short compared to the extended ranges envisioned pre-war.  The short range had major implications for torpedo and gunnery tactics, none of which had been envisioned or practiced pre-war.
 
Uncertainty – The difficulty in detection led to a great deal of uncertainty in target identification – what we now refer to as Identification Friend or Foe (IFF).  Many firing opportunities were passed by due to uncertainty about target identification.  The well known axiom, ‘attack effectively, first’, was extremely difficult to implement.  The lack of close combat doctrine contributed to the uncertainty.  Having no viable doctrine, uncertainty abounded;  no commander had any solid expectation of what other friendly ships would do and where they would go and so they were often forced to hold fire due to uncertain identification.  This cost us badly on numerous occasions.
 
 
Given that our pre-war exercises and planning (War Plan Orange, for example) correctly anticipated an island hopping strategy, it is baffling that we didn’t make the logical conclusion that we needed to practice naval combat in close proximity to islands … but we didn’t and so we had to learn on the fly.  Learning on the fly in combat is the most expensive and deadly way to learn and, unsurprisingly, we paid a heavy price for the knowledge.
 

 
Today
 
Bolstered, now, by a thorough understanding of history and its lessons, we can turn our attention to current events and a war with China.  It is quite likely that we will be fighting amongst the islands surrounding the East and South China Seas and yet we’re practicing for long range missile engagements in open ocean.  Does this sound eerily familiar?  We’re repeating the mistake of WWII by failing to train for naval combat amongst islands.
 
To offer some context, Wikipedia notes that Indonesia consists of 17,000 islands and the Philippines have 7,641 islands.  Given that those are likely combat areas, wouldn’t it make sense to anticipate island naval combat and begin training for it?
 
Of course, it’s possible that a war with China will avoid any proximity to islands (although that seems like wishful thinking more than reality) but we should, nevertheless, train for it.  If it doesn’t happen it’s no big deal and if it does, we’ll be prepared.
 
How will the various island factors impact naval combat today?
 
Radar – The physics of radar haven’t changed.  Islands will still cast radar shadows and generate cluttered returns that will hide or obscure targets.  Recall the supposed land-based, anti-ship missile attacks directed against the Burke class destroyer, USS Mason?  As it turned out, we couldn’t even determine whether attacks had even occurred (they didn’t!), likely due to the interference/obscuration of the land mass. 
 
Detection ranges will still be far shorter than expected.  Incoming missiles, especially sea-skimmers, will be hidden in radar shadows.  The same islands that hide us, hide the enemy.
 
Of course, no sane commander will be using radar, anyway, so radar detection will be an infrequent occurrence.
 
Optical – The wise naval commander will be using passive sensors, for the most part, and islands still obscure targets on both the near and far side of the land mass.
 
Missiles – Islands will degrade missile effectiveness.  Ships sailing close inshore will be obscured by the surrounding land mass and modern missiles will likely lack the ability to discriminate a ship from a rocky outcropping, atoll, or other mass.  To the best of my knowledge, no navy or manufacturer has considered missile performance near islands.  We need to conduct realistic testing of missiles in proximity to islands and find out how well they can identify and acquire targets obscured by land masses.
 
Islands will block missile approaches.  A sea skimming missile (which most modern anti-ship missiles are) will be unable to attack a target on the far side of an island or will have to take an altered path to navigate around the island to approach the target.  We need to factor this into our combat tactics.
 
UAVs – UAVs will be affected by islands.  They’ll have to fly higher, linger longer to search and clear/identify targets near land, compensate for island-blocked communications, etc.  UAVs may also take advantage of islands by hiding in their shadows and background.  A UAV operating against the background of an island mass may well be able to ‘approach’ a target quite closely without being detected.  Again, we haven’t made any attempt to study UAV operations near islands and develop appropriate offensive and defensive doctrine and tactics.
 
 
Conclusion
 
There is every reason to expect that we’ll find ourselves operating in, around, and near islands and there is no reason to believe that the various WWII factors that made such operations dangerous, difficult, and chaotic won’t still apply.  Detections and engagements will still be sudden, unexpected, and short ranged.  We desperately need to begin training for such operations. 
 
We have no idea how missiles will behave near islands.  We have no idea what doctrine and tactics will prove successful.  We can prepare for island naval combat or we can be surprised and pay the horrific price to learn on the fly.
 
Assuming the anticipated scenarios occur, one blindingly obvious conclusion is that large caliber guns will be of immense value.  With short detection ranges, large caliber guns can establish and sustain fire that missiles can’t match and can do so far more cost effectively.  As our Ukraine donations have amply demonstrated, we’ll run out of high end missiles very quickly.  Large caliber guns and cheap (free on a relative basis!) shells will seem a godsend, at that point.
 
Hand in hand with large caliber guns is armor.  Ships that can absorb damage and stay in the fight (a Burke cannot) will be the difference between victory and defeat.
 
Bear in mind that we aren’t just talking about opposing ships being nose to nose like they were at Guadalcanal.  The scenario could be an anti-ship attack from a hundred miles away, directed towards a ship in or near the first island chain islands.  All the factors we discussed apply.  How will the missiles identify valid targets?  Will the missiles need to be ‘waypointed’ around various islands?  Will the target ships be effectively hidden by the surrounding islands?  Will terminal guidance be required?  We need to understand naval combat in and amongst islands.
 
We’re repeating the mistakes of WWII by failing to prepare for combat scenarios that are likely to materialize and focusing exclusively on open ocean scenarios that are less likely.

Marine's New Top Priorities: Maternity Leave and Sea Denial

The new Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. David Berger, is off to a mystifying start to his tenure.  He began with a guidance document that basically said that the Marines were going to dump conventional amphibious ships in favor of small, distributed ships and that legacy systems would be eliminated to fund modernization.  No details were offered and the military community has been expectantly waiting for more information.  His guidance document offered some welcome focus on the threat of China even if some of his solutions were questionable.  As we wait for details to emerge about his new combat focus, the Commandant has made some downright baffling public statements about his priorities. 

Gen. Berger has prioritized family leave for Marines with proposals for up to a year’s leave for new mothers (1) as well as,

Furthering gender integration in job fields previously closed to women, expanding maternity leave and raising the intellectual bar for infantry troops are among the Marine Corps’ priorities, the service’s top officer said.(2)

Is this really a priority?  Not only does it have nothing to do with combat but it will clearly hurt our combat capabilities.  It also raises a host of questions.  Will new mothers be counted as combat ready troops in the Marine’s table of manning?   Will returning mothers, fresh off a year of leave and the exhaustion of infant rearing be instantly combat ready?  Of course they won’t so what good are they?  Will returning mothers have to undergo some type of refresher boot camp to get back into shape and regain their combat skills (I can’t type that without laughing but …) – essentially amounting to even more time off in terms of being a combat asset?  The Commandant wants to give female/mother Marines what amounts to a year and a half to two years off to have a child and return to combat readiness?  If a female Marine wants to have multiple children are we really going to pay them to have several years off to do the family thing?  Theoretically, a female could have several paid years off (and highly restricted duty when back) to raise a family, all on the Marine’s dime and without ever serving on a deployment or being combat capable.  Isn’t that called welfare?  Since when did the Marine Corps become a kiddie day care center or a social experimentation program?  Who’s going to fill the female’s vacated billets?  Who’s going to deploy in place of the females?  Yeah, that would be the men.  I don’t see any resentment happening because of this.

The Few, The Proud, The Mommy Welfare Group

Additional priority items include (4):

• Exempting pregnant Marines from “standing at parade rest or attention for longer than 15 minutes”
• Increased gender integration
• Increasing enlistment test scores

The few, the proud, the out of shape exhausted mothers!  The Chinese are trembling in fear.

Continuing the befuddlement, the Commandant is now stating that the Marine’s top ground forces priority is sea denial which he envisions accomplishing by placing small units with anti-ship missiles on distributed islands or land.

The Marine Corps is all in on fielding mobile anti-ship missiles in the Pacific to challenge China’s growing Navy, declaring it in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee to be its highest ground modernization priority.

“A ground-based anti-ship missile capability will provide anti-ship fires from land as part of an integrated naval anti-surface warfare campaign,” the written testimony reads. “This forward-deployed and survivable capability will enhance the lethality of our naval forces and will help to deny our adversaries the use of key maritime terrain.” (3) [emphasis added]

The Marine’s ground mission is sea control?????

The Marines, who should be concentrating on figuring out how to get an amphibious combat vehicle from 50 miles offshore to the beach, who should be working to rediscover their amphibious assault capability, who should be taking on the core mission of port seizure (my opinion, not the Marine’s), who should be frantically working on mobile anti-aircraft/anti-cruise missile capability, who should be reversing their trend of shedding tanks and artillery, who should be emphasizing ground force lethality, are now going to switch to sea denial as their new top priority?  Isn’t that the Navy’s mission?  Have the Marines solved all their problems and have so much extra budget that they can now take on a Navy responsibility?

I’m sorry but sea denial is about dead last on my list of priorities for the Marines – just ahead of maternity leave.

So, setting aside my stunned disbelief, how do the Marines see this sea denial working?

The Marines are looking at not just one but two anti-ship systems:  one is based on a remote control version of the HIMARS vehicle (why remote control?  what does that gain us if the troops are there anyway?) firing a Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile and the other is an anti-ship version of Tomahawk which would be launched from an, as yet, unknown platform.  Okay, let’s look a bit closer at this concept.

What’s the overall concept?  According to the Marines,

The Marine Corps’ concept of operations, as outlined by Berger in last year’s planning guidance,  …  the Marines want to be able to spread their forces in small groups around islands in the Pacific and deny freedom of maneuver to the Chinese fleet. (3)

Has anyone wargamed this with even a small dose of reality?  How are we going to infiltrate Chinese controlled areas and land HIMARS vehicles, missiles, men, and supplies without being seen?  You don’t transport HIMARS vehicles and Tomahawk launchers on combat canoes.  They’ll have to be transported on amphibious or cargo ships of some kind.  Won’t the Chinese kind of … you know … see that?  Or, is this more of the military’s ever-growing tendency to assume that the enemy will cooperate in their own destruction?

Honestly, this sounds like some top drawer, high quality, fantasy thinking.

Marine Corps requirements and development chief Lt. Gen. Eric Smith told reporters last year during the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the Marines want to fight on ground of their choosing and then maneuver before forces can concentrate against them.

“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”

So, we’re disbursing small units on scattered islands and they’re somehow going to ‘maneuver before the enemy can concentrate against them’?  Uh … they’re on small islands.  How much maneuvering can they do? 

Maybe the Marines think they can maneuver to another island?  Again, how will we get large cargo ships to these remote, scattered islands to re-embark the Marines and move them to another island without being seen?

Seriously, if we can sail cargo ships (and escorts? now we’re talking large task forces – won’t those be noticed?) with utter stealth and impunity all around the enemy-controlled waters, we don’t need to use Marines to control the sea, we can just send Burkes to sail up next to the oblivious enemy ships and board them.

Wait, there’s more …

Smith describes a concept where the U.S. fleet can herd Chinese ships into a contested area where the Marines can do damage from the shore.

“So, if I’m maneuvering in support of the fleet commander in a contested, confined space, through the mobility I bring in air and with surface connectors I can get to a point and block or strike something that has been herded into a contested space – something that has been herded into that space by the fleet commander.” (3)

Again, the degree of willing cooperation and the assumed utter cluelessness of the enemy is staggering.  We’re going to set up these magic, hidden anti-ship units and the Chinese are going to allow us to ‘herd’ them into range?  Again, if we have sufficient naval force to ‘herd’ the Chinese navy then we really don’t need a few more Marine anti-ship missiles, do we?

Here’s the takeaways from this:

How do we transport large vehicles to these small, remote islands and lands without being detected?

How do we find targets that are beyond the horizon?  Are we going to build airstrips and operate long range UAVs on these small islands all without being detected?  Or, maybe we’ll use the regional network that ties all the non-survivable surveillance assets together in one ginormous, real time tactical picture?

Without long range surveillance and targeting, the effective area is limited to the horizon which is 12-15 miles from shore.

A small unit’s single launcher with one to a few missiles is of absolutely no tactical significance.  Will we land large numbers of launchers and missiles (along with reload equipment)?  If so, again, how will we conduct these large scale landings and operations without being detected?

This Commandant is all over the map.  China is his number one threat and priority and yet his first actions have to do with maternity leave????  His top ground priority is sea denial?  This guy is not giving me warm, fuzzy feelings about his grasp of the issues facing the Marines.

_____________________________________

(1)military.com website, “Marines' New Top Officer Wants to Give New Moms a Full Year Off”, Gina Harkins, 17-Jul-2019,

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/17/marines-new-top-officer-wants-give-new-moms-full-year.html

(2)Stars and Stripes website, “Women in more job fields, added maternity leave on top Marine’s priority list”, Immanuel Johnson, 24-Feb-2020,

https://www.stripes.com/news/women-in-more-job-fields-added-maternity-leave-on-top-marine-s-priority-list-1.620075

(3)Defense News website, “To combat the China threat, US Marine Corps declares ship-killing missile systems its top priority”, David B. Larter, 5-Mar-2020,

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/05/to-combat-the-china-threat-us-marine-corps-declares-ship-killing-missile-systems-its-top-priority/

(4)Marine Corps Times website, “These Are The 21 Internal Memo Items The Top Marine Wants To Immediately Change”, Philip Athey, 4-Mar-2020,

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/03/04/these-are-the-21-internal-memo-items-the-commandant-wants-to-immediately-change-in-the-corps/

Freedom of Navigation - Trump Version

We’ve previously noted that the infrequent Freedom of Navigation (FON) actions by the US Navy in the South China Sea have done more harm than good, legally, by serving to reinforce China’s claims of sovereignty.  The actions were carried out as “innocent passage” which is a prescribed method (see the UNCLOS documents for the exact procedure) for warships to pass peacefully through the waters of another country.  By conducting the FON actions as innocent passages, they served to bolster China’s claims since innocent passage can only be applied to another country’s territorial waters.  Thus, the US was implicitly recognizing China’s claims.  Alternatively, some FON actions were conducted at greater than 12 miles from any disputed islands or lands which, again, bolsters China’s claims of sovereignty. 

Had the US wanted to dispute China’s sovereignty claims, the FON actions should have studiously avoided following innocent passage procedures or observing the 12 mile territorial limit. 

Interestingly, the Navy has just recently executed a FON action near Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands that explicitly ignores the innocent passage procedures.

“A U.S. destroyer sailed within six nautical miles of a Chinese artificial island on Wednesday in the strongest challenge of hotly debated Chinese claims in the South China Sea, USNI News has learned.

Around 7 P.M. EST on Wednesday (7 A.M. Thursday local time), USS Dewey (DDG-105) passed within six nautical miles of the Chinese installation on Mischief Reef in the Spratly Island chain, several U.S. officials confirmed to USNI News

The guided-missile destroyer operated normally and did not conduct the transit under the rules of an innocent passage – the restrictions that allow a warship to pass through another country’s territorial waters with no notice.

The ship was within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef for about 90 minutes zig-zagging in the water near the installation. At one point during the operation, the ship’s crew conducted a man overboard drill, a U.S. official told USNI News.” [emphasis added] (1)

This is good news in a minimalist sense.  At least this FON did no further legal damage.  Presumably, this change in policy is due to the new Trump administration.

On the other hand, this kind of FON serves no concrete purpose if the other side, the Chinese in this case, choose to ignore it.  It does not hinder development of artificial islands or bases.  It does not blockade any Chinese actions.  It does not lodge an official protest with the UN.  It does not establish a “counter-island” developed and controlled by the US.  In short, it does nothing but offer a silent, unspoken, token, symbolic protest in the mildest manner possible.

Previous FON actions have clearly done nothing to dissuade China from their expansionist policies and actions in the South and East China Seas.  FON actions, even this type, accomplish nothing but ratcheting up tensions.  We need to either back out of the area and concede the South and East China Seas as Chinese territories or begin taking concrete, productive actions along the lines we’ve discussed in previous posts and comments.

As a reminder,

“Unlike other Chinese artificial islands in the South China Sea, the Mischief Reef installation isn’t subject to overlapping territorial claims from any other country and is built on a low-tide elevation, as determined by the 2016 Hague tribunal ruling on Chinese claims in the South China Sea.

Under the U.N. Law of the Sea Convention [UNCLOS], a low-tide elevation cannot be claimed as the territory of any country and does not command a territorial sea.”

China, you’ll recall, is a signatory to UNCLOS and, therefore, bound by it’s rules and regulations.  Despite this, China is actively violating several aspects and provisions of the agreement.

Setting aside the myriad political and economic actions that we could and should take, the following actions, which cover a range of intensity, should also be considered.

• Close, high speed passes to attempt to cause wake damage to island facilities
• Blockade of islands and bases
• Physical hindering of resupply ships
• Physical disruption of, and interference with, reclamation vessels
• Covert disruption of island facilities (SEAL missions)
• Electronic jamming of island communications

China is clearly on a militaristic expansionist path.  It is only a matter of time before China and US come to blows.  One can make a pretty compelling argument that it is better to do it now while China has not yet gained complete parity/superiority than to wait and do it under even less favorable circumstances.

If we’re not going to contest the South and East China Seas then we need to cede the area and retire from the region, diffuse tensions, and save the wear and tear on our ships and aircraft.  Of course, if we’re going to do all that, one can also reasonably ask why we need ships and aircraft.  We can cede entire regions without the use of our military!

Our policy of token resistance is having no positive effect whatsoever.  We need a new geopolitical and military strategy for the region.

_____________________________

(1)USNI News website, “U.S. Warship Came Within 6 Miles of Chinese Artificial Island in Toughest Challenge Yet to Beijing South China Sea Claims

”, Sam LaGrone, 25-May-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/05/25/u-s-warship-came-beijing-south-china-sea-claims

China War - Taiwan Seizure

I’m on record as saying that the first act in any Chinese War will be the seizure of Taiwan.  Why is that?  Well, two reasons:

1. Taiwan has long been a sore point for China.  Taiwan belongs to them, in their view, and its “hostage” status to the West (the US) is an affront to China’s national pride.  China has vowed to reclaim Taiwan, the only question being when.  If China is going to enter a war anyway, it may as well seize Taiwan in the process even if Taiwan is not the main purpose of the war.

2. Taiwan is too close to China for the Chinese to allow it to possibly be used as a military base of attack on China.  Thus, Taiwan must be seized at the outset of hostilities.

So, having recognized the fact that Taiwan will be the first objective (in terms of land seizure) of any war, how will China go about accomplishing it?  ……  I have no idea but for the sake of filling up some post space, why don’t we speculate.

If you had decades of time to plan for the seizure of a major piece of land, and an island to boot, how would you go about it?  Ideally, you’d slowly secure surrounding pieces of land so that once you initiated the seizure of your target, you’d already have fully equipped bases surrounding the target and protecting your invasion force.  Does this sound familiar?  The Chinese have seized various islands in the surrounding first island chain and militarized them.  Where islands are not physically available, the Chinese have built artificial ones.  You’ve got to give them credit for some outstanding creativity and initiative.  Would we have thought to build artificial islands?  I doubt it and, if we did, we’d have subordinated our military needs to ecological concerns, the welfare of coral reefs, the protection of endangered species, and abandoned the idea.

Instead, the Chinese have constructed numerous bases to the south of Taiwan with the Paracels and Scarborough Shoal protecting the area to the south and the Spratleys protecting approaches to the South China Sea in the far south.

Further, China is moving to co-opt the Philippines into their sphere of influence via a combination of state sponsored emigration, veiled threats, and political maneuvering.

China is also looking to seize and construct island bases to the north and east of Taiwan in the Senkaku and Ryukyu Island groups.

“Chinese authorities in the spring of 2013 brazenly challenged Japan’s sovereignty of the islands with a concerted campaign that included an article in a magazine associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a widely publicized commentary in People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper and therefore China’s most authoritative publication; two pieces in theGlobal Times, the tabloid controlled by People’s Daily; an interview of Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan in the state-run China News Service; and a seminar held at prestigious Renmin University in Beijing.

At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to affirm that China recognized Okinawa and the Ryukyus as Japanese.

The close timing of events indicated these efforts had been directed from the top of the Chinese political system.

Over the last decade, Beijing has been moving in on Okinawa step by step, almost island by island. It has regularly dispatched its ships and planes to the Senkaku Islands, often entering sovereign water and airspace, in a campaign to wrest from the Japanese those small and uninhabited specks in the ocean. The provocations around the islets, which China first claimed in 1971 and now calls the Diaoyus, spiked upward in 2012 and then noticeably declined the following year.” (1) [emphasis added]

Here’s the statement from PLA General Luo Yuan.

“’Let's for now not discuss whether [the Ryukyus] belong to China, they were certainly China's tributary state,’ Luo said in an interview with China News Service. ‘I am not saying all former tributary states belong to China, but we can say with certainty that the Ryukyus do not belong to Japan,’ he added, in comments translated by the South China Morning Post.” (2) [emphasis added]

To understand the geographical and, therefore, military perspective, the Senkaku Islands lie about 100 miles to the northeast of Taiwan.   The Ryukyu Island chain begins about 100 miles to the east of Taiwan and arcs to the northeast up to the Japanese mainland.  The two groups of islands would form natural barriers and military strongpoints isolating and shielding any Chinese military actions involving Taiwan.

The presence of the surrounding island bases allows the Chinese to seize Taiwan without worry about US counterattacks.  The island bases represent the line in the ocean that the US must cross in order to come to the aid of Taiwan.  We must be willing to engage and destroy Chinese territory just to get to Taiwan.  There’s a major difference between going to Taiwan’s aid and destroying Chinese sovereign territory.  Will we be willing to destroy Chinese territory?  I suspect not.  For all practical purposes, the seizure of the first island chain and the construction of bases has sealed Taiwan’s fate.  For all those Chinese apologists who tried to argue that the islands were of no value and not worth contesting, there’s your answer.

The islands also present a speedbump in the road to aiding Taiwan even if we want to.  The time and material required to neutralize the surrounding islands are likely to be enough to allow China to consolidate its seizure of Taiwan and present the US with a fait accompli.  It’s one thing for the US to come to the aid of an ally that is actively resisting attack but it’s another to step into a situation in which the attack is over and the invasion has been accomplished.  The latter requires a good deal more fortitude on the part of the US and may present an insurmountable threshold for the US geopolitical calculation.

So, not only do the island bases represent a “line in the ocean” that we would hesitate to cross, they also represent a significant speed bump in the path of our response – one that would render the attempted rescue moot.

Even if war with China never comes, the slow and steady seizure of surrounding island bases (or construction of artificial ones) will eventually put the Chinese in a position of being able to dictate their desires to Taiwan under threat of blockade.  The geopolitical implications of this are obvious.  China can simply “starve” Taiwan into submission and reunification.

Viewed from a military strategy perspective, China’s actions in the South and East China Seas are not only understandable but logical and predictable.  We simply need to acknowledge the reality and choose our response.

____________________________

(1)The Daily Beast website, “Now China Wants Okinawa, Site of U.S. Bases in Japan”, Gordon Chang, 31-Dec-2015,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/31/now-china-wants-okinawa-site-of-u-s-bases-in-japan.html

(2)The Guardian website, “China lays claim to Okinawa as territory dispute with Japan escalates”, Justin McCurry, 15-May-2013,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/15/china-okinawa-dispute-japan-ryukyu

Island Bases

The Chinese have constructed, and continue to construct and expand, artificial islands throughout the East and South China Sea regions.  Setting aside the blatant illegality of attempting to make territorial claims on those islands and the Chinese policy of running roughshod over all international norms and laws regarding resolution of territorial disputes, the islands pose a significant military presence that alters the balance and exercise of power in the region.  Disturbingly, the US has ceded the region without a shot being fired.

Sadly, there is a school of thought that the artificial islands the Chinese are building in the South China Sea have no value and the US should simply pull out of the area and not contest the islands – that our protests and contentions are what’s causing tensions in the region.  The proponents of this school are misguided, to put it politely, and seem to have no grasp of geopolitics, human nature, Chinese culture, or military strategy and operations.

If, as Chinese apologists would have us believe, the islands have no real value and are not worth contending over, why, then, are the Chinese pouring so much money and effort into their construction?  Further, the Chinese know that they are expending a huge amount of unrecoverable political and public relations capital.  They know they are creating enemies in the world community and problems that will plague them for decades to come and yet they clearly deem the islands to be worth the cost.

The islands greatly extend the Chinese military reach and solidify their control of the first island chain.  They’ve achieved their objective of seizing control of the first island chain and are now engaged in strengthening their hold.  The islands offer air and naval bases with deepwater ports well away from the mainland.  The anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zone which, pre-island construction, consisted of little more than a theoretical ballistic missile threat hobbled by targeting difficulties, some long range bombers, a competent but overextended and inexperienced navy, and some submarines that were barely learning to venture out from their ports, now, becomes, in the near future, a very credible threat.

The Chinese artificial islands serve two purposes, one political and one military.

Politically, the islands serve to strengthen China’s claims to the South China Sea.  The US Freedom of Navigation Innocent Passage exercises legally, and bizarrely, reinforce China’s claims of sovereignty.  In time, the surrounding countries will come to accept the islands as Chinese territory and, in more time, will grudgingly concede territorial rights.  Eventually, each island will come to have a 12 mile international territorial limit and a 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).  It is this EEZ that is vital to China’s plans.  The EEZ will overlap other country’s territory, such as the Philippines, and will provide the excuse that China needs to begin annexing those countries under the guise of protecting their EEZ rights.  This may sound far-fetched at the moment but annexing the entire South China Sea would have sounded far-fetched ten years ago and yet it has happened.

Militarily, the islands serve many purposes.  They serve to move any initial combat from China’s mainland out to a thousand miles.  In this respect, the islands serve as a tripwire, forcing any attacking country to first “announce” their intentions by dealing with the islands, thus buying time for China to respond.  The fact that the US would never strike first is lost on the Chinese whose paranoia is boundless.  Thus, from their perspective, a thousand mile barrier of tripwire islands makes perfect sense.

The islands provide the targeting capability that makes the anti-ship ballistic missile threat real through land based radar and air bases from which radar planes can operate.  This is a key point.  The “carrier killer” DF-21 and similar anti-ship ballistic missiles were a hollow threat because the Chinese had no long range targeting capability.  Now they do.  Now the “carrier killer” threat is real.

The islands provide the naval bases that allow the navy to extend their reach by utilizing the bases for support, supply, and refueling.  Further, the island air bases provide the air cover needed to support naval operations.

Without a doubt, the islands are being used to emplace SOSUS-like listening systems to aid in their ASW efforts.

America’s ability to freely enter and roam the East and South China Seas is gone.  Our operations will be closely and precisely monitored.  Every US military unit’s location will be precisely known.  Our submarines will be subjected to greatly intensified surveillance and the islands will be used to greatly expand Chinese ASW coverage.

Also, seizure of the South China Sea seals off easy approach from Diego Garcia and the Indian Ocean.

All of this is bad but the situation is worse than that.  When conflict comes, our military efforts won’t be able to start a thousand miles out from the mainland, at the first island chain, but rather many hundreds of miles past the first island chain.  The artificial islands are now the starting point for US military operations.  They are military fortresses that must be neutralized before we can even begin to address the A2/AD zone as we currently know it.  Before the islands were built, we could have begun operations at the first island chain.  We could have entered the East/South China Seas with relatively little risk and launched long range cruise missile attacks with reasonable safety.  The islands, however, push our starting point back by many hundreds of miles.  We can no longer reach cruise missile launch points without being subjected to island based defenses.

The Chinese have added another layer to their defense-in-depth concept and we allowed it without any resistance.

Well, at least it’s over and done.  The Chinese have the entire South China Sea and first island chain but now they’re done.  They’ve accomplished their goal and will now settle back to being the peaceful and responsible world neighbor that they were before the entire South China Sea / first island chain episode began, right?  Wrong!  It’s just the beginning.  This is like giving the bully your lunch money and assuming that he’ll be satisfied and won’t bother you again.  Unfortunately, like the bully that continually wants more, China is already eyeing further expansions, specifically the second island chain which begins at Japan, includes Palau, Guam, and the Marianas which are US territory, and terminates at New Guinea.  Significantly, the Philippines are encompassed by the chain.

“As Chinese naval proponents see it, the first and second island chains complicate their nation’s nautical destiny so long as they remain in potentially hostile hands—as they will in the case of Japan, to take the most obvious example. Japan’s combination of geographic position, multiple seaports suitable for military shipping and resources makes it a permanent factor in Chinese strategy. Forces stationed along the island chains can encumber the Chinese navy’s free access to the Western Pacific while inhibiting north-south movement along the Asian seaboard. ” (2)

“Some Chinese analysts extend the first island chain in a grand arc to Diego Garcia. “  [emphasis added]

The Army, at least, agrees with my assessment regarding the purpose behind the artificial islands.  Gen. McMaster puts it succinctly,

“China is “building land… to project power outward from land into the maritime and aerospace domains,” the Army’s chief futurist, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, argued yesterday at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.” (1)

Just as the US island hopped across the Pacific during WWII, the Chinese have begun island hopping (and building islands where none exist, if needed) in the reverse direction across the Pacific.  Just as the US used each successive island to provide basing for further conquests, so too are the Chinese using each successive island as a base for further expansion and conquest.

Each island that we allow the Chinese to conquer or build represents a bloody battle that will have to be fought sometime down the road.  We need to recognize the purpose behind the islands and halt China’s expansion.

The Trump administration recently made a statement in regards to North Korea that the “era of strategic patience” is over.  Hopefully, that’s a euphemism for the end of appeasement and hopefully it applies to China, as well.

______________________________

(1) Breaking Defense website, “What Lessons Do China’s Island Bases Offer The US Army?, Sydney Freedberg Jr., 5-May-2016,

http://breakingdefense.com/2016/05/chinese-island-bases-show-the-way-for-us-army/

(2)The Diplomat website, “Island Chains Everywhere”, James R. Holmes, 16-Feb-2011,

http://thediplomat.com/2011/02/island-chains-everywhere/

Chinese Island Claims Ruled Invalid

The UNCLOS (United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea) Tribunal has rendered its decision on the dispute between Philippines and China over regions of the South China Sea.  To the surprise of, well, no one, the Tribunal ruled that,

• It did have jurisdiction over the case via Article 288 of the Convention

• China’s claim of historical rights with in the Nine Dash line (first island chain, essentially) are unfounded

• The Spratley Islands, singly or as a group, were incapable of generating either 12 mile territorial limits or 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ)

• Certain portions of the Sea were within Philippines EEZ

• That China violated Philippines sovereign rights by interfering with Philippines fishing rights, unlawfully constructing artificial islands, and unlawfully allowing Chinese fishing

• China had caused severe damage to reefs and habitats in violation of the UNCLOS agreement

The press release announcing the decision is listed below (1)

China is a signatory to the UNCLOS agreement having signed and ratified both the Convention and Agreement in 1982 and 1994, respectively.  China, by their own agreement, is bound by the Convention.

The decision has been rendered and all that is left is for China to respect and abide by the decision.  This is the moment that China declares, for all the world to see, whether it is a peaceful and law abiding member of the world community or whether it is a rogue nation, flouting international laws and norms and dishonoring its own signed commitments.

I have no doubt which path China will choose and, unless China greatly surprises me, this is also the moment in time when the Chinese apologists lose all credibility.

____________________________

(1)http://thediplomat.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/thediplomat_2016-07-12_09-15-37.pdf

Island Showdown

Here's a change of pace.  I'd like to describe some non-lethal ways that the Navy can counter Chinese land reclamation efforts.  Rather than dryly list various methods and equipment I've opted to describe them in the form of a short story.  So, settle back and enjoy.

Remember, this is intended to illustrate various systems and tactics.  It is not intended to be a balanced or "fair" simulation of an encounter so don't read it as such.

________________________________

Island Showdown© (2016)

ComNavOps

As far as the Captain could tell, it was just another reef with occasional bits of coral and rock protruding above the water.  Of course, it was exactly these kinds of navigational hazards that the Chinese had turned into several air and naval bases already, here in the South China Sea, he reminded himself.  Until the recent election and change in administration, the US had been content to acquiesce to the Chinese in a policy of unofficial appeasement.  As a result, artificial island bases had begun springing up all over the South China Sea.  Now, however, a new President was demanding an end to this kind of illegal construction and territorial grab and the USS Steadfast had been sent to stop this latest island building effort before it could really get going.

Nice to have a new ship, the Captain mused as he observed the rocks.  Steadfast was the first of her class – a new kind of patrol ship developed for a new kind of patrol philosophy.  Appeasement was over.  The Captain’s orders had been clear.  Confrontational patrol was to be the new norm and Steadfast was eminently equipped for that role – in theory.  That theory was about to be put to the test.

Turning away from his observation, the Captain decided that now was as good a time as any to begin.  A Chinese ship, probably a dredging vessel was standing about 200 m off the principle rock while a small boat occasionally shuttled back and forth unloading and setting up gear.  The land reclamation project had just recently begun so there wasn’t much set up yet but the Chinese had already demonstrated an amazing ability to build an artificial island in a very brief period.

“All right,” the Captain said, “let’s facewash that rock. Give me a powersquat pass at 50 m.”

Steadfast was built for power rather than speed and specially modified to create enormous wakes.  The ship’s stern contained ballast tanks and those now flooded to drop the stern deeper into the water as the ship’s engines and three propellers came up to full power.  As the ship began to build up speed, the wake grew larger and larger.  At 25 kts, the ship passed by the target rock at a distance of 50 m. 

The Captain leaned out over the bridge wing, looking back to observe the effect of their passage.  It was everything he could have hoped for.  The immense wake broke over the rock, obscuring everything on it.  When the wall of water passed, there was nothing left but the rock and a few pieces of equipment that had been anchored into the rock.  Everything else was gone – washed away in a mini-tidal wave. 

Turning back to look at the Chinese ship, now also rocking violently, the Captain could only imagine the angry reactions Steadfast’s passage had caused.

“Transmit the message,” the Captain ordered.  A pre-recorded message was transmitted to the Chinese ship telling them that they were to leave the area immediately and that they had 10 minutes to acknowledge and begin complying.  The Captain harbored no illusions that the Chinese would obey.

“While they waste 10 minutes, let’s get set up for smoke herding”, he said.

Steadfast turned and began to maneuver to a position upwind of the Chinese vessel.  As they did, the Chinese ship began transmitting furious protests and threats which the Captain ignored other than to smile slightly.  This wasn’t combat, he thought, but, still, it did have an element of adrenaline-pumped excitement. 

More ominously, the Chinese vessel also began transmitting what the Captain assumed was calls for help.  There was a Chinese “Coast Guard” vessel in the area, about 20 nm away.  Help was undoubtedly already on the way.  We’ll deal with that shortly, the Captain thought.  For the moment, though, there was an uncooperative Chinese vessel to move out of the area.

By this time, 10 minutes had passed and Steadfast was in position, upwind of the Chinese vessel, and with her bow pointed in the same direction as the Chinese ship.  At the Captain’s order, the Steadfast moved in on the Chinese ship which was now beginning to move to evade.  Smoke began to pour from exhaust vents situated along the side of the US ship.  The smoke was a tear gas derivative designed to be thick and cloying.  Steadfast began to herd the Chinese ship, matching its maneuvers while maintaining a 20 m offset and staying upwind.  It wasn’t too difficult as the Chinese ship wasn’t built for speed or maneuverability.  This had the effect of keeping the Chinese ship continuously covered in a blanket of tear gas smoke.

The Chinese ship continued to broadcast angry messages and dire threats but to no avail.  After several minutes, the Chinese ship turned directly away from the rocks, bent on their best speed, and began to retire from the area.  Steadfast broke off from the herding exercise and began to circle away.  As the Chinese ship pulled away, the crew could be seen leaning over the rails, vomiting into the ocean.

That had gone well enough, the Captain reflected, but he knew that the main event would come when the Chinese Coast Guard vessel arrived.  About 45 minutes later, the Chinese vessel appeared on the horizon and began broadcasting demands for the American ship to leave the area. 

Steadfast’s Captain immediately replied with another prepared message instructing the Chinese ship to leave the area immediately and stating that there would be no follow up message.  This would be the first and only warning.

Knowing that the warning would be ignored, the Captain put Steadfast on an intercept course.  As the two ships neared each other, the Chinese vessel suddenly veered sharply into the path of the oncoming American, forcing it to abruptly turn away.  That was predictable, the Captain thought and, indeed, he had anticipated it and been prepared to sheer away.

Steadfast, after turning away, used its exceptional maneuverability to come around to a course parallel with the Chinese ship and offset by about 100 m.  Both ships held a steady course for several minutes but, after continued threats from the Chinese which the Captain ignored, the Chinese ship began edging closer – unsafely closer.

“He’s going to bump us,” the Captain announced.  “Sound the collision alarm.”

As the Chinese ship edged even closer and its bow began to swing towards Steadfast, the Captain smiled and muttered to himself, “He’s got a surprise coming.”

The Chinese ship angled towards the US ship, committed now to a bump maneuver. 

“Deploy the starboard spikes!”, the Captain ordered.  Along Steadfast’s side, six giant, solid metal rods, 2 m long and 15 cm thick, and capped with a pointed end, snapped out from their inboard resting cylinders to present a line of sharpened spikes.  Already committed to the bump, the Chinese ship was unable to avoid them.  As the ship’s hulls came together, the spikes, in rapid succession, punctured the Chinese ship’s hull and, because the two ship’s speeds were not identical, the spikes began tearing a horizontal line along the hull as the Chinese ship slipped slightly astern. 

The Chinese ship veered off, pulling free of the spikes and sporting several deep gouges in its side.  They wouldn’t be fatal, by any means, but they weren’t intended to be.

Furious threats came across the airwaves at Steadfast but the Captain simply laughed.  The encounter was developing nicely and he was quite satisfied.

“He’s mad now,” the Captain called.  “Let’s be alert.  He’s going to take his best shot at us, now.”

The Chinese ship, now well clear, began to accelerate to move out in front of Steadfast. 

“Let’s let him take the lead, if that’s what he wants, and see what he’s got in mind,” the Captain said.

The Chinese ship passed Steadfast, pulled about 60 m directly ahead and then, with no warning, went from full ahead to full astern.  Steadfast would have to react very quickly to avoid a collision.

“All engines ahead full,” the Captain calmly ordered.  “Hold course.”

Instead of veering off, Steadfast accelerated straight for the Chinese ship’s stern.  In moments, Steadfast’s specially armored and reinforced bow sliced into the stern of the Chinese ship, cutting a deep “V” into it and riding up on the vessel’s fantail. 

As Steadfast came to a halt several meters into the Chinese ship’s stern, the Captain ordered full astern and the two ships grindingly and grudgingly separated to the sound of screeching metal.

Steadfast backed away and began to circle around the stricken Chinese vessel, while the Captain ordered the next message which was a very insincere apology for not being able to stop in time in response to the unsafe ship handling of the Chinese.  The message also politely asked if the Chinese needed assistance.

The airwaves rapidly filled with threats from the Chinese which Steadfast’s Captain took to mean that they did not require assistance.

“I think we’ve accomplished our mission, here, for the moment,” the Captain said.  “Let’s head back to our patrol area.”

As Steadfast began to pull away from the Chinese ship, the Chinese bow gun pivoted towards the American ship and a shot fired, missing Steadfast’s bow by no more than 20 m.  Steadfast’s Captain held his breath, waiting to see if the Chinese were going to initiate combat, which he was fully prepared for, or whether the shot was just a petulant parting shot across the bow.  After several seconds without a second shot, the Captain had his answer.  Apparently, the Chinese were simply trying to establish dominance and were not concerned with safety margins in their warning shot across the bow. 

“I guess we’re not quite done,” said the Captain.  “Give me a full volley of Bats.”

A small, 20 cell box launcher erupted with 20 flashes of fire, each two seconds apart.  The projectiles, called Bats, cleared the launcher and small wings deployed converting the objects into miniature UAVs.  The UAV swarm quickly formed and then, as a coordinated group sped towards the Chinese ship at their maximum speed of about 50 kts.  As the UAVs neared the ship, they dove sharply down and, just before impacting the ship, a small warhead burst open, releasing a fist sized glob of thick, extremely sticky gel that, along with the now inert UAVs, impacted across the Chinese ship.  Aside from multiple dented equipment and one unlucky sailor who happened to be in the path of one of the UAVs and suffered a broken arm as he tried to fend off the mini-aircraft, the only other damage was the deposition of 20 globs of gel that were not going to come off without some extraordinary effort.

That, apparently, was enough for the Chinese vessel as it began to limp away at a few knots.

Satisfied, now, that they really had accomplished their mission, the Captain knew that there would be many more encounters to come.  The US had been passive far too long for the Chinese to be thwarted by a single encounter.  Still, it was a start.