Andrew Marshall & Air-Sea Battle Break in to the Open

No news to regulars here and listeners to Midrats - but in the background has been the enabler for not just the Pacific Pivot, but for what a maritime nation such as ours requires; global reach.

Greg Jaffe over at WaPo has a good bit up that outlines well not only a thumbnail of the concept, but some of the players who have made it happen. Read it all, but here is the start;

When President Obama called on the U.S. military to shift its focus to Asia earlier this year, Andrew Marshall, a 91-year-old futurist, had a vision of what to do.

Marshall’s small office in the Pentagon has spent the past two decades planning for a war against an angry, aggressive and heavily armed China.

No one had any idea how the war would start. But the American response, laid out in a concept that one of Marshall’s longtime proteges dubbed “Air-Sea Battle,” was clear.

Stealthy American bombers and submarines would knock out China’s long-range surveillance radar and precision missile systems located deep inside the country. The initial “blinding campaign” would be followed by a larger air and naval assault.

That is called playing to your strengths.

Some don't like the "price."

An internal assessment, prepared for the Marine Corps commandant and obtained by The Washington Post, warns that “an Air-Sea Battle-focused Navy and Air Force would be preposterously expensive to build in peace time” and would result in “incalculable human and economic destruction” if ever used in a major war with China.

Expensive? Compared to what? When a war picks you - you have to fight it. Better to find the best way to do it now than to have to make it up as you go along. It is also smart to have years and a few iterations to ponder it with some good minds in it to make sure that with each turn of the wheel, your plan gets better and better. For both blood and treasure, this is just plain smart.

Looks like I will have to tap in to on of my favorite strategists, Vizzini;