Captain David Adams has written an important piece in this month's Proceedings entitled
"Repeating Three Strategic Mistakes?" that has earned much praise from thoughtful reviewers. I am however, less enthusiastic about his main arguments than most, and I thought I would post some of those qualms and quibbles here. I will use the technique I've used before when reviewing speeches and articles, which is to extract extended portions and comment thereafter. Please read his piece all the way through, and do not rely solely on my selective comment to gain its full measure.
Almost no one, however, expected it to be so quickly overshadowed. CS21—now under revision—has been buried by the reemergence of conventional thinking embodied by Air-Sea Battle and a westward rebalance challenged in execution by recurring Middle East whiplash. Gone is the emphasis that preventing wars is as important as winning them and the subsequent elevation of soft power, humanitarian, and economic efforts to the same level as high-end naval warfare. 2 Dismissed from the Navy’s lexicon is the imperative to build cooperative maritime partnerships to counter irregular, catastrophic, and disruptive challenges. All but forgotten is former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ challenge to focus on the “wars we’re most likely to fight, not the wars the services would most like to fight.” 3 Back in vogue is the misguided idea that full-scale naval warfare is our greatest problem and our panacea.
It would be dishonest for me to suggest that we who were involved with CS21 predicted the financial crisis of 2008 and the emergence of a more regionally active China, and that these events would overshadow that document. Yet I am on solid ground when I suggest that VADM John Morgan forcefully advocated that the document should be reviewed every two years in order to ensure its continuing relevance. His suggestion was not accepted, but the idea of continually assessing our "corporate strategy" against a dynamic environment was a sound one. By the time ADM Greenert's transition began, it was obvious that he too believed a refresh was in order.
But history is not my point here. I wish to take issue with Adams' parallel constructions of "Gone is"..."Dismissed from"..."All but forgotten..." and "Back in vogue..." I am not sure exactly what he is talking about. I remain relatively well connected to the world of Navy strategic thinking, and I cannot support any of these statements, at least one of which is built around a fundamental misconception about what CS21 was saying. I hear no one suggesting that the emphasis on preventing war has declined in current thinking. What I do hear is that many believe that prevention of war in the Pacific does indeed provide cause for re-evaluating the capacity and capability of our conventional high-end deterrence posture. The prevention of war through enhanced conventional deterrence is certainly as legitimate a pursuit as the prevention of war through the low-end activities Adams points to. Additionally, I find little appetite for dismissing the importance of cooperative maritime partnerships, though I will acknowledge that additional weight should be given to those who bring high end capacity to the relationship. As for Secretary Gates' prescription, I think Adams and I would agree that world-ending nuclear war is the LEAST likely war we will fight, yet he does not shrink from elevating it to the position of that which must be deterred at all costs. As for the "misguided" idea that full-scale naval warfare is our greatest problem and our panacea, one only has to briefly review the major headlines to see that great power dynamics are back in play in Europe and Asia, and that thinking about conflict with either Russia or China cannot simply be a matter of applying naval force to irregular challenges.
Just as we would like to put such conflicts in our rearview mirror, the dawn of irregular warfare is breaking across maritime horizons. Nowhere is this more true than in the Western Pacific, where the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) conventional buildup masks and complements its effective execution of the first stages of an unrestricted, paramilitary maritime war for which we have few answers.
While I am well aware of the the tools that the PRC is using in its reshaping of its near abroad and the serious requirement we have to understand exactly what they are doing and respond strategically to it, am I to understand that their conventional buildup should be dismissed as some kind of a Sun-Tzu-esque strategem, and that we should weigh these clear and obvious military capabilities less than their use of customs and fisheries forces to support excessive claims?
If we have learned nothing else since 9/11, it is that relegating such irregular and unconventional challenges to a secondary priority is a debilitating strategic error.
So do the lessons we are supposed to have learned since 9/11 wipe away the lessens learned in Belgium and Czechoslovakia? Are we to hide our heads in the sand as China asserts itself in East Asia and Russia seeks renewal of its past glory? What good would relegating regular and conventional challenges to a secondary priority be?
While the service’s culture remains enamored of the conventional aspects of our last great war at sea, many disassociate it from that conflict’s tragic atomic ending. The dawn of the nuclear age irrevocably changed the dynamics of conflict in general and great power rivalry in particular. Given the nuclear dilemma and massive U.S. conventional superiority, all belligerents are gravitating toward increasingly effective hybrid approaches. Unfortunately, every time U.S. military forces face the realities of difficult, dirty, unconventional challenges, we cannot resist subsequent calls to re-embrace the conventional approaches with which we are comfortable. Just as the post-Vietnam era begat Air-Land Battle, it is no surprise that concepts like Air-Sea Battle have emerged in the post-Iraq and Afghanistan period. History tells us that these conventional ideas will at best produce brilliant tactical successes with too little strategic benefit.
Captain Adams--and many others who think similarly--believe that the U.S. experience with the Soviets and what worked to deter in the Cold-War can and does apply equally to other nuclear powers. Unfortunately, China does not see it that way. China had no problem taking on the Soviets in the border battles of 1969 for many reasons, one of which was their perception that the stakes involved were insufficient to trigger a nuclear reaction. China also does not play the same game we do with respect to nuclear arsenals, pursuing a brand of limited deterrence that is anathema to us. Lastly, while the ending of our last great war was (with one opponent) an atomic event, one cannot so blithely dismiss the START of that war, and the impact that appeasement and insufficient readiness had in feeding the ambitions of the aggressors.
Conventional U.S. bias discounts the importance of strategic deterrence in underwriting the relative peace among nuclear powers over the past half century. Nothing but the dangerous absence of clear strategic dialogue on the subject has really changed since the Cold War. Just as the stability of Europe was fostered by a nuclear shadow, the best chance for Pacific stability rests foremost with the likelihood that major great-power confrontation incurs a real risk of nuclear war. Unsound theories to the contrary simply jeopardize the lives of millions. Political and military leaders must comprehend that “direct armed aggression as [an] instrument of policy against another nuclear power is not an option.” 7 Even if escalatory risks appear low, the catastrophic consequences of getting it wrong are not worth the slightest risk. Air-Sea Battle dangerously discounts this possibility.
Who are these people suffering from the aforementioned bias? What is afoot here? Do strategic deterrence theorists dismiss conventional deterrence, as they seem to think conventional theorists do with strategic capability? And while I completely agree with the importance of strategic deterrence in managing great power conflict over the past half century, my dim memory of the Cold War includes a huge conventional presence in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific. If we were as reliant on strategic deterrence as Adams suggests, what good were those forces? The point is, we didn't sit back and rely on nuclear weapons only, we also maintained a serious conventional force--to deter and assure. Any suggestion that war did not occur solely because of the strategic deterrent (which Adams is not making) seems ludicrous, though proving the negative is never easy.
That is why it is so important for U.S. nuclear strategy to draw the clearest possible line between any level of aggression and the invocation of nuclear defense of the United States and our allies. Delegitimizing U.S. nuclear deterrence plays right into China’s hands. Allies who lack confidence in U.S. extended deterrence will have no choice but to either bow to Chinese coercive influence or develop their own strategic arsenals. An unintended consequence of Air-Sea Battle is that it actually raises the nuclear threshold by demonstrating our intent to fight a full-scale conventional war with China. This fuels China’s incentive to prepare to win a hybrid war with conventional aspects that remain just below that threshold. It also risks severe miscalculation by undermining the certainty that conventional attacks might escalate into a calamitous nuclear exchange.
So let me get this right...is Captain Adams suggesting a U.S. nuclear response or the threat of a U.S. nuclear response to ANY act of Chinese aggression? By this logic, we could call home the 7th Fleet and let our allies know, "hey, don't worry about all these conflicting claims with the PRC. They won't try anything because they fear our nuclear weapons." Talk about playing right into China's hands. His extreme reliance on strategic deterrence and his dismissal of conventional deterrence -- which he wraps up in the Bogey-Man of Air-Sea Battle--is in my view far more likely to cause regional "bowing" to China's coercive influence than a more balanced approach that recognizes China's dramatically different view of the role of nuclear weapons and the utter lack of credibility that nuclear threats have to deter limited conventional overtures.
Just as the Chinese cannot be sure of our nuclear thresholds, we cannot be sure of theirs. Some analysts are convinced that China will not choose nuclear escalation even in the face of strikes on their homeland, citing the PRC’s long-standing restrained attitude toward the use of nuclear weapons. It would be a mistake, though, to assess China’s policy of restraint in light of anything other than its massive nuclear disadvantage.
And it would be a mistake to believe that nuclear threats that are utterly without credibility will constrain an opponent seeking a limited conventional gain. Were China to grab the territory of a treaty-ally of the United States--say a few disputed islands or even something of slightly greater value--the injured party is supposed to believe that the people of the United States would support nuclear war? Nuclear war with China is an incredibly remote possibility; nuclear war out of the blue with China is even more remote. The most likely path to even the unlikely nuclear engagement with China is through conventional war, and it is the conventional war that MUST be deterred.
China is developing an increasingly credible nuclear deterrent at a time when there is a paucity of discussion and interest in reinforcing U.S. strategic and extended nuclear-deterrence policies. Whether or not the United States is willing to acknowledge intellectually the reality of nuclear deterrence, practically speaking the risk of any conflict escalating into a nuclear conflagration will severely constrain U.S. options during a crisis. If the United States proved unwilling to conduct mainland strikes against an extraordinarily weak, non-nuclear China during the Korean War, it is absurd to think that we would take such risks today. That is why any interpretation of Air-Sea Battle that targets anti-access capabilities on mainland China would be dangerously escalatory. Instead, we must ensure a clear mutual understanding that any significant Chinese aggression against U.S. territories and those of our key allies would inevitably invite the employment of the full force of the United States.
It seems to me that Adams has it backwards here when he asks whether or not "...the United States is willing to acknowledge intellectually the reality of nuclear deterrence, practically speaking the risk of any conflict escalating into a nuclear conflagration will severely constrain U.S. options during a crisis." The nuclear deterrence argument has won the day; CNO Greenert has deemed the SSBN(X) his most important acquisition priority. The question isn't acknowledging the reality of nuclear deterrence, it is more correctly, acknowledging the reality of conventional deterrence. Again, let's take Adams' logic to a not so far point. Why not dramatically cut back on force levels in Asia? What is the purpose of the Seventh Fleet if our alliances and friendships can be underwritten by extended deterrence? Did Adams consider the presence of ground forces and air bases in Europe during the Cold War destabilizing?
Defending Taiwan, for instance, is the best worst-case to latch onto. Massive investments in Air-Sea Battle would be required to gain the access needed to counter a short-notice Chinese invasion or blockade of Taiwan. 12 Our only hope of success would be to disrupt and destroy certain targets early—missile launchers for instance—because even our most effective defenses would be overwhelmed by the vast array of sophisticated missiles currently staged across the straits. Even if we could afford to develop Air-Sea Battle sufficiently to defend Taiwan, the decision to engage these essential targets on mainland China takes us back down that unacceptable escalatory path. Fear of nuclear retaliation would severely restrain U.S. and Chinese options during any crisis. Former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Xiong Guangkai once exclaimed that “the United States will not likely trade Los Angeles for Taipei.” 13 While nuclear weapons may not deter a cross-strait incursion to forestall independence, they will certainly cause the PRC to take serious pause before they risk Beijing by striking Tokyo, Busan, or Tumon. Every move and countermove will be carefully weighed and mitigated against the escalation risks.
Adams and others are dismissive of Air-Sea Battle for many reasons, but the primary one is their fear that targeting facilities on the Chinese mainland would escalate to nuclear exchange. Adams points to a Taiwan scenario as his object lesson, and then attempts to persuade why his in his understanding , Air-Sea Battle would never suffice. All of which is very interesting if one ignores an unpleasant detail to his case, and that is, even in a world of the kind of strategic deterrence that Adams believes has kept our world safe, he points to a scenario
where China invades Taiwan. If strategic nuclear weapons were so handcuffing on the options of great powers, then why would this scenario even occur? China should be so cowed by our mighty nuclear deterrent that it would be folly for it to undertake such an attack.
Instead of investing tens of billions to overcome our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, the United States should play up its strengths. Prioritizing our undersea advantage, for instance, will make it almost impossible for China to reap the rewards of outright conventional aggression in the maritime realm over the long haul. The great historian John Keegan rightly foresees future maritime battles characterized by seemingly empty oceans underneath which “warships great and small, will be exacting from each other the price of admiralty.” 15 If fielded in sufficient numbers, our attack submarines would certainly exact from China a heavy cost. The United States will also enjoy a significant advantage in the air, especially given that China will not likely risk attacks on our bases in the Pacific. Using these immense competitive advantages, the United States could counter full-scale Chinese aggression by collapsing China’s vast maritime territorial ambitions back to their coastline.
Again....if the nuclear deterrent that Adams spends the first third of his piece extolling is so effective, why then would we need even the conventional power of our SSN force? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for keeping and extending our undersea advantage as I've written here many times, but I do so because I consider the warfighting advantage accrued to be of significant value in conventional deterrence. But where Adams engages in a
cannibalistic debate that I avoid, I prefer an approach in which we maximize our advantages AND address our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. This is a war that we cannot afford to fight, and it is a war that we cannot afford to lose. Over investing in capabilities that even Adams admits find purchase in addressing Chinese aggression "over the long haul" concedes to them the short haul. And with it goes our strategic flexibility and options.
The United States needs to ensure that these forces are sufficiently trained and armed to sustain the fight until every last PRC ship, submarine, and aircraft is forced to return to base or finds itself on the bottom. To do this, the Navy must make difficult trade-offs to ensure both adequate carrier presence in the Pacific to deter aggression as well as a significant submarine inventory and presence to prevail in the unlikely event that conventional and nuclear deterrence fail.
Not to sound like a broken record, but as Adams' piece goes on, he increasingly recognizes the role of conventional deterrence. I find it ironic though, that he would suggest that the destruction of some land-based radar sites or missile batteries on the Chinese mainland would bring a nuclear response, yet seems to have no fear of a similar reaction from the Chinese if we were to destroy their Navy and with it, thousands of Chinese lives. How also, would our vaunted fleet pursue and destroy this Chinese fleet, given the landbased sea control capabilities that Adams would remove from the target list?
Beijing is keenly aware that moving against Taiwan or inciting a major war with Japan would undermine its long-term agenda. Irrespective of the outcome, any attempt to forcibly reunify Taiwan with the mainland or take the Senkakus would be akin to a Chinese Prague Spring and would likely escalate into a full-scale Cold War. As a result, the United States would likely garner substantial international support for deliberately countering China’s irresponsible rise. Such a war would quickly bring to fruition China’s anxiety of being contained. Any move to war would hasten the PRC’s economic downturn and exacerbate the Communist Party’s struggle for legitimacy, thereby catalyzing the possible political transition that the party fears most.
Captain Adams is no-doubt better informed than I on what China's "long term agenda" is, but our friends in Japan and Taiwan would no doubt take little solace from his prediction that aggression would be met by the onset of a new "full scale Cold War". What if China comes to see advantage in such an outcome? What if it sees a path to consolidating its hemispheric power that is more attractive to it than the status quo? Adams takes us down a logic train that could just as easily go in vastly different directions than the one he postulates, especially if the relative positions of the U.S. and China at the onset are even less favorable to our interests than today.
China’s goal appears to be to dial up hybrid activities, enlist time as an ally, and count on the fact that the half-life for international annoyance with its moves will be fairly short, and then compliance becomes accepted and routine. Recently, PLA Major General Zhang Zhaozhong described specifically how the PRC intends to capitalize on a hybrid approach: Combining coast guard ships, legal administration, fishermen, and navy warships so that contested areas are “wrapped layer by layer like a cabbage” will exert pressure and eventual PRC control. 17 All of this is designed to effectively blunt U.S. influence and slowly transform other Pacific nations into de-facto tributary states. If conflict intensifies, the PRC is building capacity to conduct an integrated campaign “so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network and mass media network are completely paralyzed” in order to compel peace on China’s terms. 18 All of this suggests that the People’s Republic has clearly embraced hybrid warfare as a potential game changer in great-power competition.
Here is where Adams is at his best, and I think his framing of the situation and his understanding of Chinese unconventional means (not quite sure if the Dean of Hybrid Wafare Frank Hoffman would call this "hybrid") to achieve its aims is superb. And while I agree that we need to devote additional intellectual energy to the pursuit of strategies to contest Chinese lawfare/Three Warfares, I continue to believe that we must be there, we must be powerful, and we must be active--with the goal every day to be convincing PRC leadership that aggression will not be rewarded and it will be contested. There is a lot that can be done to make complicate China's planning problems. Jim Thomas at CSBA has done some great thinking about how to create A2AD zones for China to consider. The U.S. Army is thinking very innovatively about the peacetime employment of air and missile defense forces throughout the region as a deterrence and assurance measure. Some are calling for the U.S. to develop its own land based ASCM force. Ultimately though, China's conventional buildup and modernization is not "masking" its progress with these unconventional means so much as it is reinforcing them.
A lot to chew on here, and this was too long. But Captain Adams has produced a very thought-provoking piece, and it deserves to be discussed and countered.
Bryan McGrath
