NWC Talks: Understanding China’s Maritime Strategy with James Holmes

welcome to the u.s. Naval War College the Navy's home of thought NWC talks features our world-class experts examining national security matters we hope you enjoy the conversation [Music] the Pentagon tells us that the indo-pacific is our priority theater and that China is the main pacing threat in the region therefore China is important to the US military today competing effectively with China means convincing friends and potential foes that we have the capability to do what we say we will as well as the willpower to do it whether it's keeping our alliance commitments to our friends or defeating potential antagonists so to deter China and to give heart to America's friends we have to understand China's military strategy and prove that we can beat it which brings me to the meat of the talk this is nwc talks and i'm professor jim holmes JC Wiley chair of maritime strategy at the Naval War College to help explain China's maritime strategy I will invoke three things one big strategic concept from China itself three metaphors to from China one that I've come up with myself and two old operational concepts that are made new by time and by technology the strategic concept comes first and it's called active defense it comes from Mao Zedong that the founding chairman of the Chinese Communist Party all the way back almost a century ago now active defense as Mao puts it is nothing more than using offensive tactics and operations to weaken a stronger foe while you remain on the strategic defense of yourself you can gather your resources for battle you can harness new resources you could try to get the opponent to divide its forces or you can get tried to break your opponent's alliances and weaken the opponent that way over time the weak will make themselves the stronger contender go on the strategic offensive and when China's 2015 military strategy affirms that active defense remains the essence of Chinese Communist strategic thought here almost a century into its existence not just valid the essence of Chinese Communist strategic thought which commences to our men's it to our attention this leads to the first metaphor that I use to describe Chinese maritime strategy to you the rope-a-dope this is a metaphor that comes from Mao himself as well now talks about these military strategy in terms of boxing he points out that only the foolish boxer goes rushing in and starts flailing away at his opponent when the bell rings to start the bout rather than do that the savvy boxer lets the other guy the other boxer flail away waste his energy and thus weaken himself leading into the into the later rounds so that this gives the atheist the wise boxer an advantage in those later rounds and ultimately he can go on the offensive and hope to win this is much to say this is much the same strategy that the great Muhammad Ali took in 1974 in the famous rumble in the jungle against the world champion George Foreman Ali was smaller everybody thought he would be pummeled by but by Foreman who was bigger and beefier but yet I'll be let the Foreman chase him around the ring he stayed on the ropes he let the bigger be beefier Foreman wear himself out to a point where in the late rounds Ali was the stronger contender was able to go on the offensive and win in a stunner of it of about in Zaire so this this is a concept that explicates well what math exhibition soom that will go it will go into any any conflict as the weaker contender and therefore it behooves it to do things to let the adversary weaken itself while also doing things to weaken that adversary as a precursor to the strategic counter-offensive so that's so that's metaphor number one the second metaphor also comes to from Mao himself and this is the idea of the hand let me explain what I mean here Mao noted that the Red Army could be stronger than the enemy at a particular place on the map at a particular time even while it remained weaker on the whole he taught commanders to seek out opportunities to encircle and annihilate isolated enemy forces and weaken them that way it was better he said to cut off one of the enemy's fingers entirely than to bash them all cut off your enemy's fingers one by one and pretty soon it's hard for him to make a fist this is what Chinese strategists today call systems destruction warfare if China's enemies fight as a system PLA commanders strike it whatever holds that system together then over power isolated units or formations one by one just like cutting off the fingers off of your enemy's hand this is these two metaphors add up to the third metaphor one of my own coinage the crumple zone what do I mean by that the crumple zone in your car if you think about caught emotive design it's a sacrificial component designed to collapse in a controlled way upon impact it absorbs the energy from a collision before it harms what you care about namely the people in the cabin now overlay that metaphor on the map of the western Pacific China's defensive crumple zone is oriented to blunt the impact from US forces coming from the east from Hawaii or the west coast China's active defenders do not kid themselves that they can block US forces out of regional waters and skies altogether any more than car designers see the crumple zone as an infallible and unbendable defense against shock and collision instead active defense is designed to raise the price of entry into the Western Hemisphere the denny US president would pay and thus deter america from keeping its alliance commitments failing that it seeks to slow us down so that china can finish what it starts before we can reach the scene of battle and make a difference in the outcome of the conflict successful active defense would compel us to undo a done deal dislodging the pla from whatever hit it ceased in the meantime whether it's China whether it's the sink aku islands whatever the case may be and since tactical defense is the strongest form of warfare military logic would be an ally for China in this in this contest so those are the three metaphors I would offer for you the rope-a-dope the hand losing its fingers and the crumple zone I hope these hope to explicate what China's maritime strategy is all about how will the PLA how will China put that strategy into practice sucking the energy out of our cross Pacific counter-offensive let's talk about that for a few minutes as I contended at the outset will do so much making to old concepts new the first old concept made new comes from Alfred Thayer Mahan our second president here at the Naval War College and it's the idea of the fortress fleet a century ago Mahan was deeply critical of operating fleets within range of Shore fire support but back then the range of a gun was a few short miles fleets could accomplish little while remaining within reach of supporting coastal artillery now does this critique hold up today I don't think so what if coastal artillery could strike effectively at moving fleets at sea scores if not hundreds or even more miles off shore such as such an extended reach artillery would let a fortress fleet roam across vast expanses while still enjoying shore Fyre supports precision long range coastal artillery is precisely what the PLA has fielded with manned aviation and a family of 80 ship crews and ballistic missiles coastal sites today can reportedly strike more than 2,000 miles out into town at sea out to Guam and potentially even beyond 2,000 miles is a heck of a lot of maneuvering space for the PLA Navy surface fleet bottom line ultra-long range coastal artillery provides fire support to the fleet while weakening US forces band for the region the other concept comes from the 19th century French Navy the Jena coal or the new school of naval warfare this means nothing more than super empowering submarines and small surface craft with heavy-hitting new weaponry to threaten battleships and other capital ships if all a coastal state cares about is denying a global Navy access to its coastal waters a fleet of inexpensive small craft can do the trick back then it was torpedo boats and torpedo armed diesel submarines today at subs and small craft sportings two torpedoes cruise missiles and potentially other exotic armaments junuh coal crowd fan out in the crumple zone between them and the coastal artillery overhead they could give us forces a bad day indeed if the AXA if the active defense strategy works as planned the PLA Navy battle feet can remain in reserve until very late in the conflict letting coastal artillery and small craft soften us up as a precursor to a major engagement what are the takeaways from all this first this is a strategy that conforms to Communist Chinese strategic traditions studying China's way of war is a must second the PLA Navy battle fleet probably will not offer battle far out in the Pacific commanders will let the coastal artillery and the Sunnah cold do their work before they risk that pricey battle fleet and lastly active defense calls on the PLA to break up enemy system so that the PLA can cut off our fingers one by one and achieve the effects that now prescribed for them so we must enter the resiliency of our systems whether it's a fleet in aviation squadron a brigade or whatever neutral support is crucial to our future success so there you have it China's maritime strategy in one big idea three betta fours and two concepts given new life by time and technology this is nwc talks and I'm professor Jim Holmes thank you you

Channel: U.S. Naval War College

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Length: 10min 25sec (625 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019