Gaining Entry: Countering China’s Anti-Access Area-Denial Strategy
Defense 101: Do Not Enter
Denying the enemy into his intended sphere of operations is not a new strategy. For millennia, military commanders have attempted to choose the field of battle, worked to prevent foes from entering their territory, and built uncountable bastions to secure territory. Territorial integrity is and has always been vital to power, and therefore acquiring and defending territory remains a key element of maintaining and projecting military strength.
In this sense, China’s Anti-Access Area-Denial (A2AD) strategy is nothing new. It harkens back to words spoken by ancient military expert Sun Tzu, “You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.”[1] This is exactly what China intends to do in the South China Sea, to push the United States Navy, specifically its carrier groups, out of the South China Sea and therefore out of striking range of mainland China.
At the same time the concept has clearly evolved alongside the evolution of weapons and warfare. At Agincourt in 1415, the equivalent of A2AD was accomplished when English archers pounded rows of sharpened stakes into the ground to protect themselves from French knights; along the Western Front A2AD was accomplished primarily by stringing barbed wire across no-man’s land and unrelentingly pounding the ground before it with artillery. In both instances the tools used to prevent the enemy from entering the defensive zones had limited range and were aimed exclusively on concentrations of manpower within fairly geographically confined areas.
China’s A2AD strategy is different in character — if not in nature — from previous iterations of the concept in two fundamental ways: it seeks to cover the South China Sea, a vast area of roughly 1.5 million square miles[2], and it targets mobile deployments of strategic weaponry — primarily US aircraft carrier groups — rather than amassed infantry forces. Additionally, because most of the South China Sea is considered international water under international maritime law, China’s A2AD plan has political and economic implications and is not simply a military strategy.
This piece analyzes the efficacy of China’s A2D2 strategy in the South China Sea and propose ways to counter those plans in a manner that will allow America to project force so that it can meet its strategic objectives and keep the South China Sea open to international commerce and transit.
Why in the Sea?
The South China Sea is an area of paramount political, economic, and strategic importance for China. As her economic and military power has grown, China has become more assertive, and now claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea based on historical connections represented by the Nine-Dash Line, which China submitted to the United Nations in a 2009 statement of claim.[3] (Map from Wiki).[4]
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives states exclusive economic rights within 200 nautical miles of a coastline that supports inhabitants.[5] As shown by the map, the area China claims as its sovereign territory includes both international waters and the coastal zones of Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei, all of which dispute China’s maritime claims.[6] Additionally, China’s claims include the Spratly and Paracel Islands, the Scarborough Shoal, and numerous other small atolls. These claims in violation of UNCLOS by virtue of the fact that they infringe upon the coastal waters of China’s neighbors and because China has no legal claim to shoals and atolls that are so small they are uninhabitable.[7]
While China maintains that its claims to the South China Sea are based on historical sovereignty, there are many practical reasons it seeks to exert its influence over that body of water: fisheries; access to undersea natural resources including fuel sources and minerals; the possibility of taxing trade and transit; and denying potential adversaries access to its coasts and inland territories. Achieving this final strategic objective makes it possible for China to more easily claim exclusive economic ownership of the entire sea by preventing the United States Navy — and thus anyone else — from navigating freely through an area recognized as international waters. Therefore, strategic success underpins economic opportunity.
China’s AI(slands) Strategy
China’s strategy to seal off the South China Sea relies upon a combination of new weapons and new terrain, represented primarily by real missiles and artificial islands. The broader integrated-air-defense-system (IADS) also relies heavily communications-disruption and interference and advanced intelligence-gathering capacities, for example the concept of an “underwater Great Wall” of sensors, sonars, and other detection technology that will be linked via fiberoptic cables to land-based weapons systems.[8]
The newest and most menacing weapons are anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), first the DF-21[9] and more recently the DF-26, which has a range of between 3–4,000 KM, or around 800 miles.[10] This means ASBMs threaten US carrier groups while their aircraft remain beyond their strike zone of around 550 miles.[11] The DF-26 made its public debut during a September 2015 military parade in Beijing, and was likely first successfully tested in early 2017. It can carry a conventional or nuclear payload.[12]
While the DF-26 is the centerpiece of China’s IADS, the plan to deny American forces entry and freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea is — literally and figuratively — founded upon the construction of artificial islands atop existing reefs and atolls. Constructing these islands is an intensive task that requires dredging sand from the bottom of the sea, grinding it, and dumping it over natural structures. In this manner China has the turned the Spratly Islands and Fiery Cross Reef from small atolls into islands large enough to house airfields and military equipment.[13] These transformations allow China to place elements of its IADS on the newly formed islets, simultaneously giving them advanced-basing locations for weapons systems and allowing them to claim the territory is inhabited and therefore under Chinese purview.
China’s claims have been challenged in international courts. In 2016 a tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines in a dispute with China over artificially constructed islands. China simply ignored the ruling and refused to accept the court’s jurisdiction.[14] There were no repercussions, indeed, there are few actionable consequences and even fewer authorities to enforce them.
New Weapons, Old Alliances
The United States is one such authority, ultimately the only authority capable of forcing China to change its behavior. The US is wise to continue freedom of navigation maneuvers through the South China Sea, but as China expands its footprint and capabilities the US must counter with a strategic vision for countering A2AD, for gaining entry into or through the South China Sea in the event of a conflict. This strategy must combine a reliance on new technology with a reinvestment in old alliances.
It must first be acknowledged that a US carrier group already has robust defenses. Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman points to the experience of kamikazes in WWII as evidence of carriers’ survivability. As long as damage can be localized, absorbed, and repaired carriers can be deploy under the same paradigm that they have been deployed since WWII; carriers will be damaged, but “because they are so robust, it would take a nuclear weapon to really sink them.”[15]
An attack on a carrier group would represent a serious act of aggression against the United States, but an attack with a tactical nuclear warhead would be a far more severe transgression. Even if Secretary Lehman is correct, the DF-26 can carry a nuclear payload, and if China were willing to escalate to this degree the DF-26 represents an existential threat with the capacity to decimate an entire carrier group. This, then, is where Secretary Lehman’s analogy falls short. If “kamikazes were the ultimate cruise missiles”[16] and only the payload differentiates the Zero from the DF-26 then there is still substantial cause for concern. Secretary Lehman’s quip “If somebody’s going to be shooting missiles at you, would you rather be tied to the coordinates of a fixed land base or moving at 35 knots?”[17]is no reassurance to a crew facing an incoming nuclear weapon.
Thus, while carrier groups feature robust defenses, a comprehensive strategic plan is still necessary. Such a strategy would have multiple elements, some of which involve only unilateral steps to improve US military capacity, others of which require working in close cooperation with allies. The strategy is based on blunting the impact of the DF-26 through defense and dispersion while amassing the capacity to threaten China across a broad geographic area, forcing it to stretch itself thinly, exposing weak points and thus capitalizing on Frederick the Great’s axiom “he who defends everywhere defends nowhere.”
Negating the capacity of the DF-26 relies upon a combination of technology, geography, and diplomacy. The first component of the plan involves the concept of adaptive basing or disaggregating Air Force assets and spreading them from one concentrated airbase to a variety of locations to “disperse forces and capabilities to many locations for operational maneuver.”[18] Adaptive basing has the dual benefits of spreading the risk to US assets and — potentially — expanding the area they can cover, expanding the theater of operations. US allies and other nations around the region could host new and smaller air bases. This has the additional benefit of basing US forces in sovereign territory — as opposed to at sea on mobile war platforms — thus escalating the consequences of a Chinese strike.
Working to implement the concept of adaptive basing would require the US to escalate diplomatic and military-to-military engagement with many of the nations in and around the South China Sea, both allies and unallied nations. This would also allow the US to pursue opportunities to install land-based ASBMs in places that would threaten major Chinese naval assets. The US currently lacks this capacity but possesses the means to develop and implement it[19], and deploying such systems would strengthen the resolve and commitment of other nations threatened by Chinese bullying, sending a strong message to China.
Additionally, the US can extend the range of its carrier strike force through the integration of new aircraft into carrier-based airwings. One such aircraft, the first carrier-based unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the Stingray, should be ready for use by 2020. The Stingray has reconnaissance capabilities but is also an air-to-air refueler whose incorporation into carrier-based airwings will extend the effective operating range of current planes such as the F-18.[20]
The Marine Corps’ iteration of the F-35 also factors into US planning, lending weight to the concept of adaptive basing. The F-35B requires very limited space to take off and land. It can be resupplied quickly from non-traditional locations. In essence, it is perfect for the concept of adaptive basing, lending itself to operating in environments unknown to Chinese intelligence and off the radar for Chinese missiles and other weaponry.[21]
Consistent throughout the ideas presented so far is the necessity of working with partners and allies, and though there is no Asian equivalent of NATO, the US and its Asian partners could benefit from copying elements of NATO’s approach to countering potential Russian aggression. China’s aggressive posture presents a diplomatic opportunity to the US, which can use the issue of the South China Sea to galvanize China’s neighbors and find ways to capitalize on their unique skills and abilities. Such a plan would let all nations involve focus their resources on skills and capacities that will be much greater than the sum of their parts, similar to how NATO’s “minnow” nations such as Estonia are outsized contributors to Europe’s defense by virtue of their mastery of important niche skills.[22]
Implemented in totality, such a plan would extend, diversify, and disaggregate US and partner forces and assets in a manner that allows them to strike China from ranges and angles that stretch A2AD beyond its effective capacity, tearing holes in the protective bubble through which US forces can penetrate.
A Simultaneous Wholistic Approach
The US needs an immediate response to offset China’s A2AD strategy, but without a long term vision for how to sustainably enforce international rules and norms, the US risks an arms race with China in contested waters far from American shores, an untenable situation. Therefore, the US must consider the full suite of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) options to influence China’s behavior.
Many of these considerations are beyond the scope of this paper, but the Yom Kippur War offers a useful comparison for how DIME can be applied to meet strategic objectives.[23] The most obvious area of overlap is that strengthening military cooperation by pursuing adaptive basing and the placement of land-based ASBMs will enhance the likelihood of diplomatic and economic cooperation needed to successfully implement other elements of a DIME response.
The importance of the South China Sea and the proximity of so many other vested partners means finding common ground on possible solutions to Chinese aggression is a distinct possibility, but only if the US shows leadership by presenting an assertive strategic vision.
While the US seeks immediate tactical and technological changes to its approach in the South China Sea it must also consider other responses. Engaging in attempts to reenter the Trans-Pacific Partnership and pursuing similar diplomatic and economic endeavors will ultimately have an important blunting effect on China’s abilities and ambitions.
Conclusions
China’s growing confidence and capabilities require an immediate and thorough response. The political and diplomatic elements of a sustained solution will necessarily take time to negotiate, craft, and implement, and while such agreements are in the works the US can and should be expanding its military footprint through adaptive basing, the placement of land-based counterweights to the DF-26 in allied neighbors, and the ongoing development of new weapons systems such as the Stingray and F-35B.
The US should also work with Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and even perhaps even Thailand and India to develop a coalition that — while not explicitly opposed to China — works to promote freedom of navigation and movement in international waters, including the South China Sea. All of these nations have vested economic interests in the trade that moves through that body of water, and, with support from the US, could cooperate on naval or other maritime exercises, presenting a united stance in support of values opposed to Chinese goals in the South China Sea.
Ultimately, China’s desire to dominate the South China Sea, while indicative of its global ambitions, do not mean that an appeasement analogy is necessarily appropriate. However even if China’s territorial ambitions do not extend beyond the South China Sea that does not mean that the US and its allies should cede to China’s bullying.
It is probably not worth going to war to enforce freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. And yet it is certainly not worth losing that right without contesting it. The plan laid out in this paper give the US the best opportunity of altering China’s behavior by combining new technology with new strategic plans with a renewed focus on the age-old importance of allies and partners. Following this template gives the US the best chance of gaining entry into China’s A2AD sphere.
[1] Sun Tzu. “The Art of War,” Book 6. https://suntzusaid.com/book/6
[2] LaFond, Eugene. “South China Sea,” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/place/South-China-Sea
[3] Translation, 2009 Chinese letter to UN. http://www.un.org/depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/vnm37_09/chn_2009re_vnm.pdf
[4] Wikipedia: file:///Users/williamstaton/Documents/China’s_2009_nine-dash_line_map_submission_to_the_UN.pdf
[5] “The US and China’s Nine-Dash Line: Ending the Ambiguity,” February 6, 2014; Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-u-s-and-chinas-nine-dash-line-ending-the-ambiguity-2/
[6] Mollman, Steve. “Drawing the Line,” July 7, 2016; Quartz Magazine. https://qz.com/705223/where-exactly-did-chinas-nine-dash-line-in-the-south-china-sea-come-from/
[7] “The US and China’s Nine-Dash Line: Ending the Ambiguity,” February 6, 2014; Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-u-s-and-chinas-nine-dash-line-ending-the-ambiguity-2/
[8] Levick, Ewen. “China’s ‘Underwater Great Wall,’” June 18, 2018; Maritime Executive: https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/china-s-underwater-great-wall
[9] “Report: Chinese Develop Special ‘Kill Weapon’ to Destroy US Aircraft Carriers,” March 31, 2009; US Naval Institute: https://www.usni.org/news-and-features/chinese-kill-weapon
[10] Keck, Zachary. “China’s DF-26 ‘Carrier-Killer’ Missile Could Stop the US Navy in Its Tracks (Without Firing a Shot),” April 20, 2018; National Interest: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-df-26-carrier-killer-missile-could-stop-the-navy-its-25493
[11] Lockie, Alex. “Former F-35 pilot explains how the US Marine Corps’ version makes China’s ‘carrier killer’ missiles irrelevant,” February 2, 2018; Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-pilot-f-35b-makes-chinas-carrier-killer-missiles-irrelevant-2018-2
[12] CSIS Missile Defense Project: https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/dong-feng-26-df-26/
[13] Nicol, Will. “Showdown in the South China Sea: China’s artificial islands explained,” May 3, 2017; Digital Trends: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/chinas-artificial-islands-news-rumors/
[14] Ibid
[15] Tsuruoka, Doug. “US aircraft carrier can trump Chinese anti-ship missiles,” November 30, 2017; Asia Times: http://www.atimes.com/article/us-aircraft-carriers-can-trump-chinese-anti-ship-missiles/
[16] Ibid
[17] Ibid
[18] Dammier, David. “Overcoming a power projection problem,” 2016; US Air Force Civil Engineer Center: https://www.afcec.af.mil/News/CE-Online/Article-Display/Article/1004470/overcoming-a-power-projection-problem/
[19] Atler, Anthony, et al. “Employing Land-Based Anti-Ship Missiles in the Western Pacific,” 2013; Rand: https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR1321.html
[20] Lockie, Alex. “Meet the US’s answer to China’s ‘carrier killer’ missile,” July 21, 2016; Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/us-answer-carrier-killer-missile-2016-7
[21] Lockie, Alex. “Former F-35 pilot explains how the US Marine Corps’ version makes China’s ‘carrier killer’ missiles irrelevant,” February 2, 2018; Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-pilot-f-35b-makes-chinas-carrier-killer-missiles-irrelevant-2018-2
[22] McCauley, Justin, et al. “NATO’s Essential Minnows and the Russian Threat,” June 13, 2017; Strategy Bridge: https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2017/6/13/natos-essential-minnows-and-the-russian-threat
[23] Humr, Scott. “Operation BADR: Defeating A2AD with DIME,” November 7, 2018; Strategy Bridge: https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2018/11/7/operation-badr-defeating-a2ad-with-dime?utm_source=The+Bridge&utm_campaign=3672f5fb6a-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bcf191ca0f-3672f5fb6a-296392397
