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2 The
China pivot and the US 'siege'
strategy By David Isenberg
On January 5, the Pentagon released a
strategic review. The document itself was not
particularly novel. The Pentagon regularly does
strategy reviews, trying, like a modern version of
the Oracle of Delphi, to divine the future and
adjust its forces accordingly.
Since the
end of the Cold War the Pentagon has had the
Bottom Up Review, the Commission on the Roles and
Missions of the US Armed Forces, and several
Quadrennial Defense Reviews, to name but a few.
The latest document, "Sustaining US Global
Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense"
describes the projected security environment and
the key military missions for which the US
military will prepare.
The review did
attract some attention for its supposed new focus
on Asia, also called the "pivot to
Asia", which first appears in the document on page
two, when it states:
US economic and security interests
are inextricably linked to developments in the
arc extending from the Western Pacific and East
Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South
Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and
opportunities. Accordingly, while the US
military will continue to contribute to security
globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward
the Asia-Pacific region.
The next
paragraph said:
The maintenance of peace, stability,
the free flow of commerce, and of US influence
in this dynamic region will depend in part on an
underlying balance of military capability and
presence. Over the long term, China's emergence
as a regional power will have the potential to
affect the US economy and our security in a
variety of ways. Our two countries have a strong
stake in peace and stability in East Asia and an
interest in building a cooperative bilateral
relationship. However, the growth of China's
military power must be accompanied by greater
clarity of its strategic intentions in order to
avoid causing friction in the region.
China is referred to only one more
time in the eight-page document, in a paragraph on
"Project Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial
Challenges."
That is rather curious
considering that for years most US military
planners have been looking to China as the
yardstick by which US military forces must be
measured for its next major conflict.
Those looking for the etiology of the
China pivot need to go back a few months earlier,
to the article by Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, which appeared in the November 2011 issue
of Foreign Affairs journal. She wrote:
As the war in Iraq winds down and
America begins to withdraw its forces from
Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot
point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated
immense resources to those two theaters. In the
next 10 years, we need to be smart and
systematic about where we invest time and
energy, so that we put ourselves in the best
position to sustain our leadership, secure our
interests, and advance our values. One of the
most important tasks of American statecraft over
the next decade will therefore be to lock in a
substantially increased investment - diplomatic,
economic, strategic, and otherwise - in the
Asia-Pacific region.
Actually,
Clinton was quite diplomatic. She wrote that,
"Some in our country see China's progress as a
threat to the United States; some in China worry
that America seeks to constrain China's growth. We
reject both those views. The fact is that a
thriving America is good for China and a thriving
China is good for America. We both have much more
to gain from cooperation than from conflict."
A standard view of what many commentators
see at the Chinese military threat was written by
foreign affairs journalist Robert Kagan in the
April issue of the Atlantic Magazine:
Advances in Chinese naval, air,
space, missile, and cyber-warfare capabilities
are reshaping the strategic landscape. China's
acquisitions demonstrate that it does aspire to
be a great military power. It is China's
shop-till-you-drop acquisition of nuclear and
advanced diesel-electric submarines that
particularly worries Pentagon planners. Naval
warfare is going undersea, as surface warships
become more vulnerable to missiles and other
anti-access technology.
China has been
acquiring submarines at the rate of 4-to-1
vis-a-vis the United States since 2000, and
8-to-1 since 2005. Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia,
and Singapore are all acquiring submarines to
counter the Chinese buildup. US Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta has vowed that defense
cuts will not come at the expense of America's
Pacific military assets.
Clinton has
voiced an intention to pivot from the Middle
East to the Pacific. President Barack Obama has
announced the deployment of 2,500 marines to
Australia. Australia, a country of only 23
million, will spend $279 billion over the next
20 years for new subs and fighter jets. These
statements and developments are about one thing:
countering China's military rise and the
tectonic shifts associated with
it.
While commentators of all
ideologies agree that China, by virtue of its
advances on the entire standard measures of power,
from economic to military, merit putting it high
up on the list of rising powers it is far from
clear that it is a menacing power. Even Kagan
conceded that:
The larger question is whether
internal developments in China will impede its
further military growth. Will an economic crisis
stoke or defuse Chinese nationalism; increase or
decrease defense budgets? No one knows. I have
written often that China's military rise is
normal - not illegitimate, like America's at the
start of the 20th century.
But China
and the Asia-Pacific region has long been an area
of military concern for the United States. The US
military has long divided the world into military
fiefdoms, ie unified combatant commands, for
military planning purposes, and the fiefdom
encompassing the Asia-Pacific region is the US
Pacific Command, headquartered in Hawaii. The
state also headquarters the US Pacific Fleet and
Pacific Air Forces.
Recently, the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser reported that a higher profile in
Asia and the Pacific is in the works for Fort
Shafter in Honolulu and within the ranks of the
army, with construction of a new
330,000-square-foot headquarters under way as well
as an effort to upgrade the three-star command to
four stars. The fort is the headquarters of the
United States Army Pacific Command Aside from
enhancing bureaucratic clout a renewed emphasis is
also good for weapons manufacturers. The Zumwalt
is a planned class of United States Navy
destroyers, designed as multi-mission ships with a
focus on land attack. The class is multi-role and
designed for surface warfare, anti-aircraft, and
naval fire support.
Previously, the navy
tried to kill this enormous, expensive and
technology-laden class of warship because of its
cost but it is now viewed as an important part of
the Obama administration's Asia-Pacific strategy
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