Outflanking the Great Wall
At the moment, China seems a particularly likely candidate for a conflict, given recent provocations by the PRC and the hostile stance President Trump has taken against China. Recently multiple news sources cited a “Senior Chinese military official” who called war between the US and China “a practical reality.” Many in China seem very cavalier about this possibility and many in the US appear fearful, but the opposite should be true. In the event of a war with China, the United States will dominate its adversary in a decisive and unyielding manner. Over the next several weeks we will review the different possibilities of how this will occur starting with an escalation of the proposed blockade of Chinese artificial islands by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
However, before we get into this, we need to clear up several common misconceptions about a conflict between China and the United States. First China cannot “call in” US debit. China owns US national debt in the form of US treasury bonds, not loans like with a car or a mortgage. China does not have the ability to demand payment on these bonds as that is not how bonds work. In fact, the United States can refuse to pay, print so much money the bonds become worthless, or do any of a thousand and one dirty tricks to get out of paying debt, should we so desire. As the old adage goes, if you owe the bank $1 million, they own you, but if you owe China $1.3 trillion, you own them.
China has also been selling a great deal of the US debt it owns. One reason for this is that China is gearing up for war and knows that they will not be paid if they do. Another reason is that Chinese currency is nearly worthless, and China is not, in fact, purposefully devaluing their currency as many think, but desperately trying to prevent it from going into free fall. Selling US bonds is one way to increase the value of Chinese currency.
The Chinese Navy is less of a navy and more of a coast guard; it will be destroyed the second it strays fifty miles beyond the coast of China. In addition to lacking an unified command structure like the joint chiefs, which every major military in the world has, China’s navy does not have the ability to conduct “Anti-Surface-Warfare” or “ASW.” ASW is the ability to primarily destroy submarines and all other threats that prowl beneath the waves. The United States has the best submarine fleet in the world. This would be a torpedo meet boat, boats meets bottom of the ocean scenario.
In general, war is a matter of logistics, not tactics. Experts speak in logistics not tactics. Specifically, China does not have the logistical capability or expertise to wage a war beyond its own borders. The United States does. Should the United States so desire, we can place thousands of soldiers anywhere in the world within eighteen hours, tens of thousands within weeks, and hundreds of thousands within months. Not only that but we can then keep them there, fed, armed, and fueled: everything you need to fight a war.
China Strikes
In this scenario, newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gets his wish and the United States begins to take aggressive military actions in the South China Sea, blockading artificial Chinese islands there. China interprets this as an act of war and launches military strikes against US ships and bases in the region. Based on which bases China hits, we will be able to determine what the Chinese intent is with these strikes.
The only base that is actually on US territory in the Pacific is at Guam, every other base is on the territory of a US Ally (South Korea, Japan/Okinawa, Malaysia, and Australia, which is beyond China’s reach, with a recently closed base likely still accessible in Kyrgyzstan and an active naval base nearby at the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean outside of China’s reach). If China only attacks Guam, then it is seeking a limited engagement with the United States and will not seek to draw in a larger conflict.
However if China strikes US bases in foreign nations, this will be an act of war against both the US and the nation the strike occurs in. For this reason, even in a near total strike, it is unlikely China will target US forces in South Korea as this could trigger a North Korean invasion. This would drastically increase the chances of nuclear weapons use, something no nation, including China, wants. In this scenario, China launches a total strike against all US bases accessible to them outside of South Korea.
The strike is not surprising as tensions have risen dramatically in the region and US forces have already built up. China’s assaults on US bases. while damaging, do not cripple US capabilities, but reveal China’s hand in the conflict. Now it is time for the United States to retaliate.
America Strikes Back
The United States will wisely seek not to engage Chinese forces directly for two reasons: (1) as a liberal democratic republic, the United States will not be able to maintain support for a war effort from its public if a large number of casualties are sustained, unlike autocratic communist China, and (2) the United States does not wish to operate within the range of most of China’s area denial (A2/D) weaponry, including the island chains it has built up.
While the US possesses the capability to penetrate China’s defenses, it makes more sense to employ strategies that maximize American advantages in reach and logistics. Rather than fight China close to their own borders, the US will take the fight far away and hit China where it really hurts, with a blockade of their sea lanes and shipping.
As many analysts note, one of China’s major weaknesses is its lack of natural resources. China ships in almost all of its fossil fuels by boat as well as a large portion of its other natural materials. To stop this, the United States will launch its own A2/D effort, including a naval check point at Straits of Malacca. By utilizing this natural choke point in Indonesia, through which the majority of China’s trade flows, the US could impound any ships that attempt to sail to China or bear its flag. This effort will extend through the entirety of its waters. While the US may not be able to stop every single ship, the risk of having a ship seized or destroyed by the United States will make insuring such vessels financially impossible. This will effectively cut off the majority of China’s trade, by leaving only overland routes, such as roads, pipelines, and train tracks.
These routes are easily identifiable and static, which make them highly susceptible to US Strategic Bombing. With a combination of mass targeted strikes against these routes and against Chinese reserves of critical war materials like oil, the United States could cripple China’s ability to fight a war or even feed itself in a matter of weeks, not months. Should the United States decide to further escalate the conflict, strikes could be taken against Chinese food supplies and defoliants used against Chinese crops. Should the USA choose, the nation of China will crumble.
The ancient Chinese warfare manual, the Art of War, teaches that you should use your opponent’s strengths against them. China’s major strategic strengths are the size of their population and military, but these can also be their greatest weaknesses. If the United States chooses to wage war, choking out China would only take a matter of time.
