The section on acceptance of a fait accompli is an incomplete assessment of what is driving the Chinese achievement of central position in the maritime environment. NOT one wargame over the last three years have we played the pre-cursor events to traditional armed conflict in a “competition” phase. We have yet to come up with a comprehensive case for the kind of military contribution we need to make that is not a technologically improved re-enactment of the previous 70 years. The PRC has some very real capabilities that we need to neutralize as credible deterrents to our lethal capabilities. Yet, it is clear the tools and techniques of the established model of military force have not stopped the dilemma we face today and what is driving this force design. We have to expand our tool set and be capable of projecting force above and below the threshold of traditional armed conflict if we want to restore a position of trust and remain a security guarantor in the SCS and lager Indo-Pacific region.
The Chinese, through actions below the threshold of traditional armed conflict, and via an entire non-military (yet proxy) force are seizing and annexing territory. They have accomplished decisive aims based on a robust strategy of erosion vice attrition. It is forcing a fait accompli largely because the Chinese way it was achieved is incompatible with the means we are developing to respond. It is not merely a problem high escalation over seemingly small stakes. But are they small stakes?
On that annexed territory a military installation will appear on an illegally reclaimed feature. That base will introduce the threat of traditional military force to ensure the retention of territory that was actually seized via force of fishing boat and construction crew vice force of arms. We have a case where there is clear military necessity to prevent this outcome but we as a nation, and a Marine Corps, specifically lack any proportional force to stop it, if we are merely thinking in terms of traditional force of arms. We have yet to tackle this phase of the problem in any wargame in order to discover what needs to be considered in a broader definition of “force”. Instead, we just wargame the lethal exchange phase of the fight. We never once stop or prevent what got us, or our allies and partners, into this jam in the first place. For the PRC this is simply wash, rinse, repeat while we imagine a fight in the SCS they are not offering, yet they are seizing territory all the same.
Why would China commit to an escalation of force with traditional assets and offer us targets for our preferred weapons if they can keep up this process of non-lethal means, lawfare, and information subterfuge? ASEAN claimants in the region have stipulated numerous times that they do not want to get into a donny brook with China and worse, they don’t want us leading them into one as a condition of partnership. They are not clamoring for missile defense and fighters because, frankly, that is not what is trying to take away their territory and poach their fishing grounds. We keep amplifying the “Harlem Globetrotters Effect”. We whistle Sweet Georgia Brown, show off our cool stuff, do no real integration and when we leave, our partners are still not better basketball players capable of stopping China from running up the score. The Japanese are the only treaty ally that need or want lethal capabilities. The Philippines has pretty much been compromised in the near term. Vietnam, a partner with an MOU, has steadfastly refused to buy lethal means and the largest excess defense article transfer they have accepted are Hamilton class cutters.
That brings up our real problem. We are not helping our allies and partners resist PRC coercion in the ways that impact them daily. We are not finding ways with the full contribution of naval forces to help our allies and partners detect these fishing boat swarms, pre-empt their effect, stop construction crews and oil rigs from making illegal territorial claims, etc. In short we are providing a whole lot of something that is not stopping Chinese territorial expansion.
We already have an idea what we want to do at the high end of conflict. We don’t have a clue how to apply our means below the threshold of traditional armed conflict when it is clear the Chinese are succeeding in that realm. We are just preparing for a war that the Chinese have successfully avoided thus far. If they do choose to start one, we have not denied them a single one of their shaping actions by having a comprehensive set of solutions above and below the threshold of conflict. I’m not so sanguine that improved lethal capacity is going to be a decisive deterrent compared to PRC’s circumvention of that model on a daily basis.
I think many of these force design efforts are spot on and not compromising in the way the Mr. Webb asserts. However, I don’t buy the argument that focusing solely on traditional armed conflict and promoting that view to our allies and partners is an effective contribution of the full range of means possible within the military instrument of power to prevent Chinese expansion. Nor do I buy the argument that Title X constrains us only to those options. It is entirely possible to be a dual function force above and below the threshold of armed conflict in order to stop the territorial and military expansion of China by blunting the means they applying to the problem at every level. We don’t have to accept the fait accompli if we expand our means. We can only discover what means are available if we play the full spectrum of competition and war as conflict and objectively appreciate that fact that not arresting China’s erosive strategy is as good as losing an attritive war. The meaning of that failure should be clear as it impacts our role as security guarantor, meaningful partner, and our economic fortunes.