There has been a lot of discussion lately about the survivability of the LCS and smaller combatants in general. A recent US Naval Institute News opinion piece contends,
“Small warships are historically unsurvivable in combat. They have a shorter floodable length, reduced reserve buoyancy and are more likely to be affected by fire and smoke damage than larger combatants. In both World Wars, losses in ships below 3000 tons in displacement far exceeded those of larger vessels.
“In World War II, for example, the U.S. lost a total of 71 destroyers and 11 destroyer escorts — all under 3400 tons displacement and less than 400 feet in length.
“By comparison, only 23 larger ships were lost. Part of that figure is undoubtedly due to their operational employment, but in simple terms of engineering and physics, larger ships are inherently more survivable than their smaller counterparts.”
In the Coast Guard we once had a saying, “In our obscurity is our security.” I think that should be kept in mind when we consider the survivability of small surface combatants. No, they cannot take as much damage as major surface combatants, but the enemy gets a vote, and he will be less “excited” by the presence of smaller vessels, while he will normally choose to put more effort into destroying larger, more threatening ships. As in land warfare, tanks are more survivable than infantrymen, but they don’t necessarily last longer.
To look at how this factor might influence survivability, I looked at how many of the ships that were in commission at the beginning of World War II were sunk as a result of enemy action. My source is the Summary of War Damage to U.S. Battleships, Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, and Destroyer Escorts which is accessible here. The figures there do not correspond to those quoted above, rather they report 58 destroyers and 9 destroyer escorts sunk, along with 26 larger surface combatants, all listed by name. (The USNI post may have included constructive losses that were not actually sunk or losses to other than enemy action, and does not include the three battleships salvaged although they were out of action most of the war.)
If we look only at the US fleet at the beginning of the war, it included 233 major surface combatants of which 46 or 19.7% were sunk by enemy action during the course of the war. If we break it down by class it looks like this:
Type: Number in Commission, Dec. 7, 1941/Number sunk/% lost to enemy action Aircraft Carriers (CV): 7/4/57.1% Escort Carrier (CVE): 1/0/0% Battleships (BB): 17/5/29.4% (of the 5 sunk, all were at Pearl Harbor, 3 were salvaged) Heavy Cruisers (CA): 18/7/38.9% Light Cruisers (CL): 19/1/5.3% Destroyers (DD): 171/29/17%
(There were no Destroyer Escorts in commission at the beginning of the war.)
If we lump all the cruisers together, 8 of 37 were lost or 21.6%
If we lump the lone escort carrier together with the fleet carriers then four of eight were sunk or 50%
Additionally three destroyers were lost to weather in a hurricane. They were not ballasted properly, because of the exigencies of impending combat operations.
Clearly, at least looking at the World War II experience, the US Navy did not lose a higher percentage of smaller ships. If anything it appears the opposite is true. A smaller percentage of smaller ships were lost (17% vs 27.4%). More small ships were lost simply because there were many more of them. Undoubtedly some of the DDs and DEs that were sunk, would have survived the damage they received, if they had been bigger, but presumably there would also have been fewer of them. If the decision criteria were an equal chance of being sunk, then probably taking greater risk with smaller ships is both reasonable and unavoidable.
I will note that the probability of personnel loss on small ships is probably higher because they are more likely to sink quickly and catastrophically, while larger ships are more likely to sink slowly.
Photo: USS Newcomb DD 586 was hit by as many as five kamikaze on 6 April 1945 as she was screening for the cruiser USS St. Louis off Okinawa. She survived but was not repaired.
I will add a bit of anecdotal evidence. As part of Operation Overlord, the Normandy Invasion, 60 US Coast Guard 83 foot patrol boats were assigned to rescue those unlucky enough to find themselves in the water or sinking. 30 went to the American beachheads and 30 went to the British and Canadian beachheads. Being wooden hulled and gasoline powered, they certainly would not have been considered “survivable.”
Apparently they were in the thick of it, because they rescued 1438 men from the water and sinking craft. In spite of all the fire from shore, not a single boat was sunk and not a single crewmen was killed. Apparently the German gunners were too busy with the landing craft hitting the beach and the warships that were shelling them. They simply were not a priority target.
HMS Torrens (small frigate) sunk by submarine torpedo in 1999
Chief Pentagon Weapon Tester Dr. Michael Gilmore remains fundamentally dissatisfied with the survivability of the Navy’s littoral combatant ship (LCS) and its upgraded follow-on, the small surface combatant (SSC). In an emailed statement described in a January 8th Bloomberg article, Dr. Gilmore stated, “Notwithstanding reductions to its susceptibility” compared with the design of the first 32 ships, “the minor modifications to the LCS will not yield a ship that is significantly more survivable.” It remains to be seen, however, how the Navy can improve the other legs of the “survivability triangle” on a hull of 3000 tons displacement and less than 425 feet in length. Small ships have been historically unsurvivable. Modern small warships are not in any way the equivalent of the World War 2 predecessors. Every warship is a compromise in armament, endurance, speed, and survivability. This is especially true of the LCS, as its modular operational profile demands absolute adherence to weight limitations.
Small warships are historically unsurvivable in combat. They have a shorter floodable length, reduced reserve buoyancy and more likely to be affected by fire and smoke damage than larger combatants. In both World Wars, losses in ships below 3000 tons in displacement far exceeded those of larger vessels. In World War 2, for example, the U.S. lost a total of 71 destroyers and 11 destroyer escorts; all under 3400 tons displacement and less than 400 feet in length. By comparison, only 23 larger ships were lost. Part of that figure is undoubtedly due to their operational employment, but in simple terms of engineering and physics, larger ships are inherently more survivable than their smaller counterparts.
There are stories of small combatants, such as the famous Fletcher class destroyer, surviving severe damage and yet remaining capable of inflicting damage on opponents. This history perhaps influences the opinions of those who believe small warships can somehow be made more survivable than the LCS or the SSC. Today’s weapon systems such as the 57mm gun on the LCS and SSC are much more fragile than the 5’38 caliber guns found on most U.S. Navy small combatants in the Second World War. Gun mounts became lighter and unarmored in the Cold War as the expansion of radars and mast-mounted communications equipment, among many improvements, forced warship designers to adopt lighter equipment to maintain ship stability. Current gun mounts are no longer manned to allow for a backup capability in the event of damage to centralized fire control capabilities. Many commercial off the shelf (COTS) components currently in use aboard Navy warships are much more fragile and more difficult to repair under battle conditions.
The crew size of a modern small combatant is also significantly smaller than its Second World War cousins. An LCS has a base crew of 90, with the capability to accommodate more personnel for mission modules. SSC would presumably have a similar complement. The Fletcher class destroyer had a crew of 273 and later wartime destroyers had over 300 men assigned. Crew sizes in present warships are likely to decrease in the wake of greater automation and a desire to reduce personnel costs. These additional crewmen allowed for manual weapons operation and damage control vital to the survivability of the ship. In short, comparisons with past small combatants are not an effective means to measure the survivability of the LCS or SSC.
The present Navy concept of warship survivability is described in OPNAV Instruction 9070.1A as a combination of susceptibility, vulnerability and recoverability. Dr. Gilmore noted that the SSC represents an improvement of LCS in susceptibility to attack. By Navy definition, this means “A measure of the capability of the ship, mission critical systems, and crew to avoid and or defeat an attack and is a function of operational tactics, signature reduction, countermeasures, and self-defense system effectiveness.” The SSC has an increased fit of installed weapon systems that allow the ship to defeat attack. Improvements to the other legs of the survivability triangle are more difficult. The Navy defines vulnerability as “A measure of the capability of the ship, mission critical systems, and crew to withstand the initial damage effects”, while still carrying out its mission. As previously described, that’s a tall order for a ship already disadvantaged by its physically small size.
Improving recoverability is equally difficult. The Navy defines it as “A measure of the capability of the ship and crew, after initial damage effects, whatever the cause, to take emergency action to contain and control damage, prevent loss of a damaged ship, minimize personnel casualties, and restore and sustain primary mission capabilities.” SSC is supposed to have additional armor protection, but given the weight restrictions of the LCS class, it is doubtful this will be anything beyond splinter protection. The small crew size will also limit the sort of manual-intensive damage control the U.S. Navy practiced in World War 2 and the Cold War. Installed, automated damage control systems offer some relief, but if damaged or destroyed in the first attack, they will likely be ineffective. Given all of these factors and their effect on a small ship with a small crew and little spare weight for improvement; it seems impossible that the Navy will ever reach Dr. Gilmore’s survivability demands for either the LCS or the SSC.
Every warship is a compromise of capabilities and limitations on a hull of a given size. The Navy has determined that the LCS and eventually the SSC will fulfill very specific missions on the hull size it selected during initial LCS design. Dr. Gilmore’s survivability demands on the present LCS hull are respectfully unrealistic. A larger vessel such as the Spanish Navy’s Alvaro de Bazan class frigate or its Norwegian or Australian cousins may be able to support increased survivability, but such a vessel would be inherently more expensive. A traditional frigate is also not what the Navy desired when it sought a replacement for the aging mine countermeasures and patrol ships, as well as the retiring Perry class whose dated missile capabilities were removed starting in 2003. LCS and SSC are simply not as survivable, as the Navy currently defines this term, as larger combatants due to physical constraints, smaller crew size, and fewer installed active and passive defense systems. It is unreasonable to demand that they meet a higher standard on the current hull.
Steve Wills is a retired surface warfare officer and a PhD student in military history at Ohio University. His focus areas are modern U.S. naval and military reorganization efforts and British naval strategy and policy from 1889-1941. He posts here at CIMSEC, sailorbob.com and at informationdissemination.org under the pen name of “Lazarus”.
As a Christmas gift from our friends at Risk Intelligence, we’re sharing two free articles from the publication Strategic Insightsby CIMSECians. This first (also available in Pdf form), by myself, originally appeared in the September 2014 issue and provides a background and maritime risk analysis on the Taiwan Strait.
The author’s sole experience transiting the Taiwan Strait was not a pleasant one. Like many on his ship, a US Navy destroyer, he had earlier in the week gone to sleep expecting to awake anchored in Hong Kong harbour for a few days of liberty to celebrate the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Instead, the Chinese government rescinded permission for the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk Strike Group to enter port, causing the aircraft carrier and its escorting vessels to chart a course back to Japan and leave behind many loved ones who had flown to town to rendezvous. Typhoon-spawned weather heightened the crew’s enjoyment as they headed for the Taiwan Strait to undertake a ‘freedom of navigation’ transit. Seven years later, the relationship between China and the United States has not much improved. But that between China and Taiwan has softened markedly, even as 1,600 Chinese missiles remain arrayed against targets in Taiwan. In fact, this change has resulted in a shift in the geopolitical dangers facing those who ply the strait’s waters. This article will examine the outlook of these threats.
Geography of the Taiwan Strait
Until 10,000 years ago, a land bridge connected the Neolithic people of Taiwan with those of mainland China, until rising sea levels from melting glaciers at the start of the Holocene epoch created the strait. As described by the late Harvard professor Kuangh-chih Chang, over the subsequent ten millennia the strait’s width expanded and contracted in a series of six ‘sea invasions’ and six ‘withdrawals’ as the waters rose and fell. Today the strait runs 330 km north-east to south-west, and ranges in width from 220 km at its widest to 130 km at its narrowest, with an average width of 180 km. It is bounded in the north by the East China Sea and in the south by the South China Sea, circulating waters between the two bodies with an average depth of 60 m. At its deepest in the Penghu Channel the strait reaches 177 m and is a mere 25 m deep at its shallowest near the centre of the strait’s southern mouth – the ‘Taiwan Shoal’ or ‘Taiwan Banks’.
Seasonal environmental variation has a large impact on the navigability of the strait. The China Coastal Current flows southward in the western part of the strait from a maximum strength in winter months, backed by the northeast monsoon, to its weakest point in the summer. On the eastern side of the strait the northward flowing Kuroshio Branch Current is turned back by the north-east monsoon in the winter after exiting the Penghu Channel, but continues the rest of the year, while reaching its maximum strength in the summer. Each year from July to September, an average of six larger (and, thus, named) tropical storms and typhoons impact the strait. Year-round, the strait is known for strong winds, wave swells, and fog (156.3 days a year of level 6 or higher on the Beaufort Scale), but these effects are amplified during the winter months. Fang Xu and Pingping Chen, writing in Securing the Safety of Navigation in East Asia by Keyuan Zhou and Shicun Wu, note that these conditions impact “not only challenges to safety at sea but also obstacles for efficient search and rescue.”
The largest group of islands in the Taiwan Strait – and the group most impactful to navigation – is the Penghu Islands, consisting of 64 islets of volcanic origin, also known as the Pescadores for the fishing communities the Portuguese encountered in the 17th century. Situated 120 km from the Chinese mainland and separated by the 45 km-wide Penghu Channel from the south-west Taiwan coast, the Penghu Islands total 127 km2, with the namesake island accounting for roughly half that total area and 70 per cent of the total population of 100,400 inhabitants.
PRC forces on Yiangshan
Another archipelago of note – the Kinmen Islands – lies just 2 km from the south-eastern coast of Fujian Province in mainland China, yet is also controlled by the government in Taipei. Consisting of 13 islets of 151 km2 and 120,713 people, the Kinmen, or ‘Quemoy’, are low and flat except for hilly Kinmen proper. These islands, along with the 36 Matsu islets at the north end of the strait, were the scene of fierce artillery duels between forces of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and those of the Republic of China (ROC) in the 1950s during the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises. Unlike another pair of island groups in the Taiwan Strait that the ROC controlled at the start of these crises, the Tachen and Yijiangshan islands, the Kinmen and Matsu islands remain under Taiwanese administration.
A unique, informal feature of the Taiwan Strait helps keep the peace between ROC and PRC air and naval forces and prevent misunderstanding by encouraging them to remain on ‘their’ side of the strait. Referred to variously as the Taiwan Strait ‘middle line’, ‘centerline’, or ‘Davis Line’, the 1950s origins – and exact boundary – of this division are murky, but most sources point to its first appearance in 1955 as an incidental by-product of designated American patrol areas. Since the 1958 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, both sides have in practice mostly followed what remains a tacit understanding between China and Taiwan to prevent their warships and military aircraft from crossing to the other’s side of a line roughly bisecting the strait.
Following remarks by then-Defense Minister Lee Jye in 2004 threatening to shoot down Chinese aircraft crossing the middle line, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry released co-ordinates for their conception of the line. Today, the midline also functions as the jurisdictional boundary for a range of other regimes including the division of responsibility for search and rescue services, although increased cross-strait co-ordination and collaboration is blurring its importance.
Geopolitical Background
While most now know it as the Taiwan Strait, or Strait of Taiwan, the waterway’s aliases are a reflection of its history. The first, ‘The Formosa Strait’, comes from the former Portuguese name for Taiwan, the ilha formosa or ‘beautiful isle’. The origins of this name are shrouded in fascinating tales of doubtful veracity, as depicted in Jonathan Manthorpe’s Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan, but the popularisation – of both the name and the discovery of the island – by Dutch spy Jan Huygen van Linschoten in the 1596 book Iteneratio marked a transition. Whereas the 16th century was filled with Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and pirate expeditions and warfare in the strait, the exposure of Portugal’s secret trade routes brought Dutch and Spanish traders into that mix in the 17th century, as well as their attempts at colonisation.
Siege of Zeelandia
The European colonisers were soon followed by Chinese forces. Robert Kaplan notes in Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific that although several Chinese dynasties launched earlier expeditions, it wasn’t until the Ming dynasty in the 17th century that an “organic connection” between Taiwan and the mainland was forged. This was achieved first with Cheng Chih-lung’s resettlement of thousands from mainland China’s Fujian province and later with his son Cheng-Kung’s 400-ship, 25,000-troop force to drive out the Dutch, culminating in the 1662 successful siege of Zeelandia.
The second alias for the Taiwan Strait, ‘The Black Ditch’ or ‘Black-water Ditch’, came into use by cross-strait traders by at least the late 17th century. This period, stretching through the 18th century, was a time of increasing integration and trade with mainland China, and the name derived (along with red, white, and green-water ditches) from the colour of the currents crossed during these voyages. In fact, there appear to have been several regional stretches of water called the black ditch, including on either side of the Penghus. One of these is the Penghu Channel, which an 1807 text calls “the most dangerous place in all the ocean. Its depth is unfathomed, and the water is as black as ink,” – but the term has since been applied to the whole of the strait. (For an exploration of the origin of the term ‘The Black Ditch’ and its physical basis see Michael Turton’s online article The Black Water Ditch and the Chinese Claim to the Senkakus from which this quote was taken.)
In the late 1800s, a punitive Japanese military campaign on Taiwan and later French blockade of its ports presaged China’s cession of the island and the Penghus to Japan in 1895 at the end of the Sino-Japanese War. Japan’s administration of the island ran until the end of World War II, when Taiwan was returned to Chinese rule under ROC control and has served as the ROC’s seat of government since its 1949 evacuation from mainland China.
The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis occurred 40 years after the first two, raising the spectre of armed conflict in the strait as PRC military exercises and missile launches were countered by American naval movements over the course of 1995-1996. Following a rocky relationship under Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP, 2000-2008) and fears that he would precipitate a crisis through an unilateral declaration of independence, cross-strait ties have notably warmed with the election in 2008 (and 2012 re-election) of Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang party (KMT).
In December of 2008, direct cross-strait flights and postal services restarted for the first time in 59 years. More importantly for this paper, the ‘third link’ – direct shipping – also resumed and, according to the US Library of Congress’ Global Legal Monitor, now connects 72 mainland ports with 13 in Taiwan. In 2010, China and Taiwan negotiated and signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) – covering specific tariff reductions and a general understanding that the two sides will work to further lower trade tariffs and investment barriers across a broad swath of the economy. In the most recent sign of friendlier ties between Beijing and Taipei, the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhang Zhijun, met for the first time with Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-Chi in June.
Activity in the Strait
The Taiwan Strait is sometimes touted as a vital shipping route, connecting Asia with the energy supplies of the Middle East. Yet its importance should neither be overstated nor viewed in isolation. Except for cross-strait transits and vessels calling at a port in the immediate vicinity of the strait, the closure of the strait would result in only minor disruptions to Asian and global trade as most international traffic could be re-routed through the Luzon Strait to the west.
What determines the severity of disruption is whether the Taiwan Strait is closed alone or in conjunction with the Luzon Strait. A paper by Henry Kenny for the US government-sponsored think tank CNA (formerly Center for Naval Analyses) describes what a blockade of Taiwan might look like, with “exclusion zones for normal commercial shipping, as well as harassment of ships that approach the exclusion zone. Mines are another possibility, as is strafing of ships that intentionally or inadvertently approach the island.” It too notes that “disruption might be minimized if shipping to and from Northeast Asia steered clear of Taiwan on a wide berth … of the island, entering/exiting the South China Sea off northern Luzon.”
Other analysts focus not on a conflict in the strait but its potential resolution, arguing that a PRC-controlled Taiwan would enable China to extract concessions from Japan by threatening to close the Taiwan Strait and neighbouring Luzon Strait and thereby cripple its economy. Writing in Asia’s Cauldron, Robert Kaplan says Taiwan’s “de facto independence is key to the integrity of the Taiwan Strait that guarantees Japan’s trade routes.” While both the likelihood of these contingencies and their effects are debatable, a PRC in possession of Taiwan and in conflict with Japan would indeed cause serious disruption of Japan’s trade routes. Former Japanese diplomat Hisahiko Okazaki stated in 2003: “In case of emergency, the only safe [shipping route] for Japan in Asia will be the passage through the Lombok Strait in Indonesia through the east coast of the Philippines.” Kaplan is wrong that the Taiwan Strait guarantees Japan’s trade routes, but Taiwan’s de facto independence does keep them affordable.
This is not to say traffic in the strait is negligible. By 2008 the Taiwanese government counted 400 ships transiting the strait every day, along with 5.4 million barrels of crude oil and 0.6 trillion cubic feet of liquid natural gas (LNG) as of 2011 in an analysis by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). In comparison, the EIA showed another 5.6 million barrels of oil and 4.8 trillion cubic feet of LNG headed to South Korea and Japan through the Luzon Strait.
Traffic patterns in the strait have changed since the 2008 resumption of direct shipping. Much of today’s cross-strait traffic used to flow through the strait to enter China indirectly via Hong Kong. Now, not only has crossstrait traffic increased by 10% every year since 2008 as annual bilateral trade between the mainland and Taiwan has risen to nearly $200 billion, the overall traffic density has also reportedly increased, swelling the risks of collision. To handle this increase, the Chinese Ministry of Transport is exploring options for managing vessel traffic in the strait, including traffic separation schemes that may be implemented in the next few years.
Scope for Increased Activity
As busy as the strait is today, there are several possible scenarios that would increase congestion further. The South China Morning Post reports China may attempt physically to bridge the strait, having approved in 2013 two such highway projects, although whether the connections would involve bridges or tunnels in unclear. It is also unlikely that this project will come to fruition until much later stages of political and/or economic integration – according to independent intelligence firm Stratfor, the nearterm prospects for the link remain “largely illusory”. But if at some date it does proceed, the project could have an appreciable impact on strait traffic; on the other hand, once completed it would also divert some of the of crossstrait shipping traffic.
Far sooner than any such infrastructure, two follow-ons to the ECFA are likely to increase cross-strait traffic. The first, the Cross-Strait Services Agreement (CSSA), was signed last year and awaits ratification by Taiwan’s legislature. According to The New York Times, the CSSA opens 80 industries to investment in China and 64 in Taiwan. Although these are primarily service-sector openings, the CSSA does include the potential to boost the cross-strait travel industry. The second ECFA follow-on is the Cross-Strait Goods Agreement (CSGA), a tradein-goods pact still under negotiation that would have an even greater impact on vessel traffic.
Lastly, the EIA reports that Taiwan is working with China’s state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to explore for oil and natural gas in the strait. While these efforts have yet to make any substantial discoveries, and have failed in earlier attempts, any such finds would complicate the strait’s already crowded transit conditions.
Geopolitical Risk Assessment
ROC Marines
The current state of reduced tensions between China and Taiwan is likely to continue until at least the next presidential administration in 2016, and cross-strait economic integration is unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless the risks of a future military conflict in the strait remain real. Scott Kastner of the University of Maryland notes that while even a return to power of the DPP would not dampen the current spirit of co-operation, “the cross-strait relationship has not been fundamentally transformed.” Although economic incentives are increasing for both sides to continue the peaceful status quo, especially given Taiwan’s pragmatic acceptance of ambiguous sovereignty, this does not forestall the potential of a determined policy shift to resolve by force or decree what remains a matter of uncompromising principle – nor of a domestic contingency resulting in an attempt to use the flashpoint issue for political advantage.
PRC Marines
For Taiwan, the growth of economic interdependence and the strength of China’s military have driven the cost of an attempt to alter the status quo to a rationally unacceptable level if it would knowingly invite an armed response from China (see Scott Kastner’s draft paper A Relationship Transformed? Rethinking the Prospects for Conflict and Peace in the Taiwan Strait for an excellent analysis of rational calculations and redlines, from which his prior quote was taken). A declaration of independence is highly unlikely in the next decade, yet a future Taiwanese leader may nonetheless face, or believe he/she faces, what Thomas Christensen writing in the journal International Security terms as a “closing window of opportunity” to maximise Taiwan’s position in respect to its freedom of action and international status. Analysts have given a range of dates when China will be able to defeat Taiwan alone or in conjunction with American assistance, with Taiwan itself (and self-interestedly) predicting a lost edge by 2020. All such assessments are a moving target and based on assumptions about military investments that may not hold true, but they might reinforce a perception that the time for Taiwan to act – even modestly – is sooner rather than later.
For China’s part, this shift in the balance of power in its favour recommends patience. But such patience has its limits. Given the recent perceived violations of promises regarding Hong Kong’s governance and electoral future it is unlikely for a Taiwanese ruler to agree to an accord along Hong Kong’s model of ‘One China, Two Systems’. Further, as the same balance of power increases in China’s favour it places downward pressure on the cost for China of settling the matter by force. Kastner remarks that if this pressure outweighs the countervailing upward pressure from economic integration it could have the destabilizing effect of tempting future decision-makers to act. This is especially so if coupled with beliefs that work towards a peaceful settlement will be an effort in vain. But, as Zachery Keck of The Diplomat points out, if China is acting rationally it also must include in its calculations the likelihood and cost of armed resistance and pacification after the defeat of Taiwan’s armed forces. On balance then, short of internal domestic upheaval in either polity, the strait will remain the premier demonstration of John Mearsheimer’s “stopping power of water” and locus of anti-access, area-denial capabilities – with China’s arrayed to deter the US Navy from entering the strait and Taiwan’s arrayed to prevent China from crossing it – and this arrangement will remain peaceful.
Conclusion
In its current incarnation, the Taiwan Strait is simultaneously a trade super-highway and a moat. As such, its value is undeniably greatest for Taiwan, but its criticality can be overstated for international trade beyond the ports and economies in the immediate strait region, due to the readily available Luzon Strait route as an alternate.
Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founder and president of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.
A Geographic Rebalance, Technology, and Diplomacy Must Be Used Together
The challenges of the 2nd decade of the 21st century call for another phase in “strategic asymmetry” in order to preserve the security of the United States’ global strategic interests. The two versions of the successful Cold War Containment strategy; the “New Look” and “Flexible Response” appear on the surface to be completely different approaches. The first advocated reliance on the threat of nuclear war to deter aggressive action by the Soviet Union. The second advanced a graduated series of steps to meet the global Communist threat of which nuclear war was one component and precision-guided munitions one supporting pillar. Both however were committed to deterring nuclear war, maintaining global U.S. strategic interests, and preventing the further spread of the Communist ideology. Each too was relatively well-endowed with financial support from a U.S. government that stood at the military, political, and economic apex of a world otherwise devastated by the effects of two massive global conflicts and associated revolutions and chaos.
Unlike the Cold War period, the present United States cannot exercise the same dominance in all three disciplines of global power. The nation is in a period of relative decline. Many Eurasian nations have recovered from the effects of the conflicts of the 20th century and have assumed positions of global economic, political and in some cases military power. It is a situation similar to the situation challenging the last great liberal democratic power at the dawn of the 20th century.
British Empire 1903
The present U.S. situation is very similar to that of Great Britain at the end of the 19th century. The British faced many challenges to their economic and maritime supremacy. France recovered from multiple Napoleonic disasters and built a rival colonial empire; Japan emerged from centuries of isolation to compete for dominance of the Western Pacific; Germany and Russia tried to develop “webbed feet” and associated maritime ambitions; and the United States turned its energies from “winning the west” to winning the game of global economic competition. Furthermore, the “moral authority” the British had enjoyed relative to much of the rest of the world had been sullied to a degree by atrocities committed by British forces during the 1899-1901 Boer War against Dutch settlers in South Africa. That conflict also had significant financial costs that competed against those of the Royal Navy (RN), the British nation’s traditional strategic guardian, as well as those of a rising welfare state.
The United States confronts a similar scenario. Its traditional Eurasian allies have recovered from the effects of World War II and the Cold War and are now sometimes economic and political rivals. The Russian state born from the wreckage of the Soviet Union now maneuvers to regain lost territory and advantage. China has emerged as the principal U.S. economic competitor and also has maritime ambitions. The moral authority of the United States is now in question, like post-Boer War Britain, after questionable counter-insurgency conflicts in Southwest Asia and a global internet monitoring effort conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). The wars of the last decade drew money away from efforts to maintain and improve U.S. naval and air forces. The U.S. military also competes with an expanding U.S. welfare state.
The British Grand Fleet
The British solution to their own period of relative decline (well detailed in Aaron Freidberg’s book The Weary Titan) is best described in three steps. British statesmen and military leaders first examined the strategic geography of the British Empire in detail and made a frank assessment of the relative importance of its physical, economic, political, and military components. They conducted a global reduction and re-balance of British naval and military assets that reflected the updated strategic geographic assessment and their own financial limitations. Finally, the British sought accords (both official and unspoken) with a number of nations to implement the new strategic geography. They came to agreements with the French and the Russians on a series of long-simmering colonial competitions, and they signed an alliance with the Japanese in order to secure their Pacific trade lines and possessions. They also accepted the peaceful rise of the United States, a “daughter” liberal democratic power, to its eventual position of leading economic power by 1914 to buttress their own economic system. The end product was a British Empire and associated armed forces better prepared to confront the changing and more volatile 20th century. Britain survived two devastating world wars and although much of its physical empire and supporting military and naval forces declined, that change was demanded and conducted by the British public under far better circumstances than would have occurred in the wake of a military defeat.
There are of course significant risks involved in such a radical re-balancing of forces. Britain’s physical retreat from the Americas and the Pacific in the face of rising American and Japanese power likely pushed the dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand away from direct British influence. British leaders in the late 1920’s, allowed the strength of the British armed forces, especially the Royal Navy to significantly degrade to the point that Britain could no longer provide an effective defense of its Asian possessions. The loss of Singapore and the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse was the culmination of 25 years of poor strategic planning. It also wrecked British prestige and was a significant tipping point in the drive for Indian independence and the end of the physical British Empire.
The United States should undertake a similar realistic assessment of its global strategic position. Such a review would include not only land and maritime physical spaces, but also air, space and cyberspace “geography” which equally impact U.S. interests. This review must not be confined to mere budgetary and defense program appraisal, but must carefully examine the nation’s long-term interests. It must determine the most significant threats to the republic, and re-balance naval and military forces within budgetary limits to better confront those perils. Those forces must be both suitable for the geographic areas they defend, highly mobile and able to operationally and strategically re-position as circumstances dictate. While the present threat from both national and non-state actors is complex, some positive changes have taken place in recent years. For the first time since 1942, the United States does not face the threat of an immediate ground war other than on the Korean peninsula. The United States however cannot execute overly draconian cuts and still expect to exercise significant global influence. Some balance must be struck between the needs of the expanding U.S. welfare state, and the military forces that guard its very existence.
Finally, the United States should seek solutions to disagreements with nations and/or non-state actors whose intents and actions do not directly threaten U.S. global interest. The United States should also seek close association with present and rising states that share similar interests, since there is no “heir apparent” waiting to support and perhaps supersede the United States in its role as the defender of traditional liberal values as it was for Great Britain. One potential liberal democratic understudy is India, but other candidates may emerge. Although a rising power with aspirations toward greatness, China cannot be considered as a candidate to replace the United States as guarantor and support of the liberal capitalist system that sustains the global economy. Although perhaps no longer a full-fledged communist nation, China remains an authoritarian corporate state that continues to stifle free speech and expression. China, despite a generally warm welcome in the world economic community has instead chosen to bully its economic partners by needlessly antagonizing its neighbors and contributing to rising instability in East Asia.
US Surface Combatants At Sea
Like Great Britain, the United States can confront challenges to its global interests through an aggressive self-assessment of its strategic goals and means to which they can be accomplished. Unmanned systems, organized in support of traditional manned combat formations in a “Manned and Unmanned” battle concept, offer the United States and Western powers an offensive edge against robust Anti Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems. Unmanned systems, however, represent only one component of a greater post-Post Cold War U.S. grand strategy. A technological “offset” alone is insufficient given the expanding threat level that presently confronts U.S. decision-makers. Technological solutions will likely come from civilian industrial sources and be readily duplicated by potential adversaries. Framing the concept of a future grand strategy through unmanned systems, geographic military rebalance, prioritization of threats and movement to accommodate non-threatening, but distracting disputes with others represent the conditions for a successful response to the emerging strategic environment. The United States can still field a capable military force with global reach for a reasonable cost by undertaking such a broad strategic review.
Steve Wills is a retired surface warfare officer and a PhD student in military history at Ohio University. His focus areas are modern U.S. naval and military reorganization efforts and British naval strategy and policy from 1889-1941. He posts here at CIMSEC, sailorbob.com and at informationdissemination.org under the pen name of “Lazarus”.
