Mortal Threat

China Can Beat the U.S. Without a Fight
By COURTNEY KUBE

HONOLULU — While much of the world is focused on the ballistic missile and nuclear threat from North Korea, the U.S. military in the Pacific region is also concentrating on a more lethal foe: China.
"PRC is the most pressing threat in the Pacific," one U.S. military official in the region said, using the acronym for the People's Republic of China. 

While North Korea is a near-term issue, "it's a fight we could win," the official said — but he worries about a fight with China.
Among the U.S. concerns: China's controversial island-building, theft of technology, currency manipulation, cyberattacks, and both military and non-military aggression.
The U.S. military officials in the region warn that China's ultimate goal is to become dominant by slowly making changes to the international order. 

China will use the laws it likes, ignore the ones it doesn't and eventually other nations will have to adapt, thereby re-setting the rules in China's favor.
"China is on a path to win without a fight," one official said.
The Chinese have changed the rules, for example, with their new man-made islands. 

In recent years China has transformed reefs, rocks and sandbars in the South China Sea into forward-based military installations, sparking a territorial dispute and diplomatic conflict. 

The islands are hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland in international waters.
The Chinese have declared an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) around the islands. 

If the Chinese enforce the zone and the international community begins to adhere to it, the islands will become accepted as Chinese territory. 

"We ignore the problem too long and we can't tackle it anymore," said an official.

“China is on a path to win without a fight.”
One of the largest islands is Fiery Cross, complete with three expansive airfields, hangars for multiple fighter squadrons and several gun emplacements. 

While the Chinese military has not staged any aircraft or weapons there, the infrastructure is ready.
Man-made islands like Fiery Cross and Woody Island offer the Chinese a platform close enough to attack all U.S. operational bases in the region, as well as a number of close allies, the officials explained.
China "holds at risk a lot of operational bases," one of the officials said, which erodes the U.S. military advantage in the region.
Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Fiery Cross Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy on May 21, 2015. 

Another of China's strategies is to use its military forces without actually employing any hostile action, a strategy known as hybrid warfare. 

For example, civilian fishing boats are being assigned to serve under military commanders. 

The Chinese Navy uses them to harass or hit other nation's vessels who may not realize they are dealing with another nation's military.
The Chinese have also expanded their fleet of long-range aviation assets, like the H6K bomber, in an attempt to project more power and influence in the region, the officials said. 

They frequently fly these bombers over international waters within 1,000 miles of Guam, putting the U.S. territory in range of their air-launch cruise missiles. 

"They are practicing attacks on Guam," one official said, calling the exercises "messaging" to the U.S.
Like the threat from North Korea, part of the concern from China lies in the potential for miscalculation or even misunderstanding. 

Last year Japanese military aircraft flew roughly 900 sorties in response to Chinese aircraft in the region. 

Scrambling jets every single day puts a strain on a close U.S. ally and raises tensions. 

"It's a potential flashpoint," a U.S. military official in the region said, warning that these interactions "could bubble into conflict."
Two U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth jet fighters fly near Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in this handout photo dated August 4, 2010. 

The U.S. military already has a number of forward deployed bases in the region, but in the case of conflict with China, the officials said, the U.S. would quickly establish about a dozen small, temporary Contingency Operating Bases (COBs) in remote locations. 

These outposts would be located further from the conflict to keep some assets out of range of enemy attacks. 

The military would rapidly prepare the sites to defend U.S. assets against hundreds of incoming rounds, using systems like THAAD and Patriot batteries.
The U.S. military recently practiced for this situation, rapidly deploying Air Force F-22s from a base in Alaska and setting them up at a location in the region. 

The exercise addressed the logistical issues of moving quickly to a potentially harsh new environment.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford returned from a six-day trip to the Pacific late Monday night. 

He agreed that while North Korea is the immediate threat to the U.S., China is the enduring threat.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaks to reporters about the Niger operation during a briefing at the Pentagon on Oct. 23, 2017. 

"China's path of capability development," said Dunford, "and their efforts I think to address our power projection capability, our ability to deploy when and where necessary to advance our interests, is very much the long-term challenge in the region."
The official said the U.S. military spends a lot of time making sure they don't forget about the long-term existential problem.
"We are ready" for North Korea, the official said. But the peer-level fight with China "is the real challenge."

Sina Delenda Est

China has flown bomber jets in the vicinity of Guam and practiced attacks on the island.

• Chinese military activities are causing the United States to worry about the country as the primary threat 
• Chinese bombers have also flown near Hawaii.

By Stacey Yuen

A Chinese Xi'an H-6M bomber aircraft is displayed at an exhibition in Guangdong, China, on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2014.

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- China has practiced bombing runs targeting the U.S. territory of Guam, one of a host of activities making U.S. forces here consider Beijing the most worrisome potential threat in the Pacific, even as North Korea pursues a nuclear warhead.
Beyond the well-publicized military build up on man-made islands in the South China Sea, China has built up its fleet of fighters to the extent that it operates a daily, aggressive campaign to contest airspace over the East China Sea, South China Sea and beyond, U.S. military officials here in the region said.

China has also taken several other non-military steps that are viewed as attempts to make it much more difficult for the U.S. to operate there and defend allies in the future.
The officials described the escalatory behaviors by China in a briefing they provided to reporters traveling with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford.
The officials said despite increased threats by North Korea as it pursues its nuclear weapons program, a conflict with North Korea is still viewed as “a fight we can win,” they said. 

With China, they said they “worry about the way things are going.”
China “is very much the long-term challenge in the region,” said Dunford, who was not part of the briefing. 

“When we look at the capabilities China is developing, we’ve got to make sure we maintain the ability to meet our alliance commitments in the Pacific.”
Over the last year Japan has scrambled 900 sorties to intercept Chinese fighters challenging Japan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ. 

In 2013 China announced borders for its own ADIZ, borders which overlapped Japan’s zone and included Japan's Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. 

Since then, increased interactions between Japanese and Chinese aircraft ultimately resulted in Japan relocating two fighter squadrons to Naha Air Base on Okinawa to more easily meet the incursions, the officials said.
“We now have, on a daily basis, armed Chinese Flankers and Japanese aircraft” coming in close proximity of each other, the officials said.
Intercepts between the U.S. and China are also increasing, the officials said.
“It’s very common for PRC aircraft to intercept U.S. aircraft,” these days, the officials said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
Chinese aircraft are also testing U.S. air defense identification zones, the officials said.
Chinese H-6K “Badger” bombers upgraded with 1,000 mile range air launched cruise missiles are testing U.S. defense zones around Guam, the officials said.
The Badgers run frequent flights to get within range of the U.S. territory, they said.
“The PRC is practicing attacks on Guam,” the officials said.
Those bombers are also flying around Hawaii, they said.
The vast majority of the flights occur without an incident, for example, a report of unsafe flying. 

The officials said they follow U.S. Pacific Command guidance on how to respond in those events, so they do not further escalate.
Military-to-military relationships between the U.S. and China remain open, if guarded, the officials said. 

Both Chinese and U.S. officials meet twice a year at the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement conference, where the incursions are discussed along with other security topics.
The expanded Chinese fighter and bombers runs are just one part of the country’s effort to “win without fighting” to gradually normalize the gains China has made in the South China Sea, the officials said.
There are other pressures. 

For example, the officials said they estimate the People’s Liberation Army Navy has placed as many as 150,000 Chinese commercial fishing vessels under its direction, even though they are not official Chinese navy. 

The Chinese fishing vessels make coordinated attacks on Vietnamese fishermen, the officials said, ramming and sinking boats near the Paracel Islands. 

China took the territory from Vietnam in the 1970s and has militarized some of the islands. 

The area remains a traditional fishing area for the Vietnamese,
Taken together, China’s activities suggest it is preparing to defend expanded boundaries, the U.S. officials worry.
“I think they will be ready to enforce it when they decide to declare the Nine-Dash line as theirs,” one of the officials said, referring to the territorial line China has identified that would notionally put the entire South China Sea under Chinese control if enforced.
If unchallenged, the U.S. officials worry that China could slowly force countries away from what they describe as the “rules based order” -- essentially the standing international treaties and norms -- in the region and make them shift their security alliances to Beijing for their own economic survival.
Dunford said the U.S. would not allow that to happen.
“We view ourselves as a Pacific power,” Dunford said.
“There are some who try to create a narrative that we are not in the Pacific to stay,” he said. 

“Our message is that we are a Pacific power. We intend to stay in the Pacific. Our future economic prosperity is inextricably linked to our security and political relationships in the region.”
U.S. forces in the region are rethinking what a Pacific war would look like.
“If we find ourselves in conflict out there we will be under air attack,” the official said.
One concept they shared is “Agile Combat Employment” -- dispersing the U.S. advanced fighters concentrated at air bases in Japan and scattering them to 10-15 undeveloped and highly expeditionary airstrips on islands in the region. 

The dispersion would require the rapid dissemination of logistics support to keep those aircraft operating at their remote locations. 

The Air Force has already been practicing how to disperse the fuel, most recently in their Arctic Ace exercise, the officials said.
The idea would be that the aircraft would be so dispersed that it would make it difficult for China to prioritize what it would attack.
President Donald Trump will visit the Pacific region later this week, making stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. 

Dunford said he expected that some of the security and economic concerns generated by the increased incursions and economic pressures by China would likely come up.
“If people want to view that as a focus on China they can. But it’s based on a rules-based international order,” Dunford said. 

“It’s focused on our ability to advance our national interests. We’re not going to compromise in that regard.”

Chinese Aggressions

U.S. sends bombers on 10-hour mission to South China Sea from Guam
BY JESSE JOHNSON

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers fly a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam through the South China Sea on Thursday. 

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers flew a 10-hour mission Thursday from Guam through the disputed South China Sea in an operation with a Navy guided-missile destroyer, the U.S. military said.
The joint training, organized under the U.S. Pacific Command’s “continuous bomber presence” program in Guam, was aimed at bolstering interoperability between the Navy and Air Force “by refining joint tactics, techniques and procedures while simultaneously strengthening their ability to seamlessly integrate their operations,” according to a statement by the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.
China has also ramped up its naval and air operations in the strategic waters of the South China Sea, sending bombers and fighter jets on “combat patrols” that Beijing has called a “regular practice.”
The Pentagon said this week in its annual report on China’s military that Beijing was constructing 24 fighter-sized hangars, fixed-weapons positions and other military-grade infrastructure on each of the three major features it occupied in the South China Sea as of late last year.
“China’s Spratly Islands outpost expansion effort is currently focused on building out the land-based capabilities of its three largest outposts — Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs — after completion of its four smaller outposts early in 2016,” the report to Congress said.
“Once all these facilities are complete, China will have the capacity to house up to three regiments of fighters in the Spratly Islands” in the strategic waterway.
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in annual trade passes. 

Last month, Washington twice complained of “unsafe” encounters between U.S. reconnaissance planes and Chinese fighter jets in the skies above the waters.
The U.S. has also recently sent the B-1B to the Korean Peninsula and surrounding area for joint exercises with the South Korean military and Japanese Self-Defense Forces as part of a warning to nuclear-armed North Korea over its recent provocations, including a spate of missile tests.
Originally developed to carry atomic weapons, the bomber — converted to its exclusively conventional combat role in the mid-1990s — is no longer nuclear-capable. 

It can, however, carry the largest payload of both guided and unguided weapons in the U.S. Air Force’s inventory.

Overpopulation Solution

China Is Practicing Missile Strikes Against U.S. Bases in Asia
By Kyle Mizokami

Are the United States and China set on a collision course that ends in war? 

White House advisor Stephen Bannon thinks so. 

Both countries are preparing for the worst case scenario. 

War on the Rocks has an intriguing set of satellite images that indicate that preparations on the Chinese side are farther along—and more specific—that anyone previously believed.
The United States maintains an extensive network of bases in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Much of the network is a holdover from World War II, preserved through the Cold War, and still in place today. 

Naval bases such as Yokosuka and Sasebo, and air bases such as Yokota, Kadena, and Osan protect America's allies while projecting American power into the region. 

Some of America's most advanced military equipment, from F-22 Raptors to B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers to a full carrier battle group are deployed in an arc stretching from South Korea to Guam.
China sees those bases as a threat—and it's not necessarily wrong. 

The great distances between the continental United States and China mean the U.S. military will need those bases to prosecute any war between the two countries. 

According to WotR, China is actively practicing hitting those bases with long-range ballistic and cruise missiles.
For decades, China's main means of power projection was in the form of ballistic missiles, and large numbers of them. 

Ballistic missiles—placed under the command of what is now the People's Liberation Army-Rocket Forces—are an inexpensive and efficient way of delivering warheads long distances. 

They're cheaper than aircraft carriers, or long-range bombers, but can still pack a considerable punch. Modern guidance systems, even those not using GPS, can target with precision. 

The DF-21D intermediate-range ballistic missile, for example, can hit moving aircraft carriers at sea.
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the preemptive strike that brought the United States into World War 2, was a tactical success but a strategic failure. 

Although Japan managed to sink several battleships, it failed to destroy the what really mattered—the port facilities, fuel storage depots, and other critical infrastructure that sustained American air and naval power. 

Ships and planes eventually need fuel and maintenance. 

Without those facilities, the U.S. Navy could not have sustained the counterattack that led to the Battle of Midway, and might have even been forced to withdraw thousands of miles eastward to the West Coast.

Satellite imagery shows China is preparing to target ships in port, particularly at Yokosuka naval base, and individual hardened aircraft bunkers at Kadena Air Force Base on the island of Okinawa. 

What's more, China appears to have learned Japan's lesson: it's also practicing targeting electrical substations, above-ground fuel storage depots, and other support facilities. 

The goal would be to force American forces back to Guam or even Hawaii, isolating America from allies Japan, Australia, and even South Korea.
The attack plan appears comprehensive and well thought-out. 

The satellite imagery shows that cluster munition strikes have been carried out against simulated Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 missile batteries, the primary American defense against Chinese missile strikes. 

A mobile, land-based air defense missile capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, Patriot is particularly vulnerable to attack by ballistic missiles that dump cluster munitions over a wide area.

The imagery should serve as a reminder that the Chinese are maximizing their resources and are prepared to take on the might of the U.S. military. 

The Pentagon should be prepared for a tough fight.

World War III Casualties
	2016 Population	Killed		Survivors
CHINA	1 373 541 278	1 057 119 689	77%	316 421 589
UNITED STATES	323 995 528	19 089 783	6%	304 905 745
EUROPEAN UNION	513 949 445	371 356 958	72%	142 592 487
RUSSIA	142 355 415	30 924 816	22%	111 430 599
INDIA	1 266 883 598	1 158 499 174	91%	108 384 424
PAKISTAN	201 995 540	175 747 473	87%	26 248 067
JAPAN	126 702 133	114 241 889	90%	12 460 244
VIETNAM	95 261 021	84 340 688	89%	10 920 333
PHILIPPINES	102 624 209	92 732 902	90%	9 891 307
KOREA, NORTH	25 115 311	21 141 050	84%	3 974 261
KOREA, SOUTH	50 924 172	47 636 302	94%	3 287 870
TAIWAN	23 464 787	22 278 490	95%	1 186 297
	4 246 812 437	3 195 109 214	75%	1 051 703 223

Sina Delenda Est

The Necessary U.S.-China War
By George Friedman 

A report last week stated that Chinese anti-ship missile systems locked onto a U.S. aircraft carrier in the South China Sea. 

It is not good manners to lock radar on a ship, as it means you could, if you chose, suddenly launch a missile. 

If the target gets nervous, it could launch first to take out the missiles. 

I cite this because there is much chatter about the possibility of conflict in the South China Sea. 

Here is a cursory strategic analysis of how such a war might be fought.
There are two scenarios. 

1. In the first, China invades Taiwan. 
2. In the second, the U.S. decides to block the exits of the South and East China seas, in order to cut China’s global maritime access. 

I want to emphasize that these will be extremely high-level analyses, with vital details excluded.

The Chinese strategic motive for seizing Taiwan would be to open a wide gap in the archipelago running from Okinawa to the Strait of Malacca. 

The seizure of Taiwan, plus a few minor islands to the north and south, would open a substantial passage into the Pacific. 

As important, it would create a platform for Chinese land-based aircraft and missiles, which would force the border of the contested area in the Pacific east about 1,300 miles, bringing Chinese cruise missiles close to, or in operational range of, Guam and Anderson Air Force Base, a critical U.S. air base.
The oft-discussed Chinese strategy of placing underwater mines around Taiwan would not help for what the Chinese must assume would be an extended war. 

That strategy might cut trade, but Taiwanese and American aircraft could still use the island to stage operations against Chinese air, missile and naval targets. 

In addition, the U.S. response to mining might be to mine the areas around Chinese ports. 

It is a strategy in which the risks outweigh the benefits. 

Seizing Taiwan has higher risks, but a very substantial payoff in that it could solve China’s strategic problem of guaranteed access to the Pacific, as well as enhance its deep strike capacity in the Pacific.
Taiwan has about 130,000 battle-ready troops, with a reserve of about 1.5 million troops. 

They are equipped with about 2,000 armored fighting vehicles and substantial self-propelled artillery. Taiwan is a small country, and even taken by surprise, it would be able to amass its forces, if not to defeat the enemy on the beach then to engage them in mobile warfare to impose attrition on them. According to the 3-to-1 rule of combat, the Chinese would need to deploy at least 390,000 troops to defeat this force.

An invasion of Taiwan would mean amphibious warfare, in which the Chinese have no experience. 

It requires extraordinarily complex coordination between air, land and sea forces, and especially with logistics. 

As the U.S. learned in World War II, amphibious operations face this problem. 

No matter how lavish the supply of amphibious ships and landing craft, the number of forces landed initially is entirely incapable of defeating the defenders. 

The number of sea-to-land vessels and time of loading and unloading limit the buildup of forces. 

In other words, the landing area remains extremely vulnerable, particularly against a large, concentrated defense force.
Assuming that the landing area is secure and a large force could be built up, going on the offensive depends on supplies, and supplies depend not so much on ships as on offloading capabilities and the ability to move supplies to the troops. 

Forces in offensive operations against a peer enemy consume supplies at a staggering rate, and the Chinese would have to supply extremely large forces. 

During the battle for France in 1944, a lack of supplies could have defeated the Allies. 

The Germans were not the problem. 

We are very advanced these days, but we haven’t solved the problem of soldiers eating, artillery shells weighing hundreds of pounds or the need for more missiles. 

The Taiwanese would be operating on very short supply lines on well-practiced terrain. 

The Chinese would be operating at a distance.
Long before landing, the Chinese would be concerned with protecting ships in transit through achieving air superiority over the Taiwan Strait. 

This poses the classic problem of amphibious warfare. 

A battle for air superiority and attacking enemy bases would lose the element of strategic surprise. 

Undertaking air superiority operations after the initial assault could leave the landing force and their support vessels helpless. 

The Chinese don’t know what the U.S. would do, but they have to assume the worst case. 

And the worst case is a pile on by American aircraft and ship- and land-based missiles.
If the Chinese decide to attack Taiwan, they must protect the amphibious force and the logistical follow-on. 

They can only do that by achieving air superiority, and they can only do that by annihilating the enemy air and naval forces in a stroke. 

This is where surprise comes in. 

The first attack must follow the Israeli model in 1967. 

Israel executed a tactical surprise that annihilated the Egyptian air force in the first hour of the war. 

This gave Israel the ability to maneuver at will in the Sinai Peninsula. 

If the embarkation ports and amphibious and supply vessels sink, the war is lost.
For China to invade Taiwan it must open the war with an annihilating strike both against Taiwan and against U.S. naval forces in the region. 

The key would be the destruction of U.S. aircraft carriers. 

Assuming surprise, it is unlikely that more than two carrier battle groups would be in the Western Pacific. 

We must assume that the Chinese have already acquired long-range missiles sufficiently sized to significantly damage any warship and with terminal target acquisition systems that would recognize an enemy ship and hit it.
China must, in the first strike, destroy Taiwanese air bases and missile launchers, attack the two carrier battle groups that pose an immediate threat, and also attack both Guam and Diego Garcia – an island in the Indian Ocean where U.S. strategic bombers have been based. 

They must do all of these things nearly simultaneously to prevent warning. 

The Chinese know they can’t achieve this for two reasons. 

First, hiding an invasion is hard. 

The allies managed to confuse the Germans about where the invasion was going to happen, but there was no way they could hide the buildup. 

The Chinese might manage to confuse U.S. intelligence about the meaning of the buildup, as the Egyptians did with Israel in 1973, but there is no way to keep the United States from going on alert. That means air defense systems on the carriers and at Guam and Diego Garcia would be on extreme alert. 

In that case everyone, including the Americans and Chinese, would discover whether these systems actually work. 

China must also attempt to destroy American satellites and engage in complex electronic warfare to blind the U.S.
The Chinese do not expect such a strike to annihilate the enemy. 

The U.S. would expect losses. 

The crucial question will be whether U.S. forces have at least temporarily weakened enough so that Chinese air defense can protect the embarkation ports, the invasion force and the beachhead – as well as systematically cripple the Taiwanese army with intense airstrikes.
Assuming a crippling attack on all targets that reduces U.S. capabilities by 80 percent, the most extreme likely, the U.S. would now rush reinforcements to the region, repairing airfields and sending all available carrier battle groups to redeploy at flank speed. 

In addition, U.S. submarines would flood the regions north and south of the Taiwan Strait, with Chinese destroyers trying to destroy them.
The Chinese goal would be to defeat the Taiwanese army in less than two weeks. 

The U.S. goal would be to use submarines to impose severe attrition on follow-on Chinese forces and supplies and prevent the defeat of the Taiwanese until the balance of forces shifts. 

During this time, the U.S. would be working to blind the Chinese in space and other areas.
The problem that China has with an invasion of Taiwan is that too many things have to must go right. 

• China must keep its intentions secret in spite of a prolonged buildup of forces in multiple ports. 
• It must strike multiple heavily defended targets with aircraft and missiles, simultaneously and without being detected. 
• It must execute an amphibious assault against a superior force and hold the landing area until reinforcements arrive. 
• It must control the sea lanes across the strait in the face of submarine attacks, potential air attacks and mine laying. 
• Finally, it has to complete the operation before the U.S. commits significant reserves to the battle. 

If any of these strategic components fails, the invasion fails.

Obviously, this is barely a sketch of the battle problem. 

Nevertheless, the strategic point is valid. 

The Chinese cannot take Taiwan without a Pearl Harbor scenario several orders more ambitious than the Japanese operation in 1941. 

The Japanese had a reason to risk Pearl Harbor. 

Their oil was running out and their supplies were running low due to U.S. embargoes and interference. 

They had to act. 

China is not in that position. 

Therefore, risking such a complex operation is not a rational option.

***

China has a key geopolitical imperative. 

It depends on exports to sustain its economy. 

Most of those exports are shipped by sea, and therefore access to the world market begins at its eastern coastal ports. 

Geography poses a problem for the Chinese. 

Shipments from the country’s east coast ports, both south and north of the Taiwan Straits, must transit through a string of islands. 

Some are large islands, while others are extremely small. 

But they form a string of choke points through which Chinese maritime trade must pass.
Choke points are normally geographic realities important to navigators but no one else. 

But they also create a potential vulnerability for China. 

The existence of choke points, however many, makes the movement of Chinese vessels predictable. More importantly, given a sufficient air-sea force, blocking those points can block Chinese exports and cripple the Chinese economy.

A Jan. 2, 2017 photo shows a Chinese navy formation, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, center, during military drills in the South China Sea.

The Chinese see the United States in three ways. 

1. First, the U.S. has an extremely powerful Navy. 
2. Second, the U.S. is highly unpredictable in how it responds to challenges. The Chinese saw this unpredictability in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Operation Desert Storm, Iraq and so on. At times, the U.S. does not respond. Other times it over-reacts, from the Chinese point of view. 
3. Third, the U.S. prefers economic sanctions that at times include physically blocking the trade of a given country.

Given these three facts about China’s potential adversary, China finds itself in an extremely difficult position. 

It cannot match American naval power. 

It cannot predict what the U.S. will do. 

To the extent that the U.S. might choose, sanctions that include interference with Chinese trade are the most likely opening move. 

Therefore, the geography of the Western Pacific archipelago poses a potential threat to core Chinese national interests.
There are many passages from China’s east coast into the Pacific. 

The American task would be to create sustained interdiction of all passages without exposing U.S. vessels to excessive risk. 

The likely strategy would be to place about five carrier battle groups east and south of the archipelago. 

The vessels would be located as far east as possible to assure interception before the maritime vessels reach high seas. 

They would be close enough to be within reach of air and sea anti-ship missiles, and close enough that carrier-based aircraft could have overlapping patrol zones without having to refuel. 

Submarines would also be used.
The Chinese counter to this deployment would be primarily land-based anti-ship missiles. 

With so much American sea power backed by land-based strategic aircraft from Guam, Chinese ships would find it dangerous to sortie. 

Having anticipated this, the Chinese would try to strike at the blockade with anti-ship missiles. 

The problem with using anti-ship missiles is that while they have terminal guidance systems, they require some general targeting information. 

That would come from signal intelligence, satellites or longer-range drones. 

Chinese aircraft patrolling east of the archipelago would face both fighters and American missiles. The U.S. likely has anti-satellite capability. 

But I would assume that both American and Chinese satellites have defensive systems, from the ability to maneuver to deploying ball bearings in an attacker’s path. 

While it would be useful for the Chinese to blind American satellites, it would be essential for the Americans to do so. 

That would be difficult, but the real threat would be Chinese high-altitude drones locating American carrier battle groups. 

The Chinese would then deliver saturation attacks to overwhelm U.S. fleet anti-missile defenses. 

The U.S. would try to shoot down the drones or render them mute through electronic warfare.


The Chinese have been pushing toward this point. 

They cannot tolerate a blockade and cannot engage in full-fleet action against the Americans. 

The construction of extensive anti-ship systems coupled with multiple types of sensors is the key. Therefore, if the U.S. wants to carry out a blockade, it would need an extensive air operation to destroy Chinese anti-missile capabilities. 

And that must be preceded by massive suppression of air defense.
Note that as with the Chinese invasion of Taiwan, what appears to be a simple problem spins out of control. 

The U.S. can’t be certain it would not be detected and would have to attack the Chinese mainland. Even then it would be unlikely to destroy all Chinese missiles, and Chinese command and control is undoubtedly redundant. 

The possibility of significant U.S. losses can’t be discounted. 

That would mean that the use of sanctions and blockades as an alternative to armed conflict would lead to armed conflict.
The Chinese have not, however, fully solved their problem. 

Even if they drive everyone out of the East and South China seas, which isn’t likely, they are still enclosed by the archipelago. 

They know the U.S. is unpredictable and therefore can’t assume that the U.S. is reading the battle problem as they are. 

The Chinese are not facing imminent crisis, but they must have a long-term goal of taking control of the choke points and basing in such a way as to push the U.S. Navy back into the central Pacific.
Attack by main force is not an option. 

There are too many choke points, and the American response is too unpredictable. 

The ideal solution is political. 

This works one of two ways. 

The first is to reach an agreement with a major country that controls key choke points to allow passage and a Chinese naval presence. 

Aside from Taiwan, the country that would be valuable in this regard is the Philippines. 

As long as the Taiwan Straits are open, the Philippines could serve as an exit point. 

You might note the behavior of the Filipino president of late.
The second option would be to create insurgencies to destabilize one or more countries. 

This is far less efficient than a political shift, but the Chinese have been quite good in the past with supporting insurgencies, while the U.S. is not at all good at counterinsurgency. 

It would not provide a satisfactory solution to the Chinese in any reasonable time frame.
The point I am making here is that any discussion of war between the U.S. and China overestimates either the Chinese capability or the American capability. 

The Chinese would not be able to take Taiwan. 

There are too many failure points. 

The U.S. could blockade China if it was prepared to accept losses. 

The U.S. is risk averse, and minimizing threats would mean a far larger war than merely a naval picket line.
Each action by either side faces a counter that opens the door not only to failure but also to losing forces neither side can afford to lose. 

The only practical way to force a change in the balance of power in the region is a shift in alliances by one of the countries, and the Philippines is the one to watch.