Thinking about Offensive Naval Mining

Note from Jon Solomon: The article below was written by a Systems Planning and Analysis colleague of mine, Jonathan Altman. Following my post last month regarding how sea denial might figure into U.S. maritime strategy for deterring—or if necessary, defending against—Chinese aggression in East Asia, Jonathan pointed out to me several issues and scenarios  regarding the potential use of offensive mining in such a strategy that I hadn't considered. Jonathan has graciously agreed to share his observations with you here in order to broaden the ongoing debate.

Recently the concept of naval mining, specifically the potential advantages in using naval mines to achieve targeted sea denial, has received more publicity in naval themed publications and the blogosphere. Mining advocates’ hopes were emboldened just before Christmas when the “Cromnibus” was signed into law, containing a line of $10M for naval mining research and development. However, careful consideration should be given to just what employing mines might entail. Though not apparent from most public analyses, there are significant potential issues with employing naval mines offensively that need to be understood. The first of these is their connotation and associated baggage.

When the average (but informed) American hears the term “mine,” it generally conjures up images of a soldier in Vietnam or WWII missing a limb, or crying in the aftermath of a mine explosion that killed a dear friend. More historically aware Americans might think of WWI era sailors and/or civilians drowning in the frigid North Atlantic, or perhaps our own Sailors during the Korean War (the mine damage incurred by the USS Samuel B. Roberts in 1988 and the USS Princeton and USS Tripoli in 1991 did not result in ship loss). While maritime mining is quite different from land mining, we must not overlook the baggage that mining as a term brings to the table in the broader public sphere. Whole classes of weapons, many of which were quite effective, have been banned by the international community at various points in time (such as cluster munitions; despite continued US use of these weapons). Land mines are similarly the focus of international ire. This is not to argue that the United States should allow other countries to dictate what types of weapons it can employ, only that using weapons such as these should present a higher barrier to use because of the inherent perception loss that a state receives for using them. Fundamentally, a weapon that achieves the same effect without or with reduced baggage should be preferred.

Most recent advocacy with respect to naval mining is written in context of use (either in terms of notional wartime employment or latent peacetime deterrent value) against China, so that’s where the remainder of this piece is focused. Note however that many of the tenets enumerated in a China context could be applied to contingencies involving other illiberal non-Western states.

The foundational issue with employing naval mines offensively against the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is simply that it may not have the intended effect of keeping the PLAN bottled up inside its ports. For offensive naval mining to be effective, the Chinese would need to be deterred from sortieing their fleet out to sea. However, this would require a Chinese cultural aversion to losses that may not exist.  Chinese military culture has historically accepted exceptionally high losses as a price for victory (e.g. Chinese Civil War and WWII), and individual sacrifice for the greater good is respected[1]. Especially when one factors in the ample amount of old ships the PLAN has, there’s reason to suspect that when confronted with a minefield (or a small number of emplaced mines), the PLAN might manually force a Q route using low value, outdated but manned ships (this logic could similarly be applied to Iran or North Korea). This could render the minefield ineffective, and void the operational end that it was deployed to achieve. It should be noted however that this approach runs some risk of failure as narrow channels could be clogged by sunken hulls in an attempt to force a Q route; accordingly this tactic is not likely to be employed where maneuver space and/or water depth is restricted.

Even if offensive naval mining was effective in that it kept PLAN assets contained in port for fear of losses, larger concerns should exist in the mind of offensive mining supporters about what a devious foe could do to exploit this situation given mines’ reputation as indiscriminate killers. Too often in analysis of “the other,” whether in intelligence, military or even economic venues, we as Westerners with our own ingrained biases export these onto those who do not share them; a process called mirror imaging. Assuming that a foe would simply not take losses to force a Q route is one example of this; another is imagining that they would avoid acting in ways that are morally repugnant to Western norms to exploit a favorable opportunity.

Recent action in the South China Sea has shown the Chinese to be not only excellent strategists  (incrementally extending their legitimacy in a whole region without firing a shot), but also masters of information warfare (the Russians are not too shabby at it themselves). Applying this acumen to offensive naval mining, as soon as a minefield was discovered (or more likely announced to meet the rules of war); there would be tremendous advantage for the Chinese government to create the conditions where a US mine (real or perceived) kills a large number of Chinese (or third-party country) civilians. Here is where the tactical views of mining could become irrelevant in the face of a well-designed strategy. For example, even if a US mine is so “smart” that there is no way it could ever kill a civilian ship (no small feat), there would be nothing to stop the Chinese from packing a vessel with explosives and blowing it up themselves in the rough geographic region of the offensive minefield; preferably in full view of cameras and with plenty of innocents on board. This situation could be made even more challenging for the US if a legitimate mine had already sunk a military ship in a similar location, as deniability would become nearly impossible at that point.

The Chinese could conceivably also create the appearance that the U.S. had mined offensively when or where it had not. They could use the confusion that surrounded the “mine strike” for propaganda purposes as well as to justify ‘retaliation’ that was actually premeditated escalation. By selling the perception that they had responded rather than preempted, they would reduce the risk of being seen as an aggressor and would create a more favorable image to the world at large (a key component of information warfare).

There would probably be no way, and certainly no quick way, for the United States to prove to the watching global public that a Chinese non-military vessel’s loss in the above scenarios stemmed from a Chinese false flag operation as opposed to a genuine US mine.  The perception that the Chinese were the victim of an irresponsible US weapon could also be used as diplomatic leverage to strain US regional alliances and push neutral powers towards China. European countries could be especially sensitive to pressure from their publics to back out of openly supporting the US in this case.

Depending on when in a conflict the aforementioned incident is staged, a savvy adversary may be able to extract additional advantages. For instance, if conducted at a period of heightened tension, China could use the incident as a casus belli and follow it with an overt (preemptive) attack. This would be increasingly likely if the Chinese were already preparing for a major offensive; similar to the German false-flagged Gleiwitz incident in 1939. Any strain on the Chinese economy (the basis of Chinese Communist Party legitimacy) would make this option even more attractive.

Ultimately, it must be asked “what is the intended goal of offensively employing naval mines”? According to recent writing, it seems to be large scale but targeted sea denial enabled through a capability to strike targets in a discriminate fashion at a time and place of US choosing. Certainly this is a valid and desirable military end. The only question then is whether offensive mines are the best tool to accomplish this objective given their stigma and assumed ability to engage targets without human intervention. Some existing technologies that might be evaluated as alternatives to mines in this respect could include torpedoes, long-range anti-ship cruise missiles, or surface ship delivered anti-ship ballistic missiles. Future unmanned systems may also provide an option for selective targeting with a man-in-the-loop that would greatly reduce the baggage that comes with both the word “mine” and with the idea of a self-targeting weapon. In the end, a weapon that delivers targeted but wide area sea denial without the downsides associated with a naval mine is likely to be a valuable and increasingly necessary military tool to maintain United States maritime influence in many parts of the world.

Jonathan Altman is an analyst with Systems Planning and Analysis Inc, a defense contractor located in Alexandria, Virginia. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Security from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. The views expressed herein are those only of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of Systems Planning and Analysis, the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

---

[1] Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analyses. In this analysis of 250 cultures, the Chinese were found to be the most collectivist of all groups studied. Collectivist groups typically subordinate individual actions for the good of the group.

Maritime Denial and Land-Based Missiles, Revisited

Last month I wrote a bit about the idea that U.S. ground forces should field ‘area denial’ missile systems of their own to defend allies’ frontline maritime territories as well as constrain potential adversaries’ wartime abilities to use adjacent waterspace and airspace. I believe land-based anti-ship and anti-air missile systems can do much to support strategic concepts for broad-spectrum conventional deterrence within maritime theaters. Even so, I noted in my post that these systems’ hypothetical combat utility—and thus their value as part of a deterrent—depends greatly upon when and how they would be deployed to wartime positions, how those positioned on territories within a hotly-contested maritime zone would be logistically sustained throughout a protracted conflict, and how anti-ship over-the-horizon targeting would be performed.

The comments I received on that post pointed out an additional consideration that I had overlooked: the underlying business cases. Given finite budgetary resources, the U.S. Army would have to trade the opportunity costs of developing and then fielding these kinds of systems against the opportunity costs of developing or fielding other types of ground units.

For example, a strong business case can be made for the Army to field relocatable wide-area air defense systems, as they are quite useful for protecting bases, other types of U.S. and allied ground forces in the field, and critical civil/economic infrastructure sites from aerial attacks. The original Patriot system was, after all, developed specifically for these purposes. It is not much of a leap, then, for the Army to use these systems to protect maritime bases, forces, and infrastructure. Nor is it a stretch to use these systems in ways that would lessen the demand on naval surface combatants to provide air defense coverage over islands or mainland coastal areas, thereby granting the warships more maneuvering room or otherwise freeing them for other tasks. Lastly, it is perfectly reasonable to use these systems where geographically possible to create barriers the adversary’s air forces must ‘break through’ in order to achieve their operational objectives. The preceding logic applies to Army BMD systems, as well. It follows that the Army’s existing Patriot (and THAAD) missile forces provide organizational, tactical, technical, and logistical foundations for any expanded (or new) air and missile defense capabilities the Army might choose to field in the coming years. This greatly lessens the associated opportunity costs the Army would face in doing so.

It seems somewhat more difficult, though, to make a business case for the Army to field advanced ASCMs. Since the Army does not presently possess ASCM forces, there would be some opportunity costs in establishing the requisite organizational, tactical, technical, and logistical foundations. Developing an ASCM capability from scratch would also likely trade from a budgetary standpoint against expanding (or maintaining) existing ground force structure. Prior to this year, one might have rationalized this kind of trade based on a strategic assumption that global demands for ‘heavy’ U.S. ground forces would be low over the next ten to fifteen years. That assumption has been called into question by the Russo-Ukrainian War, not to mention Moscow’s increasingly aggressive military posturing against NATO’s eastern and the EU’s Scandinavian members. It is therefore harder to justify development of any new type of Army capability without a better understanding of how it might affect the service’s capacity for major ground combat in Europe.     

I have little doubt land-based ASCMs (with satisfactory over-the-horizon targeting support, of course) could be quite useful in defending America’s allies and constraining potential adversaries’ wartime operations along the First Island Chain in East Asia, the coasts of the Black and Baltic Seas, and perhaps the northern Norwegian coastline. However, I think there needs to be a critical examination of the trades that likely exist between developing new Army ASCM forces and maintaining/expanding the service’s existing combat arms. It also seems to me that an Army ASCM business case analysis should examine whether it makes more sense for America’s allies to field land-based ASCM capabilities themselves. Many of the allies the U.S. is committed to defend in the aforementioned regions already deploy such missiles, whether through indigenous production or through sales by other countries. Rather than duplicating what these allies are already doing, perhaps it would be better for the U.S. to provide the needier ones with financial assistance for establishing, improving, or expanding land-based ASCM arsenals. Or perhaps the U.S. might sell certain allies maritime surveillance/reconnaissance systems or C³ systems that would enhance their existing ASCM capabilities as well as allow them to better coordinate tactical actions with U.S. or other allied forces during wartime. It is even possible the U.S. might find mutually-beneficial opportunities to cooperate with key ASCM-producing allies on researching and developing selected advanced ASCM component technologies. 

Ultimately, I am not opposed in principle to the Army (or Marine Corps for that matter) developing land-based ASCM capabilities. I do believe, though, that their doing so requires a broader analytical basis that addresses the operational issues I previously noted as well as establishes a sound business case.

Sea Denial, U.S. Maritime Strategy, and Conventional Deterrence of China

In the February 2014 issue of Naval Institute Proceedings, retired U.S. Navy Commander Victor Vescovo suggested that a maritime strategy relying primarily on sea denial capabilities could be sufficient to deter Chinese aggression against America’s East Asian allies. Vescovo outlined how wartime offensive minelaying in the vicinity of major Chinese ports by U.S. submarines and long-range aircraft could severely damage the export-driven Chinese economy. Vescovo appears to endorse strategies emphasizing conventional deterrence by punishment and compellence by economic coercion, both of which can be highly problematic for reasons I’ve previously addressed.

However, the latent ability to use offensive mining to bottle People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) forces up in their home ports—and also cut crisis-surged units off from returning for rearmament and repair—could greatly buttress conventional deterrence by denial. This notion dovetails with a November 2013 RAND Corporation study that highlights how modern, highly mobile coastal anti-ship cruise missile batteries deployed in the Ryukyus, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia could pose a severe challenge to Chinese wartime passage through the key straits that would provide them access to the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans. Both the mining and coastal missile concepts are captured within the December 2013 testimony of prominent Naval War College Chinese maritime strategy expert Andrew Erickson  to the House Armed Service Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee as well as his related article in The National Interest. Erickson additionally (and rightly) argues that conventional deterrence by denial can be further reinforced via latent U.S. threats of using submarines and long-range aircraft for traditional Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW) operations within contested zones in the event of a war, or if need be to pummel Chinese expeditionary lodgings upon allied territories with land-attack missiles.

These commentators are absolutely correct that sea denial is an essential element of any U.S. strategy for deterring China—and failing that, for defending America’s East Asian allies under fire. Blunting PLAN operations in the East and South China Seas, not to mention preventing effective PLAN breakouts from the First Island Chain, would go a long way towards preventing China from attaining certain types of political objectives in an East Asian war. U.S. and allied sea denial operations would indeed make it enormously difficult for China to undertake a large-scale invasion of a sizable allied territory, persist in holding any small and isolated allied territories it seized in a hostilities-igniting gambit, use surface forces (including future aircraft carriers) to blockade or conduct land-attack strikes against allied territories, sortie submarines into the Western Pacific for ASuW or land-attack tasks, suppress opponents’ submarine operations inside the First Island Chain, or protect its flow of logistical support to its expeditionary forces.

Chinese wartime political objectives might not necessarily require that the PLAN obtain or maintain sea control in these bodies of water, though. If Chinese leaders sought to coerce a U.S. ally through a maritime blockade, and their valuation of their political objectives drove them to use lethal and not necessarily discriminate force to enforce this embargo, minelaying and traditional ASuW operations by Chinese submarines and land-based aircraft might be entirely adequate. While Chinese sea denial operations might not present a major concern for the U.S. with respect to unpopulated allied territories, they would pose a critical problem with respect to populated ones. Could the southern and central Ryukyus (especially urban Okinawa) hold out indefinitely if their flow of basic foodstuffs, petroleum products, or other staple goods were heavily disrupted? How drastically might the developing Philippine economy be affected if its major ports in western Luzon were pressured? The question’s applicability to Taiwan should be obvious.

Furthermore, any U.S. or allied forces stationed in or operating from blockaded, geographically-isolated friendly territories (the Ryukyus again come to mind) would find their logistical lifelines endangered. If the sea blockade could not be breached via airlift due to insufficient cargo aircraft capacity or perhaps Chinese offensive counterair operations, then these critical lines of communications might be severed altogether. U.S. and allied forces in ‘frontline’ territories could certainly make use of ordnance, food, and other supplies stockpiled (and concealed) near their positions during peacetime—if such foresighted steps had been taken. If not, or if the conflict became protracted, how long would they be able to sustain operational effectiveness with their maritime lines of communication under such pressure? What if the U.S. and allied plan was to surge assets such as anti-ship or anti-air missile batteries to these forward territories only upon detecting Indications and Warning of possible Chinese aggression? If warning signs were missed, or if crisis-psychological factors delayed the U.S. and allied reactions to those signs until too late, could campaign-critical defensive assets warehoused in rear areas be transported to the ‘frontline’ and then emplaced while under fire? If the answers to these questions are highly doubtful or clearly in the negative, then conventional deterrence theory makes clear that it would be unlikely such a force or its associated strategic concept would be an effective deterrent. ‘Mutually-assured’ sea denial cuts both ways.

All this also says nothing about scenarios in which the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might employ conventionally-armed ballistic and cruise missiles to bombard allied military, economic, and civil targets as a means of coercion. U.S. and allied sea denial operations could do nothing to directly counter such a thrust. PLA suppression of U.S. forward airbases via periodic cruise missile (and perhaps short-range ballistic missile) bombardments would additionally reduce the screening air cover available to protect sea (and air) lines of communication to the embattled ally as well as support friendly forces’ own sea denial operations.

Should the Chinese combine missile bombardment with a submarine and aircraft-enforced blockade, there would be a real risk of rendering U.S. and allied forces in ‘frontline’ territories hors de combat. The PLA might not be able to physically seize or hold those territories, but if the U.S. and its allies could not break the Chinese blockade and roll back China’s ability to continue at-will bombardment, then it is entirely conceivable Chinese leaders might be satisfied by forcibly compelling the U.S. and its allies to militarily withdraw from the territories as the price of a settlement. For instance, the prime Chinese objective in a limited war with Japan and the U.S. might very well be demilitarization and eventual political Finlandization of the Ryukyus. A U.S. conventional deterrent resting purely on sea denial would not be sufficient to prevent this kind of war, and it follows that allowing the maritime approaches to U.S. allies’ populated territories to become a de facto ‘no-man’s land’ would be self-defeating.

U.S. conventional deterrence credibility therefore not only depends upon U.S. forces’ abilities to assert maritime denial against PLA operations in the combat theater, but also their abilities to obtain and exercise localized maritime control within the approaches to allied territories. Protection of these sea and air lines of communication, not to mention the associated sea and air ports of debarkation, may be possible using Joint combined arms including sea-based and theater-range land-based aircraft, naval surface and subsurface forces, land-based air and missile defenses, and defensive naval minefields.

In a major war, though, these measures alone might not be adequate for obtaining maritime control when and where needed. The PLA’s quantitative advantages in theater combined with China’s physical proximity to the probable contested zones suggest PLA forces would be able to attain higher operational tempos than their U.S. and allied counterparts. This differential would be further aggravated if China engaged in a conventional counterforce first strike. Maritime lines of communication protection might consequently depend upon taking actions that suppress PLA operational tempo and offensively attrite the PLA forces engaged in sea denial operations.

Such actions might include cyber or electronic attacks that disrupt, deceive, or exploit PLA maritime surveillance/reconnaissance systems and networks, command and control networks at the operational and tactical levels, or logistical support networks. They might also include offensive maritime operations designed to lure PLA maritime forces into battle on terms that strongly favored the U.S.; an example might be an attempt to draw PLA maritime strike aircraft into an aerial ambush with a convoy or a U.S. Navy task group approaching the First Island Chain serving as bait. In the event China did set the escalatory precedents of unleashing a conventional first strike against U.S. and allied forces and bases, the U.S. could conceivably (and with legal, moral, and operational justification) respond with conventional strikes against equivalent PLA targets on Chinese soil.

It is clear, then, that just as U.S. and allied sea denial capabilities would curtail the PLA’s ability to invade and occupy allied territories, U.S. and allied maritime control capabilities—plus the latent threats posed by U.S. long-range strike capabilities—would be necessary to prevent ‘frontline’ East Asian territories and the friendly forces defending them from withering on the vine. The region’s geography, the PLA’s ever-expanding maritime and land-attack capabilities, and the plausible spectrum of Chinese political objectives and conflict scenarios make it so. Indeed, a conventional deterrent must be designed such that it can cover this full spectrum if it is to enduringly prevent war; one that covers only a narrow range of contingencies risks catastrophic failure if it cannot match up to the unique circumstances of a crisis or the political objectives of an intelligent and determined opponent. U.S. conventional deterrence of China (and U.S. maritime strategy) accordingly must embrace sea denial, but cannot solely rely upon it.

Some Thoughts on Maritime Denial Inside the First Island Chain

Robert Rubel was correct in his commentary earlier this year on my SSQ conventional deterrence article that I favor attempting to assert maritime denial (as opposed to striving to gain something approaching command of the sea) inside the First Island Chain in the unfortunate event of a Sino-American war. I do not believe it is necessary (or even possible) to try to deny Chinese use of that entire expanse at all times in the event of a conflict. Rather, my vision for a wartime maritime denial campaign applies Corbettian theory: you concentrate or disperse forces and effort where it is necessary or opportunistically desirable to do so, and only for the length of time necessary to perform the requisite tasks.

It follows that maritime denial, as I interpret it, consists of executing kinetic and non-kinetic offensive disruptive operations (interdiction, suppression, etc.) that are opportunistic when possible and reactive when necessary to wrest the campaign-level initiative from a strong adversary as well as arrest the adversary’s operational tempo. Rubel’s describing the disruptive operations as 'sniping' is a perfect analogy; the working term I’ve used for that in some of my ID articles this fall has been ‘operating from over-the-horizon.’ I believe that the ability of the U.S. and its main East Asian allies to develop combined arms operating concepts that integrate ‘frontline’ submarines, lower campaign-value surface combatants, and land-based forces with timely support provided by heavier naval and air forces operating from less vulnerable ‘over-the-horizon’ positions will be a central element in reinforcing our conventional deterrence credibility over the coming two decades.

Direct defense of allied territories would of course be performed in parallel to denial operations as required. It is important to point out, though, that ‘mutually-assured maritime denial’ in the sea and air approaches to these territories would be strategically unacceptable. Some degree of temporary, localized maritime control would have to be obtained as necessary to keep the vital lines of communication open to these countries.

I’ll be going into more detail on these ideas over the next few weeks.

Some Thoughts on the Use of Land-Based Missiles for Maritime Denial

Eric Lindsey of CSBA published an excellent monograph last month examining how the U.S. Army might field land-based anti-ship missiles and rockets, not to mention air and missile defense systems, to defend forward U.S. allies from aggression. I strongly agree with the concept in principle. Such capabilities would be extremely useful for constraining an adversary’s wartime use of the waters and airspace adjacent to a U.S. ally’s territory. They would definitely increase the adversary’s potential costs and risks of hazarding transits through maritime chokepoints controlled by the ally, conducting close blockades against the ally, or executing amphibious/airborne assaults against the ally. They would provide valuable layers for defense-in-depth against an adversary’s attempts to strike forces and infrastructure located on the ally’s territory or in nearby areas at sea. They could certainly help with carving out temporary ‘pockets’ that support friendly air and naval operations within a contested zone.

There are a few key details, however, that I think require more analytical attention. First, the use of anti-ship missiles for over-the-horizon engagements depends upon scouting. Surveillance could be performed using land-based radiofrequency direction-finding systems or over-the-horizon radars, but neither can positively and confidently verify that a given contact is in fact something worth expending scarce missiles. Reconnaissance assets such as fishing boats, submarines, aircraft, or unmanned vehicles are better suited for the tasks of classifying contacts and cueing missile attacks, but this raises the question of whether their information would be processed through a fusion center that generates a shared situational picture for the entire defense or whether it would be provided directly to the missile units. There are advantages and drawbacks for each that ought to be weighed; my own preference is that missile units would be supported by dedicated scouts (example: light UAVs that are organic to those units) that can also provide their information to a shareable situational picture. All this says nothing of the challenges of preventing the adversary from detecting, interpreting, and exploiting the communications between scout and shooter. The bottom line is that looking at maximum missile ranges alone is insufficient; one must also consider maximum effective scouting range and networking architecture.

Second, while land-based missile systems do have some on-station endurance advantages over warships and aircraft, they are entirely dependent upon the security of the sea and air lines of communication that provide sustenance for their crews, repair parts, and replacement rounds. Hardened, peacetime-prepositioned stockpiles of materiel near these units’ operating areas can help with this, but during wartime these supplies will likely be consumed at a fast rate and certainly will not hold out any longer than they were sized to.

The lines of communications problem is less pressing for continental allies who, by virtue of territorial depth (or friendly neighbors), can access airfields and ports far from the adversary’s effective reach. However, this is a campaign-critical issue for defending allies who are not blessed with that strategic gift. As archipelagoes, Japanese and Filipino lines of communication are solely maritime. Given that they lie within a few hundred miles of continental Asia, their sea lines are inherently vulnerable to interdiction by submarines, and their airfields and ports are inherently vulnerable to aerospace bombardment. The situation is much the same with South Korea, a peninsular country whose hostile northern sibling denies it overland lines of communication. Taiwan’s circumstances should be self-explanatory.

Whereas China’s military clout is not yet sufficient to heavily degrade logistical flows to and then amongst the main Japanese and Philippine islands, there should be no illusions that these flows will be unpressured in a major war. The imposed degree of pressure would likely be greater on the margins for flows from Japan to South Korea. Flows from Japan (or from across the Pacific) to and amongst the central and southern Ryukyus could conceivably be at grave risk. I strongly support emplacing land-based defensive missiles in the Ryukyus as a means of reinforcing conventional deterrence, but unless these weapons are intended to be a wasting asset much more thought needs to be dedicated towards how they would be sustained throughout a protracted conflict. Lines of communication protection would be a central role for naval and land-based air forces; in a Western Pacific contingency it might be their most strategically important task in the aftermath of war initiation. I’ll be writing about this issue again in a few weeks.

Third, some thought needs to be dedicated towards when and how these missile forces would be deployed to the field. Using the Japanese example, let’s say the bulk of such forces were maintained in garrison in the main Japanese islands (or further to the rear in U.S. territories) for deployment to the Ryukyus only in a crisis. This would raise questions of whether crisis deployments could be done quickly and how the Chinese might interpret and react to such movements once they were detected. I would prefer permanent forward garrisoning of missile units on the islands they would be defending, but this would be not be inexpensive and would require significant political capital and resolve. Indeed, as is already evident with our existing forces in Okinawa, it might mean basing U.S. units in localities that may not be thrilled about serving as indefinite hosts.

None of this should be interpreted as hits against what I believe to be a very important tool for strengthening our extended conventional deterrence, and if necessary for defending embattled allies. I do believe, though, that if Army maritime missile force concepts are to gain the traction they deserve the issues above will need to be addressed.