In the war of words between the United States and communist China over the coronavirus, in which Beijing accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of being a “liar” and an “enemy of humankind,” a less colorful but more serious message may have been overlooked.
In late April, the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry completed a routine freedom-of-navigation operation in the South China Sea. In response, Beijing stated that it “expelled” our warship, describing its patrol as “provocative” and a serious violation of its sovereignty and security interests, one that “could easily trigger an unexpected incident.”
The next time an American ship or plane operates lawfully in international waters or airspace off China’s shore, President Xi Jinping may have a more vigorous response. Xi seems to be gearing his country up for armed confrontation.
China asserts territorial claims within its “Nine-Dash Line” encompassing the Paracel, Spratly, and Pratas Islands, the Macclesfield Bank, and Scarborough Shoal: areas claimed by American allies. Beijing is also fiercely determined to reclaim the breakaway province, as it sees it, of Taiwan — a democracy to which we extended solemn security guarantees 70 years ago.
Meanwhile, as a nation of merchant traders, America defends the freedom of the seas as a vital interest, from the Quasi-War with France, the Barbary Wars, and the War of 1812 to World War I. The Spanish-American War, World War II, and the Vietnam War began with actual (or suspected) attacks on our ships, as did as engagements against Libya and Iran in the 1980s. A reprise may soon be coming.
It is worth reflecting that 75 years ago this spring, America waged the Battle of Okinawa. That conflict holds valuable lessons for us as a sobering example of what it costs to take or hold a strategic Pacific island — a likely mission for our military in the near future.
Okinawa is only 463 square miles, a third of the size of our smallest state, Rhode Island. It lies 350 miles from Japan’s “home islands,” similar to the distance of some contested territories from China’s military base on Hainan Island and further than Taiwan is from China’s coast.
In the Battle of Okinawa, seven Army and Marine divisions, totaling over 200,000 men, hit the beaches, supported by 1,350 ships. Today, our entire Army and Marines field about 12 divisions, and our whole Navy is generously listed, like an undersized ballplayer, at 299 warships.
On Okinawa, from April to June 1945, we lost 12,000 dead and 70,000 wounded. Our Navy lost 26 ships sunk through 1,500 kamikaze plane attacks and a last-ditch sortie by Japan’s super-battleship Yamato. The American commander, Army Lt. Gen. Simon Buckner, was killed by enemy fire. About 227,000 Japanese people, uniformed and civilian, died.
As set forth in memoirs such as E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed and William Manchester’s Goodbye, Darkness, the combat was especially brutal. Many casualties were psychiatric.
What does this sanguinary history mean for us? Americans are justifiably proud of our military victories, but past results do not guarantee future performance.
U.S. forces have not fought a combined arms engagement with a peer competitor since Okinawa. It takes nothing from the valor of service members who won battles from the Korean War to today to point out that they did so with the benefit of secure sea lanes of communication and air superiority. That will emphatically not be the case in war with China.
Our Navy has not fought capital ships since 1945. Our Air Force has flown few missions in nonpermissive environments since 1972. Our special operators have conducted thousands of successful raids against terrorists since 2001, and our conventional forces have a quarter-century of peacekeeping and counterinsurgency experience.
Yet, other than brief campaigns in 2003 and 1991, with no disrespect to GIs who bravely fought the tenacious North Vietnamese Army, our ground forces have not battled big units in the open field since the early 1950s, when they did so in Korea against China with mixed results. We simply do not know how our military will perform in sustained high-intensity combat.
That said, China’s air and naval forces are untried. Other than running over students with tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989, its ground forces have not fought since their brief 1979 invasion of Vietnam. Chinese officers wear lots of medals for guys who never heard a shot fired in anger.
Yet, differences between 2020 and 1945 should give American policymakers pause. Our forces in 1945 had secure bases to their east, reinforced by unbroken flows of men and steel. We read Japan’s code traffic, unbeknownst to them, while they could not read ours. Our homeland, after the naval victory at Midway in mid-1942, was not at risk.
Before America established command of the seas and air superiority against Japan, in 1941, we had to sacrifice Marines on Wake Island and soldiers in the Philippines. We also briefly abandoned troops on Guadalcanal, who held on only through the grit of the 1st Marine Division.
American fighting men in East Asia could face similar fates, because in the coming war, China will fiercely contest the sea, air, land, and new cyber, information, and space domains.
Xi’s intelligence services have collected the sensitive personal information of exploitable and vulnerable U.S. security clearance holders. We should assume that he will read our mail, not vice-versa.
China’s cyber capabilities may make our sophisticated arms inoperable or turn them against us. Beijing’s info-operations capabilities were demonstrated by the text messages you received in March falsely warning of martial law and food shortages.
In World War II, Japanese American internment was as unnecessary as unjust: Tokyo’s intelligence services had limited capabilities here, and second-generation Japanese Americans fought with heroism once allowed to serve. Chinese Americans are as patriotic, but in contrast, Red China’s security services are obnoxiously active here.
They aggressively target universities and academic medical centers for espionage. Hard questions are raised by the murder in Pittsburgh of a Chinese American scientist reportedly on the verge of a coronavirus research breakthrough.
And unlike Japan, China can drop ordnance on the continental U.S. at will — including nuclear weapons. So, what should we do to prepare?
We need emergency measures by the federal government to secure our defense industrial base and critical infrastructure against Chinese cyberespionage and attack.
We need to build ships. On my last deployment, to Yemen in 2018, China’s fleet in Djibouti outnumbered our 5th Fleet in Bahrain, which had just two destroyers. At Benghazi in 2012, our 6th Fleet did not have one ship in the Mediterranean, embarked with helicopters and shooters, close enough to rescue Americans from a terrorist siege. The tyranny of distance in the Pacific Ocean will make such ship shortages worse.
We need to disperse and harden our forces against long-range, steerable Chinese ballistic missiles. These can sink a Nimitz-class carrier with 6,000 aboard. (Right before Okinawa, the carrier USS Franklin took 724 killed from bombs, and during the battle, the USS Bunker Hill took 433 dead from kamikazes, both without sinking.) These missiles can also render an airfield temporarily inoperable. We must redouble our efforts at missile defense.
Also, the U.S. has picked professional-wrestling fights with allies, for domestic consumption. At Okinawa, the royal Australian, British, Canadian, and New Zealand navies showed up for us. Let’s hold friends close. We’ll need them, plus India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and others in a scrap with China.
Finally, we need to prepare economically, politically, and psychologically for losses on the scale of Okinawa in even a limited conflict with China. We lost nearly twice as many men in three months in Okinawa as we lost in the War on Terror.
Is a country that’s mentally unprepared to stay home for a few months, only for want of “essential” gardening supplies, hairdos, massages, pedicures, and tattoos, ready for sacrifices on the same scale as the Greatest Generation?
War may be inevitable, and it is more likely to start at China’s initiative than ours. But let’s not fool ourselves about the costs.
Kevin Carroll served as an Army officer in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, and a CIA case officer in the Middle East. He is proud of his late uncle Malcolm Carroll, who served as an enlisted soldier with the 77th Infantry Division in the Battle of Okinawa. Kevin Carroll is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, it stated that the U.S. extended security guarantees to Taiwan 60 years ago. The correct number, however, is 70 years. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
