Category Archives: Indo-Asia-Pacific

Indo-Asia-Pacific

The Porcupine in No Man’s Sea: Arming Taiwan for Sea Denial

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By Collin Fox

Precision munitions have been sinking warships for the better part of a century, but never before have they been so capable, so widely proliferated, or benefited so much from omniscient surveillance and precise targeting. These convergent factors have propelled modern sea combat in a violently stagnant direction that strongly favors the defensive. A transit through contested waters in the Western Pacific would draw effective fire like a casual stroll through no-man’s land on the Western Front, circa 1916. Now, as then, tactical forces must stay invisible or out of range to stay alive and combat effective, lurking to deploy their own withering fires against emergent targets.

After years of bemoaning the impact of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) on its own power projection paradigm, the United States military is belatedly adapting the same methods with its own forces, while overlooking the geopolitically unique contributions that certain allies and partners can bring to the fight. The factors that have made sea denial easier, sea control harder, and contested power projection a real challenge apply to virtually all potential belligerents – including China and Taiwan. The United States should not simply rely on its own conventional military forces to deter Chinese aggression in the Pacific, but should also start major military foreign assistance to Taiwan and so transform the island into a prickly fortress of sea denial.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen reviews a Republic of China Marine Corps battalion in Kaohsiung in July 2020. (Photo via Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of China)

Omnipresent Weapons, Omniscient Surveillance

A degrading security environment and the convergence of accessible technologies have democratized precision strike. The notable trends seen during 2020’s Nagorno-Karabakh conflict also apply at sea; even lesser powers like Australia, Iran, Pakistan, Serbia, Taiwan, and Turkey are now producing their own anti-ship missiles. The great powers are going a step further, with China deploying “carrier killer” ballistic missiles and the United States converting land attack cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and air defense weapons into long-range ship-killers.

The improvements in the intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting cycle are even more impactful than these growing arsenals. Satellite constellations produce optical, infrared, and radar-generated imagery of every non-polar square meter on the planet several times per day. When combined with other sources and then distilled through increasingly capable artificial intelligence algorithms, this data can pinpoint most naval surface forces. The title of a recent USNI article encapsulated the change: “From Battleship to Chess.” Hiding is ever-harder, finding is ever-easier.

The reality of tactical omniscience applies to all major surface vessels, and catalyzes long-range precision weapons to create a massive maritime no-man’s land. To be seen is to be targeted, and, more than likely, killed.

Keeping Below the Trenchline

Prevailing in this future battle hinges on keeping forces alive, supplied, connected, and tactically relevant within a thousand-mile no-man’s land. Each service’s operational concept tackles this challenge through the same basic approach of survival through networked dispersion.

Both the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advance Base Operations and the Army’s Multi-Domain Transformation concepts would disperse missile-equipped forces on islands around China, creating unsinkable and hard-to-find fire bases that could persistently hold Chinese forces at risk. The Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept would likewise bounce platforms between airfields, “diluting the amount of firepower that [enemies] can put down on any one of those targets.” The Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations concept would leverage the inherent mobility and firepower of naval vessels to similarly frustrate enemy targeting.

Each service’s distributed concept would still incur significant risk—stationing offensive fires on foreign soil demands dangerously uncertain political assent from each host nation, while the Air Force would be hard-pressed to maintain enough persistent and timely fires within a distant and contested environment. The Navy’s existing surface platforms might bring the assured access, persistence, and mass that the other services lack, but would nevertheless remain more exposed to enemy targeting and fires. Aside from service-specific risks, each of these disaggregated concepts rests on the dangerously flawed assumption of assured communications. In sum, victory is hardly assured and defeat is possible.

The net uncertainty of American overmatch erodes conventional deterrence against China, which increases the risk of miscalculation, escalation, and conflict. The United States should zoom out to reframe the strategic problem, rather just fixating on tactical and operational solutions.

Building a Better Porcupine, or Subsidized Buck-Passing

The conventional problem framing for defending Taiwan casts the deterrent value of American forces as the essential guarantor of regional stability. As the balance of power continues to shift, this binary framing—either China can be deterred by American power, or it can’t— has produced strongly divergent policy proposals. Richard Haass and David Sacks argued that an unambiguous security guarantee for Taiwan would restore deterrence and so keep the peace; Charles Glaser advocated “letting go of Taiwan” to mitigate the decreasingly justifiable risk of a major war with China. Like other proposals, both frame the problem too tightly – through the basic paradigm of American military power. 

The Lowy Institute’s insightful study takes a more nuanced and Australian perspective on the problem. It skips the false choice between doubling down and retrenchment, advocating instead that the “United States should act as armourer, but not guarantor.” The logic is sound:

“If Taiwan acquires, over roughly the next five years, large numbers of additional anti-ship missiles, more extensive ground-based air defence capabilities, smart mines, better trained and more effective reserve forces, a significantly bolstered capacity for offensive cyber warfare, a large suite of unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike systems, and counterstrike capabilities able to hit coastal targets on the mainland, it will continually increase the price China will have to pay to win a war.”

With help, Taiwan could deny China the sea and air control it requires to take the island, while also imposing significant costs on the mainland. Thousands of anti-ship missiles and sea mines would reinforce the stopping power of water, while dispersed air defense systems would help deter or attrite Chinese airpower. The United States should help Taiwan become a better porcupine by subsidizing and directing a new arsenal of democracy.

A delegation from the American Institute in Taiwan with Republic of China naval officers in Kaohsiung, August 20, 2019. (Photo via AIT)

This approach recalls the effective grand strategy that first Britain and then the United States executed as offshore balancers through the 19th and 20th centuries. Offshore balancing is not mere isolationism, retrenchment, or simple buck-passing. When a rising power threatens the regional balance, along with the offshore balancer’s interests, a savvy offshore balancer first puts money and arms on the scale to restore balance through allies, partners, and proxies. For insular great powers like the United States, this initial option of external balancing, or subsidized buck passing, represents a far better option than joining every war on the Eurasian Rimlands. Whenever this subsidized buck passing proves insufficient, though, the offshore balancer has the option, though not the obligation, to enter the conflict with military force against a weakened enemy and so restore the balance of power.

The key to both external balancing and buck-passing against a competitor is that the ally needs to stay in the fight, at least for a while. Britain’s buck-passing to France in the late 1930s did little to help Britain after France’s rapid and calamitous defeat. Offshore balancers should subsidize and strengthen their allies and partners so they can deter, defeat, or at least bleed their mutual foes, buying time and buying down the risk of rapid defeat.

Simply “letting go of Taiwan” would be an unforced error for the United States; any grand bargain that China might offer to encourage appeasement over Taiwan would have no more credibility or durability than the breached Sino-British Joint Declaration concerning Hong Kong. Letting go of Taiwan would unilaterally cede strategic terrain and advantage to China, allowing it to sidestep the potentially ruinous and deterrent costs that a subsidized defense would impose.

Gifts Come with Strings

Taiwan has not received significant military foreign assistance since the United States shifted recognition to Beijing in 1979, and so has a long history of buying American military hardware with its own funds. This cash-and-carry arrangement has allowed it to choose prestige platforms like M-1 tanks and F-16 fighters that better support anachronistic fantasies of retaking the mainland than a realistic defense of the island.

On the other hand, security assistance and security cooperation funds come with focused caveats that seek to build specific capabilities of mutual importance. These funds include Foreign Military Finance (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET) grants under Department of State authorities, and Building Partner Capacity and other authorities under the Department of Defense.

Congress could include Taiwan in one or more of these appropriations while creating structured incentives aimed at both Taiwanese and Chinese policy choices. For Taiwan, FMF appropriations above a certain base level could be contingent on Taiwan’s defense reforms and funding levels, or come in the form of matching funds for specific capabilities, such as those ideal for sea denial. Provocative Chinese actions, such as air and sea incursions over the past year, could also trigger additional FMF funding. If each Chinese incursion essentially bought another anti-ship missile for Taiwan, Beijing might not be so casual about the practice.

Republic of China sailors walk by the corvette Tuo Chiang (Photo via AFP/Sam Yeh)

For context, the United States subsidizes Israel’s defense with $3.3 billion per year, which is a bit less than the annual operating costs for two Armored Brigade Combat Teams. Funding Taiwan’s security to a similar or greater level would create a fearsome A2/AD challenge for China, while also reducing plausible American costs and risks for a Taiwan contingency scenario. It would certainly provide better warfighting value than two armored brigades in a maritime theater. This level of assistance would buy greater access, influence, and amicable leverage to pursue American strategic interests in both defense and non-defense areas, such as chip supply chains.

China would certainly protest this security funding, just as it protests existing weapons sales, but these specific investments would constrain China’s escalation options. Arming Taiwan to the teeth with A2/AD weaponry could effectively and quickly deter China through denial without the escalation and entrapment risks that would come with aggressive proposals to base American forces in Taiwan.

The Limits of Power Projection

Notable critics have argued that Taiwan is simply indefensible, asserting that a “Chinese attack would be shock and awe with Chinese characteristics, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, rocket artillery, drones, and probably thousands of aircraft. There would be decapitation, disruption of Taiwan’s air force and navy in their bases, targeting of U.S. bases in Guam and Okinawa.” To be sure, China could batter Taiwan from across the 100-mile strait, but would this “shock and awe with Chinese characteristics” compel Taiwan’s rapid capitulation or even prepare the battlespace for a successful amphibious assault?

Every comparison is fraught, but China would be hard-pressed to match the intensity of fires that American forces once directed at Okinawa – an island 1/30th the size of Taiwan and 400 miles distant, but sharing its mountainous geology. Despite a full week of hellish pre-invasion bombardment from battleships and attack aircraft, the island’s entrenched Japanese defenders not only survived this “the typhoon of steel and bombs,” but then emerged to fight another three months in the longest and bloodiest battle of the Pacific theater. “Shock and awe” only goes so far – particularly when it can be reciprocated.

Technological progress since the Battle of Okinawa has also not alleviated the fundamental difficulty of taking well-defended terrain or targeting elusive defenders. Indeed, the American military’s frustration in hunting for SCUD missiles in the Iraqi desert, for military vehicles in Kosovo, and for Taliban fighters in Afghan caves simply reflects the limits of airpower – even with functional or complete air supremacy. These limits also apply to China, which would have no less difficulty in finding, fixing, discriminating, tracking, targeting, and neutralizing the thousands of mobile anti-ship, anti-air, and strike missile launchers hiding amongst many more decoys, and all scattered through the jungles, mountains, caves, and cities of Taiwan.

Buying Time, Buying Options

Heavily reinforcing Taiwan through focused security subsidies while maintaining a policy of strategic ambiguity would maintain conventional deterrence through denial against China. This approach would also greatly reduce the risk of a fait accompli, thereby giving American political leadership time to discover the best outcome for its strategic ambiguity: to rally support at home and abroad, to pressure China through a variety of means, and to enter combat at a time, place, and manner of its own choosing – or even to forego the conflict entirely.

These investments to harden Taiwan would buy time on the order of months and so enable slower, de-escalatory strategies like offshore control while also preserving more aggressive options. On the other hand, Taiwan might only be able to hold out for weeks under a plausible status quo scenario. In such a case, the United States would either risk major escalation by immediately executing a rapid but confrontational approach like JAM-GC, or watch Taiwan collapse from the sidelines.

The United States can make wise investments to pursue its own strategic interests, frustrate Chinese hegemony, and save a threatened democracy in the process. Taiwan needs focused U.S. support to substantially grow its sea denial capabilities quickly. Congress should update legislation and appropriate funds to that end.

Commander (select) Collin Fox, U.S. Navy, is a Foreign Area Officer serving as a military advisor with the Department of State. He is a graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School and the Chilean Naval War College. The views presented are his alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Department of Defense, the Department of State, or the Department of the Navy.

Featured Image: Taiwanese sailors at Kaohsiung’s Zuoying naval base in 2018. (Photo via Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

Frigate Bayern in the Pacific: The Return of German Gunboat Diplomacy?

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By Moritz Brake and Sebastian Bruns

The German government recently announced the deployment of the frigate Bayern to the South China Sea. With this deployment, Berlin is aiming to send a strong signal to its European and American allies. However, it is one that comes with an exit strategy of a kind that is unique to the use of naval forces. On one hand, Germany wants to be seen as standing up against unilateral Chinese appropriation of international waters. On the other hand, China’s potential counterreactions need to be closely monitored and dangerous escalation avoided, especially in light of China’s current conventional and nuclear capabilities, and Germany’s economic dependence on the Middle Kingdom.

Enter the Bayern. The deployment of a warship to the region, the level of visibility of which can be adjusted depending on the actions and reactions of the powers at be, allows Germany to achieve a delicate balance between cooperation and conflict with China. Therefore, what is described in the latest Chatham House commentary as an “unclear message” is precisely the point of this mission under the given circumstances: the deployment of the Bayern preserves room for maneuver at the appropriate time, as the situation unfolds on the scene.1 After all, blunt ‘sticks’ or empty ‘soft words’ are hardly sufficient to deal with such a complex situation.

Since September 2020 at the latest, when the German government published its Indo-Pacific Guidelines,2 there have been concrete plans to deploy a German warship to the region. Germany has only 10 of these ships of various classes, and given many other operational commitments, they are a scarce commodity. Even if a single frigate may seem a modest contribution when compared to a single British or several American aircraft carriers in the region, it is not insignificant. If one also takes into account what the deployment means in the context of previous German naval contributions and the domestic political debate, the mission of the Bayern is remarkable.

Following the announcement, the term “gunboat diplomacy” made its rounds once again in the German public, as is so often the case when it comes to new naval deployments. A bit of folklore is simply part of the security policy debate in Germany. However, in view of the Strait of Hormuz discussion,3 which faded out of public view somewhere between the EU Commission and the German Chancellery, as well as the recent capers of the SPD parliamentary group on drone procurement in the Bundeswehr, it is important not to forget how quickly ideological hobbyhorses can be harnessed to the cart of domestic political power games.

In this context, political messages sent internally and externally are crucial to the value of the mission of the Bayern. This kind of communication is in the DNA of every navy. After all, their very existence is intended to send messages to friends, neighbors, and potential rivals, ranging from the ability to act in cooperation or in belligerence. Modern navies like the German Navy also demonstrate through such deployments that they are capable of generating political and strategic effects in a broader spectrum of activities with global reach. These include deployments and mission-equivalent commitments as well as port visits, maneuvers, engagement in international alliances, or personnel and technical exchanges with other states.4

From the foreign policy dilemma alone, whose pitfalls Germany wants to avoid in the process, it is clear: this is not about gunboat diplomacy. Anything that could be remotely described as a combat mission is clearly not up for discussion during this Indo-Pacific cruise. Rather, it is about combining the protection of the rules-based order, free sea lanes, and multilateralism, with the simultaneous maintenance of vigilant cooperation with China.5 This “squaring of the circle” could also be described as a maritime attempt at an Asian variant of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik—the careful navigation between Western unity in resistance in the face of aggressive Chinese foreign policy, and the “outstretched hand” in the omnipresent awareness of Brandt’s dictum: “Peace is not everything, but everything is naught without peace.”6

Therefore, the mere fact that Germany, which otherwise acts very cautiously towards China, is sending a ship at all is a surprisingly clear signal. Moreover, the choice of the ship to be sent is relevant. Frigates are the most combat capable warship that the German Navy can deploy. While a single frigate cannot and will not pose a military threat to China, Germany is visibly expressing its message and interests through its deployment.

Last but not least, the deployment of the Bayern is also remarkable on a deeper level. Given the difficulties with deploying armed forces in the service of a dynamic foreign policy, which Germany had in its own unique way after the end of the Cold War, it was hardly surprising that the special diplomatic value of the navy was slowly recognized. Beginning in the 1990s, a process of development ensued that encompassed not only the public and politics, but also the navy. Ultimately, however, the navy itself had to develop a coherent concept of its own diplomatic impact in order to function as a “diplomatic influencer”:7 an advisor to policy at home and an ambassador abroad.

A Play with Undertones, Nuances, and Subtle Harmonies

The long voyage from Wilhelmshaven to the Pacific will bring Bayern into contact with numerous security problems and lines of conflict that preoccupy Berlin’s foreign and security policy. These are also closely observed in the capitals of EU partners and NATO allies. Competition between states is a constant feature in modern history. In the 21st century, however, it is no longer limited to one domain—maritime, land, or air. The maritime domain is contested and the dominant vector for global power projection. Still, it also offers its own valuable approaches to the peaceful containment and resolution of conflicts. At the same time, the impact of warships is by no means exhausted by the things they can influence through the use of force. 

Like a jazz musician acknowledging with a nod the tunes of the past still lingering in the air, the voyage of the Bayern appears to cite hidden notes of Germany’s foreign policy evolution over the past thirty years. In the Mediterranean, she joins NATO’s maritime security mission “Sea Guardian”—the mission carried out by the NATO standing naval group from which Germany once joined one of its first crisis response missions after the Cold War—“Sharp Guard” in the Adriatic in 1993—coincidentally commenced by another Bayern—the old 1960s destroyer of the same name.

Former West German destroyer Bayern, in service from 1965-1993. (Photo credit: Bundeswehr)

Next, at the entrance to the Indian Ocean, the Bayern is to join the EU’s counter-piracy operation “Atalanta.” The naval deployment is part of a broader networked approach to the long-standing crisis in Somalia. However, this is also the first EU-led naval mission, one in which Germany has been significantly involved from the beginning. Furthermore, it was at the Horn of Africa that the German Navy finally left behind old Cold War reservations for so-called “out-of-area”-deployments. It successfully evacuated the Bundeswehr’s first armed peacekeepers in 1994 and later came to participate in the War on Terror with the largest fleet that ever sailed from a German port after the World Wars. In 2002, this latter mission was even spearheaded and led by the very Bayern which is now bound to sail these waters again.

On Somalia’s opposite coast, in Yemen, a civil war and proxy conflict is raging between the Arab regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran. Mines, naval blockades, attacks with guided weapons and drones on sea targets, as well as the prospect of a huge oil catastrophe determine the maritime situation there.8 More than just a critical hot-spot in its own right, the major players of the multipolar world of our time are meeting at the Horn of Africa. China maintains a base in Djibouti and from there supports not only its maritime operations but also foreign policy in Africa. Russia recently announced the construction of a naval base in Sudan. The United States patrols the region with its 5th Fleet, while both the EU and NATO maintain continuous presence at sea. It is here that China’s strongest economic branch of its foreign policy strategy meets the economic lifelines of Europe: “The Maritime Silk Road” connects to the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean.

Indeed, twenty years of maritime security operations at the low end of the spectrum have long concealed the escalation potential of great power competition in the region. On top of this, with Pakistan and India, two nuclear powers lie on the northern rim of the Indian Ocean, bound together in deep antipathy and at the same time readjusting their alliances.

After the Horn of Africa, the Bayern’s course should then continue towards the strategically important Strait of Malacca, which is another important site of recent German naval history. When a devastating tsunami struck on 25 December 2004, the German combat-supply-vessel Berlin was at once dispatched in a rapidly concerted humanitarian aid effort. Alongside European and American allies, it provided urgent, sea-based aid to Indonesia. The Malacca Strait is one of the world’s strategic maritime chokepoints, a natural bottleneck for all maritime traffic between East Asia and Africa, and the Arab world and Europe. Its control, for better or for worse, is crucial for the security of maritime connections and the entire region. It is also here that the strategic rivalry between India and China meets: India controls the western access to this important lifeline of the Chinese economy via the Andaman and Nicobar island groups.

In the further course of the symbol-laden route along visible signs of Germany’s multilateral foreign policy, the Bayern then joins the United Nations’ maritime embargo of North Korea. The Korean conflict has preoccupied security policy-makers for seven decades now, and it once was the tipping point in the Cold War that led to German post-war rearmament and the establishment of the Bundeswehr. With nuclear weapons in the north, it has also become dangerously explosive in recent years. Therefore in addition to revisiting its post-Cold War history, with just one voyage, the Federal Republic of Germany aims to demonstrate its commitment to the three cornerstones of its multilateral foreign policy: NATO in the Mediterranean, the EU at the Horn of Africa, and the UN off the Korean peninsula.

In the Western Pacific, the most delicate task awaits the Bayern and Berlin’s foreign policy: the South China Sea. Much of this sea area is claimed by the People’s Republic of China in violation of international law. With the help of dubious interpretations of “historical” documents, but even more with faits accompli, built-up reefs turned into artificial islands with large military bases, China wants to expand its sphere of influence. An aggressive policy against its neighboring littoral states complements the quest for sea control to overcome the dilemma of Chinese geography. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has ruled that these measures are illegal. China, in turn, does not appear to feel bound by this ruling and international law. The presence of the US Navy, in particular in the South China Sea, is intended to strengthen freedom of the sea and prevent a customary expansion of Beijing’s sphere of power.

Depending on how the messages of the deployment are taken by its various audiences, and how the general foreign policy climate with China develops, it is not impossible that a Chinese port could also be visited. However, in view of the interaction between political and economic interests, all of Berlin’s partners will be watching closely to see what signals the Federal Republic of Germany sends to China. In any case, it can be assumed that port visits will be scheduled. But unless the Corona pandemic is overcome, visits could even be seen as a danger by the local population. An interesting side trip would be a visit to Vladivostok in Russia. As is well known, Russia shares a border with North Korea, and the large naval base on the Pacific could, subject to a diplomatic reconciliation of interests, be a destination that picks up threads of German-Russian talks beyond current tensions in Europe.

In all of this, however, it is important that Germany does not go it alone. Just as the itinerary clearly symbolizes multilateralism and a rules-based order, in the most difficult part of the mission—i.e. getting Europe’s message across to China—it is of the utmost importance for Germany not to undermine a common united front with its allies. This should also be symbolically demonstrated, wherever possible, in the joint appearance of European and American warships. If this is the return of German gunboat diplomacy, close coordination, joint maneuvers, and port visits with the French, British, and American ships are just as important as open communication with Beijing.

Moritz Brake is a Kapitänleutnant in the German Navy, doctoral student at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and member of the German Maritime Institute (DMI). He is also a guest lecturer for “Maritime Security and Strategy” at the University of Bonn.

Dr. Sebastian Bruns is a naval strategist based in Kiel. He headed the Center for Maritime Strategy & Security (CMSS) at the Institute for Security Policy Kiel University (ISPK) from 2016 to 2021. He will join the US Naval Academy in Annapolis (Maryland) as the Fulbright-McCain Scholar-in-Residence this August.   

References

[1] Kundnani, Hans and Tusuoka, Michito, “Germany’s Indo-Pacific frigate may send unclear message,” Chatham House, 04.05.2021, via: https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/05/germanys-indo-pacific-frigate-may-send-unclear-message?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_campaign=europe-programme-expert-comment&utm_content=german-naval-deployment

[2] “Germany – Europe – Asia: Shaping the 21st Century Together”: Federal Government adopts Indo-Pacific Guidelines. 01.09.2020, https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/aussenpolitik/regionaleschwerpunkte/asien/indo-pazifik-leitlinien/2380340

[3] The joint deployment of European warships in response to an Iranian attack on a British merchant ship in the Strait of Hormuz in July 2019.

[4] See Paul Chamberlain, “The Royal Canadian Navy and Naval Diplomacy,” Niobe Papers No. 14. Naval Association of Canada/Association Navale Du Canada, March 2021, p. 1.

[5] https://twitter.com/BMVg_Bundeswehr/status/1367143229179785216

[6] Swistek, Goran, “Squaring the Circle in the Indo-Pacific,” SWP News 2021/A 29, March 2021, via: https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2021A29/

[7] Chamberlain, “The Royal Canadian Navy,” p. 1.

[8] Hamann, Sebastian. “Old threats in new guise: the maritime threat from Huthi rebels in the Red Sea.” SIRIUS – Journal of Strategic Analysis, vol. 3, no. 2, 2019, pp. 178-183.

Featured image: Brandenburg-class frigate Bayern deployed in support Operation Enduring Freedom. (Credit: Bundeswehr)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

Countering China’s Maritime Insurgency with Coast Guard Deployable Specialized Forces

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By Lawrence Hajek

Losing the green water sea control challenge in the South China Sea could sideline US-led efforts in Asia. The US Coast Guard’s Deployable Specialized Forces can step up to provide strategic support for INDOPAC command.

As tensions continue to build between the United States and the People’s Republic of China/Chinese Communist Party (PRC/CCP); the United States finds itself increasing blue water naval activities in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and Indo-Pacific. Often-publicized Freedom of Navigation Patrols, or FONOPS, are just one of the many tools available to ensure the rule of law at sea is maintained to counter the aggressive insurgency tactics of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), China Coast Guard (CCG), and the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia in the South China Sea. China’s aggressive actions directly affect the maritime security of neighboring nations, who struggle to retain control of their sovereign Exclusive Economic Zones. 

Hunter Stires, a fellow with the John B. Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research at the U.S. Naval War College, describes this maritime insurgency as 

“a campaign to undermine and ultimately overturn the prevailing regime of international law that governs the conduct of maritime activity in the South China Sea. The key dynamic at work is a ‘battle of legal regimes,’ a political contest of wills that manifests itself in a duel between two competing systems of authority—the U.S.-underwritten system of the free sea, versus the Chinese vision of a closed, Sinocentric, and unfree sea.” 

This PRC/CCP maritime insurgency is focused on two key items within the South China Sea; firstly is enforcing unlawful maritime claims and developments of reefs and island territories and second is the use of those claimed territories as logistical launching point for the exploitation of South China Sea nations through aggressive tactics, unregulated exploitation of natural resources, and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. 

This type of maritime insurgency is rooted in what Christian Bueger and Timothy Edmunds describes as ‘Blue Crime’: 

“…distinguished by its particular relationship with the sea and the objects of harm that require protection. These include first, crimes against mobility; second, criminal flows; and third, environmental crimes. Crimes in the first category target various forms of circulation on the sea, particularly shipping, supply chains and maritime trade. In the second category, the sea is used as a conduit for criminal activities, in particular smuggling. In the third category, crimes inflict harm on the sea itself and the resources it provides.” 

Maritime insurgency plays into the CCP’s larger strategic goal for the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) adopted by Beijing in 2013, an ambitious bid to put China at the center of global trading routes. Dominance and control of the South China Sea is simply a milestone in the overall strategy. This year alone, the CCP has made headlines by passing into law the authority for the CCG to fire upon foreign vessels and destroy foreign infrastructure built on reefs claimed by the CCP.

As of 2016 $3.37 in trade passes through the region annually, further highlighting global dependence on the safe shipment of these goods to and from their intended ports. A major disruption in these transit routes would cripple America’s allies in northeast Asia, as they rely heavily on the flow of oil and commerce through South China Sea shipping lanes, including more than 80 percent of the crude oil to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. 

The PRC/CCP’s use of the PLAN, CCG, and militarized fishing fleet to wage a ‘Blue Crime’ maritime insurgency within the ”green-water” of the South China Sea degrades maritime security and the overall stability of South China Sea nations. This increases these countries’ susceptibility to the PRC’s Belt Road Initiative (BRI) by way of coercion or persuasion. 

To counter this Blue Crime maritime insurgency, the United States must position itself between the CCP and the South China Sea nations by establishing a Maritime Counterinsurgency (M-COIN). This type of counterinsurgency requires nimble means that disrupt the CCP’s intentions without firing a shot (for the purposes of this article, “without a shot” refers to avoiding open naval combat). 

A perfect candidate to execute a low-profile/low-kinetic M-COIN strategy is the US Coast Guard’s Deployable Specialized Forces (DSF). The DSFs comprise seven various sub-capabilities but the ideal capabilities for M-COIN are the Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) and Tactical Law Enforcement Teams (TACLET).  Furthermore, the MSRT includes two critical components: the Tactical Delivery Teams (TDT) and Direct Action Section (DAS), which can be either pre-positioned within a theatre of operation or rapidly deployed for higher risk operations. The TACLETs are comprised of smaller teams called Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDET), which carry out drug interdiction, maritime intercept operations (MIO), and security force assistance/foreign internal defense missions. Both MSRTs and TACLETs have carried out a mix of well-executed joint operations with DoD counterparts to combat smuggling of drugs, weapons, money, and humans worldwide. 

OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (July 6, 2018) U.S. Coast Guard deployable specialized forces (DSF) assigned to Maritime Security Response Team – West (MSRT-W) and Royal Canadian Navy explosive ordnance disposal technicians assigned to Fleet Diving Unit Pacific conduct maritime interdiction operations training in support of counter-improvised explosive device and mine warfare operations as part of Commander Task Force 177 during the force integration phase of Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Southern California (SOCAL) exercise. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Matthew A. Stroup/Released)

The counter-drug mission is a joint operation led by the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S) which coordinates DoD, Intelligence, and USCG assets to interdict vessels suspected of illicit maritime trafficking. The United States can use JIATF-South’s Pacific counterpart, JIATF-West to oversee a Maritime-Counter Insurgency (M-COIN) mission by way of a coordinated US Navy 7th Fleet task force to support its activities. USCG DSF forces are uniquely suited for the M-COIN mission as their capabilities are purpose built to fight ‘Blue Crime’ and ensure maritime security. With the inherent ability to carry out law enforcement actions, support special operations, and provide intelligence collection, the DSF is the right choice to lead the strategic green-water sea control campaign in the South China Sea and broader INDO-PAC region. 

This campaign would require three key factors to effectively counter the PRC/CCP insurgency, counter aggression in the South China Sea, and disrupt the People’s Liberation Army’s expeditionary goals. The first is expanded Indo-Pacific partnerships and alliances, next is the proper employment of USCG DSF teams, and lastly is the choice of cost-effective naval platforms to support the mission. 

Through this strategy, the United States can counter the PRC’s aggressive insurgent tactics while still maintaining a low profile and reducing the odds of a kinetic naval engagement. Successfully carrying out a USCG DSF-led M-COIN operation against PRC/CCP maritime aggressions would turn the tide against further PRC expansion in the South China Sea. 

The United States National Defense Strategy outlines the need to expand America’s Indo-Pacific partnerships and alliances. Cooperation and coordination with South China Sea and Indo-Pacific nation partners will ensure maritime security, maintain the rule of law at sea, and ensure that the region is not susceptible to PRC/CCP influence and control. 

The South China Sea nations: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, must band together in the interest of free and open seas for the benefits of their citizens and economies. Although some of these nations, such as Cambodia and Brunei have already succumbed to pressure from Beijing, buying heavily into the BRI and staying quiet on Chinese maritime claims, other nations such as Philippines, hang in the balance as their internal politics shift from pro-Beijing rhetoric to firm opposition of China’s illegal South China Sea actions, as Philippine citizens see little benefit from BRI. 

Critical Indo-Pacific strategic arrangements such as the Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines are just some of the many reasons the United States should be racing towards providing some level of maritime security assurance. Nations like Taiwan have fantastic working relationships with the United States and can work as a model for empowering other South China Sea nations. 

Forming bilateral and multilateral agreements similar to counter-drug trafficking agreements in the Western Hemisphere can signal a shift in how South China Sea nations can respond to the PRC insurgency. These agreements provide a host of mutually-beneficial capabilities such as embarking USCG DSF personnel onboard host nation vessels to assist in LE action or vice versa, with host nation personnel aboard US vessels to enforce international or local laws. Other benefits include patrol aircraft operations in host nation territory and extradition of suspects of international or domestic crimes.

OFF THE COAST OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (July 6, 2018) U.S. Coast Guard deployable specialized forces (DSF) assigned to Maritime Security Response Team – West (MSRT-W) and Royal Canadian Navy explosive ordnance disposal technicians assigned to Fleet Diving Unit Pacific conduct maritime interdiction operations training in support of counter-improvised explosive device and mine warfare operations as part of Commander Task Force 177 during the force integration phase of Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Southern California (SOCAL) exercise.  (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Matthew A. Stroup)

In the fight for a ‘rule of law’ at sea, these calculated steps provide a foundation to see that vision through. DSF’s teams can seamlessly integrate within host nations’ maritime force structure to contribute to law enforcement scenarios from the most basic boater safety inspections across the spectrum to high-risk joint operations with special operations. Compared to naval forces’ focus on combat at sea, the DSF’s law enforcement mission set combines a highly operational skill set with a very low threat of escalation. 

The M-COIN strategy pits the United States against a multi-tiered Blue Crime system in which Beijing uses both conventional naval assets and civilian vessels, requiring a measured response that ensures naval presence while focusing on day-to-day international maritime security. Law enforcement presence will pave a pathway for each host nation to build an appropriate and scalable maritime force with the ability to assert control over its sovereign waters. 

Other existing US Coast Guard programs such as the International Maritime Officers Course, which hosts commissioned international naval officers, and the Mobile Training Branch program, which sends active duty US Coast Guard personnel to host nations in a training capacity to improve their maritime forces, compliment this capability-building strategy. This international footprint builds credibility with other regional partners that can provide support in the form of vessels and aircraft. 

These partners like Taiwan, Australia, Japan, and India, can be chief enablers in this counterinsurgency strategy. An approach such as a combined maritime law enforcement task group could shake Beijing’s South China Sea strategy to its core. The international community is a key stakeholder in the M-COIN strategy to counter PLAN/CCG aggressions in the South China Sea. With host nation and international support, the United States could quickly exert some green-water sea control, while enabling local states to improve their own capabilities. 

A green-water sea control mission under JIATF-West supported by a 7th Fleet Maritime Combined Maritime Force offers Task Force and Commandant Command leadership a versatile maritime response capability in the Indo-Pacfic region while maintaining a broader mission aligned with the National Security Strategy. 

Coupling a very broad Federal Law Enforcement Authority and with the ability to act as a branch of the armed forces, USCG DSF are a force-multiplier on the water providing reach back to virtually all US Government inter-agency partners. DSF teams have proven themselves time and again, whether interdicting narco-subs in the Eastern Pacific, or seizing Iranian missile components or large caches of weapons in the North Arabian Sea. DSFs can seamlessly integrate with US SOF counterparts for high-risk maritime missions, or operate as self-contained security advisory teams for port facilities in remote areas, unique capabilities that bring a collaborative approach to security when compared to heavy-handed PRC bullying.

Furthermore, as a member of the US intelligence community since 2001, the USCG is charged with carrying out intelligence activities in the maritime domain, filling a unique niche within the Intelligence Community by supporting Coast Guard missions and national objectives. 

Integrating US Coast Guard intelligence personnel with DSFs bridges several organizational gaps by allowing the US Coast Guard to be the primary collectors and analyzers of intelligence with the support of both JIATF-West and the larger Intelligence Community. This flat and efficient structure can drive DSF teams into continuous sea-control operations against the PLAN/CCG insurgency while maintaining a strategic advantage for the region through enhanced partnerships and performance. Integrating USCG DSF in the South China Sea is part of a comprehensive, whole of government approach to countering PLAN/CCG insurgency.

A highly successful M-COIN strategy must be fiscally sustainable. The deployment of USCG DSF teams aboard host nation or coalition naval assets empowered with bilateral and multilateral international agreements is a cost effective first step. 

High-cost platforms like US Navy cruisers and destroyers are not ideal for M-COIN missions in green water areas like the South China Sea. With the time, cost, and red tape required to build large grey/white hull vessels, the US Navy and Coast Guard should look towards commissioning more adaptable platforms such as the US Navy Mk VI, US Coast Guard Fast Response Cutter, and the US Navy Littoral Combat Ship. These platforms are associated with relatively low costs of ownership and high capacity for a green-water sea control mission. 

The South China Sea’s nearly 1.351 million square miles require a large quantity of vessels to assert sea-control. Furthermore, the mere size of the vessels employed can signal the intent to escalate or deescalate the situation. Using smaller, cheaper craft is not only cost-effective, but also signals a commitment to peaceful law enforcement, rather than a tendency towards armed conflict.

With a price tag of $7.5 billion per Zumwalt-class destroyer and $800 million as the target cost of the Constellation-class frigate, a fleet of Mk VI boats costing $15 million per copy is a much easier sell in the defense budget. Other platforms from coalition partners such as Australia’s Cape-Class patrol boats are already used for fisheries protection, immigration, customs, and drug law enforcement operations. The Royal Norwegian Navy’s Skjold-class corvette conducts maritime security and sea control operations while still being capable of supporting special operations forces. 

A positive outcome using an M-COIN strategy in the South China Sea may not signal the end of an aggressive PRC/CCP. Ultimately, the PRC/CCP would like to see a completely expeditionary overseas military force that has logistics bases throughout the world to keep its interest protected. China is positioning itself to operate militarily on a global scale as the center of the world’s economic power. No reasonable observer wants to test this rise through open war, however, the United States and its allies must recognize the economic, political, criminal, and informational warfare the PRC/CCP is waging. 

Focusing on the nations that border the South China Sea and Indo-Pacific region and ensuring their economic and political viability are not part of China’s plans for hegemony, but they are vital to the United States’ resistance to the rising global power of an authoritarian regime. Building the capacity of local nations to stand up for themselves will provide a check on Chinese ambitions locally, while signaling America’s commitment to preserving the global rule of law. The United States must look at sea-control in both blue and green water, as a long term strategy for the security of our world’s oceans so that free and open commerce may persist for generations to come, benefitting emerging nations and providing stability for all people.

Lawrence Hajek is the Director of Future Operations at Metris Global, an Arizona based defense contractor focused on Special Operations training and support. He is also the owner of Pinehawk Consulting, a consultancy focused on high tech innovation in the defense and commercial industry. He is a veteran of the US Coast Guard’s Deployable Specified Forces and member of CIMSEC. 

Featured image: Newly-built fishing vessels for Sansha City moored at Yazhou Central Fishing Harbor. Note the exterior hull reinforcements and mast-mounted water cannons. (Hainan Government)

Indo-Asia-Pacific

U.K. Carrier Capability Returns To The Indo-Pacific

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By David Scott

Toward the end of May 2021, first the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and then the Queen visited the British flagship, the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth. In effect this was their wave-off as, amid much commentary and following much anticipation, the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) set off from Portsmouth for a seven-month long deployment, its first maiden operational deployment. One Australian newspaper ran the headline: “Rule, Britannia! UK deploys carriers to Indo-Pacific.”

In April 2021, the British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace set out the aims of the CSG deployment:

“It will be flying the flag for Global Britain – projecting our influence, signaling our power, engaging with our friends and reaffirming our commitment to addressing the security challenges of today and tomorrow.”

Engaging with friends of course raises the questions of who is not being engaged with, who is not a U.K. friend, and is there any common enemy in sight – all of which points to China.

Global Britain reflects this reorientation of a post-Brexit UK away from the European Union and outwards to other parts of the world. It is no surprise that the U.K. is now talking, in its Integrated Review, of a “tilt to the Indo-Pacific,” given the increasing economic weight of this region. This economic shift brings with it a greater focus on sea lane security, protecting commerce flows, and freedom of navigation in international waters. Admiral Tony Radakin, the First Sea Lord, said in a speech at the Sea Power Conference, that the Integrated Review “signaled a maritime resurgence” for the U.K., operating through “the lens of classical geopolitics” in which the U.K. operations in “Mahan’s World Ocean” were aimed at “countering Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific.”

This British naval deployment gives both political and operational support to the bigger U.S. efforts in the Indo-Pacific. The unstated rationale is sharing the burden against China. This was admitted as much by the British Defense Secretary Wallace admitted as much when he told the IISS think tank on the eve of the CSG setting forth, in a revealing China-application of the mission, that: “the UK’s fundamental strengths across the world is our friends and allies and that’s how we are going to force-multiply.” and that the “dawn of China on the USA is that USA is coming across a power it unilaterally cannot challenge and it realizes it needs alliances.”

Structure and Itinerary

The structure of the Strike Carrier Group is two-fold. First it is a powerful deployment of British assets, namely:

  • Aircraft Carrier: HMS Queen Elizabeth
  • Type-45 destroyers: HMS Defender and HMS Diamond;
  • Type-23 anti-submarine frigates, HMS Kent and HMS Richmond
  • Astute-class nuclear submarine
  • Royal Fleet Auxiliary logistics ships Fort Victoria and Tidespring

Two offshore patrol vessels, HMS Tamar and HMS Spey, have also been dispatched westwards across the Pacific where they will join the Carrier Strike Group. Such a deployment accounts for a significant portion of the U.K. surface fleet, which currently totals only 19 frigates and destroyers. As well as various stealth fighters, four Wildcat maritime attack helicopters, seven Merlin Mk2 anti-submarine helicopters and three Merlin Mk4 commando helicopters were embarked – the greatest quantity of helicopters assigned to a single British Task Group in a decade. A company of Royal Marines was also carried.

Second, while the British component is substantive, it also involves allied support. In part this is with non-British ships embedded into the CSG, namely:

  • U.S. destroyer: USS The Sullivans, for air defense and anti-submarine value
  • Dutch frigate: HNLMS Evertse
  • Two Australian frigates in the South China Sea*
  • New Zealand naval unit in the Pacific part of the deployment

The other area where the U.K. is using allied assets is in the CSG’s air component. Here, eight British F-35B Lightning strike aircraft are deployed on HMS Queen Elizabeth, with the bigger part of the warship’s fast-jet strike force actually made up of ten U.S. Marine Corps F-35s. To date Britain has only ordered 48 of the short-take-off, vertical-landing aircraft version of the F-35B, to be delivered by 2024, with deliveries currently standing at 21.

Led by HMS Queen Elizabeth, the strike group will interact with 40 states across the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean, and Indo-Pacific, various allies, partners, and ‘like minded’ states. Amid those 40 states, China is absent.

The voyage will include a stop in Gibraltar, exercises (including anti-submarine warfare drills) with NATO and non-NATO partners around the Suez Canal, and a week-long stopover in Duqm, the British navy’s base in Oman. The use of the U.K. Joint Logistics Support Base at Duqm operationalizes its deep water carrier-supporting facilities, in which Duqm has been envisaged as a support and forward projection base for the U.K. in the Indian Ocean. Queen Elizabeth’s strike group will then take part in:

  • Konkan joint exercises with the Indian navy in the Indian Ocean
  • Bersama Lima exercises (probably in the South China Sea) with Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand as part of a strengthened U.K. commitment to the Five Power Defense Agreements (FPDA)
  • Two weeks of exercises with Japan and the U.S. in the West Pacific

It is no coincidence that over the course of the deployment the Carrier Strike Group will operate with Indian, Australian, Japanese, and U.S. units – in other words with the members of “the Quad” group of countries, a group with which the U.K. is seeking ever-closer ties.

Naval operations with Japan and the U.S. reflect the trilateral partnership cooperation agreements signed between the Japanese, U.S., and UK navies; first of all by Admiral Phillip Jones in October 2016 and then by Admiral Tony Radakin in November 2019. The joint exercises carried out with India reflect and further the Carrier Capability Partnership signed in March 2019. Moreover, the U.K. deployment is part of emerging “carrier coordination” emerging between the U.S., France and the U.K.. The agreement signed on June 3, 2021, at Toulon between the three countries’ naval leaders specifically mentioned trilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

Significance and Context

The significance of the CSG deployment is that it demonstrates the return of aircraft carrier capability to the U.K., and the ability of the U.K. to remain a naval power of some significance and with some global reach. Carrier aircraft capability had been lost in 2010 with the retirement of HMS Ark Royal and its Harrier jump jets. To reestablish this capability, the British government pursued the construction of two new 65,000 ton carriers during the 2010s. 

Consequently, HMS Queen Elizabeth was commissioned in December 2017. HMS Prince of Wales, surviving defense cuts, was commissioned in December 2019. Carrier Group formations were reestablished in naval strategy. The aircraft carriers carry 5th generation F-35 strike aircraft, giving the CSG’s air component significant range and punch.

The context for carrier deployment is the U.K.’s return to an “East of Suez” naval presence. This has involved renewed forward deployments and strengthened bases and facilities after a five year hiatus from 2013-2017 in already infrequent deployments. Subsequently, 2018-2020 witnessed renewed and continuous, sometimes overlapping, deployments from the U.K. across the Indo-Pacific by various destroyers and frigates; in the shape of HMSs Sutherland, Albion, Argyll, Montrose, Defender, and Enterprise. A further British destroyer has been earmarked for deployment in the Indo-Pacific in late-2021.

Strengthened British bases and facilities are now seen across and around the Indian Ocean. At Bahrain, HMS Jufair, abandoned in 1971 was re-established in 2018, and the U.K. Joint Logistics Support Base was opened at Duqm the same year. Increased U.K. use of Diego Garcia has been evident since 2018. Finally, in Singapore the modest U.K. presence in the repair and logistics facility (British Defence Singapore Support Unit) at Sembawang wharf, was supplemented with the Defence Staff Office in 2017, amid subsequent talk of further reinforcement of the U.K. presence there.

A U.K. focus on the Indo-Pacific was given further impetus by Brexit and the need to secure trade deals across the Indo-Pacific – involving South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, India, and New Zealand, as well as seeking entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership – which in turn has made security of sea lanes (commerce flows and shipping) of even greater significance for the U.K.

A further context for the dispatch of the CSG has been rising disquiet over China, both globally— over China’s challenge to rule of law norms, human rights violations (now including Xinjiang), and technology threat like Huawei’s G5 rollout— and in the Indo-Pacific region — by China’s suppression of Hong Kong, China’s militarization and excessive maritime claims in the South China Sea, and China’s Maritime Silk Road push across the Indian Ocean. The so-called “golden era” of U.K.-China relations talked about by the previous Cameron administration has given way to a less accommodating Johnson administration and with it some willingness to push back against China.

The China Factor

Although originally the CSG deployment was pitched as aiming to strengthen freedom of navigation operations, most at issue in the South China Sea, in fact the deployment schedule has become more circumspect over China. Two particular issues have shown this U.K. circumspection: the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

The U.K. does not take any position on the different sovereignty claims in the area. Ironically perhaps, the U.K. had itself claimed the Spratly Island chain in the 1920s, a claim that, although subsequently dropped, should logically give U.K. sympathy to Malaysian and Brunei claims (the successor states to the British possessions of Malaya, Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah) vis-à-vis China. What the U.K. does reject, however, are the excessive claims made by China in the South China Sea, and it has called on China to accept the ruling of the Permanent Court for Arbitration. 

The question is how far the CSG will involve itself in any of these issues. Then-Foreign Secretary Johnson told the press conference at the Australia-U.K. Ministerial meeting in 2017 that “one of the first things we will do with the two new colossal aircraft carriers that we have just built is send them on a FONOP – a freedom of navigation operation to this area.”

Mark Field, the Minister for Asia and the Pacific, in pinpointing China as a threat to “the rules-based international system,” reiterated in March 2019 the British “commitment” to future naval deployments “reinforcing freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” How far does the CSG deployment reinforce freedom of navigation in the South China Sea? There are various ways of doing this.

Firstly, previously the U.K. decided to have HMS Albion carry out a FONOP around the Paracel Islands in September 2018 to assert that China’s drawing of archipelagic baselines around the chain is invalid, since China itself is not an archipelagic state like Indonesia or the Philippines. Chinese outrage was high in 2018, and it may well be that the U.K. is now chary to repeating such an operation. If so, that would seem to be a pity, and in effect may cede those waters to China.

Secondly, in the Spratlys, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruling in July 2016 (point 383) ruled that the Hughes Reef, Gaven Reef (South), Subi Reef, Mischief Reef, and Second Thomas Shoal were “low tide elevations, i.e. under water at high tide. China’s reclamation (sand and concrete) building them up above high tide still left them as “artificial islands,” which under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) Article 60 merely had a 50-meter safety zone, rather than any 12-mile territorial waters or EEZ. The U.S. has made a point of sailing within the 12-mile territorial waters claimed by China for such artificial creations, but so far the UK has not. It could though.

Thirdly, another excessive claim is China’s demand that navies entering its Exclusive Economic Zone ask its permission. Like the U.S., the U.K. rejects this as a matter of principle. In addition, it supports the PCA ruling which specifically held (points 622, and 624) that none of the Paracels and Spratly features were “islands” under UNCLOS 121(3) sustaining ongoing “human habitation” or “economic life.” Instead they were above high tide “rocks” and, while entitled to 12-mile territorial waters, were not entitled to “island”-generated 200-mile EEZs. The 2016 PCA ruling also rejected China’s claims that their “historical rights” in themselves generate any EEZ. Indeed, it considered the “9-dash line” as “contrary to the [UNCLOS] Convention and without lawful effect” (point 278).

The CSG, or elements from it, could then carry out freedom of navigation operations around the Paracels (archipelagic excessive claims) and Spratlys (excessive claims over artificial islands) – but this has not been announced in advance. If this is deliberate avoidance of such activities, then it represents some tacit acceptance of Chinese pressure.

On the other hand, it may be that operational details are not being given in advance, and that CSG commanders have indeed instructions to carry out one or both of these types of freedom of navigation activities around the Paracels and/or Spratlys, on the spot and unannounced beforehand, so as to limit advance pressure that China would otherwise bring to bear. In this vein, U.K. transit through the South China Sea that goes within 200-miles of any of China-held features in the Paracels and Spratlys, since permission is not being sought, maintains their status as international waterways, and represents a minimum-level freedom of navigation operation. In going into, across, and through China’s nebulous “9-dash line”, the CSG could also be seen to be ignoring it.

A particularly pointed political decision would be if the CSG carried out exercises in the South China Sea with the U.S. Navy, which has been operating in greater carrier strength in the last few years. The precedent for bilateral U.K.-U.S. exercises in the South China Sea was on show during 2019, in January with HMS Argyll, and in February with HMS Montrose. Of course, there is already a U.S. destroyer embedded with the CSG in the shape of USS The Sullivans, so one could argue that explicit U.K.-U.S. naval cooperation in the South China Sea is being reiterated. Joint exercises with powerful U.S. forces are also already planned for the Philippine Sea, between the so-called first and second island chains in the Western Pacific.

A nearby China-related issue for the CSG is whether or not it (or elements of it) deploys westwards of Taiwan through the Taiwan Strait. As part of its campaign to squeeze Taiwan, China is increasingly starting to treat the Strait as domestic Chinese waters, and does not want to see foreign navies using it. It is worth noting that accelerating U.S. passage of the Taiwan Strait has been supported by some French and Canadian transit deployments. 

HMS Enterprise attracted further Chinese ire by transiting through the Taiwan Strait in December 2019, before returning again to the South China Sea for a week-long stay in Vietnam in February 2020. Thus speculation remains that, when the CSG transits through the South China Sea to get to South Korea and Japan, a more circuitous route will be taken – going east of Taiwan, rather than westwards through the Taiwan Strait. Operational details in the Taiwan area, like those in the South China Sea have not been specified in advance, so it remains a possibility that the U.K. CSG, or an element of it, might deploy through the Taiwan Strait as a point of principle, unannounced beforehand.

Ongoing U.K. presence

The final consideration is legacy. The U.K. will remain a modest player in the overall balance of naval power in the Indo-Pacific. The Royal Navy has a small increase in numbers envisaged for the 2020s but China far exceeds this. The First Sea Lord, Admiral Phillip Jones, noted in November 2018 that with regard to China, “if you look at the scale of their shipbuilding program purely in terms of tonnage, it broadly equates [annually] to launching the equivalent of the whole Royal Navy.”

Nevertheless, two good-sized new aircraft carriers are not to be dismissed as inconsequential. The U.K. carrier capacity does generate useful leverage in cooperation with other similarly China-concerned states. Of course, this modest useful contribution will only be realized if this renewed involvement in the region is maintained and if forward deployment is persistent.

U.K. force structure for the region is being boosted. Current U.K. thinking, laid down in the Integrated Review is to “increase” maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific, “including to uphold freedom of navigation,” specifically through deployment of:

  • Offshore Patrol Vessels from 2021
  • Littoral Response Group from 2023
  • Type-31 frigates later in the decade

In addition, regular deployments from UK home waters are envisaged throughout the 2020s.

In the meantime, with the arrival of the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, and the completion of full F-35B air components, the U.K. will have two CSGs, raising the question of where they would be deployed. The answer seems to be one for the Atlantic-Mediterranean area, and the other for the Indo-Pacific. Regular ongoing CSG deployment has been envisaged from the outset. Admiral Phillip Jones stated in 2018 that “it is certain that a Royal Navy task group, centered on a Queen Elizabeth-class carrier, will regularly deploy East of Suez;” though leaving it unclear how far across the Indo-Pacific CSGs would regularly deploy, and how frequently “regularly” would mean. A timid U.K. response would be to keep CSG deployment within the Indian Ocean, a more robust response to help really address the problem of China would be to keep deploying its CSG further eastwards into the South China Sea and Western Pacific on a regular basis.

Dr. David Scott is an associate member of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies. A prolific writer on maritime geopolitics, he can be contacted at davidscott366@outlook.com.

*This piece has been updated to mention the two Australian frigates in the South China Sea.

Featured image: HMS Queen Elizabeth on her maiden deployment to the Indo-Pacific region. Photo via @smrmoorhouse on twitter.