Episode 622: China’s Assassin’s Mace in WESTPAC with Gerry Doyle & Blake Herzinger

Since the March 1996 humiliation in the waters around Taiwan handed to the People’s Republic of China by the US Navy’s world-dominating Carrier Battle Groups – as they were then known – China and her armed forces started a long-term, disciplined effort to ensure that a point in the not so distant future, their part of The Pacific west of Wake would no longer be considered and American lake.

With a little over a quarter century passed, has China successfully closed the gap?

Come join us for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern for a deep dive in to the subject with our guests Gerry Doyle and Blake Herzinger as we discuss their recent book, Carrier Killer: China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles and Theater of Operations in the early 21st Century (Asia@War).

Join us live if you can, but it not, you can get the show later by subscribing to the podcast. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here. You can find us on almost all your most popular podcast aggregators as well.

We Know What China Wants to do

The only logical question for us is, "What are we going to do about it?"

On Sunday, H.I. Sutton and Sam LaGrone over at USNINews brought a few visuals that should grab your attention;

The Chinese military has built targets in the shape of an American aircraft carrier and other U.S. warships in the Taklamakan desert as part of a new target range complex, according to photos provided to USNI News by satellite imagery company Maxar.

The full-scale outline of a U.S. carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers are part of the target range that has been built in the Ruoqiang region in central China. The site is near a former target range China used to test early versions of its so-called carrier killer DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, according to press reports in 2013.

This new range shows that China continues to focus on anti-carrier capabilities, with an emphasis on U.S. Navy warships. Unlike the Iranian Navy’s aircraft carrier-shaped target in the Persian Gulf, the new facility shows signs of a sophisticated instrumented target range.

There is no reason to get all that excited about this. China realists should welcome this as it may help get the attention of those who have not fully realized the most likely Chinese Course of Action.

They know that the greatest threat to their plans for their end of the Pacific is the US Navy.

Don't get distracted by talk of grand Chinese breakthroughs in space, electronic warfare, or cyber - though they are real and a threat - because they are supporting and not supported efforts.

The Chinese main plan - their supported effort - is to lure in and then destroy as much of the US Navy and its supporting infrastructure west of Wake as it can as early as possible in the Pacific war that we all expect to come. They are confident enough of their capability to effectively strike static targets that they are moving on to refining hitting moving targets.

No use to ignore the threat, or retreat from the fact that in order to properly defend and support our allies, we not only have to go west of Wake, but west of Guam and well inside the first island chain.

Acknowledge the challenge. Accept the challenge. Welcome the challenge.

Let the Chinese do what they will - we cannot stop them while at peace - but we can do what we need to.

First, we need to counter the threat with an ability to degrade and as much as possible destroy their ability to effectively locate and track our forces.

How is our anti-satellite capability?

How is our offensive cyber ability?

How is our crypto breaking?

How is our offensive EW?

How is our dirty tricks/spoofing cadre?

How "quiet" can we operate along the electromagnetic spectrum?

Those are just a few of the top "soft" capabilities we need.

How is our ship based anti-ballistic missile/hypersonic capability? How many do we need to carry? How many in magazines? How many can industry produce per month?

How effective is our long range conventional strike capability?  How many in magazines? How many can industry produce per month?

How are we on ensuring that our ship based cruise missiles have the range they need? How many do we need to carry? How many in magazines? How many can industry produce per month?

(NB: if in your head you don't have a matrix of VLS cells per ship and are marking off real estate, you're doing it wrong.)

What are we doing to extend the range of our airwing and the weapons they carry? 

I am not interested in your PPT-thick vaporware that might show up by 2040. No, I need to know what you will have ready to deploy in number by 2025. Save Futurewar for another brief, later, on someone else's schedule.

Have we effectively modeled what we need for damage control when faced by near misses or glancing blows by ballistic missiles and hypersonics? No, you can't assume every hit is a direct hit or cracks the ship in half. That will happen, but a few thousand years of warfare tells us that won't happen every time.

Have we effectively modeled how we will repair ships to get them back in the fight as soon as practical? Do we have what we need to do that?

Have we effectively modeled how we are going to conduct reloads of VLS cells forward? Do we have what we need to do that? 

Regulars here know the answer to much of the above.

I think we can all agree there is much work to do.

Now, who is doing it?

A final note, for those who would like a quick and fascinating read on the Taklamakan desert that the Ruoqiang is part of, I can not recommend more highly Peter Hopkirk's Foreign Devils on the Silk Road.

Since I discovered the history of it in the 1990s, I've always been interested in news coming out about the Taklamakan. The place is just a brutal part of the world. If you wonder what "Taklamakan" might mean, I've read this in a few places, including Hopkirk;

The name is probably an Uyghur borrowing of Arabic tark, "to leave alone/out/behind, relinquish, abandon" + makan, "place". Another plausible explanation is that it is derived from Turki taqlar makan, which means "the place of ruins". Popular accounts claim that Takla Makan means "go in and you will never come out". It may also mean "The point of no return" or "The Desert of Death"..

Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part LXXXVII

See that beautiful bird on the right? That was the late-great Pershing II of the Reagan Era that helped the Soviet Union fall apart.

It was exceptionally good for a nuclear weapon delivery vehicle with a very impressive accuracy. As it was nuclear only and we made agreements with an empire that eventually went away - we let that capability go.

The Chinese and others have not. They have hundreds of conventional short/intermediate/medium range ballistic missiles in their inventory ready to go. We have ... well ... pictures.

In the four decades since we decommissioned the Pershing II, a lot has happened. The Communist Chinese have - with our willing help - risen to challenge the USA. They have also had a great record of success stealing our civilian and military technology through a combination of old fashioned HUMINT, hacking, and flooding universities and research institutions with the money and grad students who get access to all sorts of records long filed and forgotten.

In most things there are distinct trends & "families" of designs. 

Pershing II has a distinct look, as do the CSS-5 (DF-17) & DS-26 - the two missiles that give the most bother to those in the USN looking at sustaining the fight west of Wake Island.

Form follows function et al, so this might just be good math doing its job, but the CCP's successful history if espionage shouldn't be dismissed. The Chinese desire to let others do their basic research for them is a hard habit to break.

Has anyone dug deeply in to the reasons that the CCP missiles we have grown to have such concern for ... have a familial resemblance to the Pershing II?

In a way, it doesn't matter. They have them by the hundreds while we are bragging that we can have a ship the size of a WWII destroyer toting around four foreign designed ASCM to ... tote them around.

Everyone needs to head over and read the Ballistic and Cruise Missile Thread report for 2020 by the  National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) in collaboration with the Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee (DIBMAC).

Here's something to kick things off ... and then look at the children of Pershing II below;

China continues to deploy nuclear-armed MRBMs to maintain regional nuclear deterrence, and its long-term, comprehensive military modernization is improving the capability of its conventionally armed ballistic missile force to conduct high-intensity regional military operations, including “antiaccess and area denial” (A2/AD) operations. 

Currently, China deploys the CSS-5 Mod 2 for regional nuclear deterrence. China has the conventionally-armed CSS-5 Mod 4 and Mod 5 MRBMs to conduct precision strikes. The CSS-5 Mod 4 (DF-21C) is intended to hold at risk or strike logistics and communication nodes, regional military bases and airfields, or ports. China has also deployed the CSS-5 Mod 5 (DF-21D), an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) with a range exceeding 1,500 km and a maneuverable reentry vehicle (MaRV) that gives the PLA the capability to attack aircraft carriers in the western Pacific Ocean. 

According to a Chinese CCTV report, the DF-21D brigades are capable of quickly reloading in the field and launching multiple salvo strikes within a few hours. During the PLA’s 90th Anniversary Parade in July 2017, China displayed a new MRBM designated the DF-16G, which China claims features high accuracy, short preparation time, and an improved maneuverable terminal stage that can better infiltrate missile defense systems. 

As part of its National Day Parade in October 2019 celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Peoples’ Republic of China, China displayed its DF-17 medium-range hypersonic missile.

 h/t Ankit Panda.

 

DG-26 Guam Killer

Everyone wants to talk about the DF-21D, the "Carrier Killer."

I don't think we are talking enough about the DF-26.

I'm pondering over at USNIBlog ... come by and puzzle your puzzler with me.

Bit by Bit, an ABM Capability Grows

 

Our Navy would be such a more powerful force if we had kept with the mindset of the Aegis and Standard Missile evolution. 

Bit by bit, step by step, increment by increment, baseline by baseline, we got a stronger, more effective Navy.

A few hiccups like in any  long running program ... but the success is undeniable. 

The latest example;

In a first-of-its-kind test, the United States has successfully used a small ship-fired missile to intercept a target Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), according to the Missile Defense Agency. The successful test shows the U.S. military now has another missile defense system capable of defending against North Korean ICBM’s aimed at the United States.

“The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), and U.S. Navy sailors aboard an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System-equipped destroyer intercepted and destroyed a threat-representative Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) target with a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA missile during a flight test demonstration in the broad ocean area northeast of Hawaii, Nov. 16,” said a statement from the Missile Defense Agency.

A target ICBM missile launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean traveled thousands of miles towards the body of water between Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States mainland.

MORE: US successfully intercepts ICBM in historic test

The destroyer USS John Finn that was positioned in those waters then fired an SM3 missile that successfully intercepted the target ICBM. The interceptor missile was directed towards its target using tracking information provided by an array of sensor systems designed to monitor any incoming missile attack on the United States.

There is a lot to do before this becomes a fleet-wide capability, but we are getting there.

An anti-ballistic missile capability afloat isn't just good for national defense and that of our allies, but as anti-ship ballistic missiles become more of a threat - it will be an integral part of fleet defense itself.

As challenging of a science and engineering accomplishment as this is, there are parallel challenges that need to be addressed. 

First of all is a depth of capability. A lot of modifications and improvements will be needed to our Aegis ships before more ships have this capability - if ever. Most with a naval background can figure out an outline of those details on their own.

Once that is done, then we have what has always been an gold-plated issue in the surface community  become a platinum-plated one - the most valuable square footage in the navalists neighborhood; VSL cells.

If you want attack targets ashore with TLAM or the coming hypersonics cruise missiles - and your submarines can't quite get everywhere with enough tubes as it is, you will need this surface capability. 

How many VLS cells can you fill with those weapons if you need to be able to defend yourself and others from one or two varieties of ballistic missiles and ASCM - not to mention an aircraft or two? Maybe leave a few cells for ASW ... perhaps?

Your standard issue Aegis Destroyer has 90 or 96 MK-41 VLS cells. You can do the math from there.

We lost two generations of possible evolution in surface warship development with the failure of DDG-1000 and CG(X). We really need to get off the ball sooner more than later with our next large surface combatant. We can also look at some fun ways to get more VLS cells to our Navy sooner ... but that is a post for another day, perhaps.

The Ballistic Missile Calculus Changes

Technology does not stand still.

Capabilities do not remain constant.

What was the great, unassailable threat today, may just be mitigated in to nuisance tomorrow.

In war - especially in long periods of peace - you need to be humble about the abilities of your weapons and your ability to see the future clearly. You also need to be careful not to make your enemy 10-feet tall or a petty threat to be dismissed.

Watch for developments that change the odds and calculus of threats and capabilities.

As we continue to think about the returning threat of ballistic missiles targeted to either land or sea, this development is significant.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency ... conducted a successful test today against an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) class target. This test was the first salvo engagement of a threat-representative ICBM target by two Ground Based Interceptors (GBI), which were designated GBI-Lead, and GBI-Trail for the test. The GBI-Lead destroyed the reentry vehicle, as it was designed to do. The GBI-Trail then looked at the resulting debris and remaining objects, and, not finding any other reentry vehicles, selected the next ‘most lethal object’ it could identify, and struck that, precisely as it was designed to do.
...
“This was the first GBI salvo intercept of a complex, threat-representative ICBM target, and it was a critical milestone,” said MDA Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves. “The system worked exactly as it was designed to do, and the results of this test provide evidence of the practicable use of the salvo doctrine within missile defense. The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.”

The GMD element of the ballistic missile defense system provides combatant commanders the capability to engage and destroy intermediate and long-range ballistic missile threats

Step by step. Increment by increment - a significant capability is emerging.

H/t MV.

Over the horizon, under the radar, & in your MEZ: ASCM & ASBM - on Midrats

This Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern, we're going to focus on the things of nightmares; Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles and Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles with fellow paleo-milblogger SteelJawScribe.

In a wide ranging discussion, for the hour we'll cover ASCM history, Cold War tales, and what present day Russia and Crimea are bringing to the game.

SJS is a retired Navy Captain with multiple operational tours, including command of the VAW-122 Steeljaws, flying the E-2C Hawkeye as a Naval Flight Officer. With over 3500 hrs in type and 525 carrier arrested landings he was a designated Mission Commander, NATOPS and PMCF check flight NFO, a NATOPS qualified NFO copilot and the first CVW strike lead from the VAW community. He also was navigator on the USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69).

Shore tours included time at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA where he earned a Masters (with honors)in National Security Studies (Russia) and multiple joint penance tours working operational/technical intelligence, collection management and strategy/policy. Following retirement he worked in industry, first in BMD supporting the Missile Defense Agency and then helping establish the Navy Air and Missile Defense Command in Dahlgren VA. As the Navy’s premiere center for all things associated with ballistic and fleet air defense, NAMDC became the IAMD division (Dahlgren) of the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) in 2015, where SJS works today after transitioning to govt work.

An honors graduate of the Naval War College, SJS also teaches 2of 3 JPME-1 courses as a Fleet Seminar Program professor and is a published author. Together with his wife Sharon and their fearless dachshund, Jake, they live in Chancellorsville, VA

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Targeting Problems and Fleet Defense Challenges? Welcome to Varsity Football.

The Chinese are making WESTPAC more and more interesting day after day.

They are so inside our acquisition loop, it's embarrassing.

Details over at USNIBlog.

Come by and ponder with me.

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SM-6 and the Changing Calculus

An ongoing story in the Darwinian nature of war is the contest between the dominance of defense and offense. Especially acute on land - something 100-yrs on from WWI we are still talking about - it also applies at sea.

The last decade, much talk on the surface side of the house has been A2AD, ASBM, and a buzzword I like less every time I use it "distributed lethality," and the need to somehow find a way to get back in the anti-surface warfare fight at range.

Slowly and deliberately making it to the fleet, the SM-6 is showing all the signs of being the weapon we need now, and need in number.

As reported by Kris Osborne at The National Interest;

The Pentagon simultaneously fired two Standard Missile-6 weapons in rapid succession at a single ballistic missile target to asses new seeker technology and solidify the weapon's ability to ensure destruction of approaching enemy targets.

Using an emerging "active seeker" technology, two SM-6 missiles were able to simultaneously track and destroy a single target, greatly improving the probability of a target kill.
...
The SM-6 is unique in several respects; the weapon uses what is called an "active" seeker, meaning it can send a signal or electromagnetic ping forward in addition to receiving them. Electromagnetic signals, which travel at the speed of light, send a signal forward before analyzing the return signal to determine the shape, size, speed or configuration of an approaching threat. Since the speed of light is known, and the time of travel is able to be determined, a computer algorithm is able to calculate the exact distance of an object. Portions of this technology are built into the SM-6, using software upgrades.

An "active seeker" gives the missile to better attack maneuvering or moving targets at sea, because it does not need to rely upon a ship-based illuminator to bounce a signal off a target for a merely "passive" seeker to receive.

This is the technology which allows a ship commander to fire several SM-6 missiles in more rapid succession or closer to one another in the event that a target needs to be attacked with more than one missile.

Yes, in my head I'm counting VLS cells and wanting more, but nothing is perfect;

Compared with the SM-3, the ship-fired SM-6 interceptor is designed to track and destroy closer-in-threats such as a ballistic missile in the "terminal" phase of decent to its target.

The weapon has been established with an ability to knock out ballistic missiles approaching from the sky.

Of course, it is one thing to have mastery of defense and break the confidence your opponent may have in his offensive systems, but what about your offense? Here's the sexy part;

More recently, the weapon has been developed for a number of new "offensive" missions including surface attacks against enemy ships or defensive intercepts against anti-ship missiles closer to the surface.

Back to what we had with SM-1 but lost with SM-2. Good.  We also have the standard AAW ability;

The SM-6 has also been capable of anti-air defense, equipped with an ability to attack or destroy enemy helicopters, drones and other approaching threats. The weapon has now been established as defensive, offensive and capable of three distinct missions; they are surface warfare, anti-air warfare and ballistic missile defense.

More testing and then ... get 'ye to the fleet.

One note of caution. We should be a bit more humble. Good-man-Mike had me sucking my teeth a bit;

"You now have absolute assurance of hit no matter what the threat is doing. If the threat takes a turn and does something weird and the first missile is unable to sense it and engage it, the second missile will," Mike Campisi, SM-6 Senior Director, Raytheon, told Scout Warrior in an interview.

Never say you have "absolute assurance" of anything at sea. Mother Ocean and Mars love to make a fool of you from your own over-confidence.

Anti-Access Area-Denial (A2AD) with Sam Tangredi, on Midrats

Power projection, sea control, access, denial, and the ability to impose your will on the enemy from the sea - or depending on your perspective - prevent them.

If the comparative advantage of American military power includes the use of the world's oceans as a basing area from projecting power and national will, how can other nations design systems and tactics to trump that advantage? What are in place now, and what can we expect to see in the near future?

Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Sam J. Tangredi, a defense strategist whose studies of future warfare prompted Defense Department officials to label him “the Navy’s futurist.” His thirty-year naval career included command at sea, service in key strategic planning positions in the Pentagon and overseas, earning a PhD in international relations, and research fellowships at two think tanks.

His over one hundred publications—which include four books--have won awards, including the U.S. Naval Institute’s Arleigh Burke Prize and the U.S. Navy League’s Alfred Thayer Mahan Award. He is currently the director of San Diego operations for the planning/consulting firm Strategic Insight.

Join us live if you can with the usual suspects in the chat room and offer up your questions for our guest, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Listen to internet radio with Midrats on Blog Talk Radio

60-year Evolutionary Success

You may have missed this yesterday - but you should at least give it a passing nod;

The Navy successfully tested its short range ballistic missile last week, destroying a complex moving target that soared over the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, May 15.
...
“This test scenario was designed to challenge the discrimination capabilities of the SM-3 Block IB,” said Dr. Mitch Stevison, Raytheon SM-3 program director. “What we learned from this mission gives me great confidence in the missile’s production readiness.”
The test, code-named Stellar Hecate after a Greek goddess of magic, marks the 23rd successful intercept for the SM-3 program.

Ungh ... the media really needs to have military people edit their stuff. It was a test of a anti-ballistic missile against a short range ballistic missile ... but let's move past that goof.

Here is why you may have missed it; success. Why? Success, the proven way - and with the Standard Missile program, the expected outcome.

"Because we've been perfecting this technology for 60 years, we've seen it expand from defending ships to defending continents,” said Dr. Taylor Lawrence, president of Raytheon Missile Systems. “As we look back on all that has been accomplished in the last six decades, we can't help but recognize that what was impossible yesterday, is possible today."

It will get better and better - giving us some push back to the A2AD challenge; perhaps even getting ahead of it.

We should look at that timeline for surface-to-air missiles as we now look to laser and rail-gun technology. It will take time to reach great promise, but accept what it can offer now, and then build on it.

The best weapons systems are never "revolutionary;" they are products of sound evolution. More work to get done, but we're getting there.

On Tuesday, production is set to begin on a batch of missiles at the company’s new Redstone Missile Integration Facility in Huntsville, Ala., that will be deployed out to U.S. Navy ships.

Here; wallow in the SWO pr0n.

PACOM says "OBTW"

What has been said cannot be unsaid; once in a thicket, it is very difficult to quietly back out. Via Asahi.

Q [Yoichi Kato]: Let me go into China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. What is the current status of China’s anti-ship ballistic missile development, and how close is it to actual operational deployment?

A [Admiral Robert F. Willard, Commander, U.S. Pacific Command]: The anti-ship ballistic missile system in China has undergone extensive testing. An analogy using a Western term would be “initial operational capability,” whereby it has—I think China would perceive that it has—an operational capability now, but they continue to develop it. It will continue to undergo testing, I would imagine, for several more years.

Q: China has achieved IOC?

A: You would have to ask China that, but as we see the development of the system, their acknowledging the system in open press reporting and the continued testing of the system, I would gauge it as about the equivalent of a U.S. system that has achieved IOC.

Q: Has China already perfected the technology to fly that missile and also the sensor systems for targeting? Has the entire system integration been completed?

A: Typically, to have something that would be regarded as in its early operational stage would require that that system be able to accomplish its flight pattern as designed, by and large.

Q: But they have not conducted the actual flight test or the test to attack moving ships yet, have they?

A: We have not seen an over-water test of the entire system.

Q: But do you believe they already have that capability?

A: I think that the component parts of the anti-ship ballistic missile have been developed and tested.

At the top of my programming guide for Midrats, I have in big red letters "REMEMBER CLASSIFICATION" as sometimes I forget where I am.

The fact that we think they are IOC didn't come from thin air or the New York Times. I balked when I read this, but I'm just a retired CDR - I think ADM are a tad smarter than I am, so this was intentional.

PRC ASBM IOC is big news. The interesting question is; why bring it up now?

No shock to regular readers of CDRSalamander --- and neither should this.

Q: Is it a bigger threat to the United States than submarines in terms of their A2/AD capabilities?

A: No, I don’t think so. Anti-access/area denial, which is a term that was relatively recently coined, is attempting to represent an entire range of capabilities and capacities that China has developed and that other countries have developed.

Wait; let me read that again - "Anti-access/area denial" is recently coined? Huh? Did today's teenagers just discover s3x?

That make me sad. Maybe PACOM's Aide needs to make sure he gets more sleep. One less person on the CNO short-list, I guess.

Hat tip Andrew S. Erickson.

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UPDATE: Oh, can't believe I forgot to add this. Visuals are good, they tend to focus the mind.

Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part XXX

Who is keeping an eye on the long game? James Kraska is.

Over at Orbis, he has an article that is worth reading, How the United States Lost the Naval War on 2015. Sure, the article has been out a few months --- but it lingers; it has a flavor.

Let's look at it.

First thing; I won't pick too much on his 2015 date. Who knows - I wouldn't call that time ripe (if I were Chinese I would push that to the right a decade and a half) - but hey - this is a just a vignette to spark a discussion, and no one called 1939 or 1914 either.

That isn't what is important. The vignette is just the wrapper - the concepts he brings out via the vignette is its meat.

He hits center mass however or some critical "shaping" issues. Starting in the first paragraph - you get a good idea where he is coming from and going to.

With a maritime strategy focused on lower order partnerships, and a national oceans policy that devalued strategic interests in freedom of navigation, the stage was set for defeat at sea.

Yes, a few Salamanderesque things to talk about.

He outlines well the second and third order effects of military exchanges and technology transfer. Short term thinking with long term consequences.

Globalization, developments in the international law of the sea, and the revolution in military affairs aided the emergence of China and other new naval powers. Globalization was a democratizing force among navies. The wealth effect of expanding trade and rising economies combined with the spread of doctrine, training and operational art, serving as a force multiplier. The result of globalization was a vastly improved Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) Navy in terms of its force structure and warfighting skills. The proliferation of advanced weapons technology helped nations that historically had never exercised naval power to make generational leaps in precision-guided munitions.

Just for starters, review Loral from the '90s. You know the background.

In addition to being very good at reverse engineering (though more work needed on the quality side) - the Chinese are also a good are understanding history, especially their history.

There are a few things that I would pop Kraska on the back of the head for though, as some good stuff got lost in poorly chosen buzz-words we could have done without. Here is one pop on 'da head.

A collection of unfriendly coastal states had invested heavily in asymmetric anti-access technologies and strategies to counter the power of U.S. naval forces. In 1991, Iraq used a mixture of crude pre-World War I contact navalmines and sophisticated magnetic and acoustic influence mines launched from small rubber boats. The country deployed over 1,100 mines in the first Gulf War, but most of them were either inoperable or improperly positioned. Yet Baghdad still reaped success in using mines to secure its seaside flank off Kuwait City. The USS Tripoli struck a moored contact mine, which ripped a 16 20 foot cavern below the waterline; hours later, and despite proceeding with deliberate caution to avoidmines, the USS Princeton struck a mine that cracked her superstructure and caused severe deck buckling.
...
Fueled by a dynamic economy and impressive ingenuity, Beijing developed and fielded a bevy of asymmetric weapons. One game-changing weapon, an anti-ship ballistic missile, could hit an underway aircraft carrier.

The good stuff is the note on "Sea Denial" weapons - or as I call it, the "Porcupine Strategy." You don't have to be the biggest, strongest, or most intelligent - you simply have to make it too painful and dangerous for anyone to get close to you.

The bad part - "asymmetric."

No, no, no. Sigh, sorry - I have to do this.

Adj. 1. asymmetric - characterized by asymmetry in the spatial arrangement or placement of parts or components

asymmetrical
irregular - contrary to rule or accepted order or general practice; "irregular hiring practices"

There is nothing asymmetrical about mine warfare - good googly moogly, there is a Union Ship a mortar shot away from me sunk by a "mine" in the Civil War. There is nothing "contrary" about it - it is about as much of the environment as typhoons - and like typhoons, they are only asymmetrical if you ignore them and/or don't prepare for them.

Same thing as ASBMs. Was the Dive Bomber asymmetrical? Was the Motor Torpedo Boat? Was the Submarine?

No. They were evolutionary developments in warfare - the eternal Darwinian battlefield. One technology begets a defensive response to them, that begets the need for another weapon, etc. Once again, they are only asymmetrical if you are so hide-bound and myopic as an institution that you refuse to improvise, adapt and overcome. Ahem.

I do not like the use of the "A-word" because it gives some mystic glint to what is a straight-forward professional challenge. A nit-pic? Sure. Detracts from the good stuff in his article? Not at all.

The core of his vignette,

Without warning, a Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile – a variant of the 1,500 km-plus range DF-21/CSS-5 solid propellant medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) specifically designed to decapitate U.S. carrier strike groups operating in East Asia – struck the USS George Washington causing the ship to erupt in a cataclysm.

There is some nice "PSYOPS-INFO OPS" vignette play that I will skip through because this part is what interests me - but if that is your thing, make sure and read it all. Back to my stuff though.

Nations that had little respect for offshore or littoral freedom of navigation were courted, and regional commanders favored the benefits of partnership over the value of preserving navigational rights. Winning ‘‘hearts and minds’’ trumped age-old principles. The U.S. Navy struggled with how to conduct combined, lower-order maritime security operations. China was concentrating on how to win a naval war.
...
Furthermore, most of the other nations with large navies were allies. While technically true when measured in fleet tonnage and missile tubes, his testimony obscured the fact that while the U.S. Navy perhaps could outmatch any other navy in a fair fight, her rivals were not looking for a fair fight. Allies would prove unreliable partners, more intent on avoiding war than deterring it. U.S. adversaries were thinking asymmetrically.

Those are two paragraphs that are very difficult to talk about in "polite company" but represent two significant strategic risks that we have adopted. Oh, and I will ignore the A-word. Read Sun Tzu (the Chinese do) - its all there.

He reminds us of another challenge of the American Fleet - we have more than one ocean to worry about,

The fourteen-to-one advantage in naval power also assumed that the United States had time to collect and concentrate its far-flung ships against a single foe. The ephemeral 313-ship force structure was never achieved, but it called for eleven carriers, eighty-eight cruisers and destroyers, forty-eight submarines, fifty-five littoral combat ships and thirty-one amphibious warfare ships. But these forces were spread thinly throughout the world maintaining a bewildering and multi-tasked agenda. Given that a 1.0 force presence—maintaining one ship on station—typically requires three ships—one in work-ups and evaluation, getting ready to deploy, one on deployment, and one in the yard being refurbished after deployment—the 313 ships never really promised more than about 100 ships at sea at any given time, and these would be spread over the entire globe.
...
No sooner had warships from the U.S. Second Fleet in Norfolk gotten underway, however, than did Cosco, the Chinese company operating the Panama Canal, declare the passageway closed for four weeks for urgent repairs to the Atlantic and Pacific locks. Closure of the 40-mile long canal added 3,000 miles to transits from the East coast of the United States to the Far East.6 The alternative was to take the laborious route through the Strait of Magellan in southern Chile. Considerably safer than Drake Passage, Magellan was still difficult to navigate. The narrow passage was dogged by fierce winds and the inhospitable climate. Half the U.S. fleet anchored in Norfolk was temporarily cut off from the Pacific. At the same time, street protests to stop the impending transit of U.S. warships through the Suez Canal stung the government in Cairo. The Suez Canal shaves 40 percent of the distance off a trip from the Sixth Fleet operating area in the Mediterranean Sea to the Far East.

Actually, the Straight of Magellan is a challenge, but isn't that difficult, but inside the vignette, both canal challenges are well described.

... and here is the Porcupine in action,

In 2015, China’s navy was somewhat smaller, numbering only a handful of aircraft carriers, sixty submarines and seventy major surface combatants. Beijing also operated hundreds of fast offshore patrol vessels, many that packed a punch with anti-ship cruise missiles. Whereas an adversary like China could marshal its entire national fleet for a crisis immediately off its shore, as well as land-based missiles and aircraft, to face down the United States, the U.S. Navy would have to fight with the forces that happened to be in the region.

Back to the critique - there is another problem from a historical perspective, though I don't blame the author. It came from the 2009 DOD Capstone Concept for Joint Operations,

Foreign sensitivities to U.S. military presence have steadily been increasing. . . .

Balderdash. I remember the Sane-Freeze gaggle anti-GLCM/Pershing II et al from the Cold War. This is nothing new - we have it easy.

Speaking of balderdash,

The Army could fail, as it did in Vietnam;

No, no, and no. The military part of the Vietnam War was won. The defeat of the '72 invasion proved that. Vietnam was lost in '75 when Congress cut off all support for South Vietnam, inviting the North to invade. Political, not military defeat. Rinse, repeat.

He makes up for these historical oversights with a more critical historical reference that is a foundation stone to understanding th Chinese mind.

When China was weak, it suffered the indignity of routine U.S. and foreign naval operations off its shores. But as the U.S. Navy declined and the Chinese Navy became more powerful, China became less willing to tolerate the ‘‘foreign invasions.’’

All you need to do is pull the string from The Sand Pebbles and you will know what he is talking about. Still a huge issue for the Chinese. Their cultural historical memory is a order of magnitude greater than ours - and they hold grudges.

Towards the end, Kraska plays gadfly rather well.

When China acted, it was the culmination of a patient and focused national plan to couple naval technology and resources to a corresponding political, legal and diplomatic strategy in the oceans. The U.S. Naval force plans had been in disarray for decades. The nation was implementing a ‘‘cooperative’’ naval strategy designed for peace—preventing brushfire wars rather than deterring great power conflict. Meanwhile, the White House, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, placed environmentalists in charge of strategic U.S. oceans policy. These environmentalists championed coastal state control over the offshore areas – both in the United States and in multilateral diplomacy – and this focus played into China’s hands by de-legitimizing freedom of the seas in the littorals.

From the Battle of Lepanto to the Battle of Okinawa, major fleet action was the decisive event in many modern wars. Over the past five hundred years all of the world’s foremost powers achieved their position of leadership through reliance on unsurpassed naval capabilities.16 Even a traditional continental power such as Russia reached the apex of its standing on the global stage through naval power.17 The West had forgotten that the history of international security and freedom of the seas was a story intimately woven into the material of world politics, forming the basis for an Anglo-American world order.

True, we lost focus on Neo-Mahanian ideal - but a good Navy can do both. "Distributed and Networked" warfare with many small units has a long history in the USN. From the Union blockade of the South to the Battle of the Atlantic and the unrestricted submarine warfare against Imperial Japan - we did that while being able to pivot to major fleet actions as well.

Yes, we do need to focus on what I call the Long Game - but we can and must do both. I am not too pessimistic on the technology side. Sure, they (might) have a MRBM - but we will have SM-3. They may sink one carrier - but with the political will, we can handle that. History also proves that fixed shore sites are no match for mobile strike from the sea.

What we do need to do is to shorten our lab-to-Fleet technology cycle. Get technology demonstrators to sea. We don't do that like we used to.

Why did I call Kraska a gadfly? Well - he got a reaction - reaction in the right places.

Let's start with the Financial Times. In their article you find a common problem - the "official" thinkers in both locations seem to have the same mission; tell everyone to ignore the poor innocent military expansion by the world's most populous nation - who BTW is run by an authoritarian government.

Some analysts express caution against overstating China’s naval prowess. Even sending a small group of ships to take part in anti-piracy operations off the east coast of Africa this year proved to be a large logistical challenge for the Chinese navy.

“China lacks many of the capabilities to project power abroad,” says David Shambaugh, a China specialist at George Washington University in the US.
...
“The focus of our foreign policy will be in assisting development, not in signing up to expensive new commitments,” says Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at People’s University in Beijing.

Or as another Chinese academic, who asked not to be named, says of protecting seaborne trade: “Why should we spend billions of dollars paying for something that is already being paid for?” Largely paid for, he did not need to mention, by the US.

Can anyone say, "Don't plan based upon stated intentions, but by capability." Wait, I did.

Thomas E. Ricks isn't all that happy, here is the part he didn't like.

The U.S. Navy also suffered problems in readiness and proficiency. Diversion of thousands of officers and enlisted sailors to fill Army shortfalls in Iraq and Afghanistan deprived the service of years of training and operational experience at sea. Promotions were tied to disassociated augmentation tours for stability operations and reconstruction rather than excellence afloat. An entire generation of mid-career commissioned and noncommissioned officers tried to learn counterinsurgency land warfare in the desert and mountains of of central Asia while their counterparts in China conducted fleet exercises to learn how to destroy them."

Ricks snarkily replies,

Really? Has the Navy sent "an entire generation" to Iraq and Afghanistan?

Well, yes; or at least a large part of it. I spent the last part of my career largely doing nothing but that - Navy CDR doing a LTC's job. I didn't mind though - I picked that set of orders around what "my community" wanted me to do. The taxpayer got much more out of me than the "busy make-work" the folks in Millington would have had me do. So yes, Ricks has a point - but so does Kraska.

Ricks then shifts fire here.

Also, does national security rest ultimately only on the Navy, as this hydrocentric article tendentiously asserts?:

Only more slowly did people begin to realize that the maintenance of the world order had rested on U.S. military power, and that the foundation of that power was U.S. command of the global commons. The Army could fail, as it did in Vietnam; the Air Force was ancillary to the Army. To secure the U.S. position and the nation's security-and indeed for world order-the Navy could never fail."

Well, when you are fighting China - the Navy and the USAF better be at the front. Land war in Asia? No thank you.

In his final broadside, I think Ricks tells us more about himself than Kraska,

But what stuck in my craw most of all was Kraska's casual poke at "the apologizing Obama administration," which he asserts that, combined with the "unpopularity" of the predecessor administration, is undermining national security. I think it is acceptable for active duty officers to critique strategy, but I think here Kraska is sailing a little too close to politically attacking his commander in chief, especially since he offers no evidence, and footnotes this sentence to an article by Henry Kissinger that appeared months before Obama became president.

That is a funny snit. James - you made Tom look cross-eyed! Bravo Zulu!!! Oh, and for the record; Ricks is totally off base on this argument - Kraska is well clear. No one is perfect though, we'll give Ricks a pass.

Intellectual churn - it keeps you healthy. There has been a push, General Mattis and Admiral Stavridis have pushed the most I think, for officers to read, think, and write. James Kraska has answered that call.

One note of warning though - Mattis and Stavridis are rare. Many of their peers - and many more between O6-O9, do not share their enthusiasm for discussion. Cultivate those who support your efforts - but watch your back. Sad, but even this month I have received emails from people on active duty who have had the person who ownes paper on them threaten them professionally for "reading, thinking, writing." But hey - Sims, Mitchell, Connolly - you're in good company.