Based upon notes for a public lecture given at the New York State Military Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY, 3 December 2005.

Some further warnings from history

One of the hardest facts to challenge or argue with regarding world history is that sea power is a key to global hegemony. Nautical and mercantile potency very closely interrelate, as do naval vigor and national security. Portugal, Spain, Holland, then France, each in their own day, thanks to their navies, were genuine superpowers. In some cases, their influence on the known world at the time is unexcelled even today. Yet each of them is now -- limiting ourselves to the outdated context of “empire” -- a minor shadow of their past. Napoleon's France, Hitler's Germany, and the Soviet Union each discovered the hard way that teeming, triumphant land armies alone are insufficient to retain control over even one continent. One can, alas, say the same thing about the UK: Britannia ruled the waves -- note the past tense.

Though a definitive analysis of 500 years of European naval history would fill volumes, the causes of decline among these different former superpowers do show some common threads: complacency as to their vaunted place in the world, neglect of the need for ongoing vigorous sea power, and consequent under-funding of once mighty navies. The conclusion is that there's no reason ipso facto to just assume that American naval supremacy will simply go on forever unchecked. China's emergence as a rival must not be downplayed. In the perpetual game of hopscotch around the globe contesting “who's the boss?” in nautical terms, the mantle America currently holds might be dropped, or snatched from our hands.

As another (intentionally scary) cautionary tale about sea power, consider a simplified timeline of Japan:

1. 1854: Commodore Perry opens feudal Japan using gunboat diplomacy, delicately balancing “gunboat” and “diplomacy” parts.

2. 40 years later, Japan has a modern combat fleet via UK help.

3. 1905: Japan slaughters Russian fleet at Tsushima Strait.

4. 30 years later, Imperial Japan occupies Manchuria.

5. 1941: Tokyo's “Supercarrier” navy creams Pearl Harbor.

Japan, thanks to some prodding from America (which proved in a big way the “law of unintended consequences”), went from being isolationist and almost pre-industrial to being one of the most warlike imperialist powers on the planet. It took them quite a while to do this, but the pace of technical advancement and even the rhythm of daily life have accelerated notably since the end of World War II. The past few decades seem to have experienced a sort of modern-era time compression whose effects keep increasing almost exponentially. That being the case, I invite you to “do the math” for yourself on China. How much longer do they need to transform themselves from an isolationist, feudal society into a modern warlike imperial power, able to do other major powers grave harm? Hint: Their own government thinks the answer is twenty more years.

Is Taiwan a red herring?

Just as important as not missing a major threat that's right under your nose, busy hiding in plain sight, is to not become fixated on a threat that isn't there. So many commentators talk about the PRC's imminent danger to Taiwan that I've started to grow suspicious whether it's real. From the many years I spent in risk management, often dealing with investments for large financial institutions, I grew to be a contrarian -- that is, someone who disagrees with the herd when they see the herd start to fall into group-think. I even wonder whether Beijing is not on purpose both overtly and covertly fueling American concern about Taiwan as a red herring, to distract us from something completely different. What that something might be, I'll discuss more below. Right now, let's take a cold-eyed look at the relationship between China and Taiwan today:

1. Taiwanese domestic politics have taken a very significant shift in recent years. Although their president favors declaring independence from China, Taiwan's Congress, controlled by different political parties, prefers improved ties with the mainland. The current Taiwan president is expected by many analysts to lose the next election. Meanwhile, Taiwanese businessmen and politicians visit China at Beijing's invitation, and a network of amiable personal relationships is budding.

2. China does not insist on taking over Taiwan politically. (They only threaten to invade Taiwan militarily if Taiwan ever declares itself fully independent.) Beijing much prefers the approach which they call “One country, two systems.” Taiwan would retain democratic autonomy in domestic affairs, but would renounce any claim to being a wholly separate sovereign nation. The controlling parties in Taiwan's Congress favor this “One country, two systems” approach.

3. Viewed rationally, it doesn't make much sense for China to invade Taiwan. Taiwan is an extremely valuable economic and infrastructure asset. Any invasion would reduce that asset to useless rubble. This would be completely counter to Beijing's own best interests. Much smarter, from their point of view, is to encourage driving a wedge between Taiwan and the U.S. This latter approach seems to be working nicely lately. Taiwan's Congress has repeatedly refused to approve increased military spending that the U.S. government wants to see in order for Taiwan to accept more responsibility for defending herself against China. Though hard-liners in America are quite displeased, it would seem that Taiwan doesn't feel she really needs so much defending. The premise that Taiwan is misusing America, forcing us to commit humongous resources to block a Chinese invasion across the Taiwan Strait on our own, I fear might derive in part from a lack of accurate perceptions on the part of some Beltway insiders, and in part from China's “red herring scheme.” (Now you see what I mean about being a contrarian.)

4. The red herring scheme I keep referring to is my conjecture that, as a what-if “worst case” scenario, China might have naval objectives more ambitious and advantageous than conquering Taiwan. Those objectives, I think, lie much farther out in blue water. If so, to realize her plans, China needs a good way to penetrate the nautical choke points in the chain of island countries that hem her in from the vast Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean proper. These countries range from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines to Malaysia and Indonesia. Thus, were Taiwan to become a true friend with Beijing, one major stronghold in this endless barrier-island string would, in effect, change hands. A gap in the network of choke points would suddenly open, a gap one thousand miles wide.

Imagine yourself an ambitious Chinese statesman, sitting in Beijing, looking at the same nautical charts that you and I can look at. Imagine yourself as rational yet ruthless -- which would certainly be in character for this role-playing exercise. Then ask yourself, taking account of everything I said above: Would you invade Taiwan and invite open war with America on terms the American public by long custom is likely to support . . . or would you win over Taiwan by peaceful means and then take on the U.S. in a time and place of your own choosing, with the full element of surprise, and in a context where the U.S. electorate is likely to blanch at the very thought of armed intervention?

Announced PRC goal: Triple the U.S. submarine fleet in 20 years

If we look ahead to the 2020s, as we must, the U.S. Navy will then have about 60 SSNs, SSGNs, and SSBNs in commission, while China's “New Fleet” will have maybe 150 or 180. Those Chinese submarines will be a good mix of foreign-bought and home-grown diesel subs, nuclear-powered fast attacks, and “boomers.” This New Fleet is nothing to trifle with: The men will be well trained and the equipment will be good enough for China's purposes. (The two recent accidents aboard aging MING-class diesel boats can be dismissed as part of China's increasingly irrelevant “Old Fleet.”) China is already buying Improved KILOs from Russia, and some reports indicate the latest version is coming with air-independent propulsion. (Able to stay far below the surface for many days or weeks at a time, diesel/AIP subs represent a whole new spectrum of threat, and have been called by some “the poor man's nuclear submarine.”)

Right now alone, China has 18 submarines under construction, half of these in Russia and half at home. In contrast, the U.S. recently went through a “drought” in which not one new submarine was put into commission for six or seven years. At the moment, we're building VIRGINIA-class SSNs at the paltry rate of one per year at least until 2012, and four OHIO-class SSBN-to-SSGN conversions are gradually being completed -- and that's it.

China is arming her submarines with a variety of sophisticated weapons, including excellent sub-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, some of which are supersonic -– and hence very difficult to defend against. These modern weapons also include the Russian Shkval supercavitating rocket-torpedo, capable of speeds of 200 or 300 knots underwater. American submariners say that they personally don't see these things as much of a threat, at least if they aren't tipped with an H-bomb warhead. But a Shkval moves so fast in a straight line that against a deep-draft surface target (think of an American aircraft carrier) it doesn't need homing sensors or even any warhead at all. The sheer kinetic energy of the rocket-torpedo platform is bound to smash through the hull below the waterline, so long as the Chinese sub gets reasonably close and has a half-way decent firing solution. Some hits from a salvo of Shkvals would put even a CVN-21 next-generation supercarrier out of action for the duration. If the Chinese sub is destroyed in return, Beijing achieved quite a bargain. If twenty Chinese subs are destroyed in return for each supercarrier mauled with heavy casualties, or each American SSN sunk, Beijing will still see themselves as having come out on top in the contest. And so will their submariners, even the ones who know they're about to get killed. In the First World War, 50% of German submariners were lost in action. Between the wars, this fact was generally known. Even so, in the Second World War, German sailors lined up in droves to volunteer for U-boat service. As the war progressed and their terrible 80% loss rate began to be impossible to hide from men on the waterfront, sailors never flinched from vying for a place in one of the U-boat crews. We can expect exactly this sort of courage and heroism from Chinese submariners.

Traditionalists view a navy that emphasizes submarines as inherently inferior/defensive, and one that emphasizes aircraft carriers as inherently superior/offensive. I'd argue that this distinction is becoming blurred to the point of maybe no longer applying. One reason is that ongoing advances in acoustic and non-acoustic submarine stealth, improved sensor and communications capabilities, increasing weapons payload capacity, and versatility of adjuvant vehicle mission profiles, render the latest SSNs and SSGNs more and more closely analogous to underwater CVNs. A balanced navy is always best, but “balanced” means different things to different nations. National policy and strategic goals must enter the equation. It should be clear by now that China doesn't see a lot of things the same way that most Americans do -– including the level of tolerance for heavy combat casualties. I'd furthermore argue that almost every major naval war in known history was in some important ways asymmetric. We can't measure China by our own standards, or we might make fatal, irreversible miscalculations.

Intelligence and counter-intelligence will also continue to play key roles as America's and China's navies change and grow. For instance, one embarrassment for the U.S. intelligence community was to completely miss a new PLAN diesel sub, the YUAN-class, until the first ship's existence was announced by Beijing. Some commentators disparage this vessel as “noisier than a steam locomotive,” but that misses some much bigger points. Western analysts were also surprised by how quickly the first new 094-class SSBN followed the introduction of the PLAN's 093-class SSN. Chinese designers want to learn everything they can, as fast as they can, and they're willing to take risks and buy or steal what they can't yet manage themselves. We have to assume, for instance, that all of the information the Walker spy ring sold to Moscow has been passed on to Beijing, for an appropriate fee, thus helping jump-start a new submarine arms race. What then will America do if China buys from Russia not just Improved KILOs with AIP, but also some of their superb AKULA-IIs (a very dangerous adversary for a LOS ANGELES-class boat), or even some of Moscow's next-generation SEVERODVINSK-class SSNs or BOREY-class SSBNs?

China has her own outstanding espionage apparatus at work within the U.S. The recently-arrested alleged Chi Mak spy-ring foursome is a case in point. Purported to have been in operation since 1990, it's been said that they sold China some of the most sensitive design secrets and acoustic profile data on the new VIRGINIA-class SSN, compromising that class's safety in any hostile waters. Other reports, possibly exaggerated, state that they or other Chinese spies also provided Beijing with full specifications of the Aegis integrated air-defense system, and China's first Aegis-clone cruiser was recently detected at sea. On another recent occasion, Chinese agents were interdicted at the last minute while attempting to buy special electronics that would have let Beijing listen to the decoded downlinks from American spy satellites. This would have given China several invaluable prizes for free: unlimited access to a working constellation of the best spy satellites in existence, keen insights into what things the U.S. was most interested in spying on, and intelligence on how best to disguise their own secret activities from prying American eyes.

I put it to all of you in the audience today that these constant, widespread, relentless, shameless espionage efforts by the People's Republic yield further clues as to their ultimate naval intentions: Those intentions are neither benign nor purely defensive.

This article first appeared in the January 2006 issue of The Submarine Review, a quarterly publication of the Naval Submarine League. The article won First Prize in the Naval Submarine League's Annual Literary Awards.