I spent the morning at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s release of their new report “AirSea Battle: A Point of Departure Operational Concept” (you can find the report here as well as the briefing slides). Lots to unpack here from the 123 page report, the author’s brief and the lively discussion that followed.
CSBA says that China’s military modernization aims at denying U.S. air and maritime freedom of maneuver and access in the Western Pacific (WestPac) by targeting bases and ships with precision guided missiles. China’s buildup of increasingly capable anti-access/area-denial “battle networks” will, over time, make the current “American way of war” prohibitively costly.
This shift in the military balance is perhaps best exemplified by China’s widely reported development of “carrier killing” anti-ship ballistic missiles, a weapon that potentially threatens the very symbol of American military might and global presence.
CSBA president Andrew Krepinevich emphasized that CSBA’ AirSea Battle concept is not about fighting a war with China, or “rolling back” China’s influence in the Western Pacific. Instead, it should be seen as an “offsetting strategy” that reaffirms a U.S. commitment to maintaining presence, coalitions and influence in that strategically vital area.
CSBA’s AirSea Battle concept envisions a two stage campaign. The first phase would be to survive what would likely be Chinese pre-emptive strikes on U.S. and allied bases across the Western Pacific, particularly airfields. It envisions more than just trusting in missile defenses and base hardening. Prompt U.S. counterattacks would first go after the PLA’s reconnaissance strike complex, the U.S. would try to deny China the ability to accurately target fixed installations and ships and conduct battle damage assessment.
This “blinding campaign” is at the core of the AirSea Battle concept, said CSBA’s Jim Thomas, the PLA’s surveillance and targeting systems are the “Achilles heel” of its anti-access networks. In any WestPac confrontation, one of the PLA’s main advantages is its very large, and growing, arsenal of precision guided missiles; those missile magazines could be rendered useless if they can’t be guided.
If China loses it’s over the horizon situational awareness, U.S. naval assets regain their freedom of maneuver and ability to close in on the Chinese mainland. Short ranged tactical aircraft could also be moved closer if allied bases weren’t being bombarded with PLA ballistic missiles. The blinding campaign would include cyber attacks, PLA space assets would be targeted, electronic warfare aircraft would spoof PLA radars and sensors and seaborne pickets would be targeted.
The blinding campaign would be followed by strikes against the PLA’s fixed and mobile missile launchers using land and sea based manned and unmanned stealthy penetrators. Using stand-off and EW, the U.S. would try and open corridors in PLA air-defenses. Simultaneously, PLA Navy ships and subs would be targeted to prevent them from getting out into the open ocean.
If the first phase of the campaign aims to prevent China from achieving a “knock-out blow,” the second phase would aim to win what would possibly be a prolonged conflict. In the second phase of the campaign, CSBA envisions the U.S. seizing the initiative by targeting PLA assets on the mainland and seas, establishing a blockade of Chinese sea lines of communication, surging supplies and warfighting material into WestPac and ramping up industrial production of precision guided weapons.
The real value of the ASB concept, Thomas said, is not to develop a new war plan, but rather to develop a conceptual “lens” through which to view future investment decisions. Peering through that lens, CSBA recommends some pretty hefty shifts in investment to execute an effective ASB campaign.
Much of what CSBA recommends program wise emphasizes stealth, long-range and prompt strike, redundancy and Air Force and Navy interoperability. There is a very extensive list of programmatic and force structure changes in the report, including:
• To mitigate the ballistic missile threat to Guam and other WestPac bases the Air Force should harden its bases on Guam and refurbish bases on Tinian, Saipan and Palua to allow aircraft dispersal and force China to play a shell game with American aircraft; the Air Force-Navy should jointly assess tactical air-based ballistic missile defenses and laser weapons; and BMD exercises should be carried out with Japan.
• The Air Force and Navy should invest in a long range strike capability against time sensitive targets in a cost imposing strategy to force the PLA to beef up its own defenses; and the Navy should consider investing in conventionally armed, relatively short range sea-based ballistic missiles, similar to Tomahawk, that could be spread across the fleet’s VLS tubes.
• The Air Force and Navy should develop and field long-range next generation stealthy air platforms, both manned and unmanned, and payloads for these platforms; the Navy version capable of operating off of carriers.
• The Air Force and Navy should jointly develop a long-range precision strike family of systems that include: ISR, EW and strike. The Air Force should develop a stealthy multi-mission, long-range persistent bomber as part of this strike family. The Navy should expedite developing and fielding a carrier-based drone.
• The Air Force and Navy should develop joint command and control mechanisms to enable Air Force aircraft to target enemy ships using Navy surveillance and targeting systems.
• The Air Force and Navy should jointly develop a long-range anti-ship missile.
• The Air Force should equip some of its B-2 stealth bombers with an offensive mine laying capability to mine Chinese harbors.
• The Air Force and Navy should significantly increase investment in joint EW platforms both manned and unmanned.
• The Air Force and Navy should increase research and development in laser weapons for land and sea based point defense against missiles.
I’ll have much more as soon as finish reading the entire report.
– Greg Grant
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
I like how this states the need for more EW plateforms, this points for a need for a EB-52, we need to aff that capability to the BUFF and invest in more EW plateforms, not just F-35, but a true EW plateform like maybe a EF-15.
I read it (at lunch) today as well. thanks for the earlie rhead's up it was coming, as I've been so busy elsewhere I may have missed it for quite a while.
….and Kudos! for your succinct and cogent summarization
Things like this always require a bit of hermeneutic interpretation due to the intended readership being both friendly and hostile. It seems likely that the paper both overstates the capability of our stealth platforms and understates our ASW capabilities. It is interesting that the paper essentially claims that we posses late cold war era ASW capabilities and matches this up against what the Chinese could posses in another ten years whereas I would assume that, if nothing else, the increase in available computational power has greatly increased the capabilities of our acoustic sensors and I would imagine that non-acoustic sensors have also come a long way in the past 20 years.
Vis a vie stealth, we already know that against modern sensor systems, stealth technology serves only to degrades detection range rather than render detection impossible. The paper makes good points about the logistical difficulty China faces in defending its assets but if we ever go to war we are not going to see a Gulf ! situation where we can have stealth aircraft wander wherever they like with impunity. Of course, if I am correct, neither of these things speak poorly about the quality of the paper.
Finally, I am not sure how big a deal the logistical limitations that the U.S. military faces with respect to operational endurance is because if we are ever in a situation where we have to worry about running out of conventional munitions in theater to lob at the Chinese, it is unlikely that the conflict would remain non-nuclear.
What's the point of getting close to.Chinese shores?
2.31 million Chinese in America nearly 41000 Chinese restaurants
1.03 million Chinese in Canada
Manpower available for military service within China:
ALL males age 16-49: 375 mil
ALL females age 16-49: 354.3 mil (2008 est.)
Manpower available for military service in America:
ALL males age 16-49: 72.7 mil
ALL females age 16-49: 71,6 mil
There has been no modern Air/Sea Battles
Not certain what you are implying. Are these billions going to swim to America? Where will they work when we stop buying all their goods, stop their export container ships going elsewhere, and blockade all their oil shipments from the middle east?
War between us and China would be mutually assured economic destruction and they know it. You don't pick a fight with your best customer and payer of all your savings instruments.
in 2005 the number of Americans living in China was 0.11 mil
Pentagon & computers have serious underestimates of what China can do because for them to invoke war on us they would immediately…
1. Embark on a total economic blockade
2. Instill a draft the size of our homeland population
3. Use cyber attacks like has never before & relentlessly
4. Call on other nations to join them either militarily or economically… So thats North Korea Iran maybe Russia & Cuba depending on the reason for war.
Would also then be fanatical attacks by their natives living in America
The chaos of air attacks would force a nuclear defense at the very least.
I highly doubt Geneva Convention accords would have any meaning. For them to war us would be to annihlate America or force a surrender.
The simple act of war would then obviously end any businesses, assets or investments.The trade break would collapse World economy like never seen before.
Our government would be running on whatever it has and our economic sector would be forced to supply them. Would it be enough, im possible to say.
Would we surrender if Califonia was bombarded and Hawaii Alaska, forward bases in Japan, South Korea and South Asia were all occupied?
NATO and any who really care would be our only hope as I see it.
Regardless our country would never be the same
We spent 40 years crapping our pants and throwing money everywhere at the prospect of hoards of red tanks rolling through western Europe when, in retrospect, it would have been a small miracle if even a quarter of the estimated soviet strength could mobilize let alone effectively fight at the end of a soviet logistics and supply line.
It is interesting to talk about the U.S. military going to war with non-stone-age adversaries (which has not really happened since the last time we went to war with China in Korea) but, in reality, I suspect that much the same thing is going on here as happened with the Soviets. China can put on pretty impressive May day parades (just as the Russians could and still can) but, with the exception of its elite forces, the PLA is not even approaching fighting strength. It is impressive to talk about an active military of 3 million soldiers (which is only twice the manpower that we posses) but I have friends who talk about it being common to run into PLA regulars who have not ever been issued clothing (i.e. they are running around in flip flops and tee-shirts) and who have probably never fired a weapon. We are talking Soviet Winter War levels of preparedness. I am sure that China could come a long way in 10 years but, to do so, they will have to reform the incredibly corrupt and inefficient PLA which, given that the PLA is possibly the strongest political entity in China at the moment, is probably never going to happen.
Last I saw, the consensus was that China was not even likely to be ability to invade Taiwan irregardless of U.S. involvement to such a move so any sort of Red Dawn type scenario is a bit preposterous for the foreseeable future. It is also worth noting that while it is true that China could totally screw us economically, to do so they would have to screw themselves just as hard. The real issue is not with their ability to project force into our backyard it is with our ability to project force into theirs. The real issue is denial of access weapons that any idiot with a 21st century engineering textbook can design and operate (i.e., the PLA).
Wait, you think the guys at Panda Express are going to rise up and try to overthrow the US government from within? Listen, they came to America for a reason: to get out of China. Now, I won't deny that there may be a handful of idealistic kids who have come over on student visas who decide to try and do something stupid for the motherland. But expecting anything more than that is just paranoia.
China would not escalate a conflict to nuclear levels, not if it had any hope of survival at all. Since there's no way in hell we'd try to occupy China, they don't have to worry about regime change. Unlike the Soviets, the Chinese don't have any sort of driving political philosophy that might cause them to push the button anyway. They aren't true believers. They want money. This makes them less likely to launch nukes.
IMHO this study is interesting, but exaggerates Chinese military power (H-6?) and underestimates current and already planned allied capabilities. Our stealth capabilities, EA-18G, X-47, JASSM-ER are already well underway and our allies may well buy them and our ground/sea air defenses. Sea capabilities like LCS can blockade the Malacca Straits and board/stop cargo/oil ships using helicopters. Virginia class subs would make quick work of their diesel subs. We just launched an unmanned space shuttle that must have some capability to safeguard or replace space assets.
The study correctly identifies that the longer the conflict lasts, the more tenuous the Chinese position given a blockade and expenditure of all its missiles. China may well be one location where EBO would be pretty effective. Imagine how that nation would come to a halt with loss of its commuter rail lines and destruction of harbors that move all their export/import goods.
The scenario is against an imaginary non-nuclear China. It doesn't address for instance how many US cities Americans would be willing to lose to defend Taiwan.
But with the cancellation of high return projects across the DoD, yields are declining and shareholders are just crying out for big new juicy programs.
I don't really fully understand the call for stealth in relation to all this. The paper says that we could expect a conflict with china to start with a chinese pre-emptive strike… Stealth does our planes no good if they are on the ground at a base that is being slammed by Chinese missiles…
Whats worse, is that for every manned stealth airframe we purchase, we could have purchased something like 5-6 non-stealth airframes… so now not only are we losing aircraft, but we are running out of reinforcements!
The point of such a strike isn't to destroy the US. It is to cripple the US ability to strike back. Focusing on stealth is playing into their hands. Instead, I think we should focus on the electronic warfare platforms and the options that they give us. For the most part, an EW platform can do just about anything that a stealth platform can, but whats more is that the EW platform can offer those capabilities to non-EW platforms… and stealth cannot. Not only that, the EW is CHEAPER!
It would be very helpful to the USN if the X47 actually pans out. The combat radius of the aircraft is enormous at least on paper. When you start looking at the ranges and consider waves of them could be launched from carriers in the Indian Ocean to land on carriers in the Pacific, you begin to neutralize Chinese efforts to deny access.
for sure the U.S.S hawaii is
Note to self: X-47 is a UCAV system.
Yeah, UCAV might do the trick, at least in the opening phases of the war before we discover some EW goodness will take them out.
I suppose you're right about stealth-maybe that means we shouldn't forward deploy stealth assets into IRBM range. The better alternative would be to move some bases further back..for instance, I can imagine more than a few IRBMs would rain down on Okinawa and decimate the Marines there; and completely negate any advantage to forward deployment. Same is true of places in Japan, but Okinawa is the most likely to go on opening night.
Future UCAVs will have the ability to be autonomous. During peacetime they will be kept on a datalink leash, but if China compromises the datalink in a war then the leash would be taken off.
Flying a plane to China and bombing strike points is not a difficult task to program a UCAV to do. It will get easier in the future. We don't allow autonomous strikes now out of ethical concerns. Those ethical concerns would be dropped within 24 hours of the Chinese striking a US carrier, base, or city.
Future UCAVs won't really require a man-in-the-loop. I
Really what is the X47 other than a reusable cruise missile? I mean when you fire a tomahawk it is a one shot autonomous UCAV really. We just get to re-use the X-47. Plus from what Ive read the X47 wont just be for strikes, it could carry EW l would imagine, or some follow on variant. The bottom line is they give the navy the legs and endurance to counteract these access denial systems.
You really don't stealth. Semi-stealthy new B-1Rs with a maritime strike mission would be very difficult to defeat and would be a lot cheaper and more powerful ( they could carry 35 tons of munitions) than a new long range stealth platform. It also does not make sense to keep B-2s and F-22s stationed on Guam where they are just sitting targets.
Define "maritime strike mission". Are you referring to stuff like the ALCM of waybackwhen?
Anything from hostile ships, naval bases and military/air bases etc up to 500 miles inland. Jassm-ERs or ALCMs can be released before the launching platform will be detected.