{"id":82083,"date":"2022-05-17T10:22:08","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=82083"},"modified":"2022-05-17T10:22:55","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T15:22:55","slug":"a-good-defense-is-a-good-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=82083","title":{"rendered":"A good defense is a good defense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was established to “review the national security implications of trade and economic ties between the United States and the People\u2019s Republic of China”.

Last week they held a day-long hearing<\/a> with eleven witnesses on “China\u2019s Activities and Influence in South and Central Asia.” Topics included China\u2019s Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan, China\u2019s Reach in Central Asia, China\u2019s Influence in Continental South Asia, and Competing Visions for the Indian Ocean.

As part of the latter, Christopher K. Colley outlined China’s naval goals, especially as they apply to the Indian Ocean, saying “the American navy is the driving force behind China\u2019s security concerns in the IOR.” Written testimony is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest structural change in the Chinese navy in terms of strategy and tactics is the transformation of a navy based on regional defense and access denial, to a force that is firmly inline with power projection and blue water capabilities. Such an evolution is a conscience decision by the top levels of the Chinese government to build a navy that has the ability to project sustained and meaningful power to locations thousands of miles from Chinese home ports. This transformation is one of the most critical developments in the security architecture of the Twenty-First Century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Last week, before a full committee hearing<\/a> of the House Armed Services Committee, Adm Gilday, Chief of Naval Operation, spoke about the growing strength of China’s navy. Written testimony is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past two decades, the PRC has built a comprehensive sea-denial, anti-access system of sophisticated sensors and long-range precision weapons. Backed by a robust industrial base and the largest shipbuilding infrastructure in the world, the PRC has extensively modernized its military and tripled the size of the People\u2019s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN). It is also building next-generation strategic missile submarines, erecting hundreds of new missile silos, and growing its cyber and space capabilities.

Under the cover of this anti-access umbrella, the PRC has embraced the use of \u201cgray zone\u201d activities to turn incremental gains into long-term strategic advantages. Using a multi-layered fleet of naval ships, maritime militia, and coast guard, the PRC is undermining international norms by staking illegal maritime claims, militarizing geographic features in the South and East China Seas, and intimidating its neighbors regarding offshore resources. Additionally, the PRC is extending its global reach with its Belt and Road Initiative\u2014leveraging predatory lending practices, aggressive mercantilism backed, and hard military power\u2014to access critical maritime terrain, ports, and waterways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Given China’s increased strength, Adm Gilday also tried to explain<\/a> why the US Navy planned to scrap nine warships, some less than three years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I refuse to put an additional dollar against a system that would not be able to track a high-end submarine in today’s environment,” Gilday told the committee. He said the main reason for the early retirement was that the anti-submarine warfare system on the ships “did not work out technically.” The decommissioning of the ships would save the Navy approximately $391 million, according to the service’s proposed FY23 budget. But that recoups only a fraction of the cost of the nine littoral combat ships, which totaled about $3.2 billion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The arcs of Chinese and US naval strengths are heading in the wrong directions. As Conrad Crane writes about here<\/a>, America’s ability to fight a major conflict, let alone two at the same time, for the first time in a long time can be questioned. Part of Russia’s strategic mistake in going into Ukraine is it revealed how weak Russia’s military really is. How long before someone decides to test how strong the US is these days?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission was established to “review the national security implications of trade and economic ties between the United States and the People\u2019s Republic of China”. Last week they held a day-long hearing with eleven witnesses on “China\u2019s Activities and Influence in South and Central Asia.” Topics included China\u2019s Interests in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273926,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-and-peace","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/273926"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82083"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82110,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82083\/revisions\/82110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}