Category Archives: Indo-Asia-Pacific

Indo-Asia-Pacific

Defending Global Order Against China’s Maritime Insurgency – Part 2

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By Dan White and Hunter Stires

Dan White:

China’s behavior in the South China Sea, along with efforts to highlight it such as the Philippines Transparency Initiative, and deter it such as the Maritime Counterinsurgency Project do appear to be changing public opinion. This year 51.6% of respondents to the State of Southeast Asia 2025 Survey ranked China’s aggressive behavior as their top geopolitical concern, the highest level recorded since the survey started in 2019.

But China is learning as well. How has China’s behavior in the region evolved over the past few years of encountering resistance from the Philippines and changes in U.S. strategy?

Hunter Stires:

China is certainly learning and innovating at the tactical level. At the same time, I tend to think that China’s problem is that it is not learning and they are instead doubling down on this maritime insurgency strategy.

They are going to fail if they continue this strategy. This is a fight about who governs in a particular space. If you’re having a fight about who governs, you’re really having a fight about whose laws are enforced. Laws need to be accepted, and more importantly, adhered to in practice by the substantial body of the population that law aspires to govern. The laws civilians follow are both a metric of success as well as a mechanism of victory. Right now, Filipino mariners, both government and civilian, are still getting out on the water in defiance of Chinese actions. That is a bad sign for China.

Think of the billions and billions of dollars that China has sunk into this campaign. They have built numerically the largest Coast Guard in the world. They have spent approximately $13 billion constructing each of the three major island air bases they built in the Spratly Islands. These bases are also proving difficult to sustain due to the nature of the environment on a fake island so close to saltwater. They are also fixed assets that are highly vulnerable to attack in the event of war. They are helpful for supporting their maritime insurgency by helping to sustain Coast Guard and maritime militia forces but are less useful than investment into their broader navy. They could have bought Ford-class aircraft carriers for the money they spent constructing these islands.

After all this time, after all this effort, 51.6% of respondents, as you said, list China as the problem. And that is China’s greatest weakness here—no one likes them.

China is clearly banking that they can kind of cow everybody into compliance with their will by coercing them. But Beijing doesn’t understand that as long as the local Southeast Asian civilian mariners keep sailing, China will lose. China can keep on building ships but there are always going to be more civilian ships than there are Naval or Coast Guard forces. They will run out of money and people before they can impose their will on every civilian economic actor in the South China Sea where half the world’s fishing fleet resides.

The Philippines and other Southeast Asian states just have to stay in it. As long as they don’t give up they will ultimately prevail. The task of the United States and our allies and partners is to continue to reassure those countries’ governments and civilian maritime populations that we are with them and the rules of the freedom of the sea haven’t changed.

The U.S. also does not need to be everywhere Filipino fishing boats or other civilian mariners are either. That is what the Philippine Coast Guard is there for and has done an incredibly good job at. The U.S. is a key enabler that raises the effectiveness of local forces. Think of the Combined Action Program model that the Marines pioneered in Vietnam and which we then put to work very successfully in the Counter-ISIL campaign ten years ago. We bring heavy artillery, we bring air support, we bring helicopter medevacs, we bring logistics. And then the local force brings the commitment to defend their home, they bring local knowledge, and they bring mass. When those two things, military might and local resolve, come together they provide a very efficient economy of force for the U.S. and much more effective operations by that local home defense force than it would otherwise be able to accomplish on its own.

As the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy continues to grow and strengthen capability, it takes more and more of a leading role. The U.S. Navy is then able to remain in standby and deter Chinese aggression by conveying that an attack on one will bring the intervention of the whole group.

Dan White:

A criticism of this approach is that it is a side show that distracts from the fight China is really preparing for, which is an invasion of Taiwan. China might abandon its maritime insurgency in exchange for prioritizing all its resources for an all-out attack on Taiwan. In which case America’s naval resources will have been focused on the wrong fight. How would you respond to that?

Hunter Stires:

You absolutely have to be ready for that high-end fight. But the high end is not the only way that China could get its way.  If China is successful at overturning the freedom of the sea, it will position itself to secure control over the Eurasian continental heartland while shutting out America from access to the overwhelming majority of the world’s population and markets.  This is what Napoleon tried and failed to do to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. France created a continental system to mobilize the resources of Europe for France’s purposes and deny Britain trade, but Britain was able to survive because they had an overseas empire and other people they could trade with.

China is similarly trying to create a continental system across Eurasia and Africa with its One Belt, One Road initiative. That is most of the world’s population. If they also succeed in balkanizing the world’s oceans they could shut the United States out of Eurasia. Seas that are no longer free become obstacles to trade and influence. China could then relegate the U.S. to the world’s economic and geopolitical periphery unless we submit to its dictates. Looking at the logical end-point of China’s actions if successful, we can deduce that this is probably Beijing’s desired end state.

Dan White:

It sounds like what you are saying is that the broader Chinese strategy is to turn its much weaker maritime geography, where it is enclosed by chains of large islands, into a geopolitical advantage by weakening open access to those seas. By getting local actors to bend the knee, China makes its unfavorable geography into a moat that it can use to seal off the world island of Eurasia, and use it as a springboard for projecting power outward. Once China controls the South China Sea it can more safely attack Taiwan and then put pressure on the U.S. across the broader Indo-Pacific. At this point the U.S.’s distance from the region becomes more of a liability than an advantage. It then becomes much harder for the U.S. to match the amount of power it can project at a distance in the Indo-Pacific than China is able to project closer to its shores. Is that a fair characterization?

Hunter Stires:

I think you got it exactly. China’s approach here is inherently continentalist. Its maritime strategy involves land-centric thinking. I would argue that’s actually a weakness of their strategy, because you can’t permanently occupy the ocean.

Think about the nature of China’s strategy here, as an insurgency, in the context of China’s strategic canon. Sun Tzu and Mao are the two most important figures. Of course, there are others, but these are the two principal writers that everybody reads. They’re both land commanders.

Sun Tzu advocates the indirect approach of winning without fighting or winning before the other side gets a chance to form ranks. Mao is the most successful insurgent in history. As a result, insurgent strategies permeate everything that China does. Insurgency is fundamental to the DNA of the Chinese Communist Party, because that’s how they came to power.

The fortunate news for us is there are a lot of different ways that we can cause that strategy to fail. Most of the targeted countries have a lot of incentives to reject Chinese domination. China has looming internal issues that will test the compact the Chinese Communist Party has with the people: how it continues to deliver prosperity while maintaining control over innovation; how it contends with upholding the social safety net while its population declines.

The key question is, will China become more outwardly aggressive once it faces these headwinds and perceives its window of opportunity to assert its power to be closing?

Certainly, there’s a lot going on here in the United States that also concerns me greatly. Developments in the United States are going to have a significant impact on China’s own calculus. But if I had to choose between America’s problems versus China’s problems. I would pick our problems every time. Ours are inherently solvable. We just have to choose to solve them. That is often hard, because we’re a big country, we’re a fractious country, and we love to argue about things. But we are generally a good, reasonable group of people and we also have the benefit of the greatest geography in the world.

There is really no reason that we could not choose to solve the major problems that we have. China’s problems are much more structural. They are going to be a lot harder for them to solve.

Dan White:

This summer, China constructed new dual-use aquaculture facilities in Yellow Sea waters shared with South Korea—complete with helicopter pads and watchtowers—then imposed unilateral closures of those waters. In September, according to the Center for Strategic International Studies, the Coast Guards of China and South Korea engaged in a 15-hour standoff in the region, as China sought to impose further restrictions on South Korean movement within the Yellow Sea. Do you see this as an early sign that China is exporting its South China Sea playbook to the Yellow Sea, or is China’s behavior in the region motivated by another set of interests?

Hunter Stires:

That’s a really good way of putting it, that they are looking to export and expand that maritime insurgency into the Yellow Sea. And getting back to China making this profound set of mistakes in terms of antagonizing all its neighbors, it’s completely in keeping with their modus operandi. They’re needlessly antagonizing South Korea.

I think people throughout the region are also connecting China’s behavior to the Taiwan conversation. People are starting to see that if China decides to go to war in Taiwan, that it is not going to be an isolated thing. Japan and South Korea are dependent on sea lines of communication that pass by Taiwan. They are increasingly of the opinion that there is no way that they could stay out of a conflict. Same with the Philippines. This behavior reinforces that belief to some extent.

I think targeting South Korea will prove to be a mistake by China. While it may be challenging for South Korea, it has the means to hold its own. They have one of the world’s most formidable shipbuilding industries, which is an element of our broader Maritime Statecraft strategy, and key means of countering China’s maritime insurgency. The South Koreans are playing an important role in rebuilding our commercial and naval shipbuilding capability in the United States, as well as for other allies. South Korea is likewise playing an enormously important role in the development of the Philippines Navy.

I would not be surprised, by the way, if China were using some of these techniques to try and pressure South Korea or at least impose costs on it for its temerity in helping the United States and Philippines to stand up to Chinese aggression.

China’s present leadership has an instinct to escalate matters, which I think is frequently counterproductive to their broader diplomatic relationships. Look at the Wolf Warrior diplomacy, or as my mentor at the Naval War College, Jim Holmes, likes to call it, “jackass diplomacy.” Being a jerk to everyone is actually not a good foreign policy. Obviously, the U.S. is in the middle of finding that out the hard way for ourselves.

God willing, our political system retains the ability to change course. Self-correction is one of the most important strengths of democratic political systems and the great weakness of authoritarian political systems. China has less capacity for self correction, and they’re going to have a much harder time than we will.

So China’s behavior in the Yellow Sea could push South Korea to play an increasingly important role in maritime counterinsurgency. South Korea is effectively an island. They have a closed border to the north that cuts them off from the rest of the continent. Their trade can’t go by land. It has to go by sea. They must be a maritime power. This prompted them to create one of the most formidable maritime industries in the world. South Korea now has a highly capable navy and coast guard. We should not hesitate at the opportunity to engage them more directly across the theater, not just in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, but in the South China Sea as well.

The prospect of bringing South Korea in to join this broader coalition to implement a maritime counterinsurgency campaign, not just in the South China Sea, but across the entire breadth of the theater, I think this has the potential to be a very positive development for us and an unforced error by China.

Dan White:

I would be remiss not to connect Japan into all of this. Over the past couple months there’s been a huge rift in Sino-Japanese relations. This was prompted by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggesting that a military invasion and blockade of Taiwan would constitute an existential threat to Japan. Do you think that’s been informed by Japan just watching this creeping expansion of Chinese maritime territorial claims?

Hunter Stires:

I wholeheartedly agree, this is an especially timely conversation. Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi is just telling the truth. If you look at the strategic geography, and you envision what Chinese control of Taiwan actually means for Japan, it very quickly becomes existential for Tokyo.

Japan is an island power. It is completely dependent on sea lines of communication for its survival. To have a hostile air and naval base just off its shores, bestriding those critical sea lines of communication, that is a big problem for Japan.

Japan is also a direct target of China’s broader maritime insurgency, with China’s challenge to the Japanese administration of the Senkaku Islands.

The Chinese clearly have a tendency and a preference t target one opponent at a time. They will escalate against the Philippines in a big way, and then they’ll potentially back off a bit, then they’ll escalate against Japan. Like a classic schoolyard bully, China tries to make everybody feel like it’s just them, that they are alone.  But of course, they are not alone.

This is again, a major opportunity for the U.S. and a major strategic liability for the Chinese. They are effectively horizontally escalating their maritime insurgency across their entire maritime periphery. They are now actively antagonizing the U.S. and this set of our allies and partners. If we can sustain the engagement and the commitment among our allies to continue pushing back on Chinese encroachment this will put China in a position where it is effectively fighting a five front war.

The bigger risk is that China gets wise and goes back to the previous strategy, of trying to appeal to countries one at a time, and isolate and peel them off individually. That worked really well for them for a long time. Thankfully, the region has really wisened up to China’s bad faith in its dealings, so a return to that previous strategy might very well be unsuccessful. The best thing that China could do for itself is moderate its positions, end the maritime insurgency and develop genuine win-win relationships with its neighbors. The United States should continue to do the same and be good friends and allies and uphold international law.

As Jim Mattis liked to put it, “be strategically predictable, be operationally unpredictable.” The U.S. should be a country everyone can rely on. The last year has not been particularly healthy on that score and we should not be antagonizing so many of our friends and allies. Ideally, Congress should start to take a more active role in the conduct of our foreign policy to ensure we remain strategically predictable.

Thankfully, the foundations of these relationships for the United States are very strong. I love the expression that Kisun Chung, the CEO of HD Hyundai, one of South Korea’s leading shipbuilders, used to describe the South Korea-U.S. relationship when the Chief of Naval Operations came to a few weeks ago. He put it very eloquently that the United States and South Korea are “blood allies.” We have shed blood together. That is powerful.

Notwithstanding the political ups and downs of any given moment, that bond endures. It endures with South Korea, it endures with the Philippines. It endures with Taiwan and Japan too. We have shed blood together. We have stood alongside each other. We would be making an enormous mistake if we harm those relationships.

I think that the foundations of our bonds, of our alliances, of our strategy are much stronger than China’s.  If we continue working together to grow our shipbuilding capability with South Korea and Japan; if we continue working with the Philippines, with Taiwan, with Korea and Japan and their world-class navies, and coast guards to protect and empower civilian mariners; if we support our friends in standing up for their sovereign rights against China’s maritime insurgency, I have great confidence that we are going to prevail.

Dan White is an independent foreign policy analyst based in the New York Metro Area. Dan is a former member of the The Wilson Center and The Kennan Institute, and a veteran of the War in Afghanistan. Dan maintains a newsletter, OPFOR Journal, which analyzes strategic competitions with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Hunter Stires served as the Maritime Strategist to the 78th Secretary of the Navy, where he was recognized for his work as one of the principal architects of the Maritime Statecraft strategy. He serves as the Project Director of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Maritime Counterinsurgency Project, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Navy League’s Center for Maritime Strategy, and the Founder and CEO of The Maritime Strategy Group. 

Featured Image: The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHD 6) transits in formation March 24, 2020.  Courtesy: U.S. Navy

Indo-Asia-Pacific

Taiwan’s Layered Air Defence and the Calculus of Deterrence

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By Guarav Sen

In any future Taiwan Strait conflict, the opening phase would be decisive – not because it guarantees victory, but because it shapes escalation, operational momentum, and political decision-making. The identification of a center of gravity in Taiwan’s defense is therefore contingent on the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) campaign objectives, which vary across firepower-strike, invasion, and blockade scenarios.

Taiwan’s integrated air defence system functions as a scenario-dependent operational centre of gravity, most clearly in a PLA firepower-strike or decapitation campaign. While unlikely on its own to determine the outcome in all contingencies, integrated air defence plays a central role in shaping the battlespace. An analysis of Taiwan’s air defence is particularly salient as nations assess lessons from the recent U.S. strike and leadership-targeting operations, and recognize that neutralizing defence air systems is a critical enabling capability in invasion and blockade scenarios.

By denying rapid air superiority and preserving Taiwan’s combat power, the integrated air defense complicates efforts to achieve a swift fait accompli and raises the costs and risks of PLA operations.1 This article examines the interplay between integrated air defense and the broader PLA campaign options, assessing how its survivability influences the feasibility of coercion, blockade, and amphibious invasion.

PLA Campaign Logic Across Scenarios

PLA operational planning emphasizes methodical sequencing of action rather than a single decisive engagement. A campaign could shift from initial firepower-strike and paralysis efforts toward a coercive blockade or, if conditions permit, an amphibious invasion. Each option places different demands on air superiority, command and control, and escalation management, making Taiwan’s air defense posture central to shaping the viability of PLA courses of action.

The Opening Salvo: Fire and Electrons

A PLA campaign could begin with a multi-domain strike designed to induce strategic paralysis, rather than a fleet posture offshore that is immediately detectable, attributable, and escalatory.2 Roughly 900 short-range ballistic missiles fielded by the PLA Rocket Force are aimed at Taiwan, alongside hundreds of land-attack cruise missiles and long-range guided rockets. Such weapons place island targets at risk from mainland firing points.

However, as Russia’s campaign against Ukraine demonstrates, even sustained missile and drone saturation struggles to produce strategic paralysis against a defended state and instead yields diminishing returns as air and missile defenses adapt.3 The experience of Ukraine offers a useful comparison. Large-scale saturation attacks using missiles and one-way attack drones have imposed high costs and strained air defenses, but have failed to produce strategic paralysis, instead pushing the conflict toward prolonged attrition as a functional, integrated air defense remains in place.

Concurrent with missile barrages, the PLA Navy Air Force could unleash thousands of precision-strike sorties in the initial days.4 Its Eastern and Southern Theatre Commands already field a modern fleet of over 950 fighters and 300 bombers or attack aircraft.5 This includes J-16 multirole fighters and low-observable J-20s armed with long-range PL-15 air-to-air missiles.6 Air bases, ports, radar sites, command-and-control nodes, and surface-to-air missile batteries would be the primary targets in Taiwan to blind, break, and constrain Taiwan at sea and in the air.7

Kinetic barrages will be combined with non-kinetic operations. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would use a combination of electronic warfare and cyber tools to interfere with early warning radars, jam satellite communications, penetrate networks, and use decoys to drain finite interceptor stocks.8 The doctrine of “systems destruction warfare” seeks to collapse an adversary’s operational architecture rather than engage in platform-versus-platform attrition, although they possess the numbers to do so.9

Special Operations, Air Assault, and Shaping Actions

PLA special operations forces and pre-positioned networks would likely focus on targeting critical nodes—air defense command elements, sensors, communications infrastructure, and key political or military leadership—rather than holding terrain. Air assault forces would aim to seize or disrupt airfields, ports, and chokepoints to enable follow-on operations. Low-signature platforms such as helicopters or gyrocopters pose a detection challenge, but remain vulnerable to short-range air defenses, visual acquisition, and networked cueing from integrated sensor systems.

Years of “grey-zone” activity or military actions below the threshold of open conflict set the table. Frequent PLA Air Force air defense identification zone incursions and surrounding naval drills signal, degrade Taiwan’s readiness, and enable ongoing reconnaissance. Every Taiwan radar activation reveals location, frequency, and modes, refining future targeting and prioritization.10 Grey-zone efforts normalize tension, compress warning time, and blur the distinction between exercise and attack, complicating mobilization and defense.11 These preparatory activities negatively shape the environment in which Taiwan’s air defense system must function from the very first hours of conflict.

The Layered Shield: Architecture, Integration, and Vulnerabilities

If Taiwan’s air defense system survives—even in degraded form—it becomes a key enabler of Taiwan’s Overall Defense Concept, a planning framework that emphasizes force preservation, littoral denial, and the destruction of invading forces at the beachhead.12 Amphibious success requires local air superiority.13 A functioning air defense system complicates PLA Air Force air dominance, forcing higher-altitude standoff operations that dilute close air support and defensive fires for landing forces.14

Under this air denial umbrella, Taiwan’s mobile Hsiung Feng anti-ship missile batteries and fast attack craft can turn the Strait into a kill zone.15 Without functioning air defense, China’s air forces could hunt down these dispersed assets; however, with air defense in place, lightly defended support ships are exposed, creating a sustainment dilemma for Beijing. Even in a blockade scenario, the PLA Navy must still sustain persistent surveillance, air–maritime coordination, and enforcement against blockade-running; functions that become more costly and escalation-prone when operating under a surviving, even degraded, Taiwanese air defense. Air defense undermines the notion that a blockade is a low-risk coercive option.

Taiwan has spent decades building one of the world’s most integrated air defense systems, which is designed to detect, track, and engage everything from ballistic missiles to low-flying drones.16 Its philosophy is defense-in-depth with multiple supporting layers. Each layer can be ablative, reducing incoming attacks and protecting key assets, allowing forces to continue fighting.17

Included in these layers, the AN/FPS-115 Pave Paws radar at Leshan provides early warning of incoming ballistic threats from deep within the mainland.18 Pave Paws also feeds into a resilient network of fixed and mobile long-range air-search radars.19

Six E-2K Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft add a flexible, high-altitude “look-down” capability against low-flying cruise missiles and stealthier threats, pushing the detection envelope far into the Taiwan Strait. When integrated with passive sensors and ground-based networks to mitigate the vulnerabilities of emitting systems, together the system forces China to allocate scarce long-range interceptors and strike assets to hunt these platforms rather than employ them elsewhere.20

Taiwan fields multiple layers of medium- and high-altitude air and missile defenses designed to counter aircraft, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles. While some interceptors are optimized for engaging aircraft, the backbone of Taiwan’s ballistic missile defense consists of hit-to-kill interceptors. These interceptors are intended to destroy incoming missiles by kinetic impact rather than proximity detonation. The operationalization of an enhanced upper-tier interceptor, expected in the mid-2020s, is intended to expand the defended battlespace in both range and altitude, strengthening Taiwan’s ability to absorb and attrit large missile salvos in the opening phase of a conflict.

Taiwan’s air defense posture continues to rely on a layered architecture in which a mid-tier capability focuses on engaging aircraft and cruise-missiles, while a dispersed short-range air defense network provides terminal and point defense against low-altitude threats.

Observations from recent high-intensity conflicts, particularly Ukraine’s experience with contested airspace, have reinforced Taiwan’s emphasis on prioritizing the defense of critical assets under conditions of constrained air-surveillance coverage. This has encouraged a defensive posture that relies heavily on high-end interceptors to manage high-value threats. While such a layered approach improves localised situational awareness and asset protection at the tactical level, it also deepens dependence on scarce and costly upper-tier capabilities.

The combined sensors and shooters are operational and integrated within the Republic of China (Taiwan) Air Force Air Defense and Missile Command. Looking ahead, the planned T-Dome project aims to further decentralize command and control by improving sensor–shooter integration and shortening decision-making timelines.21 Rather than relying on a single command node, the system is intended to allow multiple sensors to cue interceptors more flexibly, improving resilience against a decapitation strike.

The systems of the combined forces are integrated so that each sensor can be activated and used to direct fire and engage enemy formations, creating a highly efficient, low-latency tactical engagement core. This is expected to create a far more active tactical posture in anticipation of a decapitation strike or a tactical battle.22

Strategic self-reliance underwrites Taiwan’s defense concept. To offset delays in U.S. arms deliveries and the risk of wartime isolation, National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) has prioritized domestic production. NCSIST’s new goal of producing over 1,000 missiles yearly will be very useful. Programs that are hitting their goals early, such as the TK-3, signal credible sustainment in the wartime scenario and the capacity to sustain wartime operations without immediate U.S. resupply, which enhances deterrence through depth and resilience.23

The Asymmetric Duel: Attrition and Adaptation

Taiwan’s integrated air defense system faces two principal challenges. First is the risk of saturation, as PLA doctrine emphasizes overwhelming defenses through large volumes of drones and missile salvos intended to exhaust interceptors.24 The second are non-kinetic pressures. PLA investments in cyber, electronic warfare, and data manipulation are aimed at degrading, rather than disabling, command-and-control and sensor–shooter links. Experience from Ukraine suggests that such non-kinetic operations can disrupt the effectiveness of air defense and impose friction, but have generally fallen short of paralyzing integrated systems, particularly when defenders employ redundancy, mobility, and rapid adaptation.

The Ukraine war offers lessons for the PLA as it refines drone-swarm tactics to saturate Taiwan’s defenses.25 As in Ukraine, tactics can be used to overcome a numerical disadvantage, including mobility, dispersal, and tactical innovation. Taiwan’s adaptation includes surface-to-air missile mobility, strategic hardening, command-and-control redundancy, and distributed teams equipped with man-portable air defense systems and other weapons to efficiently counter unsophisticated threats. During a blockade or attrition contest, the ability to sustain will be decisive, elevating NCSIST’s role in the mass production of missiles, drones, and spares from a matter of industrial necessity to one necessary for survival.26

Should Taiwan survive the first strike and compel the PLA to transition to an adaptive phase of the conflict marked by a slower tempo, operational improvisation, and iterative adjustment rather than pre-planned shock operations, the possibility of a swift PLA victory is eliminated.

Conclusion: The Shield of Uncertainty

An integrated air defense system is a central enabling pillar that shapes campaigns, denies quick victory, and raises costs. It integrates domestic and foreign systems under a doctrine developed from the lessons of in-depth analysis of contemporary warfare. It is more than the capability to down missiles and aircraft. It aims to withstand the initial strike, disrupt China’s rapid decision-making in a conflict, and force any hostilities into a protracted, expensive war of attrition for Beijing.

This system serves as a multilayered complication for every stage of a potential cross-strait invasion. It denies an adversarial force the critical air superiority necessary to acquire an amphibious assault, and increases the risk of a military blockade. It also supports Taiwan’s more extensive asymmetric defense posture, which relies on dispersed, mobile defense systems. Success, in this context, is measured not by the system’s absolute performance but by its robust, sustained performance under stress and by the cognitive impacts of its existence on Chinese war planners. As such, the integrated air defense has a unique impact, increasing China’s calculative risk and introducing deterrence through the potential of a protracted, destructive war that Beijing is highly unlikely to win.

Gaurav Sen is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of The Peril of the Pacific: Military Balance and the Battle for Taiwan. His research interests include Indo-Pacific security, great-power competition, strategic autonomy, and maritime geopolitics.

References

1. Lantes, Korey F. 2024. “’Strategic Disruption’ Can Thwart an Invasion of Taiwan.” Proceedings 150, no. 12 (December 2024). U.S. Naval Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2024/december/strategic-disruption-can-thwart-invasion-taiwan

2. Cancian, Mark F., Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham. 2023. The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan. January 9. Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan

3. Goldstein, Lyle. 2025. “Target Taiwan: Prospects for a Chinese Invasion.” Defense Priorities, September 2025. https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/target-taiwan-prospects-for-a-chinese-invasion/

4. Ibid.

5. Xu, Tianran. 2025. “Taiwan’s Air and Missile Defence. Part 4: Long-range SAMs versus PLA Offensive Capabilities.” ThoughtRoom – Open Nuclear Network, April 29, 2025. https://platform.opennuclear.org/thoughtroom/quick-takes/taiwans-air-and-missile-defence-part-4-long-range-sams-versus-pla-offensive-capabilities

6. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). 2024. Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2024: Key Developments and Trends. London: IISS. May 2024. https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library—content–migration/files/publications—free-files/aprsa-2024/asia-pacific-regional-security-assessment-2024.pdf

7. Lin, Sean and Wu Su-wei. 2025. “Taiwan Should Seek to Leverage PLA Satnav System to Counter Drone Threat: Experts.” Focus Taiwan (Central News Agency), September 2, 2025. https://www.focustaiwan.tw/cross-strait/202509020028

8. Lin, Sean and Wu Su-wei. 2025. “Taiwan Should Seek to Leverage PLA Satnav System to Counter Drone Threat: Experts.” Focus Taiwan (Central News Agency), September 2, 2025. https://www.focustaiwan.tw/cross-strait/202509020028

9. Wuthnow, Joel. 2025. PLA Systems Attack. Keystone 25-1, January 2025. Available at https://keystone.ndu.edu/Portals/86/PLA%20Systems%20Attack-%20Keystone%2025-1%20Jan%2025.pdf

10. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). 2018. China, Global Security & Taiwan. Research Paper. London: IISS. https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2018/09/china-global-security/

11. Goldstein, Lyle. 2025. “Target Taiwan: Prospects for a Chinese Invasion.” Defense Priorities, August 25,   2025. https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/target-taiwan-prospects-for-a-chinese-invasion/

12. Hsi-min, Lee (Adm., Ret.). 2021. Taiwan’s Overall Defense Concept: Theory and Practice. Hoover Institution. September 27, 2021. Available at https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/210927_adm_lee_hoover_remarks_draft4.pdf

13. Revels, Matthew. 2023. “Denying Command of the Air: The Future of Taiwan’s Air Defense Strategy.” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 6, no. 3 (March–April): 135–44 https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/3371516/denying-command-of-the-air-the-future-of-taiwans-air-defense-strategy/

14. “Taiwan’s Air and Missile Defence. Part 4: Long-range SAMs versus PLA offensive capabilities,” Open Nuclear Network, accessed Nov 3, 2025

15. Dotson, John. 2025. “Taiwan’s Defense Policies in Evolution.” Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs 8, no. 1 (Spring 2025). April 21, 2025. https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/4164821/taiwans-defense-policies-in-evolution/

16. Xu, Tianran. 2024. “Taiwan’s Air and Missile Defence. Part 1: Tien Kung-1 and Tien Kung-2.” Open Nuclear Network(Thoughtroom). 18 September 2024. https://platform.opennuclear.org/thoughtroom/quick-takes/taiwans-air-and-missile-defence-part-1-tien-kung-1-and-tien-kung-2

17. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 2016. Recommended Practice: Improving Industrial Control System Cybersecurity with Defense-in-Depth Strategies. Washington, DC: ICS-CERT / NCCIC.

18. Wolff, Christian. 2025. “Strategic Radar Systems — AN/FPS-115 ‘PAVE PAWS’.” RadarTutorial. https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/01.oth/karte004.en.html

19. Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. 2018. “AN/FPS-117.” May 1, 2018. https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/defense-systems/an-fps-117/

20. Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. 2018. “AN/FPS-117.” May 1, 2018. https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/defense-systems/an-fps-117/

21. Author unknown. 2025. “What is Taiwan’s multi-layered T-Dome air defense system?” The Japan Times, November 30, 2025. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/11/30/asia-pacific/taiwan-air-defense-focus/

22. Author unknown. 2025. “Taiwan President Unveils ‘T-Dome’ Air Defence System to Counter China Threat.” The Hindu, October 10, 2025. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/taiwan-president-unveils-t-dome-air-defence-system-to-counter-china-threat/article70146730.ece

23. “Taiwan’s Missile Production Program … Two Years Ahead of Schedule,” Global Taiwan Institute, 2024, accessed Nov 3, 2025.

24. Sen, Gaurav. 2025. “How Taiwan Must Prepare to Face Chinese Drone Saturation.” The Strategist (Australian Strategic Policy Institute), July 4, 2025. https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/how-taiwan-must-prepare-to-face-chinese-drone-saturation/

25. Ditter, Timothy. 2025. PRC Concepts for UAV Swarms in Future Warfare. Arlington, VA: CNA Corporation. July 2025. https://www.cna.org/reports/2025/07/PRC-Concepts-for-UAV-Swarms-in-Future-Warfare.pdf

26. Grieco, Kelly A., and Hunter Slingbaum. 2025. “Taiwan’s Squandered Defensive Potential.” The Henry L. Stimson Center, September 11, 2025. https://www.stimson.org/2025/taiwans-squandered-defensive-potential/

Featured Image: A People’s Liberation Army Air Force J-16 escorts a H-6 bomber during a routine deterrence patrol. (Japan Air Self-Defence Force photo)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

What the Royal Thai Navy’s Offshore Fire Support Reveals About Its Approach to Littoral Warfare

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By Hadrien T. Saperstein

In December 2025, clashes along the Cambodia–Thailand border turned into open conflict for over a week, suspending the peace agreement brokered by Malaysia and the United States. Artillery, rockets, drones, and airstrikes turned rural districts into battlespaces. By mid-month, at least twenty people were killed, hundreds wounded, and over half a million civilians displaced on both sides.

Although most of the fighting occurred on land, along the Chanthaburi–Trat front, the Royal Thai Navy launched Operation Trat Suppresses Foes. This operation consisted of a single patrol gunboat, HTMS Thepa, ordered to provide naval gunfire support from the Gulf of Thailand against fixed Cambodian positions ashore. Without the support of naval gunfire, it is unclear whether the detachment of Thai marines (RTMC) could have seized Ban Nong Ri even after it conducted a second concerted attempt to capture the area. A similar naval gunfire support mission took place last July during Operation Trat Strike 1, after Commander-in-Chief (CinC) Adm. Jirapol Wongwit (2024-25) personally assumed command of a task force of four ships to help the marine element retake the Ban Chamrak area.

This article uses these campaigns to investigate what it means when a recognized small navy from Southeast Asia uses naval gunfire support from the “littorals” to assist land forces fight a border conflict.1 The Thai case illuminates five points often underappreciated in the existing literature on the link between small navies, naval gunfire support, and littoral warfare.

First, the campaign reveals how littoral forces of small navies move along a continuum from peacetime constabulary tasks to combat roles without changing platforms, with greater fluidity than great-power navies. A highly cited work on small navies by Michael Mulqueen, Deborah Sanders, and Ian Speller argues that what distinguishes small navies from great-power fleets is not just less tonnage but their close attention to order of effect.2 Analogously, Alexander Bergström and Charlotta Parrat’s study of littoral warfare highlights how the operational environment for small navies of coastal states differs from that of blue-water fleets, with less attention given to ship-on-ship battle engagements, and how the same concepts can play out differently during naval gunfire support missions.3

Though the Thai navy remains attuned to the U.S. Navy’s surface way of warfare through its four decades of participation in Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) and Cobra Gold exercises, it is a commonly held view inside the service that its Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE) concept is not applicable to the Thai navy, as recently noted in a critical commentary by Captain Silp Panturangsri.4 Given Thailand’s current fleet force, the ships that can perform this role are limited: a very small number of frigates and offshore patrol vessels (OPVs), plus aging patrol gunboats to which HTMS Thepa belongs. This gunboat [vessel] is the same one that boarded Vietnamese trawlers illegally fishing in territorial waters only a few months ago, under the direction of Vice Adm. Apha Chapanon (2024-25), Director of Maritime Security Area 1 (MECC-A1), and is now delivering naval gunfire support into a neighboring state.

Second, the campaign reveals how small navies repurpose doctrine written for expeditionary amphibious operations for supporting forces engaged in border conflicts from littoral waters. Most navies, especially those of small states, do not address the problems of conducting naval operations in narrow seas and therefore lack a stand-alone concept for littoral warfare.

This is only somewhat the case with the Thai navy. According to interviews conducted by the author with Royal Thai Navy officers, the service possesses a stand-alone concept for naval gunfire support for land forces in the classified version of its Surface Combat Operations Manual (อทร. 3101). Though the manual’s contents cannot be confirmed, its understanding of naval gunfire support can be inferred from other sources, like the Surface Warfare Curriculum (see Appendix ค), which holds that surface and subsurface ships in coordination with coastal artillery do train to conduct Over-the-Horizon Targeting (OTH-T) during land combat operations.

Yet, as its 2003 general maritime doctrine (อทร. 8001) reveals, the Thai navy can also draw on two decades of amphibious doctrine, courses, and exercises to further inform the conduct of naval gunfire support missions (see page 35). Doctrinally, since 2001, its amphibious warfare manual Operations in Amphibious Warfare (อทร. 3430) has framed coastal operations as joint sea–air–land campaigns in which naval gunfire support is central to enabling troops ashore. Following the adoption of the Network Centric Warfare Plan in 2015, the Fleet Training Command received permission to revise its training course on amphibious operations (Appendices C and D) in 2020 to improve its training for sailors planning specific phases from embarkation to landing and to ensure that it integrates its naval gunfire with air support and land logistics from other service branches.5 A new interpretation of its amphibious doctrine was issued in 2021 and then tested under the oversight of former Thai navy Commander-in-Chief (CinC) Adm. Chatchai Sriworakhan and RTMC CinC Adm. Sorakrai Sirikarn in a high-profile beach landing exercise at Ban Thon, Narathiwat. It sought to validate both the updated amphibious doctrine and the 2020 force deployment guide (แนวทางการใช้กำลังของกองทัพเรือ พ.ศ. 2563). The effort to further integrate its amphibious forces with others has been followed up by bureaucratic reform inside the Thai navy in 2024, guided by the Bureaucratic 4.0 policy, leading to even greater inter-service coordination during naval gunfire support missions.

Third, the campaign reveals how littoral warfare in Southeast Asia is inseparable from generating humanitarian risk. Milan Vego’s work on littoral warfare has highlighted how operations close to shore are not only inherently joint and tactically compressed but conducted in proximity to civilians and critical infrastructure.6

In the littoral waters across Southeast Asia, firing naval guns at targets just inland is sure to occur in a space crowded with villagers, roads, and border infrastructure. The Thai navy’s 2016 Operating Standards Manual includes guidance on controlling collateral damage by coordinating with coastal communities during both live-fire training and active operations. For them, this is the real face of littoral war: older ships operating in the littorals with their every round fired carrying not just explosive but legal and political weight.

Fourth, the campaign reveals how the concept of littoral warfare keeps evolving. Friedner Parrat’s longue-durée study of Swedish coastal defense advances that coastal navies evolve as understandings of “what war is” change, shaped as much by shifting norms as by geography or technology.7 Small states enabled a novel norm around littoral warfare during the post-Cold War era through the advent of international maritime law.8 Though their sea power still lies fundamentally in maintaining the guiding spirit of international law, small navies are now leading the charge to change normative behavior in littoral warfare through innovative naval technologies.9,10 This altogether affirms that sea power increasingly belongs to small navies of coastal states and not necessarily that of great-power blue-water navies.

The Thai navy is participating in the changing of norms around littoral warfare, acting on its long-held desire to be a “leading” maritime security provider in its region and beyond since at least the late 2000s. This role was reaffirmed by former Defense Minister Sutin Klungsang at the 2024 Shangri-La Dialogue, by chairing intergovernmental organizations tackling climate-related security issues. The navy is not hesitant to deploy its sea power in littoral warfare when it believes its maritime interests are at stake, even if the operations have the potential to result in civilian casualties, like when hitting casino complexes.

Finally, the campaign reveals how navies can be motivated to participate in littoral operations not just in the pursuit of material benefits, as in assisting land forces acquire potential or claimed resources, but also by nonmaterial factors, such as rising nationalism or irredentism in domestic politics.11 Small navies, even more so than great-power navies, are driven by status-seeking behavior, often at the expense of immediate material returns.12 The concept of “amphibiosity” has been presented by the naval theorist Steven Paget to describe the way small navies invest in amphibious capabilities and rhetoric not only for operational reasons but as a way of enhancing their standing within national force structures and among partners.13

The Thai navy is no exception. It also regularly mobilizes fleet forces to participate in littoral warfare engagements to generate status enhancement. The service remains, like most navies, an organization eager to preserve a good image abroad, a factor that undergirded its construction of a maritime security establishment that accords with the standards of the Western international liberal order.14 The Master Plan under the 20-Year National Strategy requires domestic agencies to pay close attention to Thailand’s positional status in international affairs (see page 9). Looking more broadly at Southeast Asia, this attention to nonmaterial factors has been missed in the debates on whether a naval arms race is currently under way in Southeast Asia.[15] The special attention that small navies from Southeast Asia give to emerging technologies is likely linked more to the social “recognition” dilemma than to the classic “security” dilemma.16

The offshore fire support in Trat is more than a tactical vignette of the first and second Cambodia–Thailand conflicts of 2025. The engagement offers a concrete example of how a Southeast Asian small navy uses participation in littoral engagements to satisfy its state’s limited ends, all the while operating under doctrinal, political, and humanitarian constraints along a continuum from constabulary patrol to traditional naval gunfire support

Hadrien T. Saperstein is a Ph.D. Scholar in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). His research bridges maritime strategic thought, international relations theory, and small navies from Southeast Asia. His articles on Thailand have previously appeared in Strife Journal, New Mandala, Asia Centre, Future Directions International, 9DashLine, and East Asia Forum. A forthcoming dissertation-turned-book that offers the first comprehensive history of the Royal Thai Navy is in the works.

References

1. On the definition and international law around littorals, see Prashant Kahlon. “War on the Coastline: Mitigating Civilian Harm in the Littorals.” Humanitarian Law & Policy. May 17, 2023.

2. Michael Mulqueen, Deborah Sanders, and Ian Speller. Small Navies: Strategy and Policy for Small Navies in War and Peace (London, UK: Routledge, 2014).

3. Alfred Bergström and Charlotta Parrat. “Two Perspectives on Littoral Warfare.” Defence Studies 22, No. 3 (2022): 433-47.

4. Gregory Raymond. “Cobra Gold over Four Decades: Hedging, Alliances and a United States–Thailand Multilateral Military Exercise.” Contemporary Security Policy 46, No. 4 (2025): 781-805.

5. Hadrien Saperstein. “The Royal Thai Navy’s Theoretical Application of the Maritime Hybrid Warfare Concept.” Asia Center. Oct. 12, 2020.

6. Milan Vego. “On Littoral Warfare.” Naval War College Review 68, No. 2, Art. 4 (Spring 2015): 30-68.

7. Charlotta Parrat. “Swedish Coastal Defence Over Four Centuries: War as a Changing Institution of International Society.” Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies 5, Iss. 1 (2022): 350–363.

8. Alred Hu and Jamese Oliver. “A Framework for Small Navy Theory: The 1982 U.N. Law of the Sea Convention.” Naval War College Review 41, No. 2 (1988): 37-48.

9. John Hattendorf. “Sea Power and Sea Control in Contemporary Times.” Australian Naval Institute. Sep. 21, 2025.

10. Guntis Skunstiņš and Ieva Berzina. “Technological Maturity for Jeune École: The Case of Ukraine’s Naval Strategy.” Security & Defence Quarterly 52, No. 4 (2025): 1-11.

11. Meghan Kleinsteiber. “Nationalism and Domestic Politics as Drivers of Maritime Conflict.” SAIS Review of International Affairs 33, No. 2 (Summer 2013): pp. 15-19.

12. Anders Nielsen. “Why Small Navies Prefer Warfighting over Counter-Piracy.” In Maritime Security: Counter-Terrorism Lessons from Maritime Piracy and Narcotics Interdiction. eds. Edward Lucas et al. (Washington D.C., USA: NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, 2020), pp. 97-109.

13. Steven Paget. “Water Under the Bridge?—The Revival of New Zealand-United States Maritime Cooperation.” Naval War College Review 74, No. 3, Art. 5 (Summer 2021): 41-64.

14. Wissawas Koomrasi. “การขยายตัวของกรอบความร่วมมือระหว่างประเทศกับการบริหารจัดการความ มั่นคงทางทะเล: ศึกษาบทบาทของกองทัพเรือกับการจัดตั้งศูนย์อํานวยการรักษาผล ประโยชน์ของชาติทางทะเล [The Expansion of International Cooperation Frameworks in Maritime Security Management: A Study on the Role of the Royal Thai Navy in the Establishment of the Thai Maritime Enforcement Command Center].” Master’s Thesis (Bangkok, TH: Chulalongkorn University, 2023).

15. Kerrin Langer. “‘The Old World Fought, the Modern World Counts:’ Naval Armament Policies, Force Comparisons and International Status, 1889-1922.” In Comparisons in Global Security Politics: Representing and Ordering the World. eds. Thomas Müller, Mathias Albert, Kerrin Langer (Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2024), pp. 195-215.

16. Joselyn Bart. “Emerging Technologies, Prestige Motivations, and the Dynamics of International Competition.” GoveranceAI (2022): 1-56.

Featured Image: Royal Thai Navy (RTN) riverine sailors prepare to execute a harbor defense demonstration aboard their patrol boat riverine to U.S. Navy Riverine Squadron ONE Sailors. (U.S. Navy photo)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

How China’s Expanded Operations in the Sea of Japan are Troubling Tokyo

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By Andrew Orchard

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) response to Taiwan President Lai’s inauguration highlighted Beijing’s regional assertiveness and military capabilities. That same week, China’s ambassador to Japan implied that the Japanese would be “brought into the fire” over their support for Taiwan’s independence. Both activities underscore why Japan is worried about a potential Taiwan contingency, and Tokyo’s unease is not limited to Beijing’s threats to Taipei.

Recurring PLA operations and increased bilateral training with Russian military forces constitute a challenge backed by military threats close to Japan’s territorial waters. One challenge is the PLA continuous East China Sea patrols and regular exercises near Japan’s Southwest Islands, demonstrated by the March 2024 PLA Eastern Theater Navy patrol adjacent to the Southwest. Type 052C guided missile destroyer Changchun and Type 054A guided missile frigate Changzhou operated south of the islands from March 25 until March 27, 2024. On the last day, a Y-9JB reconnaissance aircraft flew a mission near the patrol, illustrating the well-known risks of escalation to the Southwest Islands during an East China Sea or Taiwan contingency.

Tokyo, in response to these challenges, has taken proactive measures by significantly increasing its Self-Defense Force (JSDF) presence and actively planning to enhance shelter preparedness in the islands to ensure safety and security of its territories.

Japan’s Maritime Boundaries according to the Cabinet Office of Policy Planning and Coordination on Territory and Sovereignty.

Beyond East China Sea operations, the PLA also conducts operations in tandem in the Sea of Japan¹. Recent development and operations by the PLA underscore the severity of the challenge faced by Tokyo. In late March 2024, PLA forces operated in the Sea of Japan for two weeks. Four Northern Theater ships operated in the Sea of Japan from March 17 to March 31. The patrol included Huainan , a Type 52D guided missile destroyer of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla and Daqing, a Type 054A guided missile frigate. The operation consisted of a composition similar to past exercises, leading to speculation that the force possibly conducted training analogous to a “Long-Distance Exercise.” 

Upper Left and Bottom: Japan Joint Staff publicly released WZ-7 UAV image and observed flight route on 26 March. Upper Right: WZ-7 at 2022 Zhuhai Airshow.

Notably, the Northern Theater reported the first mission of a WZ-7 UAV in the Sea of Japan in March 2024, which coincided with the naval operations. Some Japanese media speculated that the WZ-7 transited to the Sea of Japan through North Korean or Russian airspace. The possibility for future WZ-7 Sea of Japan intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions troubled retired JSDF officers. The UAV’s endurance and sensor capability could enable additional PLA collection during JSDF Sea of Japan operations. Moreover, the PLA’s enhanced monitoring capability in the Sea of Japan, demonstrated by the operation of the WZ-7, along with ISR platforms and intelligence collection ships that could force the JSDF to expend more resources in response and “potentially halt training while the PLA collected.”

A timeline of key exercises and operations in the Sea of Japan. (Source: Japan Joint Staff and Global Times.)

Initially, the PLAN conducted irregular operations in the Sea of Japan and focused on gaining out-of-area experience, likely attributed to prioritization of counter-piracy in the Gulf of Aden and limited at-sea logistics capacity. Two months before deploying the PLAN inaugural counter-piracy task force in the Gulf of Aden, the PLAN expeditiously sailed a four-combatant task group through the Sea of Japan in October 2008, enroute to the Western Pacific Ocean. This move and the PLA’s first Sea of Japan exclusive training mission as part of the 2011 cadet training cruise foreshadowed PLA interest in Sea of Japan operations.

After the first China-Russia Joint Sea exercise in 2013, PLAN activities in the Sea of Japan continue to rise. The increased frequency of operations can be attributed to the improved at-sea logistics capability and the inclusion of such exercises as part of distant seas deployments. Milestones in this progression include the unilateral “Sea of Japan Confrontation Exercise” conducted by PLAN naval forces returning from RIMPAC 2016, and the expanded joint air and naval exercise in the same area in January 2017. The 2019 annual bilateral bomber patrols with Russia marked a significant step in their collaboration, which transitioned to biannual bomber patrols in 2022 and 2023, leading to growing unease.

In a broader sense, Tokyo is deeply concerned that the continued intensification of these operations could pose a significant challenge to Tokyo’s naval capabilities. These capabilities, historically developed for maritime chokepoint control, play a pivotal role in reducing foreign threats to shipping during a contingency, underlining the strategic importance and vulnerability of Japan’s maritime chokepoints. The harsh lessons of the Second World War profoundly influenced Japan’s development of naval capabilities and the associated strategy. Loss of control over Japan’s sea lines of communication (SLOC) led to the devastating sinking of over 1,500 merchant ships during the war. Some Japanese experts view this failure as a causal issue that helped seal Japan’s fate and highlights the importance of historical lessons in shaping current challenges to avoid similar fates. This issue also demonstrates the strategic significance of Japan’s SLOCs and the need for robust naval capabilities to protect them. These historical lessons shaped Japan’s current defense strategy that emphasize the importance of controlling their SLOCs and the need for a strong naval force to protect its maritime interests. 

JMSDF Frigate JS Tatsuta at her commissioning ceremony. (Japan MOD photo)

After the Second World War, Japan relied upon the United States to secure its SLOCs as the nation rebuilt. The relationship shifted with the 1978 Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense, a significant turning point that outlined sea control in the Sea of Japan and East China Sea as a JMSDF mission. Leveraging its surrounding chokepoints, Tokyo built a maritime force that could limit the freedom of Soviet naval activities against Japan, marking a significant step in developing Tokyo’s naval capabilities.

A February 2024 Nikkei Shimbun article (in English and Japanese) highlighted the growing Japanese apprehension over PLA activities in the Sea of Japan. The article stated that PLA unilateral and bilateral operations with Russia indicate Beijing’s desire to maintain a constant presence in the Sea of Japan. An unnamed former Japanese Defense Ministry intelligence officer cited in the Nikkei article stated that the PLA could deploy strategic forces to the Sea of Japan in the future. This article provides valuable insights into the current perceptions and concerns of the Japanese government and defense experts regarding the PLA’s activities in the Sea of Japan.

Japanese government officials and experts also think the PLA will expand Sea of Japan operations, although Tokyo has not publicly speculated on the future composition of force deployments. Instead, there is a focus on the scope of these activities, including China-Russia bilateral exercises for strategic messaging. Japanese sources cite the 24 May 2022 China-Russia bomber patrol during the ‘Quad’ Tokyo Summit as a prime example of such messaging. The messaging is assessed as part of both nations’ efforts to challenge the status quo in East Asia and pressure Tokyo. This strategic messaging, if successful, could undermine Japan’s regional influence and security, and consequently impact the broader geopolitical implications of the PLA’s activities in the Sea of Japan. 

Furthermore, the use of each Beijing and Moscow airfields during bomber patrols signifies an increase in interoperability and government relations, causing growing unease in Tokyo. The prospect of further enhanced China-Russia logistics cooperation, to include port access, could enable sustained Chinese pressure on Japan and its SLOCs during a contingency, posing a significant threat to Japan’s security and economic stability. The Japan Forum for Strategic Studies 2023 Taiwan Policy Simulation emphasized this issue and addressed that similar pressure can complicate Tokyo’s decision-making in future contingencies.

The Japan Ministry of Defense believes countering this challenge requires not just individual efforts, but a collective commitment to foster a security environment that is unwilling to tolerate unilateral changes to the status quo. Active military engagement with like-minded countries that emphasize the importance of collective action and cooperation in maintaining regional stability and security will help ensure continued stability. 

These engagements, like the recent Australia-Japan-Philippines-U.S. South China Sea patrol, often occur outside the Sea of Japan. Despite the physical geographic separation, the exercises are essential for Japan’s security because these exercises showcase defense capabilities and demonstrate a public display of the willingness of nations to stand up for shared principles. Mr. Iida at the National Institute of Defense Studies noted:

“Demonstrating to China and Russia the will and ability to maintain the status quo by force through joint exercises with many countries that share interests in maintaining the existing international order will lead to the stability of the regional order through deterrence.”

The recent patrol, which involved multiple countries, demonstrates the collaborative efforts of like-minded nations as they seek to counter the PLA’s activities and maintain the regional order. Regional relationships and engagements will need to pace the growth of the PLA Navy, and keep up with its expanding operations.

¹ The name of the Takeshima Islands are contested and known as Dokdo Islands in South Korea, and internationally as the Liancourt Rocks.  The Sea of Japan is alos a name in dispute and is referred to as the “East Sea,” “Sea of Korea,” “Sea of Joseon” in Korea.

Andrew Orchard is a U.S. Navy Officer and former Mansfield Fellow. This article was written in Spring 2024 as part of the author’s research on Japan’s maritime security policy during his Mansfield Fellowship.

The views expressed in the article are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, the U.S. Government, or The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation.

Featured Image: Guided-missile frigates Bayannaoer (Hull 551), Dali (Hull 553) and Tongliao (Hull 554) attached to a naval flotilla under the Chinese PLA Southern Theater Command sail in formation during a maritime combat training exercise in late September, 2025. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Yu Chuanjun)