China's carrier forces US Navy
rethink By Sukjoon Yoon
The acquisition of an aircraft carrier is
the foundation and ultimate symbol of a navy's
blue-water strategy. There is no more important
reality for the People's Liberation Army Navy
(PLAN) as it starts operating its first carrier.
The full ramifications of the PLAN's ambitious
acquisition of naval air power are as yet
uncertain. The ultimate outcome depends upon
maintaining a balance between a variety of
contradictory postures and strategies.
China's plays the Great Power
Game Two forces have driven the acquisition
of China's first aircraft carrier: (i) the
ambition of the late Admiral Liu Hwaqing (known as
China's equivalent of the US naval strategist Rear
Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan). As the first PLAN
officer to visit a US aircraft carrier, Liu played
a crucial role in promoting the PLAN's
interests; and (ii) the
concern of the Chinese leadership that their
country's status as a permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council could be
undermined by the lack of an aircraft carrier.
According to this view, possession of an aircraft
carrier and its associated air wing are the
pre-eminent manifestation of great power status.
Until 2012, China's naval air capabilities
were limited to regional naval power functionality
- notwithstanding its global interests - after the
strategic prioritization of asymmetric tools in a
naval modernization drive that had strictly
adhered to an "antiaccess, area denial" (A2/AD)
strategy. Now, by joining the expensive blue-water
navy club they are showing that they regard the US
an "inactive superpower".
The
Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier,
and the most substantial and transformational
naval platform built to date by the Chinese navy,
signals the start of a new phase for China: an
official declaration that "China is now
effectively a great power, and no longer a
stricken nation".
Towards a more
offensive stance The conceptual basis of
China's military strategy has been considered
defensive in nature due to the lack of high-level
military technologies and resources. The PLAN has
adopted an A2/AD strategy with asymmetric assets
such as anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM),
anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), and stealthy
diesel and nuclear-powered submarines.
The
PLAN's acquisition of an outdated aircraft carrier
has changed the nature of its naval strategy. With
an aircraft carrier and, before long, indigenous
aircraft carriers capable of carrying air wings,
the PLAN has progressed one step closer toward
deploying an operational area-access and
ocean-going task fleet comprising a variety of
assets, including sophisticated surface screening,
underwater, early warning and replenishing, and
support-at-sea vessels.
With its fleet air
wing capability, China will be able to achieve
significantly greater offensive naval power
projection capabilities, which will extend the
combat-effectiveness of its land-based naval power
beyond the regional air defense functions of its
current fleet. The acquisition of aircraft
carriers may lead the PLAN to expand upon its
exclusive island barrier defenses, known as the
inner and outer island chains (though there are
three chains from a US perspective), moving beyond
a defensive stance to a proactive war-fighting
attitude. The PLAN has handed over its patrol
mission, of securing its maritime jurisdictional
rights and safeguarding sovereignty, to
quasi-naval forces, such as the China Marine
Surveillance, the Maritime Safety Administration,
the Maritime Border Police (equivalent to the US
Coast Guard), and the Fishing Regulation
Administration.
Alarm bells have been
ringing recently, with the South China Sea Fleet
conducting a variety of naval exercises beyond the
inner island chain. In future naval exercises, a
yet-to-be-commissioned indigenous aircraft carrier
seems to be the intended flag ship, with a naval
operation concept of composite warfare, including
naval air wing functions of fleet air defense and
the projection of air-strike power inland.
The PLAN aircraft carrier apparently means
to test the application of the concept of
offensive multi-mission naval warfare, as manifest
in a blue-water navy capacity reaching to the
outer island chain.
Value for
money? There are significant financial
issues. Although they will be vastly more capable
than any of the PLAN's current surface combatants,
indigenous aircraft carriers will carry a
correspondingly hefty price-tag. Although the PLAN
has benefited from very significant increases in
China's defense budget, the operation of aircraft
carriers entails additional surface combatants,
more missiles, and fighter planes for
carrier-based air wings. These demands will face
strong competition from the PLA's ongoing
modernization, and its consequent acquisition of
the latest weapons systems.
Conducting
successful operations with the Liaoning is
likely to prove very expensive in relation to
existing submarines and other surface combatants.
Although the Liaoning is being hyped as a
breakthrough in naval warfare, its primary role
appears to be as a naval air wing training
platform.
Moreover, the Liaoning
can hardly be considered a true aircraft
carrier in comparison with, say, the US CVX
next-generation aircraft carrier. In any case, a
light aircraft carrier does not necessarily
constitute an effective offensive weapon: they
carry fewer than 80 aircraft, vertical take-off
planes and/or helicopters, which provide only
limited combat ability and operational capability,
as was demonstrated during the Falklands War of
1982 between the UK and Argentina.
Although superficially similar to American
carriers, this author's observations suggest that
in terms of priority the Liaoning, a
60,000-tonne ex-Soviet vessel, is intended to be
subordinate to China's noisy nuclear-powered
submarines in the western Pacific which bear most
of its nuclear ICBMs. The cash-strapped PLAN can
ill-afford the Liaoning, let alone the
indigenous aircraft carriers believed to be under
construction. China is facing a serious dilemma
over whether to fund and build such vessels in the
near-term.
Sea control vs sea
denial The induction of China's first
operational aircraft carrier indicates that the
naval concept of sea control is gaining ground
against the established, and much less expensive,
concept of sea denial. The Chinese A2/AD strategy
has produced very successful and satisfactory
results, and continuing this approach may result
in the US withdrawing back to Guam-Hawaii-San
Diego and the PLAN being able to take a breath to
build momentum for the expansion of its naval
operational space.
The expected
commissioning of an indigenous aircraft carrier by
the PLAN in the near future will clearly
distinguish the line between an A2/AD strategy and
a sea control concept. The A2/AD strategy has
demonstrated that the Chinese navy can apply the
concept of sea denial as a low-cost, low-risk and
highly effective strategy to prevent adversaries
from using the maritime domain.
Once it
possesses true aircraft carrier capability,
however, the PLAN will be able to implement a new
conception of maritime strategy, based on the
principle of sea control rather than sea denial.
There are US countermeasures designed to
marginalize the Chinese A2/AD strategy: the AirSea
Battle Concept (ASBC) published in 2011, and the
Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) published
by the Pentagon and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff
in 2012.
The former is aimed at China's
A2/AD strategy, and the latter focuses on the
deterrence of China's military expansion into the
western Pacific. According to US experts, the PLAN
has increasingly been conducting full-scale naval
drills, or coalitional naval exercises with
multi-mission naval task fleets, and these have
taken place in the exclusive economic zones of
other nations or in confined sea areas.
Two fundamental questions must be answered
before the Chinese can congratulate themselves for
building their first aircraft carrier. These
issues apply both to the Liaoning and to
other aircraft carriers that may be completed in
the near future. First: can China actually afford
to build and operate aircraft carriers? Second:
how should the PLAN integrate its incrementally
improving carrier-based naval aviation
capabilities with its A2/AD strategy?
If
the PLAN can't resolve these questions, then
Chinese aircraft carriers may blur the lines that
currently distinguish the inner and outer island
chains of the region, thus compromising both
economic and physical security at sea.
How should the US and its allies
respond? The existence of Chinese aircraft
carriers has provoked a debate among the US and
its allies. The received wisdom is that China's
A2/AD strategy in the East Asian seas will soon be
amended, and that a Chinese declaration of
"no-go-zones" is more than likely. The US and its
partners have to articulate a maritime strategy
beyond the passive "Cooperative Strategy for 21st
Century Sea Power", and it has to be more specific
than the stated intention to achieve a 60/40
allocation of US naval assets between the Pacific
and the Atlantic.
To counter the Chinese
aircraft carrier(s), the US Navy needs a "US
version" of the A2/AD strategy, such as the ASBC.
To achieve this, a new generation frontline
platform, such as the Zumwalt-class DDG-1000,
should be assigned to the Pacific Command, rather
than sending littoral combat ships to Singapore.
The South Korean navy should enhance its
"operational area access" capability to better
support the US Navy by strengthening its power
projection ability in line with the JOAC. As in
the Cold War era, the US Navy should not attempt
to shoulder the burden of responding to China's
maritime strategy alone, but instead should share
strategic, operational, and tactical
responsibilities with its allies, in particular
the Korean Navy.
Ensuring that the freedom
of the seas in the region is preserved is of
paramount importance, and Chinese aircraft
carrier(s) are only one more obstacle to be
surmounted.
Dr Sukjoon Yoon a
retired Republic of Korea navy captain, is senior
research fellow of the Korea Institute for
Maritime Strategy and visiting professor of
defense system engineering, Sejong University in
Seoul. He can be reached at
sjyoon6680@sejong.ac.kr.
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