The Rise of China's Navy: A Discussion with Capt. James Fanell

yes we are well thank you everybody for coming out today I'm Seth cropsy I'm a senior fellow here at Hudson and director of Hudson Center for American seapower I have some association with the Navy but that's not the subject of our discussion today what is is captain retired Jim Finnell who served as in a long distinguished career as an intelligence officer in the Navy and with particular distinction as a head of intelligence for the Pacific Fleet and I don't think that any further remarks from me really wanted and I'd rather listen to what Jim has to say so the floor is yours right thank you good afternoon everybody it's an honor and a privilege to be here at the Hudson Seth really appreciate you arranging this if we could call it the slides I'll get started this is a copy of a presentation I just gave last week up at the Navy War College for the China maritime Studies Institute and I think it's a topic that will be of interest to many here the biggest challenge for US national security leaders over the next 30 years is a speed and sustainability of the PRC's national effort to deploy a global Navy in June 2018 I stood aboard the fantail of the PLA Navy guided missile frigate Ben Zhou in Kiel Germany it was never clear to me than at that moment that Beijing has the national will to dominate the seas bin Zhou had been at sea for two and a half months patrolling the waters off the of the Gulf of Aden as part of China's anti-piracy naval task force moored among German British United States warship bins al stood out with its immaculate appearance ships staff officers and crew exuded confidence and preparedness to get underway back to see where they look like they belonged this contrasted sharply with my recollections from a 2004 visit aboard the destroyer Lew who in port Qingdao as well as many subsequent visits aboard Chinese warships over the next 15 years the visit to Ben Zhou in that foreign port halfway around the world from China crystallized for me that in the short space of a decade and a half I had witnessed the transformation of the PLA Navy from a timid near seized assembly of ships into a global naval force where their ships and crews were as comfortable competent and capable Mariners as were there German British and American counterparts a decade in a decade ago the conventional wisdom at gatherings like this held that the PRC's leaders were focused on domestic concerns of regime survival we were wrong in hindsight it's clear that the PRC was building a naval force intended to sail and eventually dominate the seven seas after 20 years of transformation the PLA Navy operates around the world from the Baltic to the South Pacific and from the Arctic to the Antarctic China's naval shipbuilding continues unabated in order to support the pla navy's expanding set of missions to fulfill the China dream of national rejuvenation and restoration in 2015 Scott Cheney Peters and I assess that there would be a massive expansion in the size of the PLA Navy for the period of 2015 to 2030 well that assessment essentially remains on track there is one impediment to the strategic environment that could stymie the PRC's maritime strategy and that's this current US administration this administration's definitive decision to treat the PRC as a competitor may be the only chance to stop the PRC from becoming the dominant global naval power over the course of the next three decades while official and unofficial statements assert the PRC's global aspirations when it comes to the issue of maritime power their validity is best assessed by an examination of what the PLA Navy is actually doing at sea the first and most obvious place to start is an examination of the past decades worth of escort task force operations in the Gulf of Aden as noted by Ericsson and strange these escort task force deployments while initially intended to safeguard China's economic interests have over time provided the PLA Navy with irreplaceable naval training and catalyze the development of naval skill sets often taken for granted but which are absolutely critical for long-distance operations since 2008 the PLA Navy has dispatched 32 escort task forces to the Gulf of Aden each Task Force has been comprised of a three ship configuration of two warships and one underway replenishment ship on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of these deployments last summer the PLA daily announced that the Chinese Navy is no longer worried about worship shortages not only were more worships built but the qualities have also been improved transforming the Chinese Navy from a Greenwater Navy into a robust blue water Navy in the span of a decade that PLA Navy went from being largely confined to operations in the first island chain to a global presence where its escort escort Task Force ships have visited over 60 nations what these examples of expanded Geographic operations in the FARC's demonstrate is the ageless lesson all seafaring nations understand about the capabilities and confidence Navy's gained from being at sea this data represents a trend that foreshadows and expanding PLA Navy global presence one that will continue to improve its combat readiness as each new area of maritime Commons is opened up to the PRC given PRC leadership comments regarding its global agenda it seems likely there will be an increase in the number of Task Force deployments as the size of the PLA Navy expands over the next 20 to 30 years they aren't building those ships to stay in port or even to stay in East Asia the pla navy's development of a robust underway replenishment capability has been critical to its 10 years of successful and expansive escort task force operations after just three using just three owners in the first four and a half years the PLA Navy built many more type 903 alpha resupply ships that have been able to support two task force's simultaneously the increase in the number of replenishment ships has expanded the PLA Navy's knowledge and training surrounding this very important capability that serves as the backbone for all naval forces aspiring to global Naval Operations and while the type 903 series has greatly enhanced a pla navy's FARC's operations they are not the most advanced supply ships anymore as the new type 901 Fuyu class law scale resupply ships are coming online and are expected to operate alongside future PLA Navy aircraft carrier strike groups in the next year or two perhaps no platform has received more attention than the PLA Navy's aircraft carrier program interestingly Chinese commentators highlighted the problem of a relatively small aggregate tonnage of naval vessels must be resolved in order to increase the Navy's capability to confront naval hegemonies around the world naval hegemonies I wonder who they were talking about just how many aircraft carriers the PRC will build as a topic of great discussion in the PRC press as well as in America and given the PRC's penchant for being the biggest or number one I believe the PRC is determined to build more carriers than the u.s. despite assertions of just needing six as such I expect at least 10 by 2049 the expansion of the PLA Navy submarine operations into the FARC's is assessed to have begun in October 2006 when a song class diesel submarine was sighted within 4 nautical miles of the USS Kitty Hawk however our on between 2006 and 2013 the PLA Navy submarine operations expanded into the South China and Philippine Seas and became a normalized pattern of activity and since 2014 PLA Navy submarines have conducted regular deployments into the Indian Ocean although there was a recent report suggesting that there may be a gap right now over the course of the last six to eight months the obvious question is where will they next operate that question can be best answered by paying attention to PRC oceanographic research operations as noted by Dutton Martinson and Dutton one of the main drivers for this data collection program is to support the development of China's blue water naval capabilities and is especially important for undersea warfare more importantly wherever this ocean floor mapping by pier the PRC has occurred PLA Navy submarine operations have followed as such we should prepare for Chinese submarine operations in the Atlantic of the course of the next decade as evidenced by the numerous reports of PRC oceanographic research ships operating in the Atlantic as depicted in this slide the daeyang Niihau was observed operating in the South Atlantic in February of this year at least that's where she was until she turned off for a is automatic identification system as for the number of PLA Navy submarines that can be expected in the future in 2015 we estimated that by 2030 the PLA Navy would have 12 ssns fast attack submarines and twelve ssbns ballistic missile submarines however given the recent developments regarding a potentially new nuclear submarine facility pictured here at hula dal the number of PRC SS ends and SSP ends may be greater than originally estimated while analysis of commercial imagery has prompted some Chinese military enthusiasts to compare it with interiors of other nuclear production halls around the world I recognize not everyone remains convinced and while I don't have time to go into the details of the arguments let me simply state that given the existence of this new submarine production facility potential facility the PRC may be able to launch to ssns and one ssbn annually meaning the PLA Navy could have as many as 24 SSNs and 14 ssbns by 2030 and while some may scoff at this estimate recall as late as a decade ago similar doubts existed for Chinese destroyer production one one obvious indicator of future PLA Navy operations is directly linked to the belt and road initiative as noted by thorn and Spivak the Bri provides Beijing access to vital sea lines of communication with port investments being used as vehicles where by the PRC can build dual use infrastructure to facilitate Beijing's long-range naval operations additionally a January 2019 Center for naval analysis study the mission of defending Chinese people and assets abroad is one of the new historic missions driving the PLA Navy's expansion throughout the Middle East and western Indian Ocean there are other indicators on the horizon were conflicts involving the safety of Chinese nationals could bring the PLA Navy into action as even as far as the Americas which I explore in a paper I've submitted to the China maritime studies Institute at the Navy War College for much of the past decade China has launched more naval ships in any other country as shown in the slide over the past four years the PRC has out built the US by a rate of 4 to 1 given the past 20 year treasury of PRC naval ship construction the PRC's expressed desire and ability to continue to increase its spending on able shipbuilding the cost advantages at shipbuilding industry and joy compared to foreign naval shipyards and Chinese shipbuilders continued trend of indigenous technical mastery of complex designs and systems integration I expect the PLA Navy will continue to surpass the US Navy in the number of warships built for the foreseeable future and in this recently published slide from Reuters the PLA Navy's growth is not just in the number of halls but it's now surpassing the u.s. in terms of tonnage and I have not even mentioned the all-important metric of anti-ship cruise missiles like we are now seeing produced on the likes of the Type O 5 5 Ren high class cruiser and their 112 vertical launch cells but before you accuse me of inflated estimates allow me to and you may not accuse me but I throw that it there allow me to apologize for a lowball estimate I gave four years ago to the China maritime studies Institute regarding the size of the PLA Navy in 2030 based on the past four years of actual construction even our maximal scenario underestimated the growth of the PLA Navy and despite rumors to the contrary I have persistently underestimated the growth in the PLA Navy shipbuilding because my estimates have always been based on observables but we know that the Chinese hide so much from us this slide represents a course correction assessment that the PLA Navy by 2030 will consist of the surface force of over 450 surface ships in a submarine force approaching 110 that's almost a 10% increase from my 2015 estimate and it may still be low which brings me to my final two slides as US policymakers assess the speed and sustainability of China's Navy expansion into the future it's useful to look back on previous assessments of Chinese sea power we should expect to find errors and miss judgments when we look back assessments of the future are hard but the most notable feature of our China assessments is that all of our miss judgments have been in the same direction perfectly fitting the definition of systemic error one of the most important lessons to be learned is that the most accurate predictions of the PLA Navy are derived not just from what the PRC says or what a select few scholarly China hands interpret but are instead created from an in-depth and consistent observation of what the PLA Navy is actually building and where their ships and submarines are operating on a continuous basis it is only by watching what the Chinese Navy does with its Navy every day observing and recording their movements that accurate and timely projections can be made as iyer notes the record is clear in each case of strategic military surprise it can be demonstrated that when new information was presented regardless of its pedigree or importance it was found if it was found to disagree with a specific set of closely held assumptions that informed the thinking of those nations civil and military leaders it was rejected as such assumptions must be rigorously tested and when new or inconvenient data does not fit into the existing conventional wisdom of what prestigious celebrity China hands think they know about how the Chinese think decision-makers must step in and demand the assumptions be challenged and thrown out if found to be wrong the risk of surprise will be minimized with correct assessments and to date our community of top China hands has failed to predict China's rise in military aggressiveness or to assess effective policies to diminish or contain it bad assessments have made us less secure less prosperous less influential this is especially important when assessing catastrophic risks such as the balance of military power in the Indo Pacific and while many China hands proclaimed the objectivity of their analysis and assessments the proof of such claims must be tested by their track record this is where policymakers must become more discerning and ruthless in their decision-making so then what does the future hold for the PLA Navy and the FARC's China reassuringly asserts its global military presence is not an attempt to gain a sphere of influence to interfere with internal affairs of other countries to invade foreign territories or to disrupt the regional order however there are indicators that this global naval presence will result in exactly what the world has witnessed in the South and East China Seas over the past decade where PLA Navy forces are used to bully and intimidate smaller and weaker nations to comply with Beijing's dictates a global PLA Navy will increasingly threaten us and allied interests abroad increasing not decreasing the risk of major power war given the PLA Navy's operational naval construction trajectory the PRC's overall economic strength the PLA Navy's decade-long experience operating in the FARC's and its established track record of intimidating neighbours to forfeit their coastal states rights to China we can assess that the PRC is on track to be able to achieve sea control in the global maritime Commons by 2030 and potentially even sea superiority by 2049 and that it will use its power for the expansion of China's interests at the expense of others it's popular say it's popular to say that conflict with China is not inevitable of course it's not however the likelihood of conflict will not be wished away by platitudes and more unconstrained engagement the best option to avert future conflict is for the u.s. to continue its whole-of-government approach to significantly strengthen the US military and to confront the Piercy's bad behavior at sea we must join the economic battle that Beijing has long been fighting against us and economically contained China until it stops or dangerous naval arms race the current administration has challenged 40 years worth of assumptions about how to deal with the PRC and is now leading this whole of government challenge eating the PLA Navy at sea or forcing it to permanently stand down requires these efforts and much more let's just hope it's not too little and too late thank you we're going to talk a little bit and then we'll open up the floor here I'd just like to offer an observation to mine consistent with yours if you had asked a senior US Navy flag officer 20 years ago or you had said the PLA and would have the ability to [Music] target American aircraft carriers at a thousand miles distance while they were underway at sea what do you think that reaction would have been they wouldn't have believed it yeah I would go a step further I think they would say what have you been smoking recently well I will relay a story I was the intelligence officer for the Kitty Hawk Strike Group from 2003 to 2005 and it's the only aircraft carry the US has it's four deployed it's now the Ronald Reagan but we rotate a carrier that's permanently deployed in the Far East in out of Japan you Cuzco Japan and all our other carriers operate out of the east and west coast and they do deployments out of there and the pattern in the Navy is is once these CONUS based continental US based carriers finish their six nine-month deployments they come back and they're Admirals will brief their post deployment debrief up the chain of command but the carrier's in Japan never really get that opportunity because we never come home and when I finished my tour the pack fleet the the director of intelligence for the Pacific Fleet said why don't you go back and brief the director of Naval Intelligence on your observations of what China is doing and in your experience out there so I went I came came here and I briefed that and I got that question what what do you what are you doing out there what are you smoking how can you how can you say this say these things that was 15 years ago about 15 years ago and here we are well that leads me to the real question I wanted to this didn't form a question I think you correctly noted that this administration the Trump administration has turned around the way that the United States in American policy toward China from what it had been for the preceding 30 to 40 years which was the attempt to encourage China to become a stakeholder in the liberal international order to recognizing the China is a strategic competitor of the United States so given that what's your assessment of how that's how how's the may be doing in responding to that I mean you mentioned that the PLA n is out building our Navy and so on and so forth but what's the large picture strategy why is design-wise of the fleet building future building give us a report card I think at least in terms of we'll start at the strategic level inside the Navy at least my observations are is that it's okay now to be able to say that China is a pure competitor and a threat I mean we hadn't been able to say that up until through I when I retired in 2015 it was not allowed to be said so I think now you you're allowed to say these things um you know and you can follow the various quotes of the different pacific fleet commanders before 2015 and after 2015 so things changed in that way so that you know like they say the first first thing you have to do when you have a problems you have to acknowledge that you have the problem so we weren't willing to acknowledge that there was an issue there that was our national policy that was the in the Navy followed that so now it's only been a couple of years that we're starting to recognize that this is an issue and so we're trying to turn the ship of the US Navy to address that we literally since Desert Storm until now we've had a navy that was built designed to operate over land in the middle east and we will forgot what they we didn't forget that's a harsh thing we just kind of de-emphasized war at sea when you and I joined the Navy or at sea was our number one task that's what I remember when I joined we just all we did was train to sink other fleets the Soviet Navy that was why we were designed and built but over the course of the last you know 25 plus years that really hasn't been a primary focus of the Navy that's changing it's been changing over the last couple of years but that's going to take some more time to kick in in terms of the systems that go in to support that which was your question of what are we building are we building the right things do we have the right platforms and and we haven't fully got there yet for instance most of the u.s. surface fleet doesn't have the kind of anti-ship cruise missile capability that the PLA Navy fleet does and I know that a former Assistant Secretary of Defense work just talk about these battle force missiles and battle force capabilities where we measure not just tonnage not just numbers of hulls of ships but the actual ability to strike each other and I've looked at some of that analysis and I think it still measures things in a kind of an apples versus oranges to apples oranges to oranges and when it comes to anti-ship cruise missiles they simply dominate us both with numbers and I'm talking like thousands and thousands more than we have in range their missiles have ranges of 200 nautical miles or more and in speed all supersonic in our harpoon and issue cruise missile is short-range less than hundred miles subsonic and his old technology and we're developing some new things I know that but they're still not fully fielded and there really weren't built from the ground up I don't know if that answers it you just get to another question which is one that I'm asked fairly often so what's the military significance of the islands in the South China Sea that are being built and armed both in peacetime and if hostilities were to take place well the islands are absolutely Islands now that the Chinese have built them and I've heard the same that who cares are just a bunch of little rocks and you should know that what China built between 2008 2011 and through 2015 were seven artificial islands in the South China Sea and three of those Islands are the same size and dimensions and in terms of geography as Pearl Harbor one of them is the same dimension as the the Beltway that goes around Washington DC okay so you never really hear in the press or talked about that China built three pearl harbors in the South China Sea but that's the way I characterize it not only did they build three islands with 10,000 meter runways or 3,000 meter runways 10,000 feet they also these port or these facilities have major naval base so that you can pull in aircraft carriers and submarines and warships which they've been doing that's another part of the militarization that rarely gets discussed so why did they do it well there's a lot of theories out there a lot of people like to speculate that it's all for resources fish or gas and oil but we're pretty convinced that the fish isn't really the driver and fishings important to China but that's not the driver for this and the gas and oil projection we've had over over 70 years of analysis and exploration down there and that area of this of the southern South China Sea and the Spratlys has not really produced the levels of oil that you would expect for something of this size so so it leaves the obvious question it has a military application and if you think that China is number one priority in terms of being able to achieve its goal of being restored and they're great rejuvenation of the China dream is to take back Taiwan I let me rephrase that to take Taiwan they can't take back something they never had so to take Taiwan in order to do that you have to have the ability to operate with impunity in the South China Sea and if the if the Chinese didn't have the ability to keep the United States out of the South China Sea and to keep the chart of the United States or of operating from bases in the Philippines or to put us platforms and military assets that are in the Philippines on a rotational basis at risk it's very hard to do that from mainland China nor from Hainan Island but now that you've got three major naval facilities down there you're able to essentially close down the South China Sea and I think we will see probably in the next several years depending on how things go in the elections in the Philippines it's quite possible that you could see the same thing happen at Scarborough Shoal which would give them another another way to block that off the entrance through the Boshy channel which allows for the Chinese Navy and operational forces to operate in a sanctuary if you will a bastion to use a phrase from an older generation and operate up in and provide a vector of attack into Taiwan from the south and if we don't have anti-ship missiles and I should cruise missiles we still have the tomahawks we have teal and with considerable range when those islands be vulnerable to helium strikes they're conducted from a distance they could be I mean T Lam though again is subsonic so you know China develops and builds advanced surface-to-air missiles you know equivalent to this this S 400 and whatnot so it becomes a numbers game an attrition game plus you're gonna have other assets there that maybe we'll put our surface fleet at risk even farther out like the DF 26 so it's it's it's it's a game in terms of the reach DF 26 is a in a medium range ballistic missile that's about two thousand mile range it essentially covers from England China out to Guam which certainly cover all of the South China Sea and the DF 21 the precursor that's about a thousand mile range 900 mile range and it covers most of the South China Sea so you know for us to be able to launch teal and we're gonna have to be east of you know Luzon you know launch it over the Philippines and that can be done and it's not to say that that isn't a viable option but we need things that are faster that's when you're fine subsonic you're you're inherently at risk from close-in weapon systems and other advanced surface-to-air systems let's get some questions from the floor here start with the front row and go from there yes China has a lot of military theory I'm sure you heard of those art of war by Sun Tzu and one sentence in that that seems applicable is when where we pretend that we're strong when was strong pretend you're weak and that would cause us to to to make errors and in in judging their capabilities and all but also there's the seven military classics of ancient China and thirty-six strategies of China many of them political mostly applied to land and also the game ago or Wei Qi where the Chinese are trying to encircle their enemy prevent their enemy from circling them can you tell me how much you know about these doctrines and how much applies specifically to naval warfare one other point before you begin and that is I neglected to say when you are called on and received the mic would you please identify yourself and tell us where your what your affiliation is no it's my fault good good to meet you shipmate yes we're aware of these doctrines and how that they've adopted this kind of frame of reference to deceive or manipulate their adversaries through the use of feints and and and you know deception I would say that what seems clear over the last since G shipping's come into powers that this hiding bide kind of a strategy they've walked away from in some ways I would also say it's very important for me to backtrack one step I think that China wants to be able to have I don't think I know that they want to be able to take possession of everything that they think is theirs they've told us that unambiguously there's no deception there it's it's in everything that they say and do but but they really want to do it without using kinetic force if they can get away with it that's their desire so if you go back to 2012 at Scarborough Shoal which is a shoal about 140 miles northwest of Manila well within the Philippines exclusive economic zone China was able to between April and June of 2012 acquire Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines without firing a shot and since June 16 2012 the People's Republic of China has maintained sovereign control over that shoal that's how they would prefer to do it the question is what about Taiwan what about the Senkakus and the lower EU coos that Japan has are those nations going to comply and so China will increase this pressure over the coming decade to try to get these nations to capitulate and to turn over these territories in some form or fashion we know that who Jintao and gee shipping of ordered the PLA to be ready to have the capability not to be ready to have the capability to take Taiwan next year Huijin Tao ordered that over at almost two decades ago okay Angie shipping is reinforced it and they have been building this you've seen just on the Navy portion that they've been building and creating the platforms to to be able to do just that so the question becomes what happens if Taiwan doesn't capitulate and the people of Taiwan say no we don't want to be under the oppressive thumb of Beijing and we want to stay you know who we are separate nation what happens to the people of Japan say no we're not going to give back the Senkakus there's it's there's no dispute there it's Japanese territory they say hey or what happens if there's something else I mean we're still not completely sure about China's designs on the lower EU cooze lower Rico Islands south of Okinawa on there so what happens if those nations don't capitulate through economic pressure diplomatic pressure information pressure well there's going to be growing voices inside Beijing especially from the PLA that says hey I've got a hammer there's a nail let's start hammering and that's the real concern is when would they pull that trigger and my assessment is is it's what I've called the decade of concern between 2020 and 2030 is the most likely time that China will use force and then be able to then invite the rest of the world back to Beijing and 2049 to commemorate and celebrate the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on October 1st 2014 Oh row by row good afternoon sir I'm Julian Kyla Lewis from the American University here in Washington and my question for you is uh not everybody gets to rise to the highest levels of intelligence in the United States government so you just have an immense amount of respect from so many people and just from a student perspective can you speak on how you deal with that kind of pressure knowing that the decisions that you're making and the intelligence that you're gathering you know has such serious implications whether you're right whether you're wrong like how do you deal with maintaining your quois and maintaining you know a balanced diet and thinking clearly and just living a balanced life to be able to maintain yourself so you can think clearly and do your job and to keep us safe like how do you personally deal with those kinds of pressures thank you that's an interesting question I don't think I did it very well towards the end of my career because this more senior you get the longer you're the more you're on call if you will so I think having a good work-life balance we everybody says that but actually watching people implement it is a little bit different I think it depends on your personality and who you are but you know this idea of speaking truth to power you hear that said but the reality is you have to have facts you have to have sober objective facts and everyone's got a little bit of bias that's there's no way to get around it but the but in general I work for a Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Cecil Haney went on to be strategic command commander and he always said the most successful folks that he had experienced in his career were people that stayed calm and an objective and came to meetings and came to decision points with as many facts as possible so part of the job or part of the process that sometimes gets more difficult the more senior you get is you tend to get away from the facts because you have staffs and watches and things that watch a group of people that are working around the clock watching a certain problem those people will do the work for you and then you take you know second or third or fourth iterations of the original source material to form your own opinion and you never my experience is you never need you you should always stay close to the original source material you need to know the original source material and that's a it becomes harder and harder the more senior you get when the more responsibilities and meetings and and people that you have to support with information I make the analogy I grew up my first 20 years in the Navy when I was at SIA was on aircraft carriers and I worked around aviators was an intelligence officer a squadron and an Air Wing and then a Carrier Strike Group and the Aviators that I always enjoyed the most were the guys that didn't really aspire to be Admirals and didn't aspire to you know command short installations but were guys that wanted to be and gals that wanted to be at sea and wanted to fly and so they always had a passion for flying and I always had a passion for what's the raw information and for me in the in the I was kind of unique in my career the last 15 years of my career I was always in the Pacific and I was a carrier Strike Group level a numbered fleet and then the Pacific Fleet and in all those jobs my job was where are big hunks of metal on the sea under the sea and above the sea in the Pacific that was my job find those big hunks of metal ships submarines and aircraft and I love that and you know you have to find what you love when you're in the intelligence community and follow that eight names Morgan Wilson I worked with Booz Allen and work on some Navy contracts as well my question is specifically regarding the the pace of China China's ship development particularly you mentioned their advantages and producing carriers the speed and the cost with which they can do that compared to us I know we've released our own sort of ship plans certainly through 2020 for the development but then also moving past that and I understand also even from the late Senator McCain there's certain controversy over there types of ships that we're rolling out and where those investments are and so what would you see I guess based on what we are putting out do you think that's in line to combat what the development we see with China and if not you know how would that best be matched by us yeah I'm not a shipbuilding expert by any stretch but I have been on the record and published to say of public speaking and on writing that I think the 350 ship Navy is not enough so and I'm told by everyone in the US Navy you're on you know you're on you're smoking dope there for now because there's no way we can even get to 350 it's going to be very difficult but my point is you just saw the numbers and the estimates China already has more ships than we do today and to do what they need to do they need to stay regionally focused where we're you know we're just sending the carrier to the Gulf right now right everybody knows what's going on in the Gulf with Iran we have we have global commitments global responsibilities and so that stretches our fleet out that's even smaller than the Chinese so even if I'm wrong by half of what I predict which I don't think I am but let's say I am they're still gonna have a very formidable Navy that we're just not matched up to to be able to deter at all let alone fight in defeat in a war at sea to to achieve our end state and I'll just jump off one point here I think then the Navy this is back to says first question how are we doing I think the Navy and has not I want to say the name because I'll say it that maybe has not sold the story of why Taiwan is important and why our presence in Asia is important and so if if we don't do a better job of explaining to American citizens why we are in Asia and why Asia is important to Americans that live in Iowa or live in Oklahoma City or live in New Mexico or live in Hawaii if they don't understand that and put a value judgment to it then it's going to be very hard for us to be able to justify why we need to grow our Navy bigger than it is and people need to understand that they've the standard of living that they have come in part from this trading system that we have and it's not just the trading system in Asia but it's this rule set that says that people can go anywhere they want on the maritime Commons and that no other nation has the right to tell them that they can can be or not be there on who they can buy and sell from that's freedom that's Liberty and so that's what we stand for and if we walk away from that in Asia that means China gets to replace what we stand for with what they stand for and we know what they stand for because we've seen them do it in the South China Sea which is it's mine it's my way or the highway just one point to add to that it is possible in reference to your point there that both observations are correct namely that the Navy needs to be larger than 350 ships as Jim has said and there's no way we're gonna get to 350 ships so those are not exclusive they can both be true okay so let's see let's go to this side here I my name is Lambie on my upcoming stats sighs Strategic Studies and the recently I've been reading the air sea battles to the 280 strategies for China and so I was wondering if the US could successfully neutralize the Chinese rocket force and what would be the world looked like and how likely would the u.s. navy defeat the Chinese Navy in a tower crisis we saw the protection of the Chinese rocket force thank you yeah the strategic rocket force formerly the second artillery of the PLA is very formidable and they have without literally thousands of missiles pointed at Taiwan and these other missiles we talked about like the DF 21 and DF 26 that push this counter intervention to use the Chinese phrase or our a2/ad area access area denial strategy to keep us out it outside the first island chain for sure and the outside of the second island chain so neutralizing or defeating the PRC's strategic rocket force is a top priority if we were going to ever have a conflict in Asia whether over Taiwan or another any other area and how you take those out well there's lots of lots of work being done on how to defeat those things and from naval platforms to even new technologies like hypersonics and things of that nature but those things would have to be targeted and destroyed in order to free up you know to roll back if you will the ability of the PRC to destroy or put at risk certain ports where airfields in Taiwan that would allow them to come in with much much more military support to occupy the island I don't know if that's answer your question but it's very serious situation and something that I would just say given a career in the in the Pacific that people are aware of Thank You Jerry Hyman at CSIS I wonder if I could return to the South China Sea for a moment and be a little bit more specific and tactical let's suppose for a moment that there that we did have parody arguing we don't and let's put thinking about deterrence deterrents only works if the other side believes you're going to use it if they don't then you don't have to turn in that's got to be backed by your willingness to use it I wonder if you could describe what it would look like for a US fleet in the South China Sea what we did what would they do to challenge Chinese naval power in these non-critical islands that is to say they're not like Taiwan they're not like the like the Japanese sank our cruise there and their sovereign claimants are not necessarily willing to support a u.s. challenge well what would it look like what would the u.s. do that wouldn't result in an all-out war how would how would the how would the parody be used would you know when we stopped Chinese ships and if they didn't stop what would we do actually yeah so first of all the US Navy today I mean I think Randy Shriver said to two weeks ago that you know China has got these islands and there's knowing no plans on the shelf I don't know Hughes word plan but he said we're not we're not intending to you know take them back through physical force so they're there so the question is you're kind of asking how do I reverse the salami slicing of the last 15 years orderly stop it from continuing like how do we prove a more pointed question would be how do we prevent them from doing what they did in the Spratlys to the Scarborough Shoal how would we do that well freedom of navigation program is a separate issue and it's clearly been ramped up under this administration in terms of the number and periodicity and the advertisements of it but we have also been increasing our carrier presence in our carrier operations in the South China Sea which is too real in my opinion the real solution which is we're not going to stop anybody from operating there that's never been our our heritage for 240 years I mean we believe that people have the right to sail on the Seas and so what is what we need to do is be there and be present and so doing multi-carrier operations that the US has done much more of in the last two years dual carriers combined operations the JMSDF we just had a British the Albion group operate through their amphibious carrier group you just had a French warship transit through the Taiwan Strait so bringing in the coalition we've just had it announced exercise with what India Thailand the US and there was one other in Indonesia so these kinds of multinational the people that see the world in the same view that we do which is the global Commons are open to everybody it's to operate in those global Commons and and to send the signal to Beijing that hey you're not going to be able to expand this any further because the world will condemn you and if called upon we could actually you know if we had a parity capability we could even you know tutor you through physical violence so let me address it yeah that's a good point this issue of will a lot of people like to say that well we don't have the will I can tell you from living most of my life in Asia that we have a huge residual well of goodwill from people in Asia that know what the United States did in World War two and how we didn't become an occupying force after the war in terms of dominating individual nations and taking over and ruling like the Roman Empire or something we freed up people we you know we we we kind of saved the world from a system that was not good and it had expanded across Asia and in Europe but in Asia and then we basically left we kept the small force in Japan and some in Korea but otherwise we were not in a belligerent occupier and so we had a lot of goodwill built up and then we kind of that suffered greatly in 2012 when we didn't stand up for the Philippines or treaty Ally that I've told people this over and over again and I'll say it again and I know it's controversial in this town with some folks but America's greatest foreign policy disaster in Asia post Vietnam War was what happened at Scarborough Shoal in 2012 that had a really devastating impact on America's credibility in the region we're calling that back and you know the old story you know you hit you need 10 attaboys for one ah you know I won't say the S word but you know one time you have one bad thing happened it kind of wipes away lots of good work and so we have to continue to build up that goodwill in the region and our presence operations that are occurring today is helping build up that goodwill in my opinion there's still a long way to go but it's a right step forward written captain autocracy Power magazine diligence officer you know that there's a difference between numbers and capability Chinese operating a lot mmm I haven't seen much of the fact that they have done coordinated strategic tactical level operations of the coordination of your powers sensors aircraft and that sort of thing what do you think their their level you know in a blue water fight can make warden eight senior officers have the experience we've had the concern with the belief that most of the communist countries don't have a good you are very top-down and they don't have to give their commanders freedom of action that would be necessary in an all-out naval battle talk about would you see if they're experiencing their capabilities to actually exercise and use the combat power they have yeah a few thoughts on that one if you saw my first slide or second slide in the brief you saw me on board a Chinese warship last July and in Kiel okay I've been on an author ships for a long time I was just up at Newport and talked to our naval attache who was in Qingdao for the 70th anniversary of the PLA Navy and we were I've known him for a long long time and we were discussing this very issue and while they're not American sailors exactly you know they are very very competent Mariners and sailors today in terms of operating ships when it comes to command and control like you know I can't go into details but for my observations in my career they have progressed a long way in terms of this idea of commanding controlling ships and operating at sea and well they don't do you know large-scale exercises necessarily in the Indian Ocean they have been operating out in Indian Ocean and they've been commanding controlling those vessels for a decade and so they understand the importance of command and could in terms of targeting is our Intelligence Surveillance reconnaissance and targeting you know who's launched more satellites over the course of the last three or four years it's been China so they didn't just build these or buy and these missiles or they built them the DF 26 or the DF 21 that have a range of 2,000 miles or a thousand miles it didn't just build those without considering that they had to have information to hit moving ships at sea so they've put up the platforms in space to be able to help them identify those targets and then and get them it's a difficult task don't get me wrong it's not an easy task to shoot a missile you know a thousand miles or 2,000 miles over the horizon and hit a moving ship at sea but the Chinese of our rigorous testers in this area and they test their naval forces at sea and they operate with the second strategic rocket force they operate with the People's Liberation Army Air Force in joint exercises and I've I've seen some things that are really impressive and so I I guess what I'd say is I wouldn't I wouldn't downplay or doubt their capabilities they have the platforms they have the they're having the experience and we need to we need to respect that and not diminish it by saying well they're and I'll tell you another thing we've trained them very well we have provided them great insight into how we operate they visited our carriers many times Admiral wooshin Lee the former commander of the Chinese Navy visited the East Coast here in 2007 and went aboard one of our aircraft carriers at sea when aboard one of our nuclear submarines we've and the old anecdote is you know they would ask a hundred questions and we would give him a hundred answers because we're open Americans they would ask us we would ask them one question and they wouldn't give us one answer and I personally experienced that on board their ships where they won't give you up give up anything but we would tell them everything so they've been told for 20 years that the backbone of the of the military in the United States is our noncommissioned officer corps they've been building that they've been building an NCO corps so I was surprised I'm not surprised that they're becoming more and more like us Rick Fisher center for strategic and international policy analysis Jim your mention of the your assessment of the Chinese maritime goal of maritime superiority by 2049 prompts my question about in order for that to be possible China will have to have superiority in many other spheres as well economic superiority political superiority control of the earth-moon system and in fact we see China striving for this superiority in those spheres today but this effort didn't begin simply with Xi Jinping and if you if you dig a little bit you can certainly find hints of this during the Mao period and lots of indicators that begin to accumulate in in the 1990s and beyond at times in the last century the United States has has benefited from a kind of institutional competition in our intelligence and our broad intelligence community 1930s there were there were insights that were produced that helped us get get the kind of advantages early in the war with Japan that were prove decisive in in the 1980s in the late 70s there were be team efforts within the the current intelligence institutions that that provided a necessary kick in the pants looking looking at with the hindsight of your career and the the ability for us to say today that yes China wants not just maritime superiority but global all-around superiority is it would you would you agree that it's it's time to reintroduce at levels that I can't say but at least at very specific points a reintroduce an institutionalized intelligent a systems of institutionalized intelligence competition to better far better inform policymakers about the range of possibilities as the Chinese threat coalescence at an increasingly rapid pace this coming decade and even faster in the 2030s Rick that's a great question and I agree I think my experience is is that there's were we're prone to groupthink we've been prone to groupthink in the past and I see it when it comes to assessing China were certain people that would speak out were you know marginalized ridiculed told that they were wrong and and not their assessments kind of ignored that's got it stuff I mean there has to be a recognition that if if we say that the China is a competitor and I this is the issue not everybody believes that so until we get to a point where we're all on the same sheet of saying that this is an issue that we have to address for our national survival that we're never going to get there so first and foremost we have to come to that realization and that's why the NSS national security strategy and the national defense strategy were so vitally important because what's the first time in the in the 40 years that we've had relationship with the People's Republic of China that we've said something that had been taboo to say so now inside the intelligence community there needs to be that same kind of realization that this is something that you know just having a party line a single party line on how to assess the PRC isn't gonna cut it there has to be competition there has to be more voices heard and that's a very very difficult thing to change but it needs to be done so maybe a congressional committee or something to look into this or I don't know the odni there's got to be something that it opens us up creating a B team another B team something like that good afternoon thank you all very much captain Farrell I just have two questions in the morning if you could comment on um previously from MIT currently University of Pittsburgh the first is regarding our most stalwart ally in East Asian this is of course Japan and so we've been discussing a lot about our lack of capability or will to produce enough ships and missiles to sort of combat this rising Chinese threats from wondering are we having any discussions with the Japanese to enlist them in aiding us in that effort of course there's article 9 there's been talk in recent years about sort of changing that there's opposition to that to a certain degree from certain corners in Japan I mean obviously it's a Democratic Society and not everyone agrees with that approach but it seems to me that um rearming Japan if you will in some way um might be an approach to that the second question is regarding Taiwan and I'm wondering to what degree have we assessed and sorry for being a bit macabre here but how many taiwanese are is china willing to kill um how many people are they willing to kill in order to reclaim Taiwan are they willing to have a lifeless island to achieve their goal and are we factoring that in into our assessment on the first question with Japan having lived in Japan for four years off and on throughout my career I can tell you that the US Navy and the KY goj tired the Japanese maritime self-defense force are like this we are close there's a an author that you may have heard of Colonel grant Newsome retired US Marine Corps grant writes a lot about how the rest of this self-defense force of Japan and the US military need to approach the same levels of cooperation as the as the maritime forces and that's happening it's it's it's been happening with creation of the Japanese Marine Corps for instance so Japan's a vital Ally we cooperate and coordinate together and I would say that's probably one of those bright shining areas in my negative spin here today if you will I mean that's really a good relationship and I think the people of Japan increasingly recognize how serious the threat is and some of these historical considerations in the post-world War two environment in terms of their constitution and what constitutes force and self-defense are are melting away in the face of the real threat from China and the Japanese are facing it on a daily basis around the Senkakus where the Chinese since 2012 have surrounded the Senkakus and you know about once a month drive inside the 12 nautical miles inside the territorial limit and you know they're just constantly probing constantly probing with the Chinese Coast Guard and PLA Navy ships getting closer and closer and pealing Navy submarines driving by and PLA Air Force bombers and fighters coming by so that Japanese are living under this and not just it the Senkakus they also vector bombers and fighters towards Okinawa and so that's that's that's a reality that the people of Japan understand I think very very well in terms of Taiwan what would how would try to be willing to use how many people would they or to rephrase it would they be willing to kill the Golden Goose or the goose that lays the golden egg and I think the answer is yes they'd be willing to ring that gooses neck even if it meant no more golden eggs because for them it's an it's a it's an existential issue in terms of the ccp's Chinese Communist Party survival regime survival they have to bring that home at some point the people of China will not accept that and once they decide to do this that's the real issue I don't believe they want to kill that goose I don't believe again don't believe they really want to they want that golden egg every month or whenever it comes but they will once they decide to go it will be no holds bar I think and you need to plan it that way at least from a military planning perspective and with the rocket force that's on the other side and the air superiority that they would likely have in the initial hours if not days or weeks it would be a rough go if you're on that island so it's an imminent issue right now in my opinion I'd like to thank you for the presentation today and I also like to thank all of you for joining us and for your excellent questions sometimes we especially these days we're getting a lot of focus on the trade issues between the United States and China but there are other issues outstanding that are also important and a several of you have commented and Jim has a better understanding of those it's certainly in the interest of the United States and this meeting helps to advance that stay tuned to Hudson's website we will have more of this discussion the future and again thank you very much

Channel: Hudson Institute

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Id: PDX9EIfA9Kk

Length: 67min 31sec (4051 seconds)

Published: Tue May 14 2019