WWS pal Stuart Koehl emailed his two cents regarding the discussion here last Friday of Robert Kaplan’s “Lost at Sea.” Because Koehl is wicked smart, here is his response:
I’m in the midst of writing a chapter on rising great powers in a book on future American strategy in which I noted that China’s military buildup has focused mainly on naval and air power precisely because China lives in a geo- strategic cul-de-sac from which it can get out only by sea. But China has no hope whatsoever of developing a blue-water sea control navy such as is now possessed only by the United States. Instead, it seems to be following a classic sea denial strategy, by which it hopes to keep the U.S. out of its critical waters (i.e., the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits) for a limited time, during which it has to achieve its overall strategic objectives (e.g., seizing Taiwan or gaining access to raw materials in the South China Sea). It is doing so by investing in technologies that would inflict serious damage on any U.S. fleet trying to penetrate those shallow waters–at least initially. These include advanced mines, air-independent conventional submarines, anti-ship cruise missiles, and advanced land- based fighters. China’s acquisition of one or two medium-sized conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft carriers (each with only about 20-30 strike fighters) is not central to this strategy, but is rather a “prestige” move–real navies have aircraft carriers–and one intended to give China leverage over its regional competitors (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand–and not to be forgotten, India). But it took the U.S. more than twenty years to learn how to operate aircraft carriers effectively (from 1923 to 1944), and in the post-war era, only the United States has the resources to operate large CTOL carriers (each with 60 strike fighters, plus AEW, ASW and EW aircraft) at sea for extended periods at a high operational tempo. Buying a carrier is not sufficient–one buys a whole carrier battle group, consisting of a carrier, a couple of Aegis cruisers, some guided missile destroyers, and a few ASW frigates or destroyers–plus the entire fleet train needed to support it: oilers, supply ships, munitions ships, tenders, and their escort group as well. The entire Chinese defense budget wouldn’t buy one of these, and we consistently operate ten at sea. Moreover, it’s one thing to have the ships and aircraft, it’s another to have men who know how to use them. The keystone cops character of recent Russian deployments to the Mediterranean (or even some French efforts to get their carrier Charles de Gaulle out to sea) show that it takes many years of experience to make fleet carrier operations look as easy as it appears in the opening sequences of Top Gun. So I am not too worried about the ability of China to wrest control of the Pacific from the U.S. Navy. As Lord St. Vincent once said of Napoleon’s invasion force, “My Lords, I do not say they will not come. I only say they will not come by sea”.
